..Expedition 13 and Iranian Space 'Tourist' Anousheh Ansari have touched down this morning at about 1:13AM. The landing was shown live on NASA - although I've not been able to view it yet I do intend to as soon as I can.
I first read about Anousheh in October's Astronomy Now and found her blog a day or so later. By this point she was halfway through her journey so I had a little catching up to do.
When I first heard that people were able to pay to see Space or visit the ISS I was a little jealous, I'll admit! But as I read on, I felt pleased to be able to share in her experience with other readers many of who were people with good intentions, hopes and dreams. I think perhaps that this is something that can be shared so well by anyone with a computer.. and without the blog we'd have had no idea how amazing the journey would be or how it feels to be weightless in the ISS. Or even what space 'smells' like. Or how you feel when you see all those sunrises and sunsets each day and our home spinning beneath you while you watch from orbit.
Anousheh's shared with us all that and more. It makes you appreciate those who work on the International Space Station and sends out messages of hope and understanding for a better future... and it sends them worldwide.
Her journal is here:
http://spaceblog.xprize.org/
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
So we have to start from somewhere!
Having already been a student for a number of years, I figured perhaps it was time to get a career rather than just having a job. Astronomy has been my hobby since I was about ten years old and after taking A level Physics & Maths at college I moved into the Astrophysics field at University.
Since getting a job I've spent a number of years with the OU dabbling with various courses, some of which I lost interest in pretty quickly. Exoplanets brought me back on track and back into astronomy and I'm about a month away from my first exam in quite a few years - but I'm not letting that hold me back!
I've always wanted to research or write. I just didn't realise it until just over a year ago. Science and Science Fiction have both always been something of a love and I entered a competition to write 50 thousand words in a month last November (over at http://www.nanowrimo.org). I managed a little over 63 thousand with 5 days to go and the only reason I stopped was that the story reached the end.
What I found fascinating was not the words that came out, although they kept coming and coming as the novel practically wrote itself, but it was more the research I did that went alongside it. I spent hours poring over Kurzweil, Sagan, Kaku and a number of other authors. I read about Technological Singularities, Type X civilisations, dyson spheres, possible habitable worlds, Greek Mythology, the Aztecs and Wikipedia, the Amazon Marketplace and Google became my greatest friends.
I'm pleased to be able (thanks to the internet), in this day and age, to research, read and wile away the hours catching up and keeping up with the things I've studied in the past. From star & galactic physics, through relativity and quantum mechanics and onto Titan, astrobiology, cryovolcanism, solar system formation and many other things besides, it seems like hardly a day goes by where there isn't something new in the news. A few days ago it was the new transiting planets WASP-1b and WASP-2b as well as the cork-density HAT-P1b, this morning I was reading about methane lakes on Titan and large-star formation.
Who knows what'll come tomorrow?
Since getting a job I've spent a number of years with the OU dabbling with various courses, some of which I lost interest in pretty quickly. Exoplanets brought me back on track and back into astronomy and I'm about a month away from my first exam in quite a few years - but I'm not letting that hold me back!
I've always wanted to research or write. I just didn't realise it until just over a year ago. Science and Science Fiction have both always been something of a love and I entered a competition to write 50 thousand words in a month last November (over at http://www.nanowrimo.org). I managed a little over 63 thousand with 5 days to go and the only reason I stopped was that the story reached the end.
What I found fascinating was not the words that came out, although they kept coming and coming as the novel practically wrote itself, but it was more the research I did that went alongside it. I spent hours poring over Kurzweil, Sagan, Kaku and a number of other authors. I read about Technological Singularities, Type X civilisations, dyson spheres, possible habitable worlds, Greek Mythology, the Aztecs and Wikipedia, the Amazon Marketplace and Google became my greatest friends.
I'm pleased to be able (thanks to the internet), in this day and age, to research, read and wile away the hours catching up and keeping up with the things I've studied in the past. From star & galactic physics, through relativity and quantum mechanics and onto Titan, astrobiology, cryovolcanism, solar system formation and many other things besides, it seems like hardly a day goes by where there isn't something new in the news. A few days ago it was the new transiting planets WASP-1b and WASP-2b as well as the cork-density HAT-P1b, this morning I was reading about methane lakes on Titan and large-star formation.
Who knows what'll come tomorrow?
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