Long life to Sally Ride Science

Sally Ride passed away this week. The world has lost a great star and role model. I was very saddened by the news.

I didn’t know her personally, but I met her once at UC Irvine when her company “Sally Ride Science” had a special event on campus. There were seminars, she gave a talk/slideshow about her life as an astronaut, and of course, she signed autographs. She was very nice and patient, and she was in fact inspirational.

I love space exploration, so I left the event especially happy to have been able to meet her and to have an autographed picture. But I also left the event impressed and pleased to see how she was using her fame for such a noble cause: to encourage and to inspire young girls to go the non traditional way, ie. to study in science, engineering and mathematics.

I have no doubt that a lot of young kids were and are positively influenced by the “Sally Ride experience” and that it will continue … Long life to Sally Ride Science.

Getting Closer and Closer to Space Tourism

Virgin Galactic just unveils their commercial spaceship. They announced that as early as 2011, the vehicle should have passed all the battery of tests required to bring civilians, like you and me, to space...yahoo!! It will be a 2.5hour trip, with however only 5 minutes of weightlessness; it's short but that's a start.

Kids!! Buzz Lightyear needs your help!!

NASA has launched a contest to design a mission patch for Buzz Lightyear. Buzz just came back from a 15 months stay on the Space Station; he really has a fortunate career... To commemorate the event, Mike Fincke and Buzz Aldrin were given the privilege of parading on Main Street USA at Walt Disney World. Buzz Ligthyear is an exclusive member of the "space jet set" :)

The winner will get a tour of the Kennedy Space Center, and of course, win a trip to Walt Disney World. The winner might be allowed to have an experiment conducted on the Space Station... it makes you wish you were still a kid...

In free fall without a net - Cirque du Soleil in space

Canada has currently its first space tourist visiting the space station: the founder of Cirque du Soleil. For someone associated to a circus, Guy Laliberté will hold the record for the longest free fall without a net... yahoo!!

Send your name to the Moon

NASA announces that we can send our name to the Moon with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. A database on a microchip will carry the names. Having your name in the database includes the possibility of printing a certificate. If you are interested in sending your name, please visit http://www.nasa.gov/lro before June 27.

More Space Debris

It’s been established for a while that something had to be done about the growing number of space debris... man made space debris. I find it astonishing that after all these years, the course of action for taking care of a defective satellite is shooting it down. They say that destroying the satellite at such a low altitude will minimize the amount of generated space debris. I guess they assume that not much of the debris will “fly up”.
It is obviously not an environment friendly decision … but most probably the most cost efficient way of dealing with the problem, making sure nobody else will put their hands on the satellite.