My writing time this week was interrupted: I only started in the late evening, because I had my satellite TV tuned in to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where they were monitoring the landing of the latest rover on Mars, Curiosity (the best-named science craft ever); the mission itself is called the Mars Science Laboratory — accurate, if not as inspiring.
Space
Dinner with Neil Armstrong
My wife and I had the opportunity to “have dinner with” the first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong. It happened to be almost exactly* 43 years after that spectacular event. Like many kids who grew up in the 60s and watched that history being made, Armstrong was a hero to me, so when I got the opportunity to do this, I of course leapt at it.
My Highest Recommendation
Now and then I mention interesting books I’m reading, or TV shows I’m watching. I’ve found two related TV specials that are so good, I ended up saving them and showing them to my wife, who is also finding them fascinating.
A Glorious Dawn
I’m really taken with a video released on YouTube last week. It’s an Auto-Tune, which is the name given to soundtracks that use the audio plug-in of the same name. Auto-Tune was designed to correct the pitch of vocals, but clever music creators realized they could use it to make spoken word recordings musical. This is a fantastic example of the genre.
7 Minutes of Terror
“Seven Minutes of Terror” — that’s what NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where I worked for 10 years before leaving to work on True full time, went through yesterday.
Pluto Planet Day
Long-time readers know I have a special place in my heart for the planet Pluto. It’s not just that I spent 10 years working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and worked on the precursor project to the probe that’s on the way there now.
Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster
This weekend the Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed during its atmospheric re-entry after a successful 16-day mission.
Let’s Go to Pluto!
Yes, True is about weird news. More importantly, it’s about thinking, which implies a quest for knowledge and understanding. That’s most evident in my editorials; here are two of them on the same subject, starting with one from May 2002:
Art Imitating Life
I caught up this week with one of the few TV shows I’m watching — the newest Star Trek series, Enterprise.
Rocket Science?
I personally assign very great value to “job satisfaction.” I mean, I’m a space nerd — I grew up watching the astronauts skipping on the moon — and managed to get onto the engineering staff of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working 10 years there before I quit to devote full time to This is True.
Amazing Factoid
The first non-story commentary to appear in the newsletter: