A Special Anniversary

On this day, February 6, 49 years ago, Alan Shepard became the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon. He smuggled the head of a 5 iron and a couple of golf balls on board Apollo 14, and when he was on the moon, he attached the head to an excavation tool and made an admittedly clunky one-handed swing. On Earth, such a swing wouldn't be very impressive, but when you've got one-sixth the gravity, it was enough to send a golf ball "miles and miles." So take that, other sports, you may be more popular, but let us know when someone's beaten golf on the moon.

Random Thoughts 2/7/16

Currently working on a very long and extensive piece for the blog here, and I don't want to go too long without posting. So, here's a collection of news and random thoughts.

Astronomers have come up with a new theory to address the Fermi Paradox. Unless life can form reasonably quickly after a planet forms to stabilize the environment, the planet will likely become uninhabitable after about a billion years. It does make some sense, Venus and Mars were likely habitable at some point in the early solar system, but became less hospitable very quickly.

I recently finished watching the 2008 Clone Wars animated TV show. I don't want to call it a cartoon, because it didn't really look like one, and there already was a Clone Wars cartoon back in 2003. I really liked the 2003 cartoon, and I was pleasantly surprised that the 2008 show was actually pretty good in its own right. If you get past the 2008 animated movie and the first season, the show does pick up, and there's some surprising compelling stuff in there.

Remember the gigantic snowstorm that barreled right through the Mid-Atlantic a couple weeks ago? It dumped more than 2 feet of snow? Yeah, of course you do. That snow's pretty much all gone. It didn't last very long. What a disappointment. I don't like snow.

Nobody may remember him because he got overshadowed by Alan Shepard and his golfing, but Edgar Mitchell, sixth man to walk on the moon, died on February 4th. One less person alive who's walked on another world, which means there are now seven left.

I feel like there was some sort of significant event tonight, but for the life of me, I can't think of what it could be. Maybe some sort of sporting event? No, that can't be right. I don't know, but if I can't remember, it must not be that important. Oh well.

Orion Test Launch Coming Soon

The first space flight of the new Orion crew capsule is scheduled for this week. It's about time we got this thing going, we've been without manned space capability for too long. And while the space shuttle was cool and all, we haven't had any sort of capability beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo, and that was 40 years ago. Space flight is no cheaper, we have just as many space stations orbiting the planet, and we are about as close to traveling to other planets now as we were then. Hopefully this doesn't get cancelled, like every other time NASA has tried to move the manned space program along with any kind of ambition. We can only hope. This flight will be unmanned, but if all goes well, astronauts should soon be on their way beyond Earth and out into the solar system.

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