Gah!

On Last Thursday's Colbert Report the guest was Alan Bean, the fourth man to walk on the moon. The interview was about his art based on his experience as an astronaut. Mostly it was all ok, but one thing that came out during the interview just shocked me.

Alan wanted to include something of the moon in his painting, and had asked NASA for some moon dust to mix in with his paints, but they said no. So what he ended up doing was cutting up the American flag patch from his uniform which was clogged with dust from the moon. My reaction was immediate and physical.

The idea of mixing up moon dust with the paint is pretty cool, but cutting up the patch like that is just wrong. It's something precious and rare and meaningful and important. It would be like using bricks from the Colosseum to build a snack stand nearby.

All I can say is NASA, you can stop this. Give the man some god damn moon dust now.

A Second Korea Fails to join the Space Race

A few days ago South Korea launched a rocket that was, in the words of the South Korean government, a partial success. The rocket, part Russian and part South Korean, was meant to place a satellite into orbit, but failed to do so.

Naturally this brings up comparisons with North Korea, whose own failed attempt to launch a satellite earlier this year caused concern around the world. The biggest difference is the reaction of the two countries to their failures. South Korea openly admitted that the launch failed to meet its aim of putting a satellite into low Earth orbit. North Korea is still insisting that their satellite is up their orbiting the Earth and broadcasting Korean songs despite the fact that the rest of the world watched it crash into the Pacific. The South Koreans definitely have the more mature approach.

It's good to see South Korea is keen on developing a space industry, and this is a big step following getting their first astronaut (or should it be cosmonaut since she went up with the Russians?) last year. I look forward to seeing further developments.

Another win for the space station guys.

Some more awesome stuff from the guys on the space station. It turns out that in their spare time they set up a rig to take detailed photos of cities on Earth. The pictures are awesome. Here's a video of the results.


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This is why we have a space program

The International Space Station was intended as a giant laboratory in space, and despite numerous delays and screw-ups in getting it up there, it is producing interesting and important scientific research. I'd like to highlight one of the most recent discoveries to come down to Earth from the ISS.

Boomerangs work in zero G. When thrown inside the ISS, the boomerang flew the same way it does on Earth.

This is cool. For a start, I didn't think the ISS was big enough to get a decent throw of a boomerang without hitting the walls. I'd like to see this research extended to see how boomerangs fly in zero g without an atmosphere. I think it would be different, but I'm not sure how much of the motion is purely from the rotational motion, and how much is the interaction between the rotational motion and an atmosphere.

There should be more of this sort of stuff going on up in space.

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