I found a new way to appreciate my home town through the eyes of astronomers this weekend. Also, I used the astronomers’ telescopes, which is a great way to look from their perspective on the universe. Wood Mountain is the gateway to the East Block of the Grasslands National Park
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Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Mars As Inspiration
Here’s an excellent space exploration mission: Orbit Mars, and return two humans safely in under 2 years. It can be done. Us humans could have several missions launching in 2018, but we just have to decide to do it. Besides the Mars One mission, this is how we expand pride
Continue reading350 or bust: Saturday At The Movies
The first music video made in space, posted earlier this week, stars Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield:
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Eatin’ Bugs
Insects will be a staple food on Mars and other space colonies. Paul Pardee : Lets have the delegates to the UN have a bug banquet to show their support of entomophagy. I know that support from political leaders would help. I’m sure having the Obamas munching on some meal
Continue readingcartoon life: XLZ11 Space Patrol
Filed under: cartoon, illustration Tagged: cartoon, Cat, pilot, space, spaceship
Continue readingcartoon life: Kitten on top of the world
Filed under: art Tagged: Cat, drawing, paper 53, space, stars, world
Continue readingWalking Turcot Yards: The Geography of the Supermarket
“What is a greater wonder is that almost 40 percent of our food supply is wasted, a significant jump from the first time the figure was measured, which stood at 28 percent in 1974.” Makes me wonder how much marketing helps create that waste? It’s ironic that our desires and
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Russian Meteorite Injures People – UPDATED
Shocking, exciting news from Russia early this morning as coincidentally [maybe] on the same day a major 50m asteroid is set to fly by Earth, a meteorite has struck Russia. Reports are that there are injuries, which have been very rare for meteorite impacts until now. The camera person nearly
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: I’m Drilled On Mars
I’m excited to learn that my name is selected as a site on Mars. I am unable to easily find which John Klein it’s really named after, but I’ll take the collateral naming honour.
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: On a Trek for Stars
I can’t simply make a fun Star Trek related blog post, I have to tie it into the Canadian political discourse also. So, here we go. Ottawa Citizen reporter, Glen McGregor came up with a manifesto to guide modern journalism. He’s seen journalism fall prey to some ridiculous habits, like
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: ISS over Regina
I was checking to see the next time the International Space Station would fly over Regina’s skies, and saw it was in two minutes! (There are only a few times a week it is visible for a couple minutes, sometimes none.) I threw on my ski pants and coat, and
Continue readingWalking Turcot Yards: Mars Rover Self Portrait
The next step is probably self consciousness. “NASA has snapped its most amazing self-portrait yet of the Curiosity rover on Mars, showing the robot posing with its ultimate destination: a huge Martian mountain. The new view of Curiosity on Mars is actually a mosaic of dozens of high-definition color photos
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: To the Moon and Back: Neil Armstrong RIP
Neil Armstrong has passed away, at 82 years of age. He was the first person to walk on the Moon. No one has set foot on the Moon since I was born. It’s possible the last human to ever walk on the Moon has already done so, and that’s terribly
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Earthshine and Meteors
I tried photographing some Perseid meteors, but didn’t have much luck this year. I did get some nice shots of the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus though. -I took this one while a meteor flew down, from above Venus, but it didn’t show up. Maybe the shutter wasn’t open like I
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Mars Laser
We’ve equipped Mars with a laser. Our latest rover there, called Curiosity, actually shoots fricken laser beams from its head. How cool is that? Is there a scientific purpose in aiming the rover’s laser at Earth and detecting the flash here? I think there must be. We could use it
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Mars Sounds
One thing missing from Curiosity, that seems an obvious oversight since it’s included on every mobile computer now, is a MICROPHONE! It would be more of a novelty than anything, which is why it was left out I’m sure, but we apparently have not heard actual recordings from the surface
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: The Mars Landing Videos
Mars Science Lab which is presently the Curiosity rover, landed on Sunday night Earth time in Saskatchewan. There’s an excellent video first that explains why the landing was carried out in this manner. Then there’s a dramatic version timed with video clips from Earth of the people in charge of
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Martian Automobile Association
Years ago I created the Martian Automobile Association (MAA), and tried selling memberships on eBay. I forget if I managed to sell any membership cards, but remember creating at least one (and have a photo of it), so I probably did. That member hasn’t stayed in touch, probably because they
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Curiousity, Mars, and the Triumph of Humanity
I just can't help myself eh? I just had to insert the Cons, like an ugly alien probe, into this amazing story. The US space agency has just landed a huge new robot rover on Mars. The one-tonne vehicle, known as Curiosity, was reported to have landed in a deep
Continue readingthe woodshed: Tell me again how ‘government can’t do anything’
These are photos from Mars, taken by a nuclear-powered truck that a bunch of hairless monkeys landed there by remote-control sky-crane from a planet away. I was able to download them from the internet less than 20 minutes after the aformentioned atomic space truck landed. Doing so cost about one
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