Mars on Earth

Mars is not the final frontier (space is, of course...). However, Mars is an interesting place, the target of exploration (unmanned thus far) and even a possible place for a future expansion of the human race. Depending on technological breakthroughs such as radiation protection and funding (government or private), humans may reach the red planet as early as the next few decades. With such discoveries as non-polar water on Mars, all the knowledge accumulated by Spirit and Opportunity, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and others, and even acknowledged in the Augustine report, Mars has increasingly gained a high priority as a human destination.

New Year Decade Resolutions and Predictions

It's the end of the year. 2009 marked the end of a decade, possibly an era. It was a year with the Augustine Report, a year with the first test of Ares, a part of the Constellation Program that may or may not take people to the moon or Mars (probably not), a year of several successful shuttle missions and maybe the most amazing discovery of finding water on the moon. Since space exploration progress is slow, and execution of decisions made today will take years if not decades, it is perhaps better to take the custom of New Year Resolutions and extend it to the next decade.

Journey to the Stars

I've been having discussions this past week about humanity, the meaning of our existence here, religion and in between. I found myself pulling up the following video, created by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Watching it humbling. It shows both how far we've come in terms of knowledge about the universe and at the same time how little that portion is from all there is to discover and explore.



The AMNH has a lot more to offer in terms of science and space combined with art. If you're in New York, you'll want to go there and check out the unabridged version of The Known Universe, a 60 minute presentation of which the YouTube video is only a small portion.

Another interesting program is Journey to the Stars, a spectacular (quoting the web site) space show in the museum that combines real photos, artist rendering and visualizations of physics simulations. Below is the trailer of that show.



I haven't been in New York with my family, but I know I'll go visit the American Museum of Natural History when I'm there. This is the right stuff to entice a new generation of space explorers that will boldly go where no one has gone before.

Dream Catcher

A few days ago I received my Garmin Forerunner 310XT with heart rate monitor (HRM). I named it Dream Catcher (hey, the Garmin software asked...). After all, it's going to accompany me and help me go after my dreams, with the first challenge being the half-marathon in May (Starwalker, in case you just landed on my blog from outer space...).

Today I took it for a little spin with two of my kids - Yanir and Liam. We went to the park close to our house here in Superior to have some fun in the snow. We had our plastic sled with us, and I went down the hill with the boys a few times, other times documenting the event with our camcorder.

Click here to see the resulting data. I am really impressed by the watch and believe it will help me achieve my goal of being prepared to run the Starwalker half-marathon and beyond.

Hanukkah in Space

Last week my family and I celebrated holiday of Hanukkah, also known as the Festival-of-Lights. It commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE, and specifically the miracle of oil supposed to last one day actually lasting for eight.

After lighting 12 menorahs on Friday (that's 108 candles, in case you were wondering) with some Israeli friends on Friday, I got curious to check how Hanukkah would be celebrated in space, specifically in micro-gravity.