Friday, August 27, 2010

"Flashforward" Cancelled

I understand that the TV show "Flashforward" has been cancelled. I'm sorry to hear this. I like Robert J. Sawyer, and I enjoyed the show.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Starship Earth?

The American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry have developed sister websites designed to help chemists and the general public learn more about key challenges related to sustainability of water, food, energy, and other resources. The web sites are: www.acs.org/acsrscalliance and www.rsc.org/scienceandtechnology/roadmap/acsrsc.asp.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Marquise Du Chatelet

I am presently reading La Dame d'Esprit: A Biography of the Marquise Du Chatelet by Judith P. Zinsser. Gabrielle Emilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Chatelet (1706-1749), was the patron, mistress, and intellectual companion of Voltaire. In the first decades of the French Enlightment, although barred from even the most informal gathering of learned men because of her sex, she wrote on the nature of fire, light, and the cosmos. Her translation of Isaac Newton's Principia remains the authoritative French version to this day. Incredible! Her mastery of the new calculus was a skill shared by only a dozen or so others in 1740's Europe. Judith P. Zinsser is an exceptional historian.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Monthly Meeting

Our regular monthly meeting is this coming Sunday at Books-A-Million in Colonial Heights around 2:00 PM.

Everyone with an interest in sci-fi is welcome!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Neil Armstrong

I went to The Ohio Historical Society Armstrong Air & Space Museum's website,
http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/places/nw01/index.shtml
I saw these lines from history there:
"Eagle...you're go for a landing"

"Roger...picking up some dust...big shadow...contact light...O.K., engine stopped...


Tranquility Base here.
The Eagle has landed."


--- NASA Mission Control & Neil Armstrong,
July 20, 1969

Happy Birthday, Neil Armstrong!

Monday, August 2, 2010

NASA Needs More Basic Science Research

An interim report by th National Research Council concluded that NASA must elevate its support of life and physical sciences on the International Space Station. The findings are a part of a NASA-requested decadal survey of its life and physical sciences activities in microgravity. The final report is expected in 2011.