Thanksgiving NASA Challenge

Need something to do over Thanksgiving? Protect astronauts! Join NASA's #radshield challenge. http://t.co/BnZVJrWzhw #LearnNASA
— Orion Spacecraft (@NASA_Orion) November 25, 2013

Hubble's Capture

Source: Hubblesite.org

The Hubble and scientists who use her
snapped a good one of Mars
never closer in 60,000 years
the image above was captured at the closest moment possible
August 2003
This year my name went to Mars on a chip
There I am known as Aryanna
Here I try to write a serial novel about Mars colonization and Cloning,
Interview with a Clone,
which I had on hold for awhile
Soon the next chapter will be revealed
This Hubble photo is a good inspiration to go on

Storms & Astronauts

I was eager

to get online to write my blog post.

The thunderheads had risen so high in the sky, ever expanding.

Then the cold wind pressed down on that brief spell of hot heavy humid air. The cold front pushed away the heat.

Then the Thunder started, heavy shaking thunder, no lightning at first.

Then the storm progressed, coming up against the house in waves.

The lightning and thunder impressive.

The air cleared and the windows were back open.

The evening news said Sally Ride died.

61.

It was so sad to think her life was done.

She influenced so many women to be scientists

and astronauts.

Nasa did a bio with condolences.Link below.

My condolences to Sally Ride's family & friends.

She was a great role model, astronaut, physicist, teacher, and person.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/people/features/ride.html#

Travel Bucket List Friday

Come on,
as long as you dream,
dream big.
Imagine sunsets on Europa's beaches.
How to make Vacation plans?
You might need to pencil in a few years
to get there & back, 
& time hanging out
gazing at mighty Jupiter.

Hubble Favorites...

Idols of the universe....................................................................................................................................

from the hubble 8th anniversary
top photos...

Source: Hubblesite.org


and in honor of poetry month & Lisa's poetry challenge,
here is a freestyle one for all of us with scars on our nervous system
that we have trouble explaining,
kind of like these images,
complex,
hard to see
from the outside.

Helpless

played on the radio.

yes I hear you Neil,

you were there with

Katie & I

in a red car

on the back roads

of

corn country

on the 90th meridian

of 

Southern Illinois.

Scarred back then

by grief,

losing friends too young,

rendering us

helpless.

does grief

&

does being helpless

 make scars too

in our fabric net

of

neurons?

Now

We fight

an invisible MonSter,

others know so well,

how do we explain,

how it hurts?

i am helpless

So if you see

a MonSter,

better run girl,

it is no good.

(Is it something you can run from?)

Now

 I see the universe before me,

images too large,

impossible to

comprehend.

I never could run before

the scars

that warped my

senses,

slowing ever so slighly,

still always flatfooted,

yet

filled with

hope each day

the MonSter

can be rendered

utterly, completely, obliteratively

helpless.

Space Travel Dreams

A Dream
A Dream of a day
crossing the wide voids
to a new land,
new possibilities,
hope for perpetuity,
hope for reasons to hope
and dream.

Salute to space travel, 50 years old

I started following Ron Garan's blog The Fragile Oasis.
He is an astronaut who is taking off today for a mission with the Russian Cosmonauts.
Follow his travels.
Fascinating especially for us kids who have dreamt of going to space someday.

This post is his last on Earth.
Follow his adventures...

http://www.fragileoasis.org/2011/04/03/last-blog-post-on-earth-for-now/#comment-3209

NASA Face in Space

NASA Face in Space


You really have to do this. This is a space oriented travelogue and now your image can travel with the astronauts.
Sign up and share with everyone to make a web of faces.

See you up there!
Mary

Mars Dream

Mars dream becoming incremental reality.
At least my name,
Meine Name
is going to Mars
hieraus

do you dare?

marsparticipate.jpl.nasa.gov

Also below is a re run from an earlier post I had. Available at my archived website. I wrote about 2 years ago or so.
2 solar years=teanny weeny micromilliseconds in light years.

Mars, The Red Planet

is now more desirable because they just found

Water

and now the real estate futures marketeers are studying how to lay out the subdivisions and lakes and infrastructures of the yet to be exploited

red planet

What is an expected mystery?

What is the meaning of water on Mars? It becomes clearer when you know for sure. But then, I've always known for sure that Mars must have water, a sister planet to Earth our present house.

Isn't it great the Nasa equipment on Mars didn't break down? Not like the stuff we buy on Earth. I wish it would start when we want it to and there's always something breaking down.


