Waving at the International Space Station

As regular readers will know, we are really keen to get our students at Luna into the reading habit, and creating independent thinkers & travellers of the mind. I think it is really important to enjoy what you are reading, and that it means something to you.                                                                                                                I was thrilled we managed a stellar "Eureka" moment last night with a group of extremely chuffed Eigonauts! Having finished their first choice readers (action packed stories) the last one in the bag was "In the Sky". Potentially a bit dull & flat - except we have an incredible resource just outside the front door!                                                                                                                                        During our previous lesson we'd talked about planets & stars, constellations too; we'd spotted Orion easily and noticed the half moon from the car park. Tonight's mission was time critical (and weather). My satellite tracking app told me it'd appear on the southern horizon at 18:32, giving us 8 minutes before the end of class to spot the International Space Station. My girls were watching the countdown while we did a few other tasks, and coordinated with our classmate in Nagano - via Zoom - what we were going to do & how (needed to use my iPad to "take the class for a walk!").                                                                                                                                                                                                            First of all we found Orion again, and tried to spot Gemini. We had watched a short NASA video

constellation identification

explaining the constellations in view in March, but we could not see Castor or Pollux. The moon was hiding brightly, behind BigBoy (restaurant next door) which was also very lit up, making our view west & south somewhat obscured. Next, we realised the buildings in front of us hid the horizon, and from the app we could see the ISS was going to keep fairly low as it tracked westwards over Utsugushigahara.                                                                                            We dashed upstairs and turned all the lights off, stepped onto the roof (safely!) and were immediately able to see the bright white dot moving across the dark sky exactly where the teacher said it would be! The girls realised that if they might be able to see it again in an hour & a half, it must be going very fast indeed! I asked them if they thought the seven astronauts would be waving back ("probably not, it's dinner time" they decided!)...but they kept waving frantically anyway :)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        And that was about all we had time for, though homework is to draw a picture of the night sky (I found them in the waiting room with the lights off, being very diligent, later!). "Happy?" I asked them. Far from it - they were deliriously chuffed to bits...and so, therefore, is the teacher.

Tracking satellites 

The "AHA!" moment :)

To infinity - and beyond

I saw a Space Shuttle mission take off from Cape Kennedy on August 27th, 1985.

It remains one of the most memorable events in my life, and I will be forever indebted to Charlie Crockford & Linton Higginbotham for dragging me first all the way to Florida and to a cheap motel in Cocoa Beach...and then for them managing to drag me to a perimeter fence of the Kennedy Space Center at first light the next morning, after we'd driven all night from (sweet home) North Carolina. And what did I see?

I guess most people these days think Bud Lightyear/Tom Hanks have both been to the moon. Must admit, Apollo 13 is a favourite movie of mine. So is The Right Stuff. I am old enough to remember blurry black & white pictures of men on the moon. Of my childhood I remember Nixon a snake, Ian Paisley worse, huey choppers in Vietnam.

My favourite TV show was Star Trek - to boldly go...Even now I do enjoy a stolen episode of Stargate , a re-run of any Star Trek, or one of the new Space 1999 episodes.

I loved this book. I knew bits and pieces, as a child of the Apollo generation I have the memory built into me. What happened to man's burning desire to explore? When did we chicken out? The remarkable people of this story never did - reading of the later Apollo missions makes it obvious how close we - MANKIND - were to taking the next big step as well. Of course it costs money to put missions & men into space. Of course it is dangerous (life is dangerous. Never had an accident?)

Putting our species into space is a fantastic investment. Selfishly, the technological return is guaranteed. My mum loved her first Teflon frying pan - it was from NASA. I remember her saying that. I remember washing that pan and also thanking NASA. Often.

Why on Earth aren't we exploring space better? Witnessing a space shuttle take off was an amazing thing to behold. Just like this book, which takes you right there with the astronauts, it was a kick in the guts when the sonic boom hit us, miles away. My reaction then was to leap up and down trying to escape Earth's gravity myself...a day later I was jammed in Miami between hookers fighting over a stolen TV and a hurricane, trying to get to Hemingway's Chair in the Keys!

Loved this book. Knew the story but couldn't stop turning the pages...