Crashing into the sun

[Brazoo]

I love stuff like this. Stuff I've totally taken for granted, but ends up being mind blowing and strangely obvious at the same time --- and super interesting.

[Mikey]

I love them kinda youtube videos

I watch them all the time when bored

[Brazoo]

I'm thinking this is probably a fun thing to keep in mind when watching the movie "Gravity" and Sandra Bullock is jumping from objects in one orbit to another like it's nothing. She's have to do so many calculations and control her speed so perfectly to hit what she's trying to, it would really be next to impossible.

[Brazoo]

Here's another cool article that popped up on my feed.

Apparently Jupiter doesn't really orbit the Sun:

http://www.iflscience.com/space/forget-wha-you-heard-jupiter-does-not-orbit-the-sun/

[Duncan]

In May we drove to Orlando and did the theme parks. We decided to make a detour to Kennedy on the way home, and I'm so glad we did. That was the most memorable part of the trip for me. I'd already seen the shuttle at Dulles, but to also see the launch pads, buildings, rockets & engines was amazing. I'm now in awe that we could put men in space and on the Moon with 1960s technology; it's just amazing. We also got to meet a shuttle astronaut and get her autograph (IMO that's someone worthy of much respect), and we were there for a Spacex launch. If you're ever in Orlando, it's definitely worth the time and money to run over to Kennedy.

[Brazoo]

In May we drove to Orlando and did the theme parks. We decided to make a detour to Kennedy on the way home, and I'm so glad we did. That was the most memorable part of the trip for me. I'd already seen the shuttle at Dulles, but to also see the launch pads, buildings, rockets & engines was amazing. I'm now in awe that we could put men in space and on the Moon with 1960s technology; it's just amazing. We also got to meet a shuttle astronaut and get her autograph (IMO that's someone worthy of much respect), and we were there for a Spacex launch. If you're ever in Orlando, it's definitely worth the time and money to run over to Kennedy.

Oh man! I did the same trip about 20 years ago with my cousin, who went on to become an aerospace engineer. It was fantastic. I think there's a kind of beautiful crudeness to the old space technology and there's nothing like seeing that stuff in person (even if some of it was reproduced for display). It's SO awe inspiring to see these metal boxes and think about people climbing into these things and basically strapping themselves to an explosive to shoot themselves into space. True heroes, in my opinion.

We didn't get to meet an astronaut. I'm so jealous! That's amazing!

[Duncan]

It's SO awe inspiring to see these metal boxes and think about people climbing into these things and basically strapping themselves to an explosive to shoot themselves into space. True heroes, in my opinion.

Yeah, on the bus tour the driver phrased it as "...climbing on top of a craft that's 91% high explosive, by weight." Our driver was great, by the way. He was way proud of what they'd accomplished. It was like he was talking about his family. That helped me to understand why the astronauts had faith in the engineers. When I get on a plane, I wonder about the people who built it, and I hope that the last guy to do maintenance was feeling 100% at the time.