mthomasapple

[mthomasapple]

How Star Trek helped NASA make better shuttle names

Gorog summarised in the memo: This group comprises millions of individuals who are deeply interested in our space programme The name “Enterprise” is tied in with the system on which the Nation’s economic structure is built. Use of the name would provide a substantial human interest appeal to the rollout ceremonies scheduled for this month in California, where the aeronautical industry is of…

[mthomasapple]

How to clean your glasses (yawn)

Daily writing promptScour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.View all responses Seriously, this is an “NBC Select” article: https://www.nbcnews.com/select/shopping/how-to-clean-your-glasses-rcna175677 I wear glasses. I have worn glasses since I was in elementary school 2nd grade — the “aviator” style made of cheap plastic that I…

[mthomasapple]

UPDATED: 80 years and counting

Nineteen years ago, my wife and I went to Hiroshima by high-speed ferry boat, on our way back from visiting her parents in Kyushu. Her father’s family comes from Hiroshima (although her father was actually born in Dairen/Dalian (大連), China) and her uncle and his family still live about an hour’s drive north of the city. (Update from 2020: We visited Hiroshima with the kids for the first time last…

[mthomasapple]

ChatGPT is frighteningly good at writing literary analysis...

🧾 Conclusion Adam’s Stepsons takes the core questions of Blade Runner and distills them into a tight, character-driven drama. It lacks the sweeping visuals of Villeneuve or the noir cityscape of Scott — but it delivers something arguably more intimate: A quiet horror — and quiet triumph — in the collapse of identity, where the artificial doesn’t just mimic life… It replaces it. Over the…

[mthomasapple]

Long time, no...

Hi, everyone. I haven’t written a blog post in a very long time. For various reasons. I’ll see if I can start posting a few entries on recent science events in a few days (for starters, four astronauts finally arrived at the ISS, the first replacements following the Boeing Starliner fiasco). But for right now, I want to follow up this short post with some analysis I got from our friend…

[mthomasapple]

Get ready for the great planetary alignment February 28th!

Note: Planets do not line up like this… The best day to see all seven major planets (yes, you read that right, all seven!) is Friday, February 28th. The link will describe (and give pictures) of where to find them all in the night sky. Finding Orion is the key to most of them. Knowing where the Pleiades are helps, too. The next time this “parade” appears will be 2040, so fingers crossed for…

[mthomasapple]

Fifteen years and counting…

Hi, everyone. I know I haven’t posted in a while now (about three months). Things happened. I’ll see if I can deal with that in a post this weekend before returning to regularly blogging about astronomy and etc. Winter is still here! (In the northern hemisphere.) Going on walks and hiking in 3C windy weather only makes hot chocolate taste that much better… ☕️

[mthomasapple]

Not “book” but “books”…

What book are you reading right now? I finished re-reading all my Usagi Yojimbo books a couple weeks ago (I’m a big Stan Sakai fan), so I got the thought that I should read his inspiration, Musashi (Sakai’s main character is an anthropomorphic bunny named Miyamoto Usagi). While I was reading Musashi, I also started a Japanese manga series about classic literature from 600 CE to the 20th…

[mthomasapple]

New study of moons of Uranus suggests life

Note: this is artwork and not an actual image The planet Uranus and its five biggest moons may not be the dead sterile worlds that scientists have long thought. Instead, they may have oceans, and the moons may even be capable of supporting life, scientists say. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgk1333k0ypo Cue the jokes in five…four…three… “So, you mean there really is life in…ah…” Note…

[mthomasapple]

Gas…stations…in…space…! ⛽️

Jas Tiruvuru, business development manager for Orbit Fab in the UK and Europe, said the company was aiming to successfully demonstrate the technology in space by 2027. “This will essentially be the first ever satellite to satellite refuelling demonstration funded here in the UK,” she said. “Once we’ve proven that we can refuel to two spacecrafts we’ll be able to unlock a huge market…

[mthomasapple]

A taurid of meteorites now…

This is over China four years ago… The Taurids meteor showers get their name because the shooting stars appear to stream from a point in the sky where the Taurus constellation is located. Taurid meteors can be seen from pretty much anywhere on the planet except the South…

[mthomasapple]

Japan launches world’s first wooden satellite

Researchers at Kyoto University who developed it hope it may be possible in the future to replace some metals used in space exploration with wood. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3qzd5ql9o The researchers argue that “if” trees could be planted on Mars… OK, just stop right there. I’m pretty sure Mars will struggle to support even grass, let alone trees. And the argument that, due to a…

[mthomasapple]

Lots of catching up to do!

Hey, everyone. It’s been a while since I posted anything. Things just got way too busy. I hope you look forward to a bunch of articles about space!

[mthomasapple]

FB is a piece of festering algorithmic garbage

Yesterday, I wrote a (what I thought was a) rather benign post about Earth’s new “mini-moon,” a tiny asteroid that will orbit us for about two months. Within hours, Faceturd flagged it as “spam.” It was blocked from my FB page because it “tried to get likes” and etc. First off…so what? Is’t the point of FB to get “likes”? Nobody sees the post otherwise, right? Second…it was about a mini-moon!…

[mthomasapple]

That’s no mo…why, yes, it is…

The scientists hope to learn about the asteroid’s surface composition and how fast it rotates, he said. Those observations could help researchers figure out its origin, which in turn could shed light on other asteroids, including ones that could be dangerous to Earth. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/mini-moon-asteroid-to-orbit-earth-temporarily-rcna172264 This is of course not the first…

[mthomasapple]

Interstellar! If only...

According to Thorne, who served as a consultant on the science of Interstellar, quantum mechanics could hypothetically explain a way to time travel via wormhole. So far, it’s a thought experiment that leads to the conclusion that you’d lose information along the way—not very…

[mthomasapple]

Chinese scientists “create” water from lunar soil

Using the new method, one metric tonne of lunar soil will be able to produce about 51 to 76 kilograms of water, equivalent to more than a hundred 500-millileter bottles of water, or the daily drinking water consumption of 50 people, the state broadcaster said. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/chinese-scientists-use-lunar-soil-produce-water-rcna167951 The soil was from the 2020 expedition,…