Blogs / Bad Astronomy

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.

Next thing you know, there were 230,000 votes for "Colbert", 40,000 more than for "Serenity". But this is not over, because NASA was smart in the original contest. Check out Contest Rule #4:

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.

Serenity logo courtesy collinrego’s Flickr photostream.

Going through my YouTube subscriptions today I stumbled on a video that’s pretty interesting: a guy rapping about astrobiology.

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:

1. October 21: I’m doing a live interview at Denver’s KUSA (Channel 9) at 12:20 or so p.m.
2. 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.
3. October 21: I drive home again, and then I’ll be on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory that evening from 2-5 a.m. Eastern time — check your listing. Lots of radio stations broadcast the show (it has 10 million listeners) and many stream it live as well.
4. December 11: I’ll be giving a talk at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, time TBD.

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.

I get email…

CONTRACT RELEASE: 23-08

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.

^*Hmmm, tourists may be included in this category as well.

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.

If you’re in the Atlanta area and want to go, check out the Skeptic track schedule, or the more complete schedule listed in the pocket guide. Skepchick has more, and there’s a Star Trek track I’d like to see, too.

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.

Folks–

Thanks for being patient. As far as I can tell, the move to the new server has worked, and it was only marginally painful (though I still have some behind-the-scenes work to do).

It is possible that some people may still see the blog from the old server, until their network catches up with the new location . That usually happens in a few hours, so I’m hoping it’s over. But if you post a comment, and the next day it’s gone, that may be the culprit.

And now, back to the regularly posted astronomy/critical thinking/humor ranting. Well, in a coupla hours.