It’s been 24 years since the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl exploded. Garret linked to an article on Wired: This day in Tech – April 26, 1986: Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Suffers Cataclysmic Meltdown.
I wrote about it four years ago.
Author Archives: Andrea
“Houston, we’ve had a problem…”
Forty years after the Apollo 13 mission, Universe Today takes a look at the missions, the accident and how the astronauts got back to earth safely: 13 Things That Saved Apollo 13 (Link via MetaFilter: Surviving a Space Scrape 40 years Ago.)
So far, nine of the 13 parts have been posted. (I’m going to add the other links as the pages become available.)
- Part 1: Timing
- Part 2: The hatch that wouldn’t close
- Part 3: Charlie Duke’s measles
- Part 4: Using the LM for propulsion
- Part 5: Unexplained shutdown of the Saturn V center engine
- Part 6: Navigating by Earth’s terminator
- Part 7: The Apollo I fire
- Part 8: The command module wasn’t severed
- Part 9: Position of the tanks
- Part 10: Duct Tape
- Part 11: A Hollywood movie
- Part 12: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous
- Part 13: The Mission Operations Team
- Plus: Never before published images of Apollo 13 recovery
Gene Kranz was the flight director for NASA‘s Gemini and Apollo Missions. Here’s a Discovery Channel Video of Kranz talking about his experiences with the Apollo 13 mission. I’m reading Kranz’s book Failure is not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond right now and enjoy it immensely.
Frohe Ostern!
We had some visitors over the long weekend and visited the butterfly garden in Sayn and then went to see the birds of prey at Burg Maus yesterday.
Links are only available in German, sorry:
- Sayn, Garten der Schmetterlinge (kein Direktlink wegen Frames, sorry)
- Adler- und Falkenhof auf Burg Maus
André took some awesome photos, the best of which you can see on his Flickr page. Here’s a little preview:
Eagle vs Duck
Wow, you know you haven’t posted on your weblog for too long if you have to login first… In case you were wondering, I’m still alive. I’ve been quite busy with my job during the last few weeks and have a major sewing project underway as well. Right now I have two weeks off (Osterferien), and family and friends are taking the opportunity to visit us.
I don’t quite remember where I found this yesterday, but here are some awesome photos of an eagle trying to attack a duck – scroll down a little bit.
National Geographic Photo of the Day
Recently there were some striking shots at the Photo of the Day over at National Geographic, for example this cedar waxwing. Or look a damselfly into the eye. Today’s picture shows two eagles in flight – really impresive. (They’re all downloadable as a wallpaper, by the way.)