Tripping

Voyager 40th Anniversary disco poster. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

THE CELEBRATION CONTINUES:  This summer, we've been reading lots about the Voyager mission, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2017.

We've marked Tuesday, Sept. 5 on our calendar, as NASA and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will have a public event televised at 9:30 a.m. PDT (12:30 p.m. EDT), 

The observance will take place at the Smithsonian's museum located at Independence Avenue at 6th street SW in Washington D.C., but fortunately it will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on NASA's website.

Per a press release we received today, "Activities will include panel discussions about the Voyagers' creation and mission history, their unprecedented science findings and imagery, impact on Earth's culture and how the spacecraft inspired countless scientists, engineers and the next generation of explorers. The event also will include a galactic message transmitted toward the Voyager 1 spacecraft by a celebrity guest." Hmm. Wonder who that will be? ... 

While the Voyagers' original mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn, they've loooong since surpassed those goals. The twin spacecraft are both far beyond our solar system's planets, and NASA continues to communicate with them daily as they pioneer humankind's way into interstellar space.

NASA is offering commemorative posters for the mission, including the cool 70s-disco inspired one above. You can find them on NASA's JPL website: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/downloads/

HEY, RENE: This afternoon we started to get more serious about algebra. We're going to work our way through the Khan Academy lectures and quizzes on the topic. Today, we stared with one that was an introduction to the coordinate plane. French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist, Rene Descartes was a key figure. Most famous for "I think, therefore I am," Descartes is also the guy for whom Cartesian coordinates (marking points on a graph by how far along and up or down they are) are named.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4nrdf0yYfM



After watching the Descartes video and a coupe of other lectures, the kids took a couple of quizzes and requested to do the extra credit problems and some extra practice problems. I'd consider that a win!

TRIP PLANNERS: At the end of September we'll be taking a field trip abroad. Last night we made plans for the White Cliffs of Dover and Dunkirk (we need to see the movie before we go!).

Today, while we were driving, I had the kids use smart phones to check out spots of interest in Belgium, which is also on our itinerary. There are market squares and forts, canals and cathedrals. But when Annabelle mentioned something about a statue of Elvis on a sea turtle, it got our immediate attention.
"A Search of Utopia," the work is by Belgian artist Jan Fabre . It's on display in Nieuwport, Belgium.

We were ready to book lodging in Nieuport, when we got a text from Christian telling us, sadly, it's actually not modeled after Elvis. Rather, it's the artist as a younger man. Darn! Back to the drawing board for a Belgium destination.

Put a Ring on It

Awesome photo of Saturn's moon Enceladus: NASA

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: In just a couple of weeks, a spacecraft's amazing mission to Saturn will end. 

Cassini is going to go down for the count. 

CJ tells you a bit more about the mission and what's on its short horizon.

According to NASA's website, NASA will soon end the long-running (from 15 October 1997) Cassini mission, planning for the spacecraft to plunge into Saturn's atmosphere on 15 September this year (exactly 1 month before the mission's 20th anniversary). Apparently, the primary motivation for ending the mission at this time is the spacecraft running out of fuel.

In this awesome NASA/JPL/Caltech photo above, Cassini is heading for the gap between Saturn and its rings during one of 22 such dives of the mission's finale.

By all measures, Cassini has been a tremendous success.  

In a NASA press release, Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker explains the missions final moments. "The Cassini mission has been packed full of scientific firsts, and our unique planetary revelations will continue to the very end of the mission as Cassini becomes Saturn’s first planetary probe, sampling Saturn's atmosphere up until the last second," said Spilker, "We'll be sending data in near real time as we rush headlong into the atmosphere -- it's truly a first-of-its-kind event at Saturn."
Here's a short video with reflections about the monumental mission.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHaaIX-iSqM


ART INSTALLATION: This afternoon, Annabelle assembled a welcome back bulletin board in the entryway of the learning center she'll be attending twice a week this year. 

It's really meant to be a birthday bulletin board, but every month, we have used a different theme to make it a little more fun. This month, I was thinking football, but I didn't want to be one team specific (although shouldn't everyone be a Seahawks' fan? ha ha). My mind quickly went to Charlie Brown and Lucy and their never-ending football 'scrimmage.'

So, Annabelle adapted that, drawing and coloring the likeness of some of Charles M. Schultz's most famous Peanuts. We put the kids' birthdays on pennants the characters were holding. 

The Breakfast Club

PARTY PEOPLE: No blog post last night. We were too busy making scrambled eggs for 30 (in muffin tins, super easy and yummy), gluten-free vegan banana and oatmeal muffins (with coconut sugar), heart shaped bacon (yes, really) and more for a breakfast buffet this morning at the kids' learning center. 

Yesterday afternoon, we set the tables, on the cheap. Pink napkins folded into placemat shapes. A paper plate, with a folded lime napkin and compostable cutlery. The centerpiece decorations were cheap and easy - sticking pencils in spray-painted Styrofoam balls. They actually made for cool, atomic looking centerpieces of a nice scale.  

A friend brought bananas to the feast. She asked me what she should do with them. I told her to write on them. She looked at me like I was crazy, but then she immediately came up with a series of amazing puns (potassi-yum! might have been my favorite)!

In addition to eggs, bacon and vegetarian sausages, we had a yogurt bar. There were a couple kinds of yogurt, about four kinds of granola, fresh fruit, almonds, chia seeds, Cheerios, fruity loops and more. And we had a made-to-order espresso stand operating. Not too shabby!

We also had a few other decorations about the room, including this sign, which garnered a few chuckles!

 It was a fair amount of work, but a lot of fun, and the diners were super appreciative.

We also had an hour's worth of music playing, songs about summer ending ("Summer Nights," "Boys of Summer," "See You in September," "Theme from a Summer Place"), plus songs about September ("September Morn," "Wake Me Up When September Ends," and Earth Wind & Fire's "September). There were also songs about not wanting to work, like "Everybody's Working for the Weekend," by Loverboy; "Vacation" by the Go-Gos, and the Todd Rundgren classic, "Bang on the Drum All Day."
https://youtu.be/ZclddLcOYYA