flag, Astronauts on the Moon

The large garage door lifted and I walked under it and out like a king except onto an alley facing a parking lot and right off caught glimpse of little brown bunny tucking under a parked vehicle woefully displaced in this urban parking lot. At nine thirty looked up to a blue sky and saw the moon up there like a tiny round cloud just waiting to be noticed by somebody. A woman walking in front of me noticed. "Hey, look at the moon." 

So I did. 

Visitors to the U.S. remark, "Boy, they sure do like their flag. And we do. But not any more than the person saying that. It's just they haven't noticed the same thing in their own country. And if that were uniquely true about Americans as they suppose then these balconies would be covered with flags, and you see only one. Right in the middle. 

My sky. I feel so ensconced. 

I decided to read a book about when America was great. Won't take long, it's a pop-up book.

When was America ever great? A provocative unhappy person asked that on Twitter. 

We could say, maybe back in 1979 when this book was published. When the country was united in a single project. Except for the people against the project, the people who protested spending all that money on space, mostly Democrats,  and insisted better use can be made of it right here and who considered the entire program one gigantic corporate welfare project on an industrial scale. Back when civil rights was a wrenching national issue. When feminism really took hold. Back when free sex opened the door to AIDS. Back then when both parents working and latchkey kids became the norm, during that period of lynchings and riots and anti-war unrest. The golden years when America was great. A nostalgia developed for those less trying times.  

A time when even pop-up books were simple. V-mechanism, V-mechanism, V-mechanism. Except for the pod. We could make this whole book easily in our first class. I'm not knocking it, I'm describing it and encouraging your own abilities.

I saw Obama posters in the windows one time but never any American flags. The business across the street will have a whole block with a line of American flags in a row, but not on the people's balconies. 

"Cherry Trees That Flew To Space Bloom Six Years Early"

"Japanese astronauts took hundreds of cherry tree seeds with them to the International Space Station in 2008-2009, after which they were planted in several locations throughout Japan. About 265 seeds were taken from a celebrated old tree outside a Buddhist temple in Gifu, in central Japan, that is thought to be 1,250 years old. One of the space seeds was sprouted near the temple, but oddly, shot up more quickly then other cherry trees of its variety (that weren't taken to space). And now the tree is blooming, at four years of age -- about six years ahead of schedule. "We are amazed to see how fast it has grown," Masahiro Kajita, chief priest at the Ganjoji temple, told AFP. The seeds were planted at a total of 14 locations, and blooms have already developed in four locations."

"The precocious pips have baffled the Buddhist monks and scientists alike. The project was not primarily a scientific one, rather "an educational and cultural project to let children gather the stones and learn how they grow into trees and live on after returning from space," said Miho Tomioka, a spokeswoman for the project's organizer, Japan Manned Space Systems (JAMSS). For that reason no "control" seeds were planted to contrast with the space-flown ones--although this cherry variety usually doesn't bloom until the age of 10." (read more)

Popular Science

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, astronaut

Her wikipedia biography is breathtaking. Summarized:

BS 1984  

MS 1985  MIT Mechanical Engineering

Speaks Ukrainian. 

Naval ROTC

Training in diving as salvage officer

De-stranded Exon Houston

Awarded Defense Superior Service Medal, 2 Legion of Merit, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and Meritorious Service Medal, 2 Navy Commendation Medals, 2 Navy Achievement Medals and other service medals according to her wikipedia bio.

That's a lot of awards. Either she's outstanding, or they're handing medals out like candy for every little thing she does, because she's a woman. Kidding.

Selected as astronaut candidate by NASA April 1996, performed various support duties. Flew aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. Three EVAs. 

Missioni Specialist Space Shuttle Endeavour. 

Three EVAs. 

Lost a tool bag to space. Tools burned in reentry. Estimated cost of loss $100,000 (probably a wrench, space wrench! and a screw driver who knows?) Cause of loss unknown. 

Her specialty is salvaging.

Here, a very odd incident occurred wherein the astronautress attempts to relate earlier incidents that convince her we are not alone.

It's just so odd, dropping, not so odd but popping up that fast does seem odd, then dropping again is odd, maybe, then popping up again that fast again is simply a marvel to behold of human physical endurance and cheerful persistence. 

I've dropped. But I don't pop back up. That's what gets me about this. It takes a long moment to gather one's wits. The only time I popped right back up was when physically hit on the top of the head by the closing freight elevator door, a gate that rolls down heavily before two doors shut, from the top and the bottom like giant metal mouth. Operated manually, some careless someone was too fast on the button.  And you go,

"Where am I?" and "What just now happened to me?" and "How did I get here?" 

Just like on teevee.

And we never did hear about her U.F.Os.