Asteroids and Dingers

BE A HERO: See this man? He's trying to save the world. Seriously. No superhero costume or comic book series needed. 

Meet physicist Ed Lu. He's a former NASA astronaut, and full time asteroid hunter. 

Last night we had the pleasure of meeting Lu at The Museum of Flight. He's co-founder of the B612 Foundation, a group that (for reals!) is trying to save the earth from killer asteroids. How? By placing an asteroid tracking telescope ("The Sentinel") in space to track asteroids headed our way, in hopes of changing their trajectory before they can take us out. 

I'll let the kids tell you a bit more about it. CJ's up first: 

Sentinel is a space observatory currently being developed by Ball Aerospace and the B612 Foundation. Sentinel's mission is to track around 90% of undiscovered asteroids in the solar system so that we can be more prepared for asteroid crashes. Asteroid crashes tend to happen every 100 years, but that does not mean that it always will happen every 100 years, in fact, there might not even be one for several centuries, or it might happen tomorrow.

The B612 Foundation is named after the asteroid that the Little Prince supposedly lived on, otherwise known as B612. Sentinel is claimed to be accurate to the point where if there was a piece of charcoal 10 million miles away from Sentinel, Sentinel would be able to spot it. Sentinel refers to a sentry or guard.

And here's Annabelle's report:

The B612 foundation is, well, a foundation. But B612 is working to... (drumroll please!) deflect giant asteroids away from Earth! The foundation is named after the asteroid The Little Prince lives on, B612. One thing that B612 foundation wants you to know is that asteroids are NOT RARE! A large asteroid impact happens around ~100 years, but this does NOT mean it WILL happen once every 100 years, there might not even be a asteroid at all, or there could also be two asteroids this week! The Sentinel mission will be on a Venus-like orbit around the sun, ensuring we catch asteroids both in front of Earth and behind, and it will warn us if it spots an asteroid! In fact, Sentinel is SO accurate, that it can spot a piece of charcoal from tens of thousands of miles away! Sentinel and B612 will be key items in our quest to defend the earth!

The asteroid hunting isn't just pie in the sky talk. B612 plans to launch their telescope in 2018. It's being built by the same people who constructed the amazing Kepler telescope, Ball Aerospace. Lu said there are many elements of the scope that are similar to Kepler's, which saves the mission some money. He also credited Elon Musk for offering a "friends and family discount," launching the telescope on a Falcon 9 rocket. Go SpaceX!

At the end of his talk, Lu told the kids in the audience he had a special message for them. "Together, we can do big things," he declared.  

After the presentation, there were absolutely no formal autograph or photos, but the kids didn't hesitate to (politely) ambush him after his talk anyway. 

Lu loved CJ's shirt (it read 'Save the planet, it's the only one with baseball'). He was kind enough to sign something for the kids, too. 

It's a night - and a mission - we won't soon forget.

TO BE: Today marked Shakespeare's 450th birthday. Before I told the kids that, I gave them clues about whose bday it was. When I said "he wore a funny collar," Annabelle immediately yelled, "Shakespeare!"

The kids watched a BrainPOP video about The Bard, took a test, about the video, and then I told them to write a sonnet (14-line poem). 

Bee's sonnet: 
Shakespeare was a poet
a playwright, no doubt about it
romance and tragedy
history and comedy
he had his very own style of art
his audience laughed
cried and more
once Shakespeare opened his playwrighting door
all his plays were fun and inspiring
exciting, lovely, and for his rivals, hindering
he had a great legacy
inspiring trillions
with crowds of millions
did Shakespeare

CJ's sonnet

William Shakespeare was his name
Writing plays which are still performed to date
He did very well at life's game
Proved by the fact that Romeo & Juliet were mates
He was a very intelligent man
Oh, I just love what he wrote
He could always open the can
No matter what happened, he would stay afloat
His funerary monument is in Stratford-Upon-Avon
Hearing of those things made me cry
For all of that news made me think "this is wrong!"
That the three letters Shakespeare had were die
Goodbye, William Shakespeare
For your story has made me shed a tear

GOING YARD: We went to the Mariners matinee today. The team was on an 8-game skid. No big deal, right? ;)

They were looking every bit that bad for most of the game, down 3-0 going into the 7th. In the bottom of 7, the Ms Kyle Seager came to the plate. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a big Seager fan. He plays an OK short, but I get frustrated with his performance (or lack thereof) at the plate (because clearly I could do better, snort). So, Seager is up and he's down two strikes and calls time out and steps out of the box and I say to Christian, "He's trying to decide whether he wants to go down swinging or be caught looking."

Turns out my statement was MAGIC! Seager immediately steps back into the box and hits a 2-run home run. SWEET! I take back everything I ever said about him. :)

Until the bottom of 9. By that time, we'd made our way from our third-level, last row seats and were standing behind home plate. Robinson Cano (named after Jackie Robinson, BTW) was first up. 

He got on base. Sweet!

Then Corey Hart got on, and lo and behold, after Justin Smoak disappeared back to the dugout, it was Kyle Seager's turn at the plate. In the best interest of the team, I turned to Christian and said, "I just want to take this moment to say Kyle Seager sucks and he's going to strike out."

And of course that statement propelled him to hit his 3-run, walk off home run. Mariners win!!!!

I just started snapping shots. 

"Sarcasm works!" Annabelle observed, gleefully. 

Big fun. Go Mariners!