Someone GETS it!!!

Writing for Gizmodo, Jesus Diaz,  marvel for a moment of the oft under appreciated on the space walk or EVA:

• I  (Diaz) just came across this 1995 photograph of Michael Gernhardt floating 200-miles over the Earth on a six-hour spacewalk. I zoomed in and looked in awe for a couple of minutes, pondering the chain of events, the Herculean effort that put and kept this man alive in space.

It doesn't happen often, but every now and then someone marvels at the small things that came into existence to allow nay permit humans to survive on one of the harshest environment known to man.  

I am certainly do not intend to put someone down just because they don't have space flight on their mind 24/7.  To be honest also, many today didn't see the photos of Al Shepard doing the sub orbital. Or John Glenn lifting off, or Ed White  floating virtually untethered from his Gemini capsule.  I was floored when I saw the film of White knowing that less than an inch of fabric was all that was keeping him from a grizzly end.

Take a read of Diaz's  Sploid / Gizmodo article.  It is a good read.   HERE

Interesting Video by Built by Titan - Collide

You could almost dismiss this song and glitzy over-driven nonsense but then I decided to catch the associated video on Youtube and was more than mildly surprised.  I won't spoil it for you, but will say that something a bit off center is happening. 

Check it out!

NASA's Next Rover in 2020 Will Step Up the Science

The next rover NASA will send to Mars in 2020 will carry  carefully-selected instruments to conduct  science and exploration  investigations on the Red Planet at an unprecedented level.

NASA announced that it has selected 7 instruments out of a pool of 58 for the Mars 2020 rover.  The Mars 2020 rover will be based on the design of the highly successful Curiosity, which  is still operating on Mars, after it's landing 2 years ago.

From the NASA article:

• Scientists will use the Mars 2020 rover to identify and select a collection of rock and soil samples that will be stored for potential return to Earth by a future mission.

Here is the link to the NASA ARTICLE

NASA to Build Largest Rocket To Date!

Check out some of these very impressive stats

A  rocket that will tower at 384 feet tall, set to become the largest rocket ever built, dwarfing even the mighty Saturn V rockets of the Apollo era

This rocket, sitting on the launch pad will weigh 6.5 million pounds

NASA's recently released schedule for the new Space Launch System notes that the space agency will begin testing the engines that will be used.  SLS will use 4 sls rs-25 liquid fuel engines with two outboard SRBs.  If the RS25 designation sounds familiar, they are indeed shuttle main engines that provided massive lifting capabilities.  These engines  have undergone modifications.  At launch the SLS rocket will be providing 9.2 MILLION lbs of thrust.

The schedule calls for the SLS' first test flight 2017. 

Read more of Mail Online article HERE

BMU 416 now online Skipping Stones-Miller + In Plain Sight ep 27 - Kahn

My opening comments this week is pointing out some of the thing I like to do that used to be common on the radio and now we hardly hear of any of that.  Along those lines I spend time describing what makes Beam Me Up work.

The program proper starts with music:  Fight or Flight by Yu Kobiyashi (spell…:( )

Next Jason Kahn’s In Plain Sight episode 27 of the Dark Inspector / In Plain Sight following psyic detective Jack Garrett on New Eden.

Over at the blog  – recent discoveries of hot Jupiter like planets have thrown how planets form  into flux.  This touched a side conversation concerning the incomprehensible distance some of these planets are!

NASA wants private industry to think about doing sat comm for the NASA rovers.

The Voyager argument has once again raised the argument

The final story for the week is Skipping Stones by Devin Miller

Good stories and interesting articles. 

 Hope you enjoy.