The Fourth Giant

Earth’s neighbor, Mars has been getting a lot of attention lately. NASA launched a rover called Curiosity last year. As of this very second that you are reading this it is currently on Mars and exploring the sandy surface. Previously, before Curiosity even got to Mars there were three other rovers that were there before it. The very first one was called Sojourner (part of the Mars Pathfinder), which landed on Mars in the late 90s. It was the smallest of the rovers sent to mars. Then NASA sent too rovers to Mars at the same time. One called Spirit, the other Opportunity. These two landed on the surface of Mars in mid 2000. In total, four rovers have been sent to Mars by the United States. However, what do people know of Mars as of right now?

            Some generic facts about Mars is that it’s known for being the fourth planet in our solar system. It is also acknowledged as the red planet because of its reddish glow. One year on mars is about twice as long as it is here on Earth, 322 days longer to be exact. Mars is smaller than the Earth but twice as large as Earth’s moon.

            What most people don’t know about Mars is that it has an axis tilt of about 25 degrees. Earth’s tilt is around 23 degrees. So this means that Mars is able to have seasonal changes in its atmosphere just like Earth (NASA 4). However, Mars’ atmosphere isn’t nearly as strong as Earth and so it’s not able to block out most of the radiation from the sun.

            Now why can’t we live on Mars? It seems to have a lot of characteristics as our home planet, but there seems to be only sands and rocks there. Well, what you have to think about too is that it’s so far away. It takes about 9 months to travel there and 9 months is a long time to do nothing but wait in space. We would need a way to create a bubble where air can be stored. We would need fertile soil in order to make food or even to raise animals. With the technology that we have it’s still just too risky to try and live there. Scientists have always talking about inhabiting Mars but as of right now it’s just not possible. However, there is always a possibility it could happen. That is why we have rovers exploring the planet so we can increase our knowledge about Mars and prepare for future expeditions.

My reasoning is done for now.

This is BE#5

Signing out…

Lightness in Darkness

As I walked outside last night to go to my car I stopped and looked up. I saw the blackened night sky, and I thought to myself what it would be like if I could be up there. Space to me has always been such an incredible part of my life. No matter who you are, if you see sky then you can see space. We are all connected to it and it’s been with us since the beginning of time. What you see at night today is the same dark sky that the greatest conqueror in the Roman empire, Julius Caesar saw over 2000 years. Space is the only thing on this planet that humankind can all look at simultaneously. The incredible vast night sky filled with stars and the moon is apart of our life everyday.

When I was young I used to have a trampoline that I would jump on until the sun went down and the stars came out. Those days are ones that I miss being able to do because I was so carefree. I would just spread myself out on the trampoline and look up in the sky and see these beautiful stars. Some shined brighter than others and some were more gathered in one spot. I always thought to myself that I wanted to explore that darkness. I wanted to be the light that would guide others into everlasting universe. I wanted to be an astronaut to explore the moon, which has been one of my favorite objects of all time.

The moon is a remarkable entity. It has different shades to it from the full moon of shining the brightest, to the disappearing new moon when not a single part of the moon can be visible to the naked eye. It has an effect on some of the Earth’s elements like the ocean. When the moon is full, or close to the planet its gravity tends to make the ocean tides rise. I’ve even heard that it can lift the spirits of some people and change the way they feel. I’d say this happens to me sometimes because when I know the moon is present in the sky I feel like I’m being guided and watched over. The moon to me represents purity with its striking white-cloaked surface. It does have some beat up spots on it, but who doesn’t get scars?

As strangely as it sounds the moon is an inspiration to me. Whenever I feel like I’m troubled I just go outside and spend a few minutes looking up into the sky, and the moon never fails me to shine. It’s a part of everyone’s lives and apart of space. With that note I hope you look up into the sky tonight and ask yourself what do you find most fascinating about it.

It’s my turn to vanish for a little while.

This is BE#4

Signing out…

That's One Small Step for "a" Man, and One Giant Leap for Mankind

While I've been browsing around and listening to what's been going on about space I've noticed people have been talking about Neil Armstrong's famous quote. For those of you who don't know Neil Armstrong is, he the first astronaut to walk onto the moon. On July 20th, 1969 Armstrong was able to land Apollo 11(the space aircraft used to go to the moon at the time) on the moon making him the first man to successfully complete the first manned lunar landing(Strauss). When he stepped out of the space craft and began to set foot onto the moon he made one of the most famous quotes in history. He said, "That's one small step for a man, and one giant leap for mankind."

