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SpaceTalk
Archived News
3/25/05:
Apollo 13 in Morehead In
town over Easter break and have absolutely nothing to do this
Friday night? Come to the Morehead Planetarium to watch a
SpaceTalk presentation of the classic movie Apollo 13,
starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and a nominee for nine Academy
Awards. After the movie, stick around in the Morehead Star
Theater to listen (and watch) Jesse Richuso explain some of the
celestial navigation methods featured in the movie, and describe
some of the techniques used by the Apollo astronauts who trained
in the Morehead Planetarium in the 1960s.
Meet outside the
Planetarium (under the covered area, with the benches) at 7 PM to
participate. Also stay tuned in the future for Pitsitting
announcements, upcoming lectures, and much more!
1/3/05:
New Semester, New President Happy
New Year, everyone! 2004 has brought many exciting events--both
to
SpaceTalk and the
space exploration
field
in
general--but
has reminded us that our discoveries can sometimes come at too
steep a price. Here at Chapel Hill, change continues as well,
as our President, Kate Harris, is moving on to better (or at
least colder) places for the spring semester. Ably taking her
place is Stephanie Jones. (Happy Birthday, by the way.)
With the departure of our group's founder, I thought it fitting
(with Kate's suggestion) to make an alumni
page for those who wish to keep in touch with other members
who have already left or will do so in the near future. Follow
the instructions on the page to get yourself added. There should
also be a page for the Story Musgrave lecture and a no-frames
version of SpaceTalk up by the end of the month.
And finally, in non-SpaceTalk-related news, NASA Mars
Rovers Spirit and Opportunity are in the middle of
celebrating their one-year anniversary. These rovers have lasted
more than four times longer than their 90-day "life
expectancies", and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has put up
a retrospective multimedia tour here.
Take a look if you're bored and looking for something to watch
over the next few days.
11/15/04: Story
Musgrave Lecture Dazzles Dr.
Musgrave spoke for over an hour and a half to a capacity crowd at
the Morehead Planetarium Star Theater November 8. Stephanie Jones
had this to say:
As most of you know, Story Musgrave gave a lecture at Morehead
Planetarium Monday night. Musgrave is an astronaut, mechanic,
doctor, poet, and philosopher, among other things. He is a member
of the team who fixed the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a
summary of his lecture.
Dr. Musgrave’s
lecture at the planetarium focused more on the philosophical than
the historical. The star and meteor show on the planetarium dome
inspired him to begin his lecture with a completely unscripted
description of the “night pass”, or a spacewalk on
the dark side of the earth with the shuttle lights turned out.
Dr. Musgrave described the night pass with great awe, still
amazed by the beauty he had experienced.
Dr. Musgrave spoke some about his path to the space program. He
constantly expressed amazement at the fact that a farm-boy from
Massachusetts could become an astronaut . He said he never
dreamed of being an astronaut, because such a thing did not exist
when he was a boy. He summed up his life very simply: "I
fixed machinery, then I fixed planes, then I fixed people, then
they had me out fixing the Hubble Space Telescope."
He also expounded on the beauty and majesty of the earth from
space through a series of amazing photographs that he took
himself. He showed pictures of glaciers, sand dune patterns,
Manhattan, the Northern Lights, and the wake of a ship in the
Atlantic. Dr. Musgrave also spoke of working on the Hubble Space
Telescope. He had to perform a delicate maneuver on the
telescope, where he could have accidentally touched the film and
had Story fingerprints on every Hubble photograph. He also tried
to explain the complications of
working in zero-g. He
laughingly said that, for example, when drilling, they had to
make sure they were firmly secured; otherwise, they would spin
around the drill rather than the drill spinning the screw in. Not
that it was all work and no play. Story took many photographs of
Earth and, like all good astronauts, played with his food. If you
set a globule of coke spinning, he said, the bubbles and the flat
syrup separate (he had pictures of this too, of course), and you
can get a wonderful combination by sipping at the line between
the two.
See Story
with the SpaceTalk group here.
