READY FOR LIFT OFF:  Friday morning, three humans will be leaving Earth behind for awhile. The astronauts and cosmonaut will be lifting off rom the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 28. Live launch coverage will begin at 7:45 a.m. EDT on NASA Television and the agency’s website, with the launch set for 8:41 a.m.

Expedition 52/53 crew members are NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency. 

Post launch, the trio will make a six hour trip in a Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft to the International Space Station. Docking is expected to happen at 3 p.m. Pacific time. NASA coverage will commence at 2:15 p.m. The hatches between the Soyuz and the station are set to open about 4:40 p.m.

The new crew will be joining Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer of NASA on board the ISS. Coverage of hatch opening and welcoming ceremonies will begin at 4 p.m., Pacific time. 

For more about all of the amazing things going on on board the ISS, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/station

Tonight, we were thrilled to have a chance to see the ISS fly overhead. We happened to be in a Safeway parking lot when it happened, and a young family parked next to us heard us geeking out and they were super excited about seeing the space station. They'd never seen it fly over before, and didn't even know one could, so it was fun to share that info with them. Yay for NASA outreach!

ON THE HORIZON: For a couple of years now, we have been tracking an enormous solar event - the total eclipse of the sun set for Aug. 21 across a good swath of North America. 

In an email today from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we learned about how high altitude balloons will be used to help broadcast and study the upcoming event. 

Led by Angela Des Jardins of Montana State University, NASA's Eclipse Balloon Project is sending more than 50 high-altitude balloons launched by student teams across the U.S. to livestream aerial footage of the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse from the edge of space to NASA's website. Per the JPL press release, "Total solar eclipses are rare and awe-inspiring events. Nobody has ever live-streamed aerial video footage of a total solar eclipse before," said Angela Des Jardins. "By live-streaming it on the Internet, we are providing people across the world an opportunity to experience the eclipse in a unique way, even if they are not able to see the eclipse directly." Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said, "The August solar eclipse gives us a rare opportunity to study the stratosphere when it's even more Mars-like than usual. With student teams flying balloon payloads from dozens of points along the path of totality, we'll study effects on microorganisms that are coming along for the ride." NASA will provide each team with two small metal cards, each the size of a dog tag. The cards have harmless, yet environmentally resilient bacteria dried onto their surface. One card will fly up with the balloon while the other remains on the ground. A comparison of the two will show the consequences of the exposure to Mars-like conditions, such as bacterial survival and any genetic changes. The results of the experiment will improve NASA's understanding of environmental limits for terrestrial life, in order to inform our search for life on other worlds. Mars' atmosphere at the surface is about 100 times thinner than Earth's, with cooler temperatures and more radiation. Under normal conditions, the upper portion of our stratosphere is similar to these Martian conditions, with its cold, thin atmosphere and exposure to radiation, due to its location above most of Earth's protective ozone layer. Temperatures where the balloons fly can reach minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus 37 Celsius) or colder, with pressures about a hundredth of that at sea level. During the eclipse, the similarities to Mars only increase. The Moon will buffer the full blast of radiation and heat from the Sun, blocking certain ultraviolet rays that are less abundant in the Martian atmosphere and bringing the temperature down even further. ... Beyond the opportunity for NASA to conduct science, this joint project provides the opportunity for students as young as 10 years old to be exposed to the scientific method and astrobiology -- research about life beyond Earth. Since ballooning is such an accessible and low-cost technique, the project has attracted student teams from Puerto Rico to Alaska. The data collected by the teams will be analyzed by NASA scientists at Ames and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California; collaborators at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; scientists funded by the National Science Foundation and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration; faculty members and students at the teams' institutions, as well as the public. "This project will not only provide insight into how bacterial life responds to Mars-like conditions, we are engaging and inspiring the next generation of scientists," said Green. "Through this exciting 'piggyback' mission, NASA is collaborating with scientists of the future to take a small step in the search for life beyond our planet."

Sky Watchers

LIGHTS OUT: It's less than a month until a total solar eclipse will occur across a swath of the United States.

I'd love to think we can find a spot in the path of totality (all dark during the daytime), but we've been scheming for months (over a year, actually) and weren't able to get reservations anywhere in the path. 

However, I am buoyed by the fact that if we stay local, we will have a pretty darn good eclipse experience - 92.3 percent of the total eclipse. 

It might be fun to have a little solar eclipse party, in fact! Wherever we watch, I've already ordered multiple solar eclipse glasses. Get yours now (many choices on Amazon.com) before they run out!

At this website, you can plug in your zip code and find out what your vantage point will be like:

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/7/25/16019892/solar-eclipse-2017-interactive-map

OUT WITH THE OLD: Hey, here's our second post about toilets in less than two weeks. How did we go from being science-centric to toilet centric? We bought an old home in need of remodeling, that's how.

