The Troubadour: An Update on the Space Center's Renovations. Storytelling Inspiration. Your Daily Dose of Science and THE IMAGINARIUM

Hello Troops,
Renovations and repairs to the Space Center are nearing completion.

The Magellan is being used as a computer lab by Central Elementary's teachers. Opening it as a simulator comes after we address the lighting issues (red alert and dimming lights).
The Space Center's office should be finished this week. I stopped by for a visit last week. The walls were being prepped for painting; putting down a new carpet will come next.
The Phoenix is waiting for new electrical outlets. It will be ready to fly once they are in.
The Galileo is waiting for special rivets to reattached its inner wall panels. A minor hiccup that should be resolved shortly.

The school district Space Center Committee will meet again on January 28th to review proposals for our final report due for completion in early February. The Alpine School District school board will review the committee's proposals. The Board can accept the proposals as is, make changes or discard the proposal completely.

I've been contact by a few people willing and able to come in and either volunteer or intern for our field trip programs. These extra hands will make the Space Center's reopening easier. Contact me if you have a few free hours during the school day you'd like to use as a volunteer at the Space Center.

Converting the Magellan into a school field trip simulator will take time. New training MP3's will be needed. Minor computer programming will even out the tasks between bridge stations and keep the students busy with meaningful work. Streamlining and simplifying Magellan operating procedures will make it easier for younger classes to successfully get through their field trip missions in one hour and forty five minutes.

I will be trained to fly the Magellan. That's a real shocker to the Magellan's old staff and regular volunteers. Everyone knows the Voyager and I had a special relationship. I stayed with the Voyager to the very end- never learning to fly anything else. The Voyager was mine ship. It was the repository for my dreams, imagination and creativity for nearly a quarter century. Our earliest Troubadours learned their craft and trade upon her stage. My plays were first heard within her walls. Seeing the old gal closed and turned into storage took the wind out of my sails. I will miss it.

Building the motivation to tackle a new simulator has taken time. I think its just a matter of sitting down in the Flight Director's chair, taking the Magellan's microphone in hand, pausing for a moment to gather my thoughts and then jumping into the deep end......

"Engineering to the Bridge. Engineering to the Bridge. You've got Tex...."

Mr. Williamson

A inspiration to all who claim to practice the art of storytelling.

How do you turn comic book panels into a movie without animation? Edson Oda's ingenious short film Malaria uses comic panels on individual sheets of paper, placing and moving and manipulating them in a way that manages to be far more cinematic than motion comics ever are. It enhances the tension of this quiet Western fantasy of a man hired to kill Death himself, until all erupts in an intriguing spin on comic book symbols of violence.

W50. The Nebula with the Strange Shape.

W50, the nebula is located about 18,000 light-years away in the constellation Aquila. It looks like a lazing manatee.

Previously known simply as W50, the nebula is located about 18,000 light-years away in the constellation Aquila. The nebula is the aftermath of a supernova explosion. Here's how the NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) explains the nebula's distinctive shape:

The remaining, gravitationally-crushed relic of that giant star, most likely a black hole, feeds on gas from a very close, companion star. The cannibalized gas collects in a disk around the black hole. The disk and black hole's network of powerful magnetic field lines acts like an enormous railroad system to snag charged particles out of the disk and channel them outward in powerful jets traveling at nearly the speed of light. This system of a black hole and its feeder star shines brightly in both radio waves and X-rays and is known collectively as the SS433 microquasar.
Over time, the micro quasar's jets have forced their way through the expanding gases of the W50 bubble, eventually punching bulges outward on either side. The jets also wobble, like an unstable spinning top, and blaze vivid corkscrew patterns across the inflating bulges.

Is light a particle, a wave or a bunch of photon gathering horses.

The Imaginarium
Imagination is like a muscle; you must use it or lose it. The Imaginarium urges you to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary.

Dressing for Success.
Your Color Guide to riches and fame!