Howdy everyone! Just taking a break here from various projects to point out some consumer culture items helping to set a Moon mood this week. First up, is Apollo 18. Billed as “found footage” from a secret government mission to the Moon in 1974, it opens Friday around the country: … Continue reading →

Some interesting Lunar news out this last week, about some folks out in California who came up with a computer model that implied a second Moon at some point in the distant past. It was given surprisingly broad coverage in the media: ·Nature ·Space.com ·ABC Science ·Discovery News ·MSNBC ·USA … Continue reading →

Howdy everyone! Things are finally gelling in place for Moon Day this Saturday, and I have a chance to chill a bit and update everyone on what’s happening. Over a dozen exhibitors lined up (and more on the way next year): NSS of North Texas (ISS, Cislunar Space, Solar Power … Continue reading →

Howdy everyone! One of the things I do as part of the prep work for Moon Day is to put the event on as many online local calendars as I can, over 15 so far this year. Turns out one of the event calendars has a nifty countdown widget to … Continue reading →

Howdy everyone. Just taking a break from all of the NSS of NT chapter stuff, and The Moon Society stuff, and my big project for the next few weeks: Moon Day Planning has kicked into overdrive, and I’m off to a solid start. The main difference this year is that … Continue reading →

Howdy everyone! I’m safely back from the road trip to this year’s ISDC in Huntsville, AL. My agenda this year was a little more complicated than in years past: 1) Continue building the Lunar Library 2) Make concrete strides in establishing self as Gen X Moon guy 3) Not screw … Continue reading →

Howdy everyone! My birthday presents to myself finally arrived! I’ve got to say that set 3368, the Space Launch Complex, looks like a phenomenal build. Love the rocket design. The fairing can hold either an astronaut in a rocket sled, or a satellite. There’s a crawler to carry the rocket … Continue reading →

Поехали! Fifty years ago, on April 12th, 1961, at 09:07 hrs Moscow time, the Vostok 1 crewed capsule launched from the Baikonur space center carrying one Yuri Gagarin into orbit. It was on that day that humanity began a new age, the space age, and those born after that date … Continue reading →

Once again, I managed to sweet-talk my way into the recent Awards Luncheon for the Dallas Regional Science & Engineering Fair. Awesome, as always. The choice of introductory speakers was rather interesting, one Misty Giles, who is apparently not only an SMU engineering alumna, but was also part of the … Continue reading →

Many years ago, while living in Manhattan, I was trying to figure out ways to meet girls. I don’t really drink alcohol (except as the occasion merits, like a wedding or gala), so bars were pretty much out of the question. I don’t get to do church socials, so there … Continue reading →

Kia Ora, y’all! Suddenly, writing a debrief of my trip to New Zealand, and the acquisitions for the Lunar Library, has become much more difficult. My heart is rent by the devastation there, a beautiful city I had left not even hours before after a wonderful week. This was my … Continue reading →

Kia Ora, y’all. I just wanted to give a quick update to those who care that I was not in Christchurch when the quake hit. My plane left Christchurch at 11:35, Rob & Lisa having dropped me off with plenty of time to spare. Both are alright, as is their … Continue reading →

Howdy all! Back when I was a youngster, we would drive every other year from Texas up to Buffalo, NY to visit the grandparents. One of my Dad’s favorite phrases, being a military guy, was that we would be hitting the road at “Oh dark thirty” (and we did). To … Continue reading →

Waaaaah! About a month and a half ago, I noted that LEGO had a splash page up at www.legospace.com hinting at some new space-themed LEGO sets to come out around the end of January. Real space stuff, like the sets they had out around the end of the 1990s, not … Continue reading →

Howdy everyone! Having had my identity stolen, I tend to be a bit cagey about giving out private information, and take extreme measures to try to safeguard it so that I don’t have to deal with another instance of someone stealing $50,000 of stuff in my name. I’m also rather … Continue reading →

Howdy everyone! Some of y’all might be interested in an article I got posted over at The Space Review. It’s not my first article there, but it has been a while. A couple of weeks ago there was an article about EML-1 and one of the questions that kept getting … Continue reading →

Not. According to the Associated Press (q.v. also NASAWatch), Buzz Aldrin has decided to sue that beloved icon of youth, the Topps trading card company, for having profited from the use of a photographic image of Buzz on the Moon. This is, of course, retarded (in that it will hamper, … Continue reading →

Howdy everyone! NSS of North Texas had its annual Holiday Party this last Sunday, and it turned out too be quite productive. We’ve had quite a year in 2010, and this was the time where we lay out some projects for 2011. We were joined by several members of the … Continue reading →

Howdy everyone! Back when I was working in NYC, one of the fun features of the holiday season was being able to pop out at lunch and check out the decorated windows at the major department stores. While at NatWest in the Empire State Building, Macy’s was just a block … Continue reading →

The holiday season is rapidly approaching, and so your Lunar Librarian finds himself pondering what he’s going to get the nephews, and the godkids, and my Buckner Bear this year. Also to be considered is space toys for the NSS of North Texas Santa Space Toy Drive. Since 2005, the … Continue reading →

Howdy, everyone! Just got word that applications are now being accepted for the 2011 NASA Academy, and they certainly have more programs available than when I worked program support at the 2002 Goddard Academy. Back then it was basically us and the Ames Astrobiology Academy. For those unfamiliar with the … Continue reading →

Welcome everyone to this, the Dodransbicentiquasihebdomadibus Carnival of Space. Dodransbicentiquasihebdomadibus is my bad linguistics and butchered Latin for “175th sort-of-weekly”, and it sets the quasi-silly tone for this week’s Carnival. We’re always happy to host the Carnival of Space here at Out of the Cradle. I’m Ken, the Lunar Librarian … Continue reading →