This is the last day of July and that puts me into a blissful August panic. The beans would come soon and then everything will start ripening and the animals, bugs and diseases will try to eat some of our bounty. I was fortunate to weed the beans last weekend although it forced me to hit the pillow early that night.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the real estate guide to mars.

But think about how in your lifetime perhaps there will be such a website and people will travel to the red planet and vacation by some of the pooled water under a solar canopy and fish for exotic species and good old fashioned ice cream made from synthetic proteins and maple syrup from Vermont.

A few things just can't be replicated.

May you discover an expected mystery of your dreams.
mary (the martian by zodiac sign)

addendum 03.07.2010 earth calendar. martian name is Aryanna

Pictures of other Galaxies

Every Day a new image appears on my website
of Space scenes, dust clouds, intimate views
of far far away places.
Travel there through the pictures captured
by the Hubble and other astronomers, photographers.
Sometimes I just sit and stare for a second,
Grateful my taxes went to something
Captivatingly beautiful and for a reassurance
Man is a but tiny piece
of the whole and yet
What an unusual place we are all at,
After "evolution" as some believe
and before the day when it all blows up or inplodes
or vanishes and leaves a tiny
hard
heavy
fragment
and begin the process all over again.
mary

Periwinkle Blue

Outer space travel will require blankets.
It is cold out there.
And the evolution of fabrics and plastic bottle recycling has brought us to Flurr.
see fleece4sale.com
fleece4sale.com

This is about my periwinkle flurr blanket and why I question evolution.
Why did we ever give up sleeping on fur?

Periwinkle Blue


It is the color of the Earth from the shuttle or the moon. It is the color of

The blanket I made from flurr, this spun fleece fabric that is so warm we do not need the electric blanket.

I wanted to tell you my thoughts about a fabric meant to resemble

Fur, and that is so soft, warm and wonderful I want to tell everyone on the planet.

If man evolved from some cave dwelling Neanderthals, I assume with some hesitation that that means Man got smarter as time went on (even though I told you before there is no beginning and end of time).

I hesitate because to evolve beyond using fur as a blanket is not evolution to me.
Those cotton thermal blankets, poly blankets that get “pilly”, sheets, etc. They are all less than fur.

Now there is a glimmer of hope as man has created synthetic fur from plastic soda bottles. Spun garbage so to speak. Don't worry, the processing removes the icky stuff.
Don't use fabric softener (actually liquid wax with perfume), or high heat.
Tack pieces of fleece over drafty windows or doors.
I tested the temperature in the sunny window-behind the fleece it was 5-10 degrees warmer.

So evolve, again?
Get some flurr. You don't have to even bind the edges except if you are visually needy.
I told you before, it is space age fabric and what I will cover up with as we zoom by Mars on out of this solar system.
Mary

Faraway Images

I invite you for a minute or more to let go of your busy life and click on one of the Hubble images linked on my site. This is a Travelogue, after all, which I have to keep reminding myself of, especially when I get stuck in one place. Travel, I tell myself.
I look at the Aurora Nebulae when I am stressed by events at hand, I go to the Nebulae and ponder how long it takes to get from one side to the other.
I fail to comprehend light years, let alone hundreds and millions.
All that useless thought takes me far away.
Reset the cogs so I can go on.
Our taxes go to pay for the Hubble, so why waste the extraordinary images like the whale and hockey stick nebulae.
And enjoy your voyage.
Mary

40 years since the first moon walk

If I had to pick a color for the moon walk, I would probably pick black and white.
That is what we saw about 40 years ago when Donna's birthday pool party was cancelled due to threatening thunderstorms and fears of tornadoes.
Yes, I remember wishing secretly that we would not go swimming partly because of fear of wearing swimsuits and mostly because I loved space travel more than swimming or parties. A trait I carry today.
So when the black skies looked scary enough, we went home. Now I don't remember whether it was Donna's or our house. Donna probably remembers.
But I do remember the whole anticipation and prime time anchoring by our friendly and familiar Walter Cronkite. Didn't he look a little like Walt Disney?
I remember Neil walking and saying his famous words. I wonder now if they were spontaneous? Did he shed a grown man tear in his helmet?
But years later a bigger thrill came my way. Today I was trying to remember exactly when but narrowed it down to 1982-1988 or so. I was working on the neuro floor and a woman was admitted. Her husband was very friendly and as I went to lunch he said, "Do you want to meet a man who walked on the moon?"
I was speechless. How did he know that I would? I thought he was joking.
"Really", he said. I said, "Of Course!"
I waited with him and his wife.
In walked a very short but handsome strong man and his taller, strikingly beautiful wife.
It was Jim Irwin.
One of 12 men to walk on the moon.
I shook his hand and was quite speechless. I stood in awe.
I don't remember if I even said much. No autographs or big speech.
One person's awe of another.
Today I looked him up and was getting excited about the new book that interviewed the moon mission astronauts.
He died in 1991. He was the first moonwalker to die. He died not too many years after I met him. I was a bit sad thinking of his sweet wife losing her handsome husband.
Today I wanted to thank that man for taking time out to shake a nurse's hand.
What a rare and special moment.
I hope Donna still reads my blog so she too can relive the night we saw a man walk on the moon. Happy birthday!
When will we go back?
I believe it is about time.