All of the toilets here are old and enormous, like five-plus gallons of water per flush. That's about 4 more than you need (and our water usage is metered). 

So one of my first orders of business has been sourcing 'new' (to us) toilets. We love to recycle (and be frugal), and so far we've scored two great new (literally in the box in once case) toilets. I can't believe I found a hard-to-find NEW wall mount toilet on Craigslist for $600 of list. It replaced this old commode.

I thought surely it was destined for the dump, but Christian encouraged me to post it to Craigslist. I'll be darned, within 5 minutes of posting, we had a taker. Go figure. Awesome that it's out of the landfill, and I assume the new owner is on a well.

HELP WANTED: We received an intriguing email from the Library of Congress today. They are looking for schools/students to help in archiving Web content.

Here's part of the announcement: 

Your Students Can Help Archive the Internet – Apply Now!
July 25, 2017 by Cheryl Lederle
Beginning with a pilot program in 2008, the K-12 Web Archiving Program has engaged hundreds of middle and high school students from schools around the United States in selecting, describing, and preserving Web content. Through September 17, the program is accepting applications for new and returning partners from middle and high schools.

Participating in saving history and culture offers those students a unique perspective on how history is recorded. Students identify websites to be archived, sort them into collections, and write metadata to describe the sites and provide context to help future scholars understand the importance of the archived sites. 

I think that this project might be a good fit for we research-and-Internet loving people here at MPA. Don't know if we're big time enough to be considered, though. But I think it worth applying. The application is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScBvZ7-sOqCkHm5HlmIcvWw0lseu1dKxImS3YD_AG4dwHwg8g/viewform

FIRST FLYOVER: If you follow MPA, you know that we love us a good ISS flyover. 

How many times did we run to our roofdeck on our old campus to watch the International Space Station orbit overhead? Too many to count!

I've been looking forward to our first ISS sighting here, and tonight was the night! At 9:55, we watched a lovely 6-minute flyover. We have such a nice 180-degree view east-to-west here, and can see more of the sky. 

And not only did we see the ISS tonight, we saw a satellite bisect its trajectory. Super cool! And we were buzzed a few times by a bat while watching. Really awesome! (And our talk immediately turned to building a bat house or four - there are so many mosquitoes here and bats help with that.)

But back to the ISS. There's a crew of just three on board right now: NASA's Jack Fischer, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, and NASA's Peggy Whitson. Whitson has accumulated 377 days in space between two missions, the most for any U.S. woman at the time of her return to Earth. Whitson has also performed six spacewalks, totaling 39 hours and 46 minutes. She is awesome. :).

Finding Our Way

DAYS OF DISCOVERY: This weekend was full of not fun and hard work. We moved another garage full of stuff to the new place, and are realizing we have no place to put it. How can a bigger house not have as much room? It's a quandary. 

So, we find ourselves making hard edits and organizing - which is actually a great thing, right? So many bags to Goodwill, so many items to our new Buy Nothing group. 

Meanwhile, we're having to acquire a few new things. For instance, Saturday morning, we drove a truck to Bellevue to pick up a new (well, very used), smaller dining room table to replace the one we gave away that fit our old house. 

All in all, there's lots of give and take going on these days. 

However, we have been making time to make sure we get out and explore our new environs. 

For instance, this weekend we checked out our New Favorite Place, 8-Bit Arcade!

It's just a two or so miles from home, and it feels like home! Dozens of mostly retro video games and pinball machines. They serve beer and pizza and ice cream. What's not to love?

They have a space station pinball game I haven't seen before ...

 and a super fun Simpsons' pinball machine.

 They also have a Soul Caliber console, a favorite of CJ's, and CarnEvil, a cheesy, gruesome game.

They even have giant Jenga and a big ol' Connect Four game out on their back patio.

And right around the corner? A well-appointed, welcoming brew house, Four Generals.

Sunday night, we also checked out a local pizza place, Smoking Monkey. 

It has a sci-fi theme, and how could you not love a place that has "Dune" references on its menu, and a complete Star Trek beer list?!

We also discovered a park across the street, The Piazza.

Per the city of Renton's website, "The Piazza is a major focal point for downtown residents and provides a space for community-wide special events and activities. Situated on less than an acre of property, the park features a combination of paved surfaces, landscaping, benches, boulders, tree grates, and raised seat walls. The park also boasts two water features; a shallow "rushing river" and a fountain."

We saw the "rushing river" and the statue on its north shore.

We thought it might be a fun place to cool off on a summer day, but nooooo ...

So look, but don't touch. 

Below, the kids flirt with disaster.

All in all, moving is hard work, but we're really enjoying the new adventure.