Thursday

Credit: NASA's Wallops Flight Facility
ROCKET ROLLOUT: There's a launch this weekend - hopefully!


Upright on a pad at the Wallops flight facility in Virginia, Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares is scheduled to launch this Saturday at 10:14 a.m. Seattle time. :) The Antares rocket will lift an unmanned Cygnus spacecraft loaded with 3,293 pounds of supplies for the International Space Station. 

The Antares program completed its first Commercial Resupply Services program launch to the ISS in January of this year.  Coverage of Saturday's launch will begin at 9:30 a.m. on NASA TV 

In the meantime, here's a neat-o time lapse of Antares being raised at the launch pad: http://youtu.be/lOJXiXGt7ls


THE SOUND OF SPACE: We're taught from a young age (by well meaning but misinformed people) that outerspace is silent. That's wrong. And here's proof ...

Perhaps you read some months ago that experts believed the Voyager 1 space probe, launched by NASA 35 years ago, had entered interstellar space. It is believed to be the first manmade object to leave the heliosphere, the huge bubble of charged particles and magnetic fields surrounding the sun. 

Since the news was first reported, there has been mounting evidence to support that supposition. And now, we actually get to listen in on what Voyager is 'hearing' out there in the great unknown. 
http://youtu.be/LIAZWb9_si4

Cool!

BLOWIN' IN THE WIND:  The soundtrack for breakfast (and beyond) was "The Other Side of the Mirror - Live at the Newport Folk Festival." Nothing like two hours worth of anti-war/protest songs to start the day. :)   (One of my favorite lines was "if God is our ally, he'll stop the next war.")

Directed by Murray Lerner, the 2007 documentary is about Dylan's appearances at the storied Newport Folk Festival over the course of three years (1963-1965). 

The film shows how Dylan was a rock star among folk stars - charismatic, a poet, a prophet ... the Golden Boy. However, in 1965, when he dared to plug in an played amplified, part of the crowd turned on him - loudly, with a chorus of boos. 

There's no narration, or explanation during the film. It doesn't need it. The performances are powerful, and speak form themselves. They also present an intriguing window into America of the mid-1960s.