It’s the weekend, so I’ll go heavy on the pictures today. Fortunately, there have been some pretty incredible ones recently.
To start with, the Space Shuttle launched yesterday on yet another trip to the International Space Station. As you may have gathered, I’m a big fan of space exploration and human space flight, but I’m still on the fence about the Space Station: the most unique, progressive laboratory ever, or massive waste of money? I’m going to have to do a little more research into the science that actually happens on the Station: I know there’s a lot going on, but it doesn’t seem to be very well communicated to the rest of us.
Moving on to Phoenix. A few days ago, I posted the amazing photo of the Lander with its parachute open taken by MRO. Well here’s the context for that image, which I think further demonstrates just how impressive a feat this was.
Also, Phoenix seems to have found ice! Right underneath the lander, a patch of white material was dusted off during landing – it’s about 3 feet across and looks a lot like ice. Unfortunately, team members say it will take up to a week before the first results start coming back to confirm their suspicion.
And finally, this is probably old news by now, but how about these photos of a previously “uncontacted” tribe in Brazil? Incredible. Just imagine what these people are thinking as they hurried to slather on war paint and brandish their bows and arrows. It’s encouraging that tribes like this still exist – moments of true discovery on our planet are few and far between. The age of discovery of “new” landmasses ended a little over a century ago. The golden age of the discovery of “lost” tribes, which focused largely on New Guinea and Amazonia, ended maybe 40 years ago. I’ve often thought that the exploration of our planet was largely complete (with the exception of the oceans), but who knows what else is out there.
I watched In the Shadow of the Moon last night. Awesome documentary about the Apollo program. (Londoners – there’s a special screening at the Royal Institution on 23 June.)
The shuttle lifted off exactly as the film finished. I don’t know if Channel 4 scheduled it that way on purpose, but it made the launch seem more impressive than normal.
While I think, for many reasons, the space station may have been a mistake, it has taught us how to collaborate in space. With major components from at least five nations, it’s an impressive feat of logistics that we’ll need to repeat if we’re ever going to build habitations on other bodies. I do worry about what happens when the space shuttle retires in just two years. Only the Russians will have a manned vehicle that can reach the station. One glitch with Soyuz and all these laboratories become useless.