NASA Pic of the Day - A Tectonic Feast

A Tectonic Feast

On Oct. 5, 2008, just after coming within about 15 miles of the surface of Enceladus, NASA's Cassini captured this stunning mosaic as the spacecraft sped away from this geologically active moon of Saturn. Craters and cratered terrains are rare in this view of the southern region of the moon's Saturn-facing hemisphere. Instead, the surface is replete with fractures, folds, and ridges--all hallmarks of remarkable tectonic activity for a relatively small world.

Nice going, NASA!

Jollbot: Robot Explorer!

I know what you're thinking. Why is that painter guy from Murphy Brown holding this big green round thing?

Well don't be silly... it's not him. It's engineer Rhodri Armour from the University of Bath's Center for Biomimetic & Natural Technologies in England. He and his colleagues have developed the Jollbot. Apparently this thing is the first robot that can jump like a grasshopper and roll over smoother terrain.

By not using wheels and being able to store energy in spring-like elements, this robot can get out of sticky situations. That makes it an ideal candidate for a new space exploration robot. Way to go, Jollbot.

Here's a video of it doing its weeble-wobble/roly-poly/grasshoppery thing:



Neato.

This Day in Awesome History: Blue Marble!!!

This Day in Awesome History is an especially awesome day in history!

December 7th, 1972, the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft were on their way to the moon when they took this incredibly famous photograph:

"The snapshot taken by astronauts on December 7, 1972 is one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence. The image is one of the few to show a fully lit Earth, as the astronauts had the Sun behind them when they took the image. To the astronauts, Earth had the appearance of a child's glass marble (hence the name)."

Go humans!
36 years ago today. Epic win for us all.

Have an incredible day.

Love,

SuperForester Jackson

NASA Picture of the Day - The Setting Sun

The Setting Sun

The setting sun casts long shadows over space shuttle Endeavour as technicians prepare to move the orbiter from the runway at Edwards Air Force Base where it landed Sunday, Nov. 30 after the completion of the STS-126 mission.

Image Credit: NASA/Tony Landis

Nice shot, Tony!

And also a special "Thank you" to SuperForester Toney, for the NASA pic of the day idea. Check out Toney's blog, which is an awesome blog.

Space X's Falcon 1 Makes it to Orbit!!!

Liftoff.

Main booster separation.

Pop them corks!

Wow! What a week for space exploration.
First the Chinese spacewalk, and now Elon Musk's company Space X has successfully launched a vehicle into orbit.

We are now entering the age of commercial space travel. No longer do our Earthly borders matter, from this point on there is only one border. The gravity well between Earth and space.

Check out the screams of amazement in the background of this incredible video:



We are just (choke!) so proud to be human today!

Great Job to the people at Space X; and of course to China, our allies in the East.

Reagan In Space

This is a plaque at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

It's attached at the base of Skylab.



Awesome.

The Inspiring Philosophy of Bill Hicks

Bill Hicks was an American comedian who died of cancer at the far-too-young age of 33.

His work is ribald, profane, and thought-provoking like all get out, and if you've never heard of Bill Hicks, we strongly recommend checking out some of his stuff on the ol' Truth Box.

I was watching a Bill Hicks DVD and something he said really stuck with me.

What he said was this:

"I had a vision of a way we could have no enemies ever again, if you're interested in hearing this. Anybody interested in hearing this? It's kind of an interesting theory, and all we have to do is make one decisive act and we can rid the world of all our enemies at once.

Here's what we do:

You know all that money we spend on nuclear weapons and defense every year? Trillions of dollars.

Instead, if we spent that money feeding and clothing the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded... Not one... We could as one race explore outer space together in peace, forever."

Dang, kitten. That's out of sight.
Those words sum up fairly well what SuperForest is all about. Enthusiasm and prosperity allowing we humans access to the stars. And by extension access to greater knowledge.

Extended Peace will allow us as a race to spread our wonderful consciousness throughout many worlds, if only we can settle our differences and quit blowing one another up.

This is a goal we believe can be achieved in our lifetimes.

Love to all, and especially to the late, great Bill Hicks, for his foresight and the depth of his love for his species.

-Jackson

Kim Stanley Robinson: Red, Green, and Blue Mars

Morning All,

Jackson here. I'm a real sucker for space exploration/terraforming novels, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars trilogy may be one of my favorites.

These great, sprawling books begin on Earth with the selection of the second team to head to Mars, (the first team was on a temporary exploratory mission), this time with the intention of staying.

During the long journey from Earth to Mars, the crew get into a heated discussion as to their duty to begin terraforming (making more Earth-like) the planet, ostensibly to pave to way for further waves of colonists.

This proposed terraforming inspires heated and passionate debates, with scientists closing ranks around the two polar viewpoints: One being, "our presence on this planet is a form of terraforming anyway, so why not just continue it?" And the second being: "What right do we have to destroy the natural systems of an entire planet, corrupt it with our Earthly designs, when we don't know anything about the planets' past, including whether or not it ever harbored life, and can we as scientists even take that risk?"

Of course, a third viewpoint springs up between the two extremes that merely says: "Everything will change. Mars. Us. Everything. This change will be something completely new, neither Martian nor Earthling. Life will always find a way to replicate itself. We must simply accept that this will be so."

This immense debate happens amid a flurry of activity on the colonizing ship, and only gets more heated once the colonists actually touch down on the Red Planet and set to work building the first permanent settlement on Mars. And that's just the first few chapters of book one.

A great read, full of interesting and conflicting viewpoints. The Red Mars trilogy also serves as a pretty effective (and plausible) primer on the difficulties of space travel, human group dynamics, Machiavellian politics, closed-system agriculture, solar flares, revolution, and the inevitability of a colony eventually freeing itself from the yoke of its colonial masters.

Along with Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" "Red Mars" is a must read for lovers of planetary exploration/colonization sci-fi.

Here's the Red Mars wiki.
Here's the Red Mars trilogy on Amazon.
And even better, here's the Red Mars Kindle version.


Red Mars, Red Mars, here we come. Right back where we started from...


Love,

-Jackson

NASA Tests Lunar Rovers

Here's a cool video of NASA testing it's new generation of Lunar Rovers. Sweet.