Just another small step

I was sad to hear last night of the death of one of the great heroes of the last century.  That's an odd sensation really, considering that Neil Armstrong was such an unknown hero to most of us.  We knew what he achieved, but since then he has kept out of the limelight very effectively.

The passing of another hero, Neil Armstrong.

I asked two 14 year-olds who Neil Armstrong was.  One of them knew the right answer, but only revealed it after the other said "is he that guy who was on steroids?"

On an even lighter note, read the amusing urban myth about Neil Armstrong and Mr Gorsky here.

Sunday Selection 8

Continuing a new series where there is little additional content from me, but I simply share a few items, new and old, that have pleased me this week.  As almost every week, I see items on the web that I find interesting, amazing or  or amusing.  This disjointed ramble might be on any of my normal topics - or on other topics entirely.  My thanks go to the friends who helped me to find them.

First: An interview with Bertrand Russell.  It is not very long but it is his message to the people of the future.

Podcast of the week: Skeptics with a K, episode 78.  You might love or hate the style of this podcast, but I'm a keen listener.  The three presenters from the Merseyside Skeptics Society have a certain laddish charm and they have a knack for finding interesting topics.  Sometimes they start into a story that appears somewhat tangential (as in the surprisingly disgusting one about clearing out a cupboard in this episode), but don't give up too early!  They always conclude with an interesting learning point.  In this episode they also celebrate the legal difficulties that are being experienced by homeopaths in UK this year, and I was glad to hear that 2 of the 3 presenters were also not great fans of the Olympics.

Quote of the week: 
“When Muslim parents hate their host culture so much that they will kill a child who seems to embrace it, then they are guilty of intolerance – the kind that non-Muslims are wary of showing, lest they be branded racist, or bigoted.” 
Wow! Something sensible from Cristina Odone, in the Telegraph

Tweet of the week:
If the Bible was a good morality guide, we'd not need the Declaration of Human Rights. Humanity: Higher morals than God since 1948. #Atheism from @CrispySea

Atheist news of the week:  How Christopher Hitchens fell out with Gore Vidal

Exciting science of the week: The landing of Curiosity, the new rover on Mars was much more exciting than anything that the Olympics had to offer.  Amazingly, this picture was snapped by another satellite that was orbiting Mars.

Curiosity snapped on its chute, descending to Mars.

See the pictures that it is collecting every day at this link.  I'm sure that there is a lot of good stuff to come from this amazing project!

And finally . . .

Favourite places: Mars (Is this cheating?) 

This image, from here, shows how Curiosity landed there this week.

Curiosity's surprising landing on Mars (from here).

Tracks on the moon

You may have heard rumours that the American astonauts never landed on the moon.  Certainly some of the stories are convincing at first sight.  Distrusting governments a little, as many of us do, it is tempting to believe that there is no smoke without fire.  At one time I found some of the arguments more convincing than others.  Pictures like this seem like obvious fakes.

Crosshairs hidden behind a flapping flag - allegedly!

As time goes on though, it become increasingly surprising that nobody has spoken out about the apparent fraud.  OK - they might have been 'silenced'.  But all of them?  How many people would have had to know what was going on to perpetrate fraud on that scale.  Surely someone with nothing to lose would have spoken out by now.

Besides that, nobody could possibly believe that the launch of all those Saturn 5 rockets was faked.  And launching a machine of that sort of size into orbit must have been one of the hardest aspects of the missions.

It would be sad if the conspiracy theories were true wouldn't it?  Photos like this might help to restore your faith, if you ever doubted the veracity of the moon landings.  Over the next few years it would be surprising if we don't get many more pieces of evidence like this, as other countries succeed in putting probes into lunar orbit, with ever increasing camera resolution, and ever more reason to wish to embarrass USA in the event that the tracks are not where they are supposed to be.

Tracks left on the moon by Apollo 12.

You can get pictures of all the landing sites, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at this amazing web site.  e.g.  Apollo 11, Apollo 12,  Apollo 14,  Apollo 15,  Apollo 16,  Apollo 17.

The moon hoax conspiracy theorists would have had a field day if someone had photographed the landing point for Apollo 13! 

Gold medal for Curiosity

The Curiosity rover has landed successfully on Mars.  Its more exciting than the Olympics!  This is how it did it.

First view of Martian surface from Curiosity

More new from here!

Curiosity about Mars

Within the next few hours, NASA's latest mission to Mars will either succeed gloriously or fail horribly, as the 900kg 'Curiosity' rover attempts to land on the red planet.

Missions to Mars have been notoriously difficult and it is a surprising fact that the Soviet Union, for all its success with missions to Venus, never successfully landed a functioning craft on Mars or its moons.  (Strictly speaking, Mars3 functioned for 20 seconds in 1971 before 'disappearing'.)  Even in recent years more missions seem to have failed than succeeded.  The British rover called Beagle was lost on landing, the Russian probe Phobos Grunt never left earth orbit, and crashed ignominiously back to earth.  Not many years ago an American Mars mission with a forgotten name was lost (allegedly) because different parts of the project were working in different units, (metres and feet).

Even as recently as 16th July, NASA revealed that it might have difficulty getting the Odyssey satellite into the best position to observe the landing of Curiosity, building the tension further by making Earth-bound observers wait a little longer for the news, good or bad.

However, the omens are improving, with NASA's two little rovers still exploring the surface of Mars.  Spirit and Opportunity have been notable successes, with the latter just passing 3000 Martian days (sols) of operation, covering 21 miles.

Even the results from Viking 1 and Viking 2 - exciting memories from the 1970s when space was still the final frontier - are being examined again to try to decide whether they show signs of microbial life.  What we would have given in 1976 to see images of the quality available free to all of us today!

Curiosity, nearing the surface.

Shortly the huge new rover, Curiosity, will descend to the surface, as you can see on the almost incredible video feature on Sunday Selection 3.

Curiosity's final descent

Hopefully the final stage of the descent involves being lowered on cables by a rocket powered mother ship.

One thing is more or less certain.  Curiosity will reach the Martian surface.

We can only hope that it will reach it intact and that it will last as long as its recent predecessors.


Morning update:  It made it successfully!