Details that keep you up.

Twinkle Twinkle little Space shuttle and station
Trailing one after another in the night sky,
9:02 PM said our morning weather man Roger Hill
weatheringheights.com
who goes into great details about the local weather and beyond.
In the morning the details are like a snooze alarm and once done, we cannot stall the day's beginning any longer.
This morning he mentioned we would be able to see the shuttle and space station tonight at 9:02 PM. The sun has set but the space orbiters are high enough to be lit by the sun. I jumped up tonight about 9 PM saying let's go see them.
The weather was nice and much milder today. The air is dry and the stars were bright with no moonlight. Brilliant.
Did Roger say East to West? or West to East?
We scanned both horizons.
Then in the west-northwest sky came the first bright soundless light looking closer than perhaps I thought it should have looked. Then the second orbiter.
Now was the shuttle first? or the station?
We didn't get lost in the details.
The memory of breathing fresh spring air and seeing the stars and orbiting humans was a pleasant reward. Feeling like we are standing still forgetting we too are on a satellite and we don't even have to remember which direction we are going towards.
I guess the same details that give me an option for a nap in the morning kept me out stargazing tonight.
Have you gazed at Orion lately?

Virtual Global Travel

Since this is a travelogue, I wanted to share my trip this past weekend.
No, we did not "go anywhere" although I want to remind you we are always going somewhere. This self contained, rock aka spaceship we travel on goes careening through space while we sit and wonder where we are going.
Our precision meteorologist, Roger Hill referred us to a great free program
Google earth
And now I can say I have seen the alps, traveled the roads, went under the ocean and down the streets of Rome without getting out of my pajamas.
What a place!
I remember spinning the globe in the school library and thinking about places like Tibet, the Alps, and the mountains I never saw as a child.
Now there is a picture and a story to each place with the click of a mouse.
Nasa astronauts downloaded pictures from space, and on and on.....
So my prescription for your winter blues is to take a virtual trip.
Make a cup of hot cocoa, sit at your flat screen and fly away.
Don't be shy, go to Katmandu and then relax on the french riviera. Check out antartica in the morning and Australia Great Barrier Reef in the PM.
(and you wonder why you didn't take a trip around the world with all the money that was robbed from your retirement account.)
When I looked where I think my ancestors came from in Germany, it was flat as a pancake. HMMM...looked like Illinois.
Today is Town Meeting day and we will go vote later.
I chose to stay at home to work on the jigsaw of the Alpine ski lift
and dream...
Best wishes on your side of the planet.
Mary

Mercury Returns to forward motion

And exactly What's in it for me? you might ask.
Well, have you noticed better
Communication?
lately?
I stumbled onto the fact Mercury went retrograde earlier this month.
Ok, it does that about 4 times a year.
google or wiki for details.
Yes, I gave up on trying to easily communicate for a few weeks.
I didn't expect electronic nuisances like cell phones to work.
My reflections of days yet to come were blurry and vague.
Much better to sit out back and take in the views of turning leaves, such a mysterious and magical explosion of color.
Perhaps the periodic adjustments captured by the magnetic powers of mercury, the communication planet, allow us the necessary self reflection to achieve certainty of the need to connect with others.
All I know is that after knowingly experiencing the powers of a retrograde mercury, astrology takes on a scientific basis.
Aren't there days when you just can't get anything done? You got the letter late, the contract just couldn't be finished or signed, the person sitting across from you looks at you like you have horns sticking out of your head.
Now check the planets.
And take a break and take in the sights on your side of the planet.

typing better since wednesday....believe it or not