Life's Great Successes, One Milk Carton at a Time. And the Imaginarium.

Hello Troops,
And a double Hallelujah and Amen to the illustration above.  Take it from someone who has experience in the subject.  I've had my fair share of failures for every success.

Writing Space Center missions is one example of how failures can lead to success.  For every successful, popular mission I've written (Shadows for instance), I've written a couple real stinkers that cause myself and the staff great amounts of grief (Saladin for instance).   Each failure taught me something I wouldn't have known had I not failed.

The key to success is to never give up on an idea that has merit.  You've hear people say NEVER GIVE UP!  I disagree with that statement.  A successful person knows when to quit and move on to the next idea.  Quitting has a place in our lives.  Ask a smoker :)   A successful person knows when to hold 'em and when to fold.

I regulated the mission Saladin to the trash heap of failed Space Center missions after giving it everything I had.  There are times you lick your wounds, admit the world doesn't revolve around you, admit that you DON'T have all the answers, accept a healthy dose of humility and MOVE ON.

Speaking of not quitting, today at Shelley Elementary a young 1st grader walked up to me during lunch.  I was doing what I do every day between 11:00 A.M. and 12:00 P.M.; I monitor the lunchroom, seat the kids, and do my best to convince them to eat something off their lunch trays.

"I opened my own milk for the first time!" the young boy said enthusiastically.  His blue eyes twinkled and a smile stretched ear to ear.

"For the very first time ever?" I asked over the boisterous lunchroom.

"Yep," he answered.

"Good Job!" I patted his blond head and sent him on his way to the playground.   He took a few detours on this way to the exit - stopping to tell the school's custodian and one of the lunch ladies.

His victory came at a great cost to dozens of innocent and unsuspecting chocolate milk cartons.  Every day, until today, he'd wave at me from his table to open his milk carton after he'd mangled and deformed it in an attempt to get at the milk.  I'd have to pinch and squeeze the carton to force an opening.

"I'll do it," he'd say the moment the barrier was breeched and a crack appeared exposing the chocolate 2% to the outside world.  He'd pull the carton from me and finish the job by inserting his straw.  

Aren't life's little victories the best?  I think I experienced a similar bout of joy the day I learned how to drive a stick shift.

And for every child who learns to open his own milk, there are dozens of others in my cafeteria at Shelley who still rely on me to open their bags of chips, gogurts, drink cartons and thermoses.  What an interesting change it is from the Space Center.
  

And now,  More from the Imaginarium..

How Other Witches and Wizards get to school.

Platform 9  1/2 is great for those with magical inclination in the United Kingdom,

but what about young wizards and witches in other parts of the world?

Swedish Witches and Wizards use this out of the way 

business park elevator every September.

Witches and Wizards in the Big Apple find their way to America's 

premier school of Witchcraft and Wizardry through this appartently

closed subway station

Once through, you find yourself in a magical place.

I put this here to remind everyone to be mindful of bullying this school year. 

Watch out for each other and stand up to those who bully.  Be a friend to those in need.

An interesting hotel advertisement in Europe.

An A for imagination.

A very serious game is played at this school

You feel so much smarter standing over the urinal in a bathroom so labeled.

A good policy, one sure to get everyone's attention.

I'm wondering if we could get a similar restriction on Mr. Schuler's sneezes.

What employee of the Imaginarium or citizen of Wonderland wouldn't 

want a pair of these socks.

An A for creativity.

Something special for our crossover fans (Star Trek, Space Center and Dr. Who).

Brilliant, and tasty

Again, see what a bit of imagination can do?

Make it a great day Troops,
Mr. Williamson

Space News and Views by Mark Daymont

Armstrong's Life Commemorated

The Colors paraded at the Armstrong memorial gathering.

On September 13 the nation gathered together at the Washington National Cathedral to remember our first Moonwalker. Televised on NASA TV, and covered by Fox News (the other networks did not cover the event) the memorial brought together fellow astronauts, family and friends, and national leaders to remember and honor the life of one of America's greatest heroes.

The U.S. Navy posting the colors. Armstrong was a naval aviator before joining NASA as a civilian astronaut.

