The astronauts are loading supplies into the vehicle that will leave the space station and go to Earth. I had fantasies about this kind of thing as a child. I suppose I should have dreamed about the day they cure all cancers, end poverty, stop making war, but those seemed too realistic (in all honest, thought we would have done it by now). But space travel to anywhere, and space stations in orbit, and filling out an application to be an astronaut?
For those of us who dream that humanity will not only survive but come out better in the long run, reality can be sobering. But looking back at history, we’ve made progress, at least in the modern world. We no longer burn witches at the stake, and there’s probably enough food for everyone if we can just overcome the governments and get it there when it’s needed. We can control reproduction, and we have antibiotics (at least we do for a little while longer). Small Pox is extinct. So are Guinea worms. But then, a lot of species have gone extinct for utterly stupid reasons; rhino horns and ivory come to mind.
I think now, what can be so astounding, is that we have The Internet, and people have the world’s knowledge at their fingertips, and ignore it. We went to the moon, and back. We’ve created and sent robots to all the other planets we share our sun with. If that can be done on the puny budget our world commits to science (oh, about 3% compared to 50% for the war machine), then imagine our future if the budgets were well balanced and people valued the science brought to us by space programs. See, now we’re back to dreaming about touching those stars!
Paradox will be FREE through Amazon this weekend, August 27-28. Get in a final read before school starts and immerse yourself in another world, the complexities of genetic splicing, chiral molecules, and a love that transcends the impossible.
Another name for this star, circled right center, is Archid, found in the middle of the constellation Cassiopeia, the Queen. For you ultra nerdy types it is Right Ascention 00 hours, 50 minutes, Declination positive 57 degrees and 54 minutes. Only 19.4 light years away from our own sun, it is also a G-Type star (GV3) but appears slightly younger. Also known by several boring names that reflect its categorization, it can be seen near the PacMan Nebula and Shedar, the brightest, most southern star in the constellation, close to the Queen’s heart.
I chose this particular star for the next adventure in space that Captain Thomas Jackson and his crew will be traveling to. It has been designated as one of the top 100 candidates of nearby stars to harbor earth type planets, although this search was terminated a few years back when budget cuts came up. In the meantime, we science fiction writers will have a field day with it.
Our primary adventure will again focus on biology, but instead of genetics and chiral molecules, we’ll be investigating the domains of archaeal and bacterial life forms, and pharmaceuticals, or more precisely, the abuse thereof.
The Kiians return, the Pegasi return, and a bombshell awaits Jackson from his past, or perhaps it’s his future, that he must reconcile within himself, changing the fundamental theories of life and physics.
Sky Guide. It’s not free, but the small fee is worth it if you like celestial things.
Just a quick entry today about an app that I bet most of you have never heard of. Of course, there are plenty of sports apps and things I don’t know about. But this is cool for everyone who has ever looked up at the stars at night and wondered what the heck they were looking at.
This is a screen print from my phone of the app. I took it this morning, as you can see, the sun is in the east, and the sky is dark so you can see the stars. You can’t tell from the screen print, but it shows the constellations, planets, stars in real time. You can also set the time and date for almost any day in the past or future and see what the sky looked like at that moment.
If you tap on an object, such as a white dot, the name of the item will appear and you can tap again for a detailed description, including the type of star, its distance in light years, and its location in degrees and minutes.
If you want to search for something specific, just tap the menu icon and you are given choices of stars, satellites, planets, and more to search for! Tap the Satellites, and select the ISS. You’ll get a quick location and its path in the sky.
It has some ethereal music to go with it, and if you are sky watching, simply hold your device with the camera pointing in the sky. It will automatically orient itself and tell you exactly what you’re looking at. Point it toward a dot in the sky, you’ll discover you’re looking at Jupiter or Venus, or Regulus or Betelgeuse.
But don’t take my word for it. Go to the app store and check it out for yourself. Nothing is quite as fun as hearing a push notification that the ISS is going to be flying overhead in 5 minutes! What are you waiting for, go have some fun!
