Space Shuttle, Mercury and Paper Airplanes

Today is Father's Day, at least in the United States. It's a day of appreciating one's father, and in our family it is one of two days every year when I get to have breakfast in bed. It is a day of reflection about my relationship with my kids and as pertaining to this blog, pondering whether my interest in space rubs off on them.

In 2010 we bought our kids a special calendar, where every day can be folded and/or cut into a different paper airplane. They were nine years old and it seemed like something they would take on and enjoy. They did (for a short time, at least) and then the calendar got "stuck" in some date fairly close to the beginning of the year.

My NASTAR Experience - Ground Training for Space Launch

One week in March I got to live a bit of my space aspiration. No, I didn't go to space (I continued to ride spaceship Earth). What I did was to go through two segments of commercial astronaut training. After AGSOL near Boston it was time for NASTAR near Philadelphia. Over three days I went up to a simulated 25,000ft altitude in a hypobaric chamber and went on simulated flights that exposed me to real 3.5Gz, 6Gx and most exciting of all, a virtual ride on SpaceShipTwo.

NASTAR is a place that trains many types of people, from fighter jet pilots to aspiring astronauts and space tourists. Over the past five years, after being spun-off of a manufacturing facility for centrifuges, altitude chambers and simulators, it formed several training programs around suborbital flight. The one I went through with seven other men and women was Suborbital Scientist Training, meant for people who will not only go to space as tourists, but will actually need to function in the few minutes of weightlessness rather than just admire the view. My plan B is to win the lottery...

Nauseating Education - or - Educational Nausea

The place - AGSOL - Ashton Graybiel Situational Orientation Lab, at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. A group of adults in a basement have been creating rides for decades. What kind of rides? Think amusement park rides without color or sugar coating. Without sun-light or food stands. In this twilight zone several experts research ways to measure, adapt-to and maybe some day avoid this set of phenomena named motion sickness and spatial disorientation.

The time - Monday, March 12th 2012 at 9:30am. Paul McCall, a fellow Astronauts4Hire member and I were the second and third people to go through a new 1.5-day protocol designed to give a person wishing to become a commercial astronaut awareness through exposure to motion sickness, spatial illusions and disorientation. The experience can be described as nauseating education, or more aptly, educational nausea.

Playing with the Solar System

One of the more engaging games for the iPhone is Scribblenauts Remix. What makes it interesting compared to the plethora of games for the platform (Angry Birds, anyone?) is that in order to solve each level one must ask for objects to be put in the game, which will help solve the presented problem. The variety of options is huge. You can ask for nearly anything - materials, buildings, animals, other people, clothes and even wings. Items can be held by your scribblenaut, vehicles can be used to move around and animals can be mounted or engaged in combat.

A cool part that's actually outside of the actual game play is the start screen, where you can add anything you want to try things out. I decided to try and add a space shuttle. It magically appeared on the screen, hurray! I had my scribblenaut character climb on board. It operates more like a Star-Trek shuttle and doesn't need rockets to move around even at ground level - how convenient is that... I then added our sun (easily hanging it in the sky) and the nine planets (we still love you, Pluto!).

The result is below, I hope you get a chuckle and try the game as well. The possibilities are very close to endless...

Space Shuttle and Solar System - the Scribblenaut Remix version

John Glenn 50th Anniversary Angry Mob

Don't tell me you're not pissed. I mean, WT*? 50 years ago John Glenn went to space and I can't do it yet? Oh, wait. No one can do it from US soil at the moment, there's progress for you, damn right!

Really? What happened to all the dreams of being able to exercise my right to throwing my shoe at the TV at 0 gravity? What happened to all the O'Neil Colonies and sh*t? Yes, I watch PBS, I'm not stupid!

But tell me one, thing, really. Where did all the money go? They are hiding gold bars on the International Space Stashion. And that's not a typo. Why else would they build this pile of cans that look like a cheap knock-off Lego set that can't go anywhere or create gravity or purify everyone's pee? You know what, even if they PAID me I wouldn't go. They don't ever BBQ there. To light a rocket under you is fine, but have some good steak, that's too much. 100 billion dollars and no patio. I want some answers, darn-it!

I mean, geez, where's Spock? WHERE'S SPOCK?!?

Anyway, did you all see Apollo 18 and that Transformers movie? One of them is lying, they can't both be telling the truth. And they both cover up what really happened. But I can't tell you because I'd have to kill you. That's right. Newsflash - the aliens are here. Just look at my mother in law.

And what about all those internet billionaires making rockets? Don't they have better stuff to do with their money, like hire lawyers or buy some bling or solve some real space problem other than whose (rocket) is bigger? I mean, do something useful like develop cars that run on compost or something...

At any rate, if you see Buzz tell him both me and my kid are pissed at him too. For $39.99 it should have been real laser.