The speakers at the meeting talked about Armstrong as a dedicated engineer who loved exploring through science and adventure. They also spoke of his love of flight, and his great ability to inspire others. Speakers included Eugene Cernan, the last astronaut to walk on the Moon, former Secretary of the Treasury John Snow (a close friend of Armstrong), Administrator of NASA (and shuttle astronaut) Charlie Bolden, and religious leaders at the Cathedral. Michael Collins, the command module pilot of the Apollo 11 mission, led the congregation in scripture and prayers. Jazz singer/composer DIana Krall gave a moving rendition of "Fly me to the Moon" made famous by singer Frank Sinatra. There was also music by the U.S. Navy band "Sea Chanters," the Metropolitan Opera Brass, and the Cathedral Choir. It ended with a moving eulogy by Rev. Mariann Budde.

If you have the time, it is well worth your while to watch the proceedings at the NASA website. But be prepared to shed some tears. You can watch it at: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=152200361

After the memorial, the Armstrong family and other officials were hosted by the U.S. Navy on board the warship U.S.S. Phillipine Sea. Armstrong's ashes were buried at sea by Navy custom.

Farewell, Neil Armstrong.

50 Years Ago: Kennedy's Moon Speech Remembered

"We choose to go to the Moon..."

Last week NASA celebrated a another pivotal moment in history.

In May, 1961, President Kennedy had declared to Congress that Americans should have a goal to reach the Moon before the end of the decade. On September 12, 1962, the president spoke to a crowd of supporters at Rice University. HIs speech explained his guiding motives in creating a challenge for America to reach out and explore the Moon. "We choose to go to the Moon and do the other thing, not because it is easy but because it is hard.." he explained. While the original goal had its roots in the Cold War competing against the space efforts of the Soviet Union, his speech made it clear there were even greater opportunities for the growth of our nation, and that of the world.

To see and hear the speech, go to NASA's website at http://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/jfk_rice_speech_50th.html

Endeavor prepares for last trip to Museum

Shuttle Carrier 747 lands at Kennedy Space Center.

Shuttle Endeavor is preparing for its last trip.

Endeavor was built after the loss of the shuttle Challenger. The shuttle program came to an end when orbiter Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center in July of 2011. The shuttles are being dispersed to museums around the country. Endeavor will take off tomorrow on the back of the 747 and fly to Los Angeles for transfer to the California Science Center. Liftoff expected at sunrise, with a fly-over of the space center for all the fans.

 

Endeavor attached to the back of the shuttle carrier 747.

Expedition 32 Change of Command Ceremony.

Yesterday the Expedition 32 mission came to an end. In an official ceremony televised on NASA TV, Suni Williams of NASA became the new commander of the ISS. Cosmonauts Gennady Padalkin, Sergei Revin, and astronaut Joe Acaba boarded the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft and undocked just after 7 pm.

Joe Acaba on the ground.

The crew fired the retro rockets just before 10 pm EDT and the capsule came to a safe landing in Kazakhstan. The first section of the Expedition 32 crew had been in space 123 days. The current Expedition 33 crew is now astronaut Suni WIlliams (commanding the mission), Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. They arrived in the station on July 17.

Akihiko posing in front of the Japan module.

After the last spacewalk covered here in August, their had been trouble with some bolts which prevented completion of some tasks. Another spacewalk was made (making three for the Expedition) to repair the bolts and complete the spacewalk tasks. To help her out, Suni Williams made a special tool to help her remove debris from the bolts, using her toothbrush (don't worry, she had another).

NASA"s latest hi-tech tool.

Showing the creative mind that astronauts are known for, the tool worked perfectly, the bolts were replaced, and the remaining tasks completed. Can't do that sort of work with a robot.  The current three-person crew now awaits their reinforcements. Part two of Expedition 33 will arrive in October.

Warp Drive Possible? Alpha Centauri in Two Weeks!

A Football Shaped Ship with a Warp Engine Ring.

From Gizmodo
Written by Jesus Diaz

"Perhaps a Star Trek experience within our lifetime is not such a remote possibility." These are the words of Dr. Harold "Sonny" White, the Advanced Propulsion Theme Lead for the NASA Engineering Directorate. Dr. White and his colleagues don't just believe a real life warp drive is theoretically possible; they've already started the work to create one.
Yes. A real warp drive, Scotty.

