At one point, Stafford recognized a landmark crater, Censorinus A. He was momentarily distracted by the dramatic shadows and giant boulders surrounding the crater. “I’ve got Censorinus A right here,” he said out loud to the world, “bigger than shit!” A shocked reporter listening to the transmission in mission control turned to astronaut Jack Schmitt. “What did Colonel Stafford just say?” Thinking quickly, Schmitt covered for his colleague and replied “He said, ‘Oh, there’s Censorinus… bigger than Schmitt!’”
How not to swear on the moon, and other fun facts from
Vintage Space.
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Jan 6, 2012 -
21 comments
To The Moon is a stunningly good game about death, love and memories. If you love games and you enjoy love stories, I highly urge you to download it and play it immediately.
Here's a review, but you shouldn't read it. You should just play it. Warning: Have kleenex handy.
posted by empath
on Nov 9, 2011 -
26 comments
"The
Earth tide is a little-known daily event, similar to the oceans' more familiar tides. But the sun and moon's gravity doesn’t just pull on water, it deforms the Earth itself, causing the ground beneath us to bulge toward the pulling heavenly body."
[more inside]
posted by Paragon
on Mar 10, 2011 -
12 comments
Selene is a hip hop EP inspired by Duncan Jones' fine science fiction film Moon. The beats, which heavily sample Clint Mansell's score for the movie, were created by Max Tannone, best known for mashup album Jaydiohead, Doublecheck Your Head and Mos Dub/Dub Kweli. The MC is Brooklyn rapper Richard Rich.
posted by Kattullus
on Feb 23, 2011 -
21 comments
Apollo 14, with
Alan Shepard,
American's first man in space, as the Commander,
Stuart Roosa,
Command Module Pilot and
Edgar Mitchell,
lunar module pilot,
splashed down forty years ago today. It was
flight of the rookies (total previous time in space was 15 minutes, all by Shepard).
There were several odd things about the flight, but no need to worry,
the moon trees are doing
just fine.
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on Feb 10, 2011 -
11 comments
The Who in
1965. They are featured in a French documentary on the Mods. You can skip ahead to the Who live songs if you are not in the mood to watch the whole documentary.
From Google Translate: "Discover the new English youth in the district of Hammersmith, London suburbs and particularly the movement "mods" or "Modern", new dandies, mavericks ouvrier.Les interviews from rural youth about drugs, Police headquarters, politics, racism, society in general, alternate with concert footage of WHO on a small stage in London. Interview in French Kit Lambert, manager of the WHO, about Teddy Boys movement, rockers, mods."
posted by zzazazz
on Dec 11, 2010 -
9 comments
Did you know that there's an art museum on the moon? A tiny, tiny one. The
Moon Museum features works by
Forrest "Frosty" Myers (the instigator),
Robert Rauschenberg,
Claes Oldenburg,
Andy Warhol,
David Novros, and
John Chamberlain, inscribed on a little chip of silicon and
surreptitiously transported to the moon's surface on the Apollo 12 mission. But of course there's a mystery, in this big of a secret:
who is John F., the engineer at least partially responsible for smuggling the chip onboard the lunar lander?
Related:
other stuff people have left on the Moon (!)
posted by fiercecupcake
on Nov 22, 2010 -
19 comments
This may just be the most peaceful, beautiful 5-1/2 minutes of your entire day: An audio slideshow look at some of the winning images, guided by one of the judges, of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich's 2010 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. Interested in "giving it a go"? Here are some
guides to photographing different aspects of the night sky.
posted by spock
on Sep 11, 2010 -
24 comments
Q&A with
Duncan Jones, the director of the recent Hugo winner
Moon plus Gavin Rothery - concept designer and VFX supervisor, Barrett Heathcote - visual effects editor and Hideki Arichi - art director (MLYT) (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5)
posted by fearfulsymmetry
on Sep 10, 2010 -
30 comments
Year: 2025. Mission: Save
Moonbase Alpha after critical systems were damaged by a meteor strike. A free
Steam-powered 3D-immersive game from NASA. Windows only.
posted by jjray
on Jul 8, 2010 -
44 comments
Goodnight moon;
In the dawn of the Space Age, NASA undertook to find and assemble the very best images of the Moon it could find. In a project led by the late Gerard Kuiper of the University of Chicago (later of the University of Arizona), the best telescopic plates from observatories around the world were assembled into one compilation, the Photographic Lunar Atlas (Kuiper et al., 1960, University of Chicago Press). This atlas consisted of loose-leaf, printed (lithographed) sheets of telescopic plates of the Moon, showing the surface at a variety of illumination conditions. Widely distributed, this atlas served as the basis for many early photographic studies of the Moon.
[more inside]
posted by infinite intimation
on Jun 22, 2010 -
14 comments
The Carnegie Institution for Science reports "a much higher water content in the Moon’s interior than previous studies." For decades, the moon's water content was estimated at less than 1 part per billion; the new estimates range from 64 ppb to 5 parts per million. A scientist at Washington University said, "We can now finally begin to consider the implications—and the origin—of water in the interior of the Moon.”
There's more at
NASA and the
BBC, and the full paper is available at
PNAS (PDF).
posted by Stan Carey
on Jun 15, 2010 -
21 comments
MOONWALK ONE - A surprisingly groovy look at the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in a full length documentary that contains a lot of rare and not often seen footage of the preparations and launch of the first manned mission to the moon. Warning: Also contains lots of theramins, trippy optical effects, faux bohemians and some really blowy narrative.
posted by loquacious
on Apr 23, 2010 -
22 comments
Compromise emerging for NASA's spaceflight future Since the announcement was made last month of the cancellation of Constellation (NASA's plan for returning to the Moon and Mars), the punditsphere has been ablaze with condemnation, support, and outright confusion over the future of American manned spaceflight. Keith Cowling, editor of the Nasawatch.com blog, has posted an
interesting new development that if proven right, could prove to be a compromise between those wanting NASA to get out of manned spaceflight altogether and those seeking to keep the administration in the spaceflight business.
[more inside]
posted by zooropa
on Apr 6, 2010 -
40 comments
Return to the moon?
Not likely. "President Barack Obama is essentially grounding efforts to return astronauts to the moon...".
posted by deacon_blues
on Jan 28, 2010 -
179 comments
