November 13, 2005

• SUNDAY GOOD NEWS

  Yesterday I took my grandchildren (14 and 9) to the local IMAX to see Magnificent Desolation:  Walking on the Moon (Tom Hanks and other famous voices narrating).   When I sat in front of my own TV to watch the first landing and hear that famous quote about the “giant leap for mankind” their father was not yet two
  years old.  If you’ve never been to an IMAX show, be warned it’s not for the claustophobic or those with fear of heights.  A veteran now, I still feel a little flutter of whether I’ll throw up, pass out, or start screaming when I’m finally seated and the credits start to roll.  Plus be warned not to take a child who may have to go to the bathroom once you’re inside because they lock the doors and you can’t get back in once you’ve exited.  You enter the theater through a hallway so dark you have to clutch the railing, turn a corner and confront stairs so steep it looks like it might require rappeling to get up to a seat near the back (which is the best place to be if you don’t want to break your neck looking up at the curved screen that’s like the inside of the top half of a broken eggshell).  Then you might want to sit near the end of the row if you have any anxiety at all because god forbid you would need to crawl over the folks in between with 0% aisle room.  I had to fake nonchalance yesterday when my g-kids chose to head for dead center.  If you’re cool with all the above though, hold on for a great ride.  And space is the perfect location for a visit by IMAX.  Most of us know Hanks is a NASA nut, so the story of the Apollo missions is lovingly told with tidbits of information you probably haven’t heard – like what some of the other quotes on landing were, history leading up to the space program, early spacesuit designs.  What really struck me is that after all these years only 12 humans have set foot on the moon and the last one was in 1972.   The whole Apollo program  was initiated when President Kennedy made his announcement at a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961:

  “…I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish…”

  Apparently, once that mission was accomplished attention turned elsewhere, but now it seems there is a push for another Moon Program starting no later than 2008 with a series of robotic missions to the Moon to prepare for and support future human exploration activities. A follow-on robotic lunar lander is also slated for 2009.  The White House space directive states that the first extended human expedition to the lunar surface could occur as early as 2015, but no later than the year 2020.  I don’t know if this is good news or bad news, but this morning as Paul McCartney’s rendition of Good Day Sunshine beamed 200 miles above Earth from his concert in Anaheim, California last night and woke the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Bill McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokanev bobbed up and down to the music as they began their 44th day of a six-month mission. I’m bobbing up and down now myself as I imagine those cheery words and music in my mind and look out on a grey Portland, Oregon morning.

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  Deep Thought:  “They say the mountain holds many secrets, but the biggest is this: “I am a fake mountain.”
  Today I am grateful for:  Anything astronomical, including astronauts
  Guess the Movie:  “Macomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning; ladies bathed before noon, after their 3 o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go and nothing to buy… and no money to buy it with. Although Macomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself… That summer, I was six years old.” Answer: To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962. Winner: Eliminate_the_Impossible.
  Blair Faces New Inquiry into Iraq War Impeachment Campaigners Claim Former Ministers will Join 200 Supporters to Force Commons Probe
  by James Cusick
  MPs organising the campaign to impeach Tony Blair believe they have enough support to force a highly damaging Commons investigation into the Prime Minister’s pre-war conduct.   (Rest of article here.)
  End of Day: 8:22 pm
  + = Nice quiet stress-free day.
  - = Only walked 1.1 miles (by pedometer).

  • 1:19 pm
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