The Pale Blue Dot

A little perspective from our friends at NASA.

Thanks to Voyager, now we know what we look like from 4 billion miles away. The photo at left is one of only two of Earth taken from deep space.

So where is Voyager now? Exploring the (theoretical) heliopause, where the boundary of our solar system ends and "the rest" begins, where solar winds meet stellar winds.

Yes, this is a nerd's way of conjuring up the vast and awe-inspiring, and saying Happy Thanksgiving. What, do you want a turkey? Okay, here.

Sit Down Carefully, Sexy NASA, and Count Your Friends in Ireland with Harry

Chairs designed after children's drawings. Cute, sure. Overpriced? Definitely. Comfortable? Probably not. Also, Crayola-streaked blue skies and three-legged dogs not included.

NASA has always been squeamish about the topic that, let's face it, we're all curious about: Sex in Space. But they're starting to openly discuss it now. "How do you handle love, sex, romance, heartbreak, jealousy, hurt, unrequited longing, crushes, loneliness and twitterpation when you're 18 months away from Earth and perhaps unsure whether you'll make it back?" And more importantly, do boobs look perkier in zero g?

How many friends do you have? Not more than 150, according to Dunbar. "Dunbar's Number - a theoretical maximum number of individuals with whom a set of people can maintain a social relationship." Does this include blog friends, IM friends, Twitter friends, and other non-IRL friends? There's probably a different formula for that.

Hey, guys, I just got an exciting new part time job opportunity! Have you heard from David in Dublin, too? Maybe this doozy landed in your inbox this morning and you're already acting on it! "...However my funding were by my American counterparts who send me the bunch of payments mostly in US based money orders...assuming you would be able to deal with cash, I would be willing to employ you on contract basis to be my payment representative back in the states..." Yeah, it's the new Irish version of the Nigerian Money Order Scam! Nothing like a fresh twist on an old spam.

The real reason Prince Harry isn't going to Iraq, courtesy of the Rut. "Ha ha! Ging!" Has the Queen's army never heard of SPF 65? Geez.

RIP Scott Crossfield

If you grew up in an aviation family like I did, you read Chuck Yeager's biography at least twice, saw "The Right Stuff" as many times as you saw "Airplane," and you darn well know who Scott Crossfield was. He was a hot dog test pilot who played Mach-tag with Chuck Yeager for years. Yeager hit Mach 1, Crossfield hit Mach 2, Yeager hit Mach 2.1, and so on.

Scotty flew almost all of the experimental planes that were tested at Edwards AFB, including performing amazing things in the X-15, the first rocket-powered plane, which was particularly dangerous and unstable because it was pretty much full on, or full off.

He died alone in a single engine aircraft this week, a Cessna 210A, to be exact. RIP, Scotty.

Mars Orbiter - Death By Metrics

Lockheed Martin used meters and kilograms, and the NASA team used feet and pounds.

Result: $125 million spacecraft hit the planet and blew apart.

Dudes:
1 pound of force = 0.225 newtons
4.448 pounds of force= 1 newton