Is this a Bush thing or Obama or both or neither?

I don't think the president has to bless every NASA mission.

hmm -- I had a thread on this yesterday, too. I wonder why rcade took it down.

Thanks for reposting it, yav.

NOt to steal your thunder, but here is the thread I put up. I only post it because I included three links (two from NASA's site) with graphics that readers may be interested in reading.

oops, we crossed in cyberspace, yav. I see you put one of the links up while I was typing my post.

Hope your thread lasts longer than mine did!

Obama did hold a very nice astronomy night for kids last night with 20 telescopes all set up on the South lawn of the White House.

I have done sidewalk astronomy sessions for the children's hospital, the scouts, church groups, summer camps, and my sister's school. The latter has turned into quite an event over the years. It is great seeing the look in those kids' eyes the first time they see the rings of Saturn or craters in the moon.

One of my favorite exercises is the solar system "walk". I have a volleyball for the sun and a peppercorn for the earth. A marble is Jupiter. The kids are amazed at the relative sizes. But when I put them on the ground and walk out their relative distances, they don't believe it. The earth is ~ 26 yards away. Here is the model. It is quite interesting and eye opening. I do it for my sister's 5th grad class every year:

(Is my "geek" too strong?)

Geek is good.

I hope I can see it from the rig with the binoculars. I wish I was at home. I would break out the 10" reflector.

I wrote in this blog a few months ago about a story I read in an old 1959 Popular Science magazine I picked up at a garage sale. It was the timetable on the moon. They said man would be there in 2000. They said NASA would explode a nuke on the moon in the '60s.

Well, I found that article in its entirity, complete with pictures. It looks like exactly what I have at home.

Worth the read. How naive we were -- 10 years before it actually happened, NASA still thought it was over 40 years away!

It's a few pages, but worth the read.

Sputnik changed everything.

Sputnik was put into orbit in 1957. That Popular Science article was written in 1959

I'll have to wait and see it when I get home. Can't get streaming videos and it is overcast here.

Darn.