When it comes to space exploration, we are still cavemen. We got to the Moon and sent some freaking awesome robot to Mars. We also have those automatic doors that swoosh wide open when you get near them, but that's about it. It's cool, but we are far from being the space civilization we'll need to become to survive for millennia.

With our current propulsion technologies, interstellar flight is impossible. Even with experimental technology, like ion thrusters or a spaceship's backside firing freaking nuclear explosions, it would require staggering amounts of fuel and mass to get to any nearby star. And worse: it will require decades—centuries, even—to get there. The trip will be meaningless for those left behind. Only the ones going forward in search for a new star system would enjoy the result of the colossal effort. It's just not practical.

So we need an alternative. One that would allow us to travel extremely fast without breaking the laws of physics. Or as Dr. White puts it: "we want to go, really fast, while observing the 11th commandment: Thou shall not exceed the speed of light."

Searching for warp bubbles

The answer lies precisely in those laws of physics. Dr. White and other physicists have found loopholes in some mathematical equations—loopholes that indicate that warping the space-time fabric is indeed possible.

Working at NASA Eagleworks—a skunkworks operation deep at NASA's Johnson Space Center—Dr. White's team is trying to find proof of those loopholes. They have "initiated an interferometer test bed that will try to generate and detect a microscopic instance of a little warp bubble" using an instrument called the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer.
It may sound like a small thing now, but the implications of the research huge. In his own words:

Although this is just a tiny instance of the phenomena, it will be existence proof for the idea of perturbing space time-a "Chicago pile" moment, as it were. Recall that December of 1942 saw the first demonstration of a controlled nuclear reaction that generated a whopping half watt. This existence proof was followed by the activation of a ~ four megawatt reactor in November of 1943. Existence proof for the practical application of a scientific idea can be a tipping point for technology development.

By creating one of these warp bubbles, the spaceship's engine will compress the space ahead and expand the space behind, moving it to another place without actually moving, and carrying none of the adverse effects of other travel methods. According to Dr. White, "by harnessing the physics of cosmic inflation, future spaceships crafted to satisfy the laws of these mathematical equations may actually be able to get somewhere unthinkably fast—and without adverse effects."

He says that, if everything is confirmed in these practical experiments, we would be able to create an engine that will get us to Alpha Centauri "in two weeks as measured by clocks here on Earth." The time will be the same in the spaceship and on Earth, he claims, and there will not be "tidal forces inside the bubble, no undue issues, and the proper acceleration is zero. When you turn the field on, everybody doesn't go slamming against the bulkhead, which would be a very short and sad trip."

The energy problem, solved

There was only one problem with all this: where does the energy come from? While we knew that warp drives were theoretically possible, physicists have always argued that they would require a ball of exotic matter the size of Jupiter to power it. Clearly, that was not practical. But thankfully, Dr. White has found a solution that changes the game completely.

The Eagleworks team has discovered that the energy requirements are much lower than previously thought. If they optimize the warp bubble thickness and "oscillate its intensity to reduce the stiffness of space time," they would be able to reduce the amount of fuel to manageable amount: instead of a Jupiter-sized ball of exotic matter, you will only need 500 kilograms to "send a 10-meter bubble (32.8 feet) at an effective velocity of 10c."

Ten c! That's ten times the speed of light, people (remember, the ship itself would not go faster than the speed of light. But effectively it will seem like it does).
That means that we would be able to visit Gliese 581g—a planet similar to Earth 20 light years away from our planet—in two years. Two years is nothing. It took Magellan three years to circumnavigate around our home planet—from August 1519 to September 1522. A four year roundtrip to see a planet like Earth is completely doable. And there are even closer destinations where we can send robots or astronauts.

The important thing is that there is now a door open to a different kind of exploration. That, like Dr. White says, "perhaps a Star Trek experience within our lifetime is not such a remote possibility." We may be witnessing the very beginning of a new age of space exploration, one that would finally take us from our pale blue dot back to where we belong.

I don't know about you, but I'm more excited than when Captain Kirk got his first unobtonanium underpants.