I don’t usually put personal stuff on this blog for a lot of different reasons, but today is a rare exception.
You see, today is my mom’s 80th birthday.
She’s been a huge influence on me. Of course, your parents are supposed to be, for better or worse, but in this case I’m going with better. My parents were really great about encouraging my siblings and me to pursue the lives we wanted (including letting me keep my giant 10″ Newtonian telescope in the corner of the living room for years — visitors thought it was a water heater), and that resulted in all of us going after unusual or non-standard careers. And, come to think of it, all of us have made major career changes at some point in our lives; I consider that to be a positive aspect since it meant we were unsatisfied with the way things were going and, rather than settle, we went off in new directions to find what it was we wanted.
My oldest brother is an electrical engineer has a degree in computer science and now runs a computer and networking consultant business in Atlanta. My other brother’s the chief engineer for construction in a Maryland county public school system. My sister has a Masters degree in music and sang opera, for criminy’s sake! And me, I’ve had a handful of weird careers myself. Writing stuff while wearing pajamas may be the most mainstream of them.
So my brothers and sister owe a lot to my mom. I know she reads this blog (though the fire-eating and tattooing and gun-shooting stuff may have her reading this from behind the couch), and I also know she would love it if everyone here sent their best wishes to her.
The Space Shuttle Discovery is due to touch down in Florida at 13:43 Eastern time Saturday! As usual, I’ll try to live Tweet it (on my new BA News account). The mission was pretty successful, with the installation of a new truss and solar panels that has given the Space Station full power capacity, as well as bringing up a new crew member and taking one away. The one big glitch was a pin installed upside-down in an equipment platform, which NASA hopes to get fixed soon.
Remember, you can watch the landing on NASA TV (and if you have it, the cable station HDNet commonly shows them live in HD too).
In other Shuttle news, Atlantis rolls out to the pad Tuesday! When it launches (scheduled for May 12) it’ll be heading to perform the last servicing mission on the Hubble Space Telescope.
I am getting swamped with notes from folks saying that the new node to be put on ISS next year will be named "Colbert".
But it’s not that simple.
As you may recall, NASA opened up a contest to name Node 3, a connecting module to be put on the International Space Station next February. The name "Serenity" (awesome!) was doing very well, and then my arch-enemy Stephen Colbert started asking his Nation to send in votes.
NASA will take into consideration the results of the voting. However, the results are not binding on NASA and NASA reserves the right to ultimately select a name in accordance with the best interests of the agency, its needs, and other considerations. Such name may not necessarily be one which is on the list of voted-on candidate names. NASA’s decision shall be deemed final.
I’ll watch Colbert tonight, and I’m sure he’ll claim victory. But that clause means NASA doesn’t have to use the winning entry! Of course, it would be smart in a PR way for NASA to name it "Colbert" — and even if they don’t, I just bet the astronauts will, informally — but we’ll see. I’m still holding out for the right choice. After all, like the man said, you treat her proper, she’ll be with you for the rest of your life.
I am not an aficionado of rap — I don’t think ABBA ever did it, did they? — but I kinda like this one despite the sometimes awkward lyrics (his accent is cool, too). His use of the sounds of moving across the radio dial is clever, and how many rap songs do you know that reference Frank Drake and Carl Sagan?
My book, Death from the Skies!, comes out in less than two weeks.
Woohoo!
Death from the Skies!, coming very soon.
I’ve added a countdown clock in the sidebar of the blog (go ahead, take a peek), as well as links to order it, and a couple of blurbs (one’s from my Close Personal Friend ™ Adam Savage). The clock assumes it goes on sale midnight October 20, but that’s close enough. Assume a bin size of one day.
I have some things I’m doing to promote the book. I’ll be writing some blog posts geared toward it over the next two weeks; so expect a wee bit more doom-and-gloom (but in a fun way!): more gamma-ray bursts, meteorites, solar events, and exponentially expanding collapses of the false quantum vacuum.
Also, I’m doing some press events. Here’s the list so far:
October 21: I’m doing a live interview at Denver’s KUSA (Channel 9) at 12:20 or so p.m.
October 21: I drive back home, and then I’ll be at the Boulder Bookstore that night at 7:30 to give a short presentation with a dramatic reading from the book. I’ll have a meteorite to show people, too.
I’m sure there will be more as time goes on. I’ll update this list as it changes, and report it here on the blog.
I’m hoping to be able to quote some of the reviews coming in; they’ve been very positive, and so I’m getting pretty excited! So tell a friend… it’ll make for appropriate Halloween reading.
NASA AWARDS LANDSCAPING MAINTENANCE, PEST CONTROL CONTRACT
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA has selected S.C. Jones Services, Inc., of Dillwyn, Va., to provide grounds maintenance and pest control services at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
The new firm-fixed price contract begins on Oct. 1, 2008. It has a one-year base period and four, one-year option periods. The maximum value of the contract is approximately $13.5 million.
S.C. Jones Services will provide grounds maintenance and pest control services in support of all areas of Kennedy.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Pest control and lawn maintenance are important. Seriously — have you experienced the bugs in Florida? The ants there are amazingly invasive. I suspect alligators may be considered a pest, too…* But somehow a press release on those contracts seems a little weird. Maybe there is some contractual thing going on here, or a government law saying they must announce all contracts over some value.
Well, whatever. I for one welcome our new ant-control overlords.
In just a few short hours I’ll be on a plane winging my way to Dragon*Con 2008 in Atlanta. Woohoo! D*C is a huge con, with 40,000+ fans of scifi, comics, fantasy, and other flights of fancy. I’m going as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, but I’m also participating in the Skeptic Track (talks and panels about critical thinking) as well as Space and some science fiction. Kevin Grazier and I will be rehashing our Science of Science Fiction panel we did at Comic Con, for example.
Loads of stars will be there, too, including Nathan Fillion, Jewel Staite, Morena Baccarin, James Hong (indeed!), and a gazillion others. Skeptics attending include Michael Shermer, Richard Saunders, Randi, and a bunch more too. My friends astronomers Bill Keel and Pamela Gay will be in attendance too.
This will rawk. Oh baby.
I went to D*C back in 2006 and had a great time. Here is the proof. I hope the wireless is up to the task of my blogging and Twittering!
I hope to see some BABloggees there. If you’re around, drop by my talks and panels. Let’s spread the love.
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's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
"If things worked the way I wanted them to, any reporter about to do another 'sensational' story on deadly meteors would consult this volume, and bang! common sense would find its way into the news. How strange would that world be?" -- Adam Savage, Mythbusters
"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
