Geek Habitat

I’ll have to add more to this post when my head’s not throbbing and threatening to explode (somehow it’s easier to tweet than blog… 140 characters is liberating, I guess… moreso than a blank text box in WordPress.) In the meantime, I’ve harvested from my Twitter stream the relevant links I wanted to share.

Anyhow, if you missed this afternoon’s launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis for its 11 day mission to significantly upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope, check out NASA’s HD replay of the launch on YouTube.

To learn more about the mission, here are a few good articles to read:

Ronald Regan’s address to the Nation after the Challenger disaster

I’ve written about this day before, and when I have time I’ll link a few previous posts (one or two of which have been archived and are no longer online). In the interim, visit CNN’s space correspondent Miles O’Brien’s post in remembrance of the loss of Space Shuttle Challenger and her crew aboard STS-51L.

From a tweet yesterday (November 20) from @Saroy, real life rocket scientist (and member of the current/STS-126’s Shuttle mission’s Orbit 3 shift): “Happy 10th Birthday to the International Space Station! Oh how you’ve grown…”

Don’t miss the International Space Station assembly animation!

There were times it’s looked like the Space Station would never be completed — between the ever-present issues of budget and time — so it’s especially nice to see what it has become in ten year’s time.

I urge everyone to watch at least a couple of the U.S. Presidential (and the only Vice Presidential) debates leading up to the election. CSPAN’s Debate Hub and CSPAN’s YouTube channel are terrific sources.

CSPAN’s Debate Hub is especially handy, providing videos broken out by question and full information on the dates and locations of each debate as well as carrying the debates LIVE as they occur. The next and final U.S. Presidential Debate for this election is at 9 PM ET on October 15, 2008, in Hempstead, New York, and you can watch it live on CSPAN’s Debate Hub at this URL (bookmark it for viewing on debate night): http://debatehub.c-span.org/index.php/debate-4/

Haven’t downloaded the pics of the former, yet, but wanted to thank both Ford Motor Co. (via a Flickr/Twitter contact) and Google Lunar X-Prize (via @glxp on Twitter) for the free swag I’ve received in the past month. I rarely pick up swag anymore, not attending conferences and the like, so it’s noteworthy enough for a blog mention.

The Google Lunar X-Prize swag’s a comfy, soft black (of course, for geeks!) t-shirt. To learn more about the Google Lunar X-Prize, visit TheLaunchpad.xprize.org!

I tuned in to the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery’s launch of mission STS-124 almost exactly one minute into its launch. I’ll have to catch the launch on replay.