Having grown up watching science fiction shows you get the feeling that you’re not looking at a real spaceship crew unless there’s a lot of adrenaline being thrown about. However the reality is much different as real world astronauts are quite a cool quite group — more Spock than Kirk if you know what I mean. NASA produced these two short videos which give a nice glimpse at some of these unsung pioneers who deserve to be household names. Shown above is Eileen Marie Collins who was the first woman to pilot a space shuttle and below is Guion “Guy” Bluford, Jr. who was the the first African American in space back in 1983: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2010 in Science
This interesting video clip author Wade Davis attempts to answer the question of what would alien anthropologists think of humans? His answer is that they might be impressed with our technology but not with our social structures. Actually my guess is that they might also see us a technologically backwards as a species that could achieve interstellar space travel would be eons ahead of what we think of as cutting edge.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2010 in Science
I just came across this tribute video from NASA which to me underscores how much we owe to those who put their lives on the line to travel into space. With the advent of space tourism we tend to forget that sending up a spaceship into orbit is in fact going into harms way. It’s sad to me that we don’t honor these brave folks by investing in NASA.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2010 in Science
From what I’m reading the upcoming NASA budget will do three things: Give up the underfunded quest to return to the moon, keep the ISS flying until 2020 and push to outsource a shuttle replacement which would mean scrapping the Ares I rocket. This is all unconfirmed at this point, but the it looks like NASA funding will increase by $6 billion which sounds good on paper, but may not be enough to replace the shuttle soon enough. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 27, 2010 in Science
I think an octopus is about as different as you can get from being a human — eight legs, lives underwater and a hard beak at the center. Yet this video shows clear evidence that they’re quite bright creatures who are quite capable of using tools. This makes me realize that as humans we might have a bias towards thinking that only humanoid creatures have intelligence — and often the worst offenders I see are science fiction films. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 24, 2010 in Science
This is a nice video that sums up the work of the Opportunity rover on Mars which was expected to be a 90 day mission, but that has been going string for six years. Of course my frustration watching this video is that one wishes that humans had made the trip instead of a robot — but the images are still impressive.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 22, 2010 in Science
This video shows an interesting interview with Evan Thomas works for NASA on “water recovery systems” which means converting urine to drinkable water. Although it should be pointed out that similar systems are already used on here on planet earth. What I found interesting about this interview is that the NASA technology can also be applied to helping folks who are living through a drought.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 15, 2010 in Science
According to this article at the BBC News website the European Space Agency’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain is pushing to keep the ISS going until the year 2020. This is critical as support for the station is up for review, and signs are pointing to pulling the plug by 2015: Read more…
The video below shows the Space Shuttle Endeavour being moved from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A for its February 7th mission. The one thing that amazed me about this video is that gives you a good taste for just large the space shuttle is in scale. You get a great feeling for this looking not just at the scale of the automobiles driving by but also by how slow the rollout goes: Read more…
It’s impressive to see NASA send these cute toys to explore Mars to wander about — but the damn things always seem to break down. It’s frustrating to watch knowing that humans wandering about in spacesuits could be much more productive. I’ll grant you that the cost is much great, but it’s sad to me that the United States doesn’t seem to be serious yet about going to Mars. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that Obama gives NASA a budget boost, but NASA needs more than a gentle increase: It’s time to aim high again…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 26, 2009 in Science
I’m increasingly of the mindset that it may be too late to do anything about climate change as we’re already starting to watch the glaciers melt away. Add to this the fact that there’s too much infrastructure in place with no quick global replacement to fossil fuels and the picture becomes worse. So it’s interesting for me to watch this video with Stewart Brand interviewing archaeologist Sander van der Leeuw and talking about this critical topic. Read more…
My problem with Avatar is that the humans are smart enough to achieve interstellar space travel, but their technology feels like it belongs in the early 21st Century. I’ll grant you that you can make this critique of quite a few science fiction films, but frankly Avatar seems to become a giant plot hole when you think about this. Read more…
Having grown up watching science fiction shows you get the feeling that you’re not looking at a real spaceship crew unless there’s a lot of adrenaline being thrown about. However the reality is much different as real world astronauts are quite a cool quite group — more Spock than Kirk if you know what I mean. NASA produced these two short videos which give a nice glimpse at some of these unsung pioneers who deserve to be household names. Shown above is Eileen Marie Collins who was the first woman to pilot a space shuttle and below is Guion “Guy” Bluford, Jr. who was the the first African American in space back in 1983: Read more… 
