With Atlantis now on its way to Hubble, it seems like a good time to post this.
Yuri’s Night was in April, and a reader asked me if I would make a short welcome video for a YN party he was throwing for local kids to get them inspired about space. While the celebration was a while back, I think the sentiments here are important, so I wanted to share the video with you.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
May 11th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
You wrote a book?!
May 11th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I love your enthusiasm, Phil. keep up the amazing work!
May 11th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I know IVAN3MAN. I never would have known about it! Can you imagine someone like this “Phil” guy on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report?
May 11th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Hey, Phil, don’t forget the “Chief Designer”, Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov , of the R-7 Semyorka rocket that launched Yuri Alexeevich Gagarin into orbit on April 12, 1961.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Obvious product placement is Obvious!
May 11th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Well put, Phil. Also, I went out looking for the ISS with help from Heavens-Above.com, and saw two sats pass by and thought they were impressive. Then the ISS went by almost straight overhead at mag -2.1. I tweeted that it was so bright that it looked spiky, like Sagan’s Ship of the Mind. You’ll know it when you see it. I encourage everyone to find a time when it’ll be overhead at their location.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I thought we owwed it all to Werner “I shootz zee rockets up….ver dey come down I don’t care” Von Braun.
That being said, I think this is one of the most important pictures in the history of mankind.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0407/moussette_aur16jul1_full.jpg&imgrefurl=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040730.html&h=912&w=1440&sz=154&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=DzRaLcp1NMGqrM:&tbnh=95&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnorthern%2Blights%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3DGGLJ,GGLJ:2006-43,GGLJ:en%26sa%3DN
May 11th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Damn it! I messed up that last link. Try this: Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin.
Oh, for the want of a preview/edit facility. *Sigh*
May 11th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Ah, how I wish that the Soviet Union was still around these days!
May 11th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
So which paint color did Mrs. BA sister-in-law decide to paint your computer room? (Conspicuous Mrs. BA paint swatches on wall behind you.)
May 11th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
This is such a sweet video!
May 11th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Mrs. BA is trying to figure out which color goes with BAs new Jenny McCarthy poster.
May 11th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Hey Phil what about a Live Chat in the near future? That was always awesome.
May 11th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Ah, humans are so speciesist! What about Laika? She was in orbit more than 3 years before Yuri blasted off.
May 11th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Really, Mr. Pete!
Laika is my hero.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Ahhh, strategically placed “Death from the Skis”! Love it!
May 11th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Hmm … must keep that hidden from the nieces and nephews. I told them that Sputnik and Vanguard were such a big deal. Sure spacecraft need to be very different to support humans, but I see all the space probes as being successors of Sputnik and Vanguard, not of the successful orbits of Yuri.
@bassmanpete: Laika did not survive reentry though (was she even alive during reentry?) The launch of Yuri was nothing like that of Laika.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
@MadScientist – she died within a few hours, apparently from stress & overheating, but the Soviets reported at the time that she survived for some days.
May 11th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Very well said!
I love the fact that we can travel to space, even if it’s just to the moon and the ISS… or even just in orbit.
bassmanpete- I’ll be non-speciesist the day a dog builds a space shuttle and launches itself into orbit, and survives. Or the day a camel builds a pyramid, or a horse constructs a cathedral. Tell me the day a bird sings an opera or a cat invents calculus.
Animals are cute, but humans rock, man.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
I could have used a Smiley but I know a lot of people don’t like them and anyway, I thought it would be obvious I was joking.
May 12th, 2009 at 12:25 am
# Lauren Says:
Ahhh, strategically placed “Death from the Skis”! Love it!
I didn’t even know BA skis!
J/P=?
Spelling/grammar neonazi
May 12th, 2009 at 6:08 am
@Bob from Easton: You mean “Wanz ze rockets go up, who cares vere zey come down? Ees not my department, says Werner von Braun.” I like the intro though: Ever wonder what made it possible to spend millions of dollars to send some monkey to the moon? Good old American Know-How, that’s what. As provided by good old Americans like Werner von Braun.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:13 am
@Liz D: The dog’s already done it – ever seen “A Grand Day Out” featuring Wallace and Gromit? Wallace could never have finished that space ship on his own; it’s Gromit’s genius that got them to the moon and back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grand_Day_Out
Wow … it’s been decades since that show was produced.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Hmm… I’m not sure I like the “history divided into two parts” claim because it intrudes on the similar but (IMO) much more important division of history by the atomic bomb. Somebody in the 1950s noted that the atomic bomb divided history “like a knife”, because now the human race could destroy itself.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:35 am
@ Erasmussimo:
We’ve been destroying ourselves for thousands of years. We just happen to be better at breeding.
I suppose nukes do speed-up the process, though.