Now if you go to the link and watch the video most of you will think to yourself, "Wait? he never mentioned the "a" part?" That is true. In the video and audio files that NASA has, it seems like Armstrong is saying, "for man" instead of, "for a man." Many people like to argue about this, but you have to think logically. Why would someone intelligent as him mess up on saying some words?  The thing is back then technology wasn't as great as today and so you would have some static. Well the static just happened to occur when he said "a." Also, I want you to break down the sentence of the words he said. That's one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind. Let's take the first part of the sentence before the break. That's one small step for man is referring to all of man. Now the second part he says, one giant leap for mankind. This part is also referring to man or in other words, mankind. It wouldn't make any logical sense for him to say both parts about all of man. Moving forward we can put the new sentence together to make it more logical. That's one small step for a man, and one giant leap for mankind. Doesn't that sound a lot better and makes more sense? To sum it all up, Armstrong's famous quote mystery has now been solved.

My role is complete
This is BE#3
Signing out...

Works Cited

Strauss, Gary. "Neil Armstrong, First Man on the Moon, Dies." USA Today. Gannett, 
         26 Aug. 2012. Web. 04 Sept. 2012. <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/
         story/2012-08-25/neil-armstrong- astronaut-obit/57312732/1>.

YouTube. Dir. NASAexplorer. YouTube. YouTube, 16 July 2009. Web. 04 Sept. 2012
          <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Sm4kTUGCc>.

The Beginning from Darkness

Space has been around longer than you could even imagine. Billions of billions of years have gone by since the beginning of darkness. Scientists believed the making of the universe was due to a extraordinary phenomenon, the Big Bang. Here's what Yuki D. Takahashi, a 3^rd year undergraduate student at California Institute of Technology said,

According to the big bang theory, the universe began by expanding from an infinitesimal volume with extremely high density and temperature. The universe was initially significantly smaller than even a pore on your skin. With the big bang, the fabric of space itself began expanding like the surface of an inflating balloon – matter simply rode along the stretching space like dust on the balloon's surface. The big bang is not like an explosion of matter in otherwise empty space; rather, space itself began with the big bang and carried matter with it as it expanded. Physicists think that even time began with the big bang.

 Now lets think about this for a minute. Back when who knows when nothing even existed. The area at which we occupy right now doesn't exist. The moon was never there or even the planets. Then all of a sudden from a tiny point from which everything was contained, it just burst. Everything started to expand rapidly and elements were being created. The galaxy is still expanding and space itself is right above our heads. In fact, around 50 years ago the first man went into space.

Yuri Gagarin was the first man to every go into space. It happened on April 12, 1961. He was a Russian astronaut and the shuttle that made it possible for him to reach outer space was called the Vostok 1. "The Vostok was a spherical capsule, designed to eliminate changes in center of gravity," said in an article written by Amanda Schupak. From that day on, space started to change drastically(around the Earth). The U.S. recently shut down the shuttle program of NASA but Russia continues to send people to space. 

I've explored enough of the history today and it's time for me to go.
This is BE#2
Signing out...  



Works Cited

Schupak, Amanda. "6 Surprising Facts About Yuri Gagarin's First Spaceflight." Fox News. FOX News Network, 11 Apr. 2011. Web. 01 Sept. 2012. <http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/11/6-surprising-facts-human-spaceflight/>.

Takahashi, Yuki D. "Big Bang: How Did the Universe Begin?" 
            Big Bang: How Did the Universe     Begin? N.p., 2000. Web. 01 Sept. 2012.                                          
            <http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~yukimoon/BigBang/BigBang.htm>.

Broadcasting Straight from Earth

This is Kevin McAllister from the NVCC. I've recently been assigned a mission, but not just any mission. I am to blog for the next 16 weeks. I'm not sure what dangers may lie ahead, or if I'll be able to accomplish this mission to appease my commander. But I will do everything that I can to survive...

I was volunteered for this mission. Why? Because it was something I had to do before I could progress further into my education. At first I was worried about how to blog or what to blog about. Then as I sat there and thought about it more I started to think what blogging really is. To me it is about expressing your feelings, your thoughts, your views on a topic. After looking up some reports on this mission that previous candidates have completed I thought to myself what would be a topic that really interested me and that could be an endless discussion. Endless. Something that goes on and on. Infinite. What comes to your mind? Well for me it was space.

Space is an important part of our life. Without it, many things wouldn't be possible today. Your NFL, NHL, soccer, and all sorts of other channels from your satellite dish wouldn't work. The intelligence committee wouldn't be able to gather as much intel on enemies as well. Cell phones wouldn't work well and you wouldn't be able to text anymore. Just about every electronic technology out there has some sort of space satellite that it uses to get information from one side of the world to the other. This is why I dedicated my time to talk about space.

My goal is to make space affect you. I want to make you really think about what goes on out there. I want you to visually make yourself on a planet and how it would look in your eyes. What might the ground feel like, the loneliness of being somewhere no one else has been or is, take into the consideration that there is a possibility for you to be standing where you're imagining because it isn't science fiction, it's physically there and real. I'm not really good on words at trying to convince you as if I were to talk about it with you in person but, I'm going to put as much heart into my writing so you can feel the intensity of space.

It's time for me to log off.
This is BE(blog entry) #1
Signing off....