Serendipita

Departing Space Station Commander Provides Tour of Orbital Laboratory

“In her final days as Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams of NASA recorded an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory and downlinked the video on Nov. 18, just hours before she, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency departed in their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan. The tour includes scenes of each of the station’s modules and research facilities with a running narrative by Williams of the work that has taken place and which is ongoing aboard the orbital outpost.”

Sunita Williams holds the records for number of spacewalks for a female and most spacewalk time for a female. She ran the first marathon by an astronaut in orbit and was the first to complete a triathlon in space as well.

Link via Kottke.org.

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, passed away yesterday.

Some relevant videos:

I also highly recommend the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon (I’ve got it on DVD), the part about the Eagle landing is available online.

The Big Picture: Remembering Apollo 11.

Statement from his family:

“For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”

Links via MetaFilter: Man on the moon, which is worth reading in its entirety because lots of people share their memories of the Apollo 11 mission and Neil Armstrong.

Sometimes I wish that you could switch of gravity for some experiments, especially during some lessons at school. I’m sure my students and I would have as much fun as Don Pettit (his weblog is Letters to Earth) who uses his spare time on the ISS to do some fun experiments. I especially enjoyed watching Thin Film Physics, Goo! and of course the vacuum cleaner hose turned into didgeridoo.

By the way, his time lapse from space is also pretty neat.

Links via MetaFilter: Physics Demos that are OUt of this World, Earth from Day to Night.