Space Shuttle Columbia launch April 4, 1997 as seen from Cocoa Beach

April 4, 1997 we got to see Space Shuttle Columbia launch from the top floor of our hotel in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Reading more about the mission STS-83 it was actually cut short due to a fuel cell problem. Pretty neat that we got to see a shuttle launch during our Florida vacation, it feels like a real piece of history!



I found this video while converting my family's VHS home movie archive into digital files. It's been a huge project, much more time consuming than I originally thought. No wonder companies charge hundreds or thousands of dollars to convert and archive home movies. Sheesh!

I'm on the home stretch! It's been about 50 hours of work so far, I'm counting it as 2 years worth of Xmas presents for my mom. They're all going to be in the cloud for safe keeping, and on an external hard drive spliced into individual clips that are labeled and tagged with dates, people, and places.

It's also inspired me to start taking more video. I take a lot of photos, but I don't take much video of everyday activities and moments. I decided that 2 minute videos are the perfect length to give the future home movie viewer time to assess what is going on and what year it is so the clip doesn't end before they get their bearings.

If there's one thing I want to share after archiving all of these home movies it's this: Once us kids were in middle school, there were fewer and fewer home movies, and the movies that we do have are all of things that seemed important at the time but ultimately aren't - like dozens of jazz band performances and footage of buildings on a European tour. We can just Google facts about Big Ben, but we can't go back in time and capture those little moments of everyday mannerisms, conversations, etc.

My theory is that once us kids got to be teenagers, we didn't want to be in home movies, and band performances were sort of a legitimate excuse to film us kids who probably would have rolled our eyes at a video camera during birthday dinner. My suggestion to everyone out there is to do an annual birthday interview where the birthday person talks about what has been on their mind for that year, what seemed really important, demonstrate a hobby or give a tour of the house, what are the hot topics of that time period, what are their thoughts and interests. This is the kind of stuff that's fascinating to watch back years later.

Successful Launch of Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Test Flight

After a short delay, the first test flight of the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle successfully launched at 7:05am ET this morning! Woohoo! The impressive Delta IV Heavy rocket looks oddly flat and intimidating because the engines are all arranged in a row and not in a triangle - it's like a wall or row of silos 236 ft tall shooting up into the sky.

Orion has been a long time coming, here is a photo of the Orion training mockup from my trip to the Johnson Space Center exactly two years ago in December 2012:

My 2012 photo of the Orion training mockup at the Johnson Space Center

If you didn't see the launch live, here is the video on YouTube:

I won a day with Olympic gymnast Jonathan Horton, and spent it at the Johnson Space Center!

During the Olympics, I entered a Facebook contest through TD Ameritrade for a chance to win a day with gymnast Jonathan Horton. I've been a fan of Jon's since 2008 when I saw his positive and supportive attitude cheering for team mates in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Now, in 2012, he was the clear leader of a young team - and again one of my favorites to watch.

In October, I got an e-mail from a representative at Don Jagoda Associates informing me that I was a potential winner of the Win a Day with Olympic Gymnast Jonathan Horton contest. Potential winner? I had to clear a background check and complete some tax forms in order to be announced as the official winner. At first I thought it was a very elaborate and specific scam, but I got the forms notarized, completed the tax form, and waited a month to find out if I was, in fact, the grand prize winner.

A month later I received notification that I indeed was the grand prize winner of the sweepstakes!

Long story short, I got an itinerary saying that I would be having two meals with Jonathan Horton, along with a chance to tour his gym. The last detail on my itinerary almost knocked me out of my seat, I was going to tour Space Center Houston with my Olympic hero! Worlds were colliding as one of my favorite sports stars would be associated with one of my favorite hobbies (learning about space exploration). Awesomeness overload!