Sorry I missed you yesterday! I am recovering from a very brief vacation off the west coast of California, on Santa Catalina Island, about 25 miles west of Los Angeles. It was hot, but nothing like Las Vegas, although I have to say, in Las Vegas, it’s a dry heat or no heat.
Avalon Harbor, Catalina Island, California
Star watching is pretty good if you can get away from the main city, Avalon, Catalina Island, which is home to about 4000 people, including formerly Zane Grey who wrote more than 100 novels selling more than 40 million copies. I can see how his imagination would have been inspired by the beautiful views, perfect weather, and isolation of an island, this island in particular. If you’ve never heard of it, think of Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Gum, and the Catalina Casino with world’s largest circular ballroom.
I tried snorkeling. Now mind you, I’ve done this before, 18 years ago, wearing a Personal Flotation Device, about 20 feet from the shore. I also can’t swim (not that anyone hasn’t tried to teach me). I will remind you, I am nothing like the fearless leader Captain Thomas Jackson of my novels. I am more like an anonymous stone that won’t even skip across a stream, immediately plunging into water and heading for the bottom never to be seen again. But I did try to be a good sport.
Garibaldi
A 20 foot outboard motor boat with a happy senior at the helm took my son, husband, and me a good four or five miles north from the beautiful Avalon harbor perhaps 1000 feet away from shore where the water was clear and the Garibaldi (California State Marine Fish) schooled with kelp beds and striped bass. There I sat, in my wet suit, flippers on my feet, and a snorkel and mask facing the bottomless ocean with no PDF. my husband (a fish, I swear it!) had been the first to leap, my son, 15, followed. They waited for me. It was sink or swim time.
And sink it was. Ha! They said my wet suit would help me float; not me, I am rock. I managed to tread water, briefly, but trying to do so while attaching the snorkeling stuff was, in one word, multitasking, something I’m not terribly efficient at. As soon as I put on the mask, I couldn’t see or breathe, which trumped the treading water business by 100 fold. Then, I’d sink. I was promptly rescued, but once I got the suffocation – blindness device on and could tread water, I realized I also had to become a mouth breather, not terribly different the from fauna I intended on observing on this little outing.
I saw one fish, got water in my snorkel, and I was done. I wanted out of that water and into the boat and I didn’t care how embarrassed I was. I could only think of being hospitalized with a another stroke (which just happened 8 weeks ago), my heart pulsing little sticky platelets into my brain at incredible speed and pressure as panic triggered an adrenaline boost. The snorkel and mask went into the boat, then the mermaid flippers, then someone pushed and someone pulled and I flopped into the boat like a giant tuna.
Sea Turtle
I didn’t leave the boat again until we docked. in the meantime, my son and husband saw not only huge schools of striped bass and vivid orange Garibaldi, but, of all things, a sea turtle as big as a bed pillow.
These particular creatures are not native to the area, and this individual had probably come in with the most recent storm off the coast of Mexico. Yes, a living, swimming, gentle sea turtle. I did see its head when it came up for air. Yippee.
Outside of this near death experience, our little vacation rolled peaceably along until we arrived back on the mainland. I always enjoy the big catamaran that sails us out there and back at 30 knots per hour and serves snacks and drinks, also without internet service so the kids must put down their phones for about 30 minutes. This was fine. But the car had no intention of leaving the parking garage. Just a fluke, no marine pun intended, the battery decided to quit. Just quit, no warning, no rrr rrr rrr trying to turn over, just “nope, sorry, not taking you anywhere tonight.”
AAA came to the rescue, and I must say they were top notch, keeping us posted via text and getting a tech out to us in 28 minutes flat. I crashed into bed last night without so much as changing my clothes. Been visiting the family all day, and heading home just in time to prepare for the Star Trek Convention coming to Las Vegas on Wednesday. Now this is where I boldly go.
The Fabulous Five Star Trek Captions of Television
There are excellent stories and feelings and emotions to draw upon to entertain readers, as Zane Grey, and myself, can attest to on this lovely island. If you have the opportunity, when in Los Angeles or a little south of there in Long Beach, visit the Queen Mary, and spend a day or two on Catalina Island. I’m sure you’ll remember something worth writing about!
