Student

Iwill be posting about all sorts of things that i find interesting: rockets, space, chemistry, anythinf science related is fair game.

[windmill-mcgee-blog]

Looking at this is truly awe inspiring. The thought that in less than 60 years we went from launching people on top of repurposed missiles to landing a car sized robot on another planet to conduct several  different science experiments at different locations over years is mind boggling. This 0.6 inch diameter hole was drilled in Mars’ surface by the curiosity rover to collect soil samples for testing. Just picturing that VW beetle sized RC car roving around on a desolate, barren desert of a planet collecting scientific data that we won’t be able to collect ourselves for who knows how many years gives me feelings of real hope for the future of our civilization. Can’t wait to see the 2020 rover in action right alongside its cousin. 

[windmill-mcgee-blog]

Honestly I am a little disappointed by the cancellation of the Ares family of rockets.  (For those unaware the Ares 1 (shown above) and Ares V (not shown) were NASA’s answer to the end of the space shuttle era; a new way to deliver astronauts and supplies to the ISS and eventually the moon)  The concept of the rocket is enough to make me excited, a solid rocket first stage and liquid upper just isn't something you see all over the place. I think it was a very nice idea to reuse a lot of the same the same tech from the shuttle era and even a bit from Apollo. Something about the look of this rocket really flicks a switch in my head. Its just such a weird design that it really makes me wish it launched more than once. Ares (and the whole Constellation Program) was replaced by SLS, which has been pretty disappointing to say the least.  I honestly believe if Ares and CxP had been permitted to continue we would have seen a lot of progress.

It’s a bit bitter sweet really. On one hand we lost a significant chunk of both money in time developing a launch platform and plan for using the rockets, while on the other we’ve seen amazing progression in the private space industry. If Ares had continued development we definitely would not have seen as much change in the space industry. Seeing companies like SpaceX and ULA developing and demonstrating their rocket systems is really impressive and I’m honestly torn between which one I would like to see more.

Oh well, can’t change that now. I’m happy that we get to see this amazing new generation of rockets and look back on what almost was. I look forward to finally seeing SLS finally launch’ but until then I’ll continue looking at what we had in the past and what we have now.

[captain-truffles-deactivated202]

Science Book Recommendations

For the inquisitive layperson or diehard rock hound, I decided to compile a list of some of my favorite science books.  (Note: the only reason geology does not appear as a separate category is due to its encompassing nature, spanning across virtually every field mentioned.  Also, I would have included biology but the recommended titles fit better under the subset zoology.)

Astronomy

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield.

Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown.

If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … Where Is Everybody? by Stephen Webb.

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach.

Chemistry

Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersey-Williams.

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean.

Earth Science

Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner.

The Rocks Don’t Lie by David R. Montgomery.

Evolution

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.

Genome by Matt Ridley.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin.

Math

Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian.

How to Not Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg.

Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark.

Paradox by Jim Al-Khalili.

Paleontology

Dinosaurs: The Grand Tour by Keiron Pim.

Dinosaurs Without Bones by Anthony J. Martin.

The Dinosaur Heresies by Robert T. Bakker.

The Tyrannosaur Chronicles by David Hone.

Physics

Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs by Lisa Randall.

Higgs by Jim Baggot.

Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku.

The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene.

The Perfect Theory by Pedro G. Ferreira.

Warped Passages by Lisa Randall.

Psychology

Superforecasting by Phillip E. Tetlock.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

Statistics

Naked Statistics by Charles Wheelan.

Struck by Lightning by Jeffrey S. Rosenthal.

The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow.

Zoology

Beyond Words by Carl Safina.

Zoobiquity by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz.

[windmill-mcgee-blog]

Yesterday I was so focused on the golden records that I completely missed the fat that it was the 41st anniversary of the voyager 1 launch.

[Quick note: Voyager 1 (Sep. 5, 1977) actually launched after Voyager 2(Aug. 20, 1977)]

The mission for these probes was simple: visit the four giant outer planets. It was discovered that a rare (like every 176 years rare) alignment of the planets would allow a probe to use gravity assists to visit them all. In response to this news, they decided to send TWO SPACECRAFT; cause with an opportunity like this who wouldn’t?

Anyways, this post wont go into much detail about the missions or the probes themselves, just want to wish a happy belated launch-aversary to our little probe that could. Have fun during your interstellar travels.

[windmill-mcgee-blog]

First post now that I’ve finally decided on a topic I’d enjoy blogging about. I’ve always been fascinated by space and now I’ve decided to share that fascination with who ever would like to read about it. I’ll have plenty of amazing photos and updates to talk about, so keep an eye out for random posts. I probably won’t follow any sort of schedule for the time being but if this gets any sort of popularity I may put a bit more effort into it. 

For now I’ll leave you with this: the aluminum/ gold cover from the “Sounds of Earth” records found on Voyager 1 and 2. The records themselves are made of gold coated copper and are filled with greetings from 60 languages, a wide variety of music, and some natural/ man made sounds that one would find all across the planet. The brilliant minds over at NASA also included some electronic info that, if found by an intelligent species, could be converted to pictures and diagrams. The cover of the record contains a diagram of how to play the record and a pulsar map indicating Earth’s position relative to a number of pulsars, as well as a number of other engravings.

Hopefully you can appreciate both the beauty of this image as well as the monuments milestone in our history it represents. Voyager 1 remains the most distant man made object ever, and is unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon.

-Until next time

[studiowindmill]

Fun fact: South Carolina’s state tree is the Sabal Palmetto.

Another fun fact: South Carolina is the current home state of all the members within our art blog!

[studiowindmill]

A short comic I made interpreting our studio’s revival. I’ll make a colored version of this tomorrow. For now, have a good night!