At dinner, Jon mentioned that he took an astronomy class while he was in school at Oklahoma. He said he gets blown away thinking about the universe, and the size of a nebula trillions of miles away. Later, on the tour of the space center, he was particularly impressed by the F-1 engine. We were both impressed that humans were smart enough to figure this all out, and to physically build something capable of taking humans into space. Jon also told me that his 2008 Olympic teammate, Justin Spring, is the son of a shuttle astronaut ("Woody" Spring flew on Atlantis for STS-16-B).

The overnight trip was definitely something I will never forget, and I'm grateful that I was able to share this experience with someone that I respect so much!

#NASA with @j_horton11 and @ericteske ! Jon's in heaven.
— Haley Horton (@Haley_N_Horton) December 1, 2012

Below is a brief picture scrapbook of my trip:

Chris, me, Jon, and his wife Haley on the Johnson Space Center tram tour

Chris and I in front of the touristy fake shuttle

Shuttle mission control, obviously a quiet place lately

A real space suit for training! Awesome!

Better get a lot of practice in that Soyuz capsule

A mockup of the SpaceX hatch

A mockup of the new Orion capsule that will one day bring people to space

My favorite part of the tour, a real F-1 engine (19 feet tall)

F-1 engine on the Saturn V rocket

Jon was impressed, these things push 1.5 million pounds each

A real Saturn V rocket that was ready to launch but was cut for budget reasons

A green screen tourist photo of our group!

"GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!!" and other highlights from the successful Curiosity rover landing

This is what my desktop looked like during the Mars Science Laboratory 'Curiosity' rover landing. I had NASA live on Ustream, a live simulated visualization from NASA's Eyes on the Solar System, a live G+ hangout hosted by UniverseToday.com, and of course Twitter.

"Pale blue dot" image looking over MSL's shoulder

The Eyes on the Solar System simulation was amazing, and I was impressed that everything in the visualization was to scale - the relative speeds, sizes, and distances between objects were all accurate. This visualization really reminded me that the solar system is mostly empty space, and that objects that we consider pretty significant (like entire planets) are just little specks orbiting a larger speck.

"NASA mohawk guy" was also an interesting addition to the live coverage. Not only is Bobak Ferdowsi young, edgy, and super smart - he's also mildly famous after becoming an internet sensation during the live feed. 

In the end, the successful landing was obviously the highlight of the night. The first image back was a 64x64 pixel thumbnail from a rear ground camera - something that could be transmitted quickly and could prove that the rover was working and on solid ground. The next images were larger but still low res until the 'real' cameras can be fired up. 

One of my favorite parts of the night (I loled) was the very first tweet sent out by @MarsCuriosity after landing. It was retweeted nearly 50,000 times in under an hour! Not exactly 'one small step' but equally memorable and also hilarious:

Favorite quotes from Neil deGrasse Tyson "We Stopped Dreaming" video

We Stopped Dreaming (episodes 1 and 2) are two of my favorite YouTube videos. Created by Evan Schurr, and inspired by Reid Gower's Sagan Series, the videos feature the voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson, dramatic music, and inspirational footage.



These videos really get my heart racing, out of awe and out of frustration - it's a complex emotion.

Although the videos are already compiled of different quotable Neil Tyson moments, I thought I would pull out my favorite bits for posterity:

Episode 1
"NASA got founded on the fear factor of Sputnik" 0:35

"All of this was focused on enabling people to make tomorrow come, that was a cultural mindset the space program brought upon us.... And that, in the 21st century, [is] the foundation of tomorrow's economies - and without it, we might as well just slide back to the cave because that's where we're headed right now, broke." 1:26

"I'm tired of saying this but I have to say it again: The NASA budget is 4/10 of one penny on a tax dollar. If I held up the tax dollar and I cut horizontally into it, 4/10 of one percent of its width, it doesn't even get you into the ink. So I will not accept a statement that says 'we cannot afford it'"  2:06

"The most powerful agency on the dreams of a nation is currently under-funded to do what it needs to be doing: and that's making dreams come true." 4:31

"How much would you pay for the Universe?" 4:45