Review of Stephen Baxter’s “Voyage”

by JonathanNo Comments
Voyage by Stephen Baxter My rating: 5 of 5 stars In contrast to my experience with Homer Hickam's "Back to the Moon," I quite enjoyed Stephen Baxter's "Voyage." As the subtitle mentions, this is a compelling alternate history of what might have been had a few key events gone differently. To sum up the main divergences in history without spoiling anything, John F. Kennedy survives the assassination attempt but is rendered an invalid, who publicly twists Richard Nixon's arm during the televised Apollo 11 moonwalk to redirect space exploration toward a manned landing on Mars. All moon landings after Apollo 14 (with the Apollo 15 crew and a rover!) are cancelled; the Saturn hardware repurposed to supporting a Mars initiative; and NASA never builds the Space Shuttle or the Viking Mars landers. We have then a plausible scenario for how NASA could have afforded a push toward a manned Mars landing in the mid-1980s without a massive funding increase. Baxter gets all the details...
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Book Review: “Back to the Moon”

by JonathanNo Comments
Back to the Moon by Homer Hickam My rating: 2 of 5 stars I'm not much of a fiction reader, and this book unfortunately reinforced my tastes rather than making me eager to read more fiction. I have to imagine that Mr. Hickam, as a former NASA engineer, had his tongue very firmly planted in his cheek as he wrote the book. It's so full of incredulous events and technical impossibilities that if you were not aware of Mr. Hickam's background, you'd think it was written by someone who knew nothing about how spacecraft actually work and just set out to pen a thriller set aboard the space shuttle. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was doing this entirely for fun. Think Roger Moore in "Moonraker" in terms of level of accuracy. I felt guilty reading it, but I also had a hard time putting it down because I couldn't resist seeing what wildly improbable event was...
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Witnessing the Total Solar Eclipse of March 7, 1970

by Jonathan1 Comment
With the levels of hype and anticipation rapidly growing for next month's Eclipse Across America (or whatever people are calling it now), I have been reflecting on when I witnessed a total solar eclipse back in 1970 as a 13-year-old. I was an 8th grade student at Walt Whitman Intermediate School in the Mt. Vernon area south of Alexandria, Virginia. I was deeply interested in all things space and astronomical. I had received a toy-store 3" reflector telescope for my birthday in 1968, and I quickly outgrew its capabilities. My parents gave me a 4-1/2" Tasco reflector telescope for Christmas in 1969. As a subscriber to Sky and Telescope magazine, I knew full well that the path of a total solar eclipse would be skirting the East Coast of the United States on March 7, 1970. Our home was about 200 miles away from the path of totality. We'd see a very nice partial eclipse with only a thin sliver of the sun...
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“Farewell, Columbia” at Spacefest VIII, June 11, 2017

by JonathanNo Comments
With seven-time astronaut Jerry Ross at my side, I gave a presentation at Spacefest VIII in Tucson on June 11. It summarized the incredible story of the recovery and reconstruction of space shuttle Columbia following the February 1, 2003 accident that took the lives of her crew. Having spent the past two years conducting nearly a hundred interviews with people ranging from the former Administrator of NASA to the women who volunteered at the Hemphill, Texas VFW Hall, I had so much I wanted to say and so little time in which to say it! Of course we could only touch on the highlights of the story and just a few of the 25,000 people who made this—the largest search and recovery operation in US history—a success. Even the book, which is due in December, will just barely be able to scratch the surface. I recorded the presentation, and Jerry kindly consented to my posting his comments publicly. I encourage you to listen...
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Remembering My Dad, in His Own Words

by JonathanNo Comments
Father's Day 2017. My father passed away eleven years ago, but it still seems much more recent than that. I was struggling to come up with an appropriate way to summarize my memories of him, which is frustrating because there are so many aspects I'd want to capture. And then I remembered the closing chapter to the autobiography to the memoir he wrote for my siblings and me ("The Little Round Man Who Goes Boom"). I printed out the chapter for everyone who attended his end-of-life celebration in May 2006. I hadn't looked at it since that time. Looking at it now with the benefit of more than a decade to put my thoughts and feelings into perspective, I find it astonishing that a man who sometimes seemed so well-defended and sure of himself was able to see his strengths and weaknesses so clearly, and to laugh at himself and his foibles. [My friends will see a lot of him in me,...
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Perspectives on Saturn and Jupiter

by JonathanNo Comments
Last night, I captured the first photo I've ever taken of Saturn. I'm the first to admit that this isn't a spectacular or even good photo by any stretch of the imagination. I can find lots to criticize about it. However, I was surprised that a modest camera with a 300mm zoom lens was able to show the rings and planet so distinctly. This is probably as good as or better than the view Galileo had of Saturn when he discovered its rings with his primitive telescope in July 1610. He couldn't even see them as rings with his telescope. He thought they were smaller planets on either side of the the main body of Saturn. And I should count myself fortunate that my photo turned out as well as it did in the first place. The ten images I took afterward were all blurred by atmospheric turbulence, since Saturn was pretty low in the southeast sky when I shot the photos. Saturn is nearing opposition, which means that the Earth is...
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The Science of Eats

by JonathanNo Comments
My hat is off to the wonderful folks at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC. They know how to attract traffic at the museum - with food and alcohol after hours! Last night was the museum's annual "Science of Eats" adults-only special event. Exhibitors with fine foods and beverages crafted in North Carolina were featured, all with a bit of a scientific tie-in for their products. For example, a local craft whiskey distiller had information about the fermentation and distillation process. I was invited to participate, since I've had a table as a Solar System Ambassador at the museum's "Cocktails and Cosmonauts" events in the past. They told me I didn't need to talk about food but would be happy to have me there anyway. I'm not one to turn down an invitation to participate in an event with food or to leave a challenge unaccepted. I decided to put together a video on the evolution of the food that astronauts have taken...
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Welcome to my new site!

by JonathanNo Comments
As I began preparing for three presentations this month, I asked my friend, the very gifted artist Marie van Vuuren, if she'd help me design new business cards. Marie started the process by Googling me and said, "You are all over the place!" It's true. My varied interests have taken me to the four corners of the Earth and out into the Solar System, but I don't have one place on the Web that's my "home." This site is an attempt to rectify that situation. I'll continue to update my posts in many places, but this is now my central spot from which to share my activities, thoughts, and observations. I look forward to your comments and suggestions!...
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