Monday, the First Day of a Short Week and Our Weekend Staff Celebration

Hello Troops,
The older staff got together at my home Saturday night for ham, rolls, Lorraine's best potato casserole, cupcakes and cookies. The ham came with the compliments of the Space Center's T Shirt supplier. Adam hustled Metta and Megan at pool, walking away with a substantial amount of money and IOU's, Lorraine, Mark, Dave, Melissa and I sat in the living room talking old people's talk. The conversation included such riveting topics as aches, pains, taxes, medicare, weather, laxatives, politics and the Space Center of course. Wyatt (The Red Blemish) made the ultimate sacrifice and walked away from the kitchen table where the cool older teen staff were and joined us in the living room to save us from the mire of self pity. Wyatt is unashamedly a KnowItAll when it comes to Classic Star Trek. Moments after his arrival we were in a rousing discussion of which episode was the best. There were obnoxiously loud interruptions of laughter from the kitchen. One vocal blast from Rachel (whose tone filled the higher notes on the scale) and Ben (who's vocal tones filled the lower notes on the scale) rattled the windows. Years of ceiling dust came fluttering down into our hair, food and clothing. I'm told Aleta was the cause of our partial hearing loss. She was tossing innuendo's like hotcakes.

My ringing ears, paired with serious fatigue caused by little sleep during the Overnight Camp, brought the event celebrating the Center's 21st birthday and the awarding of ten year service pins to Megan and Stacy to a close at 9:00 P.M. Ben volunteered to take the leftovers. I agreed. Moments later I caught him rifling through the refrigerator and pantry looking for anything else he thought could use a good home in a good stomach.

I'm sure a few of my curiously disturbed neighbors - you know the kind who only leave their front windows to use the restroom - were wondering if those odd South Dakota Williamsons were sponsoring an Occupy Pleasant Grove gathering based on the laughter and shouting coming from my driveway. It's good the outside
After Party only lingered another 20 minutes or so. I was just about to go outside in full riot gear (rain coat and bicycle helmet) to disperse the gathering with my garden hose and small canister of pepper spray kept in my car for emergencies. I think everyone got too cold, jumped in their cars, and drove to Wendy's for the unlimited child's sized Frosties.

Yes, it is a short week. Thanksgiving is a few days away and that means football, turkey and copious amounts of pie served with a house full of insane family (South Dakota certified insane. They don't come any insaner). The Space Center will be running at full steam - closing at 9:00 P.M. Tuesday night.

I'm thinking about offer special half price Black Friday missions starting at midnight Friday. Any staff willing to come in? (joking).

How about a few interesting items to start the week off right?

Mr. W.


Remember me always saying, "Real American Money, None of that Phony Canadian Stuff."?
Well, our northern friends have been busy imagining and produced something worthy of our imagineering respect. Here we are folks with Canada's plastic money.....



What's Christmas without a few awesome feats of Imagination on film? A British
Christmas ad worthy of applause. Imaginarium TV at its best.



Make way for Belgium's Goose Army. Again I say, What Imagination!

A Roundup Of Interesting Tidbits.

Is The End of this World Close at Hand?





An exceptionally strong magnetic storm would have deadly effects



"We don't know how the Earth (or humanity) might meet its end or when that will happen. Pondering and predicting the event has usually been a job for the world's great religions: all of them have some idea about how humans will meet their maker.."
Read the Entire Article

Nigel Farage. You Gotta Admire His Style

Moving on. May I share with you a video of one of my favorite persons in the world? His name is Nigel Farage. He is a member of the European Parliament from Great Britain and no lover of the European Union. Listen to his remarks made in Parliament on November 16th.
I've always said, "Stand up, stand out and be counted." Well Nigel is a good example of that.




Flying Time Lapse, Flying Over the Earth From Space


Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.


Time lapse sequences of photographs taken by Ron Garan, Satoshi Furukawa and the crew of expeditions 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011, who shot these pictures at an altitude of around 350 km.

Shooting locations in order of appearance:

1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night
2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night
3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia
4. Aurora Australis south of Australia
5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night
6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean
7. Halfway around the World
8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East
9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East
10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night
11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay
12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night
13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam
14. Views of the Mideast at Night
15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea
16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night
17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean
18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night



Reforming Education. Why Schools Must Change



"We're Going to Be Friends" The White Strips. Kids Signing. Tremendous. A Good Way to end this post.

Two Space Station Updates

Soyuz rocket blasting off in snowstorm.

Two international dockings this week made the news. Our first story is the return of human spaceflight to Russian space Operations, as a successful Soyuz launch was made to the ISS. On board the TMA-22 Soyuz spacecraft were two cosmonauts and an astronaut of Expedition 29. Even though the launch occurred during a snowstorm, the spacecraft successfully made it to the ISS and docked to the Russian Poisk module on Wednesday.

Expedition 29 all together now.

Cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin and astronaut Dan Burbank join the rest of the Expedition 29 team for a six month stay aboard the station. Burbank is in the middle of the front crewmembers in the photo. Station Commander Mike Fossum (middle in back row), astronaut Satoshi Furukawa (left back row) and cosmonaut Sergei Volkov (right back row) will return to Earth next week. Another group of three astronauts will launch to the station in December.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have been continuing their tests with their Tiangong-1 space module which acts as a remote-control station for practice purposes.

Tiangon-1 (left) and Shenzou-8 (right)

Chinese ground controllers have been practicing undocking and redocking the Shenzou-8 spacecraft. No Taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) are on either craft. Notice the Shenzou-8 (right side of picture) looks remarkably like a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Why start from scratch when you can borrow (?) from something that has worked well for decades. The Chinese are actually doing very well and making good progress in their goal to establish an inhabited space station and then press on to the Moon. Certainly they have benefited from the American and Russian technology. Sure would be nice if they paid for the use of those patents, though.

Recovering the landed Shenzou-8.

Like the Russian Soyuz, the Chinese Shenzou spacecraft land in an open wilderness for recovery. In this case, Inner Mongolia. It had undocked from Tiangong-1 on Wednesday and returned to Earth on Wednesday. It is expected that Taikonauts will be on either the next flight to the station or for certain the third flight up.

Mark Daymont,
Space Center Educator