FRIDAY SURPRISE: Space - the final frontier. But only if you market it.
Friday, March 19, 2010 Filed in:
Friday
Surprise!, History
While you may not be familiar with her work, Megan Prelinger has been busy chronicling America’s space initiatives, focusing on how they were sold to the public. She’s put together a great book: "Another Science Fiction,” which is largely a collection of advertisements for space contractors during the Cold War.
SImultaneously recruiting employees while dangling the lure of space exploration to the masses, these ads ran in such magazines as LIFE and National Geographic. I remember many of them, but Prelinger's book is the first to collect them and show how vital they were in shaping a new vision of space.
In this must-read interview at WIRED, Prelinger talks about the impact of space advertising, what could have been bigger than Apollo, and how countercultural utopias figured into the space race. Fascinating.
-=[ Grant ]=-
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FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Final Frontier.
Friday, January 08, 2010 Filed in:
History, Friday
Surprise!
Recognize this?
Yes, that's the famous Apollo 8 picture titled "EarthRise." Shot in 1968, it became an icon of America's space program. There are others, however.
Air & Space magazine has put together a superb display of NASA's most famous photos. See how many you recognize.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Morse code.
The LIFE website this week unveiled a photo retrospective of Project Mercury, America's first human spaceflight program. If you look at the picture captions, you'll notice one name on most of them: Ralph Morse. There's a good reason for that.
Ralph Morse was a staffer at LIFE (and later TIME) when he was assigned to cover a press conference in Washington in 1959. That event was the announcement of the Project Mercury astronauts. Sensing the long term importance of the announcement, Morse contacted his editor and told him that there would be a lot of public interest in these men. He suggested that the magazine assign someone permanently to NASA, which was then less than a year old. Morse got the job.
It was a good choice; Morse had already been with LIFE for over a decade, bringing back some of the most well known pictures in their archives. NASA was a fledgling agency, and Morse had gotten himself in on the ground floor of what would become the Space Race.
Over the next couple of decades, Morse would become an insider at NASA. He got exclusive access, and was even allowed to place his cameras in restricted areas his competition at NEWSWEEK couldn't even dream of. Along the way, he produced some of the most iconic images of the various NASA projects.
It all started at that press conference, where an idiot reporter (some things never change) asked the astronauts which of them expected "to come back alive." Morse grabbed this shot of the astronauts showing their mettle:
Some of his shots were very well known...
...while others weren't:
All of them, though, came from the camera of an inventive genius whose enthusiasm for his job knew no bounds. Were it not for his eye, his ingenuity, and his nose for news, we wouldn't have this great visual record of our nation's greatest achievements. George Hunt, at one time LIFE's Managing Editor, said “if LIFE could afford only one photographer, it would have to be Ralph Morse.”
Ralph is now 92, but unfortunately for us gave up photography some years ago.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: A view to a thrill.
Friday, October 09, 2009 Filed in:
Friday
Surprise!, Completely
irrelevant
When I first started college, my ambition was to design optical systems for spy satellites. No, I'm not kidding, that's really what I wanted to do! That didn't work out, but I'm still fascinated with the idea of photographing the earth from space. I like seeing what familiar things look like from a very high vantage point, and you can't get higher than that!
Here's one, for example. Can you guess what/where this is?
The answer, along with a huge collection of other spectral composite Landsat 7 images.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Cassini, but not Oleg.
In 1997, NASA launched the Cassini spacecraft to study the planet Saturn. It finally reached the ringed planet in 2004, and started sending back some positively amazing images. The craft continues to work perfectly, and as a result the mission has been extended to 2010.
See more of these incredible pictures.
A quick synopsis of the craft and mission.
The Official Cassini website.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Hubbleing.
I've written about the Hubble space telescope here and here, but I just could resist sharing this gallery of extraordinary Hubble images.
Take this one, for instance:
A nebula in the form of a hollow tube. What does it look like from inside? Sadly, we'll probably never know. In the meantime, Hubble can show us the outside, and generate wonder at what the rest of the universe holds. Not bad for a day's work, eh?
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Hey, buddy, gotta light?
Friday, December 12, 2008 Filed in:
Friday
Surprise!, Completely
irrelevant
Over 400 years ago, Tycho Brahe (great astronomer, bad swordsman) observed a bright light in the sky. He watched it for a fortnight, coined the term "nova", wrote his first book about it, and decided to go into astronomy full time.
It wasn't a good way to make a living in those days - telescopes not having been invented yet, which made it a little like deciding to become a rock star before the electric guitar and LSD were available - but luckily enough his family was rich and he could afford such silliness.
His observations, though, were far from fanciful. Modern technology gives us a peek at what he saw in 1572:
Read more about it.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The world's biggest Roman Candle.
