SHADY: We spent part of our evening at one of our favorite places, Living Computer Museum. We try to go every first Thursday for their movie presentations. Tonight we saw "Tech Man," but more about that tomorrow.
Of course, we always enjoy perusing the museum before and after the show. Tonight we appreciated some art made using vintage computer programming punch cards.
A cute and clever use of part of our history, don't you think?!
WIDE WEBB: By now the Hubble telescope is world famous for the astounding images it has been providing to Earthings for years. In the not-too-distant future another amazing space telescope will be wowing us.
The James Webb Space Telescope is under construction, and recently workers in an enormous clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, used a robotic arm to install the last of the telescope's 18 mirrors onto its structure. Each of the hexagonal-shaped mirrors measure just over 4.2 feet (1.3 meters) across, and they weigh 88 pounds (40 kilograms). Together, the mirror segments will work as one large 21.3-foot diameter (6.5-meter) mirror.
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
An international project led by NASA the European and Canadian space agencies as partners, Webb will be the biggest and most powerful space telescope ever launched when it catches a ride atop a Ariane rocket from French Guiana in 2018.
From time to time we watch the Webb telescope being built at Goddard via the "Webb-cam:" http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/webcam.html
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
BIOGRAPHICAL: While Annabelle was in art class today, CJ and I did some more research about Thurgood Marshall, the first African American United States Supreme Court justice. One of the things we learned is that his first first name was actually Thoroughgood, but he changed it in second grade, to simplify matters.
Marhsall's father was a railroad porter, but he had an affinity for the law and used to go to the local courthouse and listen to lawyers argue cases.
After graduating from, Marshall wanted to attend the University of Maryland School of Law, but was denied entry because of his race. He went on to get his law degree from Howard. When he became a practicing attorney, one of the first cases he took was a discrimination suit against the U of Maryland on behalf of a young American American man.
In addition to reading articles, we watched a short cartoon with some biographical highlights.
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