What Happens When We Finally Find Extra-Terrestrials

The man in the know is Paul Davies, chair of SETI’s Post-Detection Task Group. He spoke to the World Science Festival about the odds of finding extra terrestrial civilizations, the benefits and risks of possible communication, and what he'd ask the aliens if he had the opportunity. Read the excellent "lightly edited" transcript from WSF here.

(When Neil deGrasse-Tyson spoke at the 2013 Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum Annual Gala - via Skype - he was asked what he'd say to an extra terrestrial if he encountered one. I don't remember his direct response, but I remember the tangential issue he raised: Neil deGrasse-Tyson wouldn't reach out to shake an ET's hand, for fear of what appendage the ET might customarily extend in response.)

Storm Chasing on Saturn

Drool.

Dreams of Flight

This summer I'm the Director of Air & Space Camp at Wings Over the Rockies, Colorado's official air & space museum. It's amazing. I'm paid to do things most ten year olds (and not a few grown-ups) would kill to do, up to and including shoot rockets and blow things up. I'm learning an extraordinary amount, about education and young creativity, and - of course - air & space.

One of the campers' projects is to create models of human-powered flight machines that they design themselves. We give a brief lesson that touches on renewable energy and the history of human flight (more da Vinci than Wright brothers on this one), and we show a couple of super cool videos.

The first video is of the AeroVelo Atlas Human-Powered Helicopter. This bike-chopper won the Sikorsky Prize, which was awarded for the attainment of one of the last remaining milestones in aviation: to create a flight machine powered entirely by the human body. The requirements were to build a human-powered helicopter that would reach a height of 10 meters off the ground, stay in the air for at least a minute, and hover with its center of gravity not leaving a 10-meter box. Check it out:

The second video shows the first successful flight of the world's first human-powered ornithopter [an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings], designed by students at the University of Toronto:

We ooh and ahh over the concept of humans flying using only--in these two cases--their leg muscles.

Then the kids get to work, with graph paper and pencils and an endless supply of recycled materials. You'd hardly believe what they come up with: from spring-loaded, stilt-based, jumping-powered ornithopters to combined pedal-and-bench-press-powered hot air balloons with dual air intake inspired by jet-engine mechanics. And one burrito-powered flatulence-copter. Because kids.

Hubble Shows Us 10,000 Technicolor Galaxies

F'real? F'real.

Banalities of Life in Space

Space is incredibly weird.

Below, watch Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams (USA) give a tour of the International Space Station, focusing on some of the more mundane (dare I use such a word?) aspects of life in space: sleep, food, "number one," and "number two."

One of the trippier facts she shares is that each astronaut has his/her own private sleeping quarters, but that four of their sleeping quarters are located along different orientations of the same node (room, esentially) of the station: one sleeps in a hatch on the left wall; one sleeps in a hatch on the right wall; one sleeps in a hatch on the floor; and one sleeps in a hatch on the ceiling. They all face any which way they want, and everyone is upside down to someone.

I wonder if they each consider their sleeping quarters to be the one that's right-side up? Do they secretly hope for the sleeping quarters located in the hatch in the "floor" (relative to the writing on the walls, the bathroom facilities, etc.), so that psychologically, they feel like they're sleeping horizontally? Or would sleeping in the quarters in the floor make you feel as though people are always moving on top of you, even without the sound of footsteps? Would that make you feel six feet under? Personally, I think I'd prefer one of the sleeping quarters on the "walls." (Having a preference on the matter is probably a good indication that I am not fit to be an astronaut).

Anyway, watch on, it's super cool:

That sleep thing really trips me out. 

As does the idea of having to brush my hair after it floats around all day, getting tangled up. 

When (ha!) I make it into space, I'll have to get a crop.

For more of Suni's tour, visit NASA's Feature segment on the ISS tour. In addition to the nodes in the video above, she also gives tours of the labs, airlock, observation deck, the multi-purpose module, and the Russian segment. They're all fantastic.

Righteous, Suni. I'm proud that we women space geeks are represented on the ISS by someone with such a sense of humor and humility. 

Here, have a look around the Milky Way.

This massive, interactive, zoomable, explorable, 360-degree map of the night sky is the greatest thing I have seen this week: http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html

The image is the largest true-color photograph of the night sky ever created, comprised of 37,000 photographs from North America and South Africa. It was created by a 28-year-old first-time astrophotographer from the Seattle area, during treks covering over 60,000 miles. It's incredible.

It reminds me of the first time I saw the Milky Way, from a remote beach on the northern tip of New Zealand's South Island. Having spent most of my life in and around New York City, I had to be told by my fellow travelers that the enormous stretch of honestly, truly twinkling stars I was looking at was the Milky Way. I believe my mouth actually hung open. The universe is unbelievable.

I'm not sure if the image is copyrighted, so to play it safe I'm not going to publish it here. But do visit the link above, and do read the awesome backstory on Wired. And while you're at it, show some love for the photographer and visit his page: http://skysurvey.org.

We are so small. Out there is so big.