I've written before of my appreciation for the mighty Saturn V rocket. It was, for my generation, perhaps the singular embodiment of American achievement. It showed the world what we were capable of doing when we set our mind to it, in a most spectacular fashion. (Quaint patriotism? Perhaps. I'm not normally prone to such things, but the launch of a Saturn V was always a huge event when I was a kid, and occasionally I miss the "old days." Somehow the Oprah Show isn't on the same level of accomplishment, but many people in this country apparently believe it to be!)
The Saturn V - the largest rocket ever made, and the crowning glory of Dr. Werner von Braun - celebrated its 41st birthday this week. It didn't need any candles, being able to provide fireworks all by itself!
Here it is, November 9, 1967, just before coming to life for the very first time. Happy (belated) Birthday, Saturn V!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Out, damned spot!
Friday, September 26, 2008 Filed in:
Friday
Surprise!, Completely
irrelevant
The only total solar eclipse I've ever seen was in 1979. I was a high school senior and a serious science buff (did that make me a geek or a nerd? I've never been totally sure.) The solar eclipse was a big deal, being the first visible in the Pacific Northwest since 1918.
It was fascinating to watch the solar shadow run across the landscape, plunging our high school into darkness for those few minutes - then just as quickly receding to leave us in daylight again. It was easy to see how primitive peoples could be scared out of their skins by such an event!
It left me wondering, though - what did it look like from space? Thanks to the Mir space station, we can see.
Read more about this picture at NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: There's something out there
Those of a certain age will remember when, with great fanfare, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched. If you remember the event, you'll also remember a few weeks later it was revealed that the main mirror had a fatal flaw, and speculation abounded that the $1.5 billion telescope (a lot of money back in 1990) would be nearly useless.
That was, however, until the Space Shuttle got up there and repairs were made. Today it's all ancient history, as the repaired Hubble continues to send us some of the most amazing images ever taken of space.
The HST also makes some interesting discoveries. Just recently it was looking deep into space and captured an image of something. I say "something" because scientists can't figure out what it is - it just suddenly appeared in the middle of nowhere, then a few months later just as mysteriously disappeared.
(Cue Twilight Zone theme.)
Read about it here.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Up, up and away!
I've previously mentioned my appreciation for the work that NASA has done over it's 50-year history. NASA grew up right along with me - or me with it - and NASA was always doing the exciting stuff boys of that era were smitten by: Astronauts. Fast planes. Rockets. The Moon.
(It wasn't just spectacle, though; NASA was the catalyst for technological progress that continues to be felt today. A surprising number of the things we now take for granted can be traced directly back to some NASA project.)
We learned about the exploits of the engineers, technicians and astronauts through NASA-supplied pictures in the magazines of the day. My early interest in science was kindled by those pictures, and some of them I still remember.
NASA documented everything, but not all of their photos were of general interest. A large percentage of their images were never seen by the general public because the media was understandably reluctant to publish anything of interest only to nerds. Through the magic of the internet, however, we now have ready access to some of those great pictures.
The agency has launched a new site just for NASA images. You can search or browse and download your selected pictures, drawings, and illustrations - some of them of quite high resolution. You'll find lots of astronomical images, of course, but you'll find all kinds of other things too.
Two of my favorites from the 1969 launch of Apollo 11, taking the first men to the moon:
Saturn V rocket FTW!
If you're a science buff like me, you can spend large amounts of time on their site. I recommend that you not try this a) at work, or b) when your significant other expects you to be paying attention to him/her/the kids/household chores/your dinner guests. You have been warned!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: To boldly go...
When I was a wee lad, America was at the forefront of space exploration. By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, we'd recovered from the shock of the Soviets beating us into space, and had responded in a big way with Gemini and Apollo programs.
In those days, our grade school classes would literally come to a halt as we gathered around a television set to watch a liftoff or a splashdown. The mighty Saturn V rockets - spewing a fireball that remains unequalled for sheer excitement - would take our astronauts into space for yet another thrilling mission. Landing men on the moon was our crowning achievement, watched by just about everyone in the country.
Space flights were national events on a scale that I haven't seen since - and probably never will again. The SuperBowl and American Idol Finals may draw larger audiences, but in terms of captivating our collective conscious, of instilling pride in our country and what we were capable of doing, they will ever equal the NASA of the mid 20th century.
NASA has put together a little retrospective of their first 50 years, using photos that have rarely been seen publicly. If you are a child of the '50s or '60s, this will bring back stirring memories of what we briefly referred to as Cape Kennedy.
-=[ Grant ]=-
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The blog about revolvers, training, self-defense, and shooting in general (along with an occasional surprise!)
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