Tomorrow is Here

It’s fallen to me to host this week’s Carnival of Space . Sorry about the delay. It’s been a week of contrasting emotions for space exploration fans.

Neil Armstrong

Sadly, Neil Armstrong, the fist man to set foot on the Moon died on Saturday, Aug. 25, 2012, at age 82, there are a couple of tribute to him. A short one by me and one by the Urban Astronomer. There are more next week.

Other causes to stop and think this week

On the Chandra X-Ray observatory blog they are remembering that seventeen years ago this week, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar passed away.

Links Through Space asks, “Do you remember the Plank satellite?” and tells us how to build one at home.

Debunk a myth here

Panic now, the 21 December 2012 is almost upon us. People are starting to remember that we’re all supposed to meet a grisly end before long. Urban Astronomer cuts to the heart of why there’s nothing to worry about. Here is his official position.

Which is a safe position, because if he is wrong, there will no one around to tell him, “I told you so.”

While the Astroblogger takes a swing at the claim that there will be a spectacular alignment of planets over the pyramids has been racing around the intertubes.

Far and Near

A basic question of any SETI project is, “How could we detect extraterrestrial technology, even a starship in transit?”  Centauri Dreams examines the question through the lens of a 1995 paper by Robert Zubrin.

Whilst with his feet firmly on the ground, Dear Astronomer looks at  how to get the “wow” factor when doing presentations on education and public outreach gigs.

Plans and (sometimes bad) policies

The Next Big Future looks at NASA’s project to test drive robots on the Earth surface controlled from the International Space Station and it’s proposal to revive nuclear thermal space propulsion development.

Smaller Questions tells us why the NSF Portfolio Review recommended funding cut for the Green Bank Telescope is a such a bad idea and what can you do about it.

Curiosity corner

The Meridiani Journal has some beautiful new high-resolution views of Mount Sharp in Gale crater one of which I have shown here.

Cheap Astronomy releases a podcast on the Curiosity landing as recorded live from the Canberra  Deep space Communication Complex, the first place on Earth to receive the good news that Curiosity had landed safely.

Mount Sharp in Gale crater. Credit: NASA / JPL / Emily Lakdawalla

Finally

News that Ray Sanders from dearastronomer.com will be hosting a new astronomy/space/science talk show. The first episode is on August 28th at 10:00 PM Pacific. Join Ray and his co-host along with Curiosity driver Scott Maxwell, and Scott Kardel from the International Dark Sky Association. Learn more at Cosmicray.tv.

So it’s Goodbye from me and (raining again – we only had three days of summer this year) England. Curiosity on Mars is yet another reason to be happy that Tomorrow is Here.