10/04/04:
SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X
Prize Topical news: At approximately 11:30 AM today, Brian Binney
successfully landed the privately-constructed SpaceShipOne at
California's Mojave Spaceport, making it the first private
spaceship to enter space twice in two weeks and thus the winner
of the $10,000,000 "X Prize". This came on the heels of
Virgin magnate Richard Branson's announcement that the
SpaceShipOne design would be used for his forthcoming ventures
into space tourism, dubbed "Virgin Galactic." More
information is available here.
<>09/26/04:
SpaceTalk General Interest Meeting
SpaceTalk
will be holding its first general interest meeting this
Wednesday, September 29th, at 8 PM in the Morehead Planetarium
Star Theater. (Enter the Planetarium gift shop facing Franklin;
the theater will be on your right.) Join us for refreshments, a
free star show hosted by Jesse Richuso, and information about
SpaceTalk as an organization.
04/06/04: Why
Save the Hubble? On
Tuesday, April 6th at 7pm in the North Gallery Theater of the
Morehead Planetarium, UNC-CH astrophysicist Dr. Gerald Cecil will
present a talk on the fate of the Hubble Space Telescope, a
scientific spacecraft currently slated to be decommissioned
despite tremendous public outcry. The talk is free and open to
the public, and we promise that you don't have to be a rocket
scientist to enjoy it!
03/21/04:
FREE Future Frontiers: Mars movie showing
On
Wednesday, March 31st at 7pm, the Morehead Planetarium and
Science Center is graciously offering SpaceTalkers a free
screening of FUTURE FRONTIERS: MARS, a documentary featuring the
first high-definition video pictures taken from another planet as
well as candid clips and interviews of the scientists and
engineers behind the mission. The showing will take place in the
North Gallery Theatre of the planetarium - don't miss it!
03/28/04: Five Planets
Stargazing Session on
Sunday, March 28th at 7:30pm at the Morehead Planetarium
Observatory telescope. Check out Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn through the big 'scope! As always, this event is free
and open to the public.
02/02/04:
NASA
critic Alex Roland to give
a free public lecture for SpaceTalk and the MPSC. Roland's talk,
entitled Let's Sell the Space Station: The Future of Manned
Spaceflight, which will focus on his views on human space
travel, a feat he argues is too dangerous and expensive with
current technology. Free and open to the public. Details
here.
12/01/04:
Mars
in Utah:
SpaceTalker Kate Harris to give a presentation at the
Morehead Planetarium about her experience at the Mars Desert
Research Station in Utah. Here's
the scoop.
03/01/04:
Touchdown
on Mars:
NASA rover 'Spirit' lands safely on Mars, and its twin,
Opportunity, will be landing soon. Explore Mars vicariously
through these robotic geologists here.
10/13/03:
Nobel
Laureate on 'Life in the Universe'.
Scientist Christian De Duve to speak for SpaceTalk and the
MPSC on Thursday, November 13th at 7:30pm. Details
here.
10/02/03:
See
Mars, the moon, and distant galaxies during a special
SpaceTalk stargazing session at the Morehead
Observatory. Meet at 8pm at the east entrance of the Morehead
Planetarium building (facing the arboretum). All are welcome!
09/15/03:
Astrophographer
Johnny Horne
to
speak for SpaceTalk on Monday, September 22nd at 7pm at
the Morehead Planetarium Star Theater. Here's
the scoop.
11/10/02:
Astronaut Nancy Currie
to speak for SpaceTalk on Thursday, November 14th at 7pm
at the Morehead Planetarium. Details
here.
10/06/02:
October 7th-13th is Space
Week at Carolina! Learn more
here.
08/25/02:
Pictures
from Dr. Robert Zubrin's ‘Case for Mars’
lecture at Carolina.
04/16/02:
Fall 2002 Space
Biology course offered at
UNC-CH.
04/16/02:
Interested
in attending a NASA in NC meeting? More
details here.
04/05/02:
‘Case
for Mars’
author,
astronautical engineer to give April 18 lecture. Check
out the official press release
and learn more
here.
02/19/02:
Elementary
school Mars
outreach talks.
11/27/01:
SpaceTalk news article featured on the Morehead
Foundation website. Click here
to see it.
11/22/01:
SpaceTalk wins a grant from the prestigious Robertson
Scholars Program Grant Collaboration Fund to start a seminar
series on space exploration. Click here
to learn more.
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