Tag Archives: Apollo 11 50th Anniversary

50th Anniversary Moon Landing

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  On July 19th it was my pleasure to run two Apollo 11drawing workshops for children in Co Sligo Ireland. This was the eve of the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. Seeing the moon landing live on TV 50 years ago was a big deal to me. It influenced my life in many ways, it still does. Therefore being so close to July 20th, I included my workshops as part of the global celebration of Apollo 11 in the IAU ( International Astronomical Union) events list. You can see mine and  the events from all over the world here. Its interesting how the Apollo moon landing absolutly pulled the entire planet together as one back in 1969. A few hours of focused global awe for the achievements of three men on our behalf. We need more of that unity, we need it so much. Ocean FM based in Co Sligo interviewed me about the Apoll 11 moon landing … Continue reading →

The ancient and inaccessible: the moon and the periodic table

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Next week I am off to St. Petersburg (Russia, not Florida) to give an invited lecture at the 4th International Conference on the Periodic Table — a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Dmitri Mendeleev’s proposal that the chemical elements could be laid out in a table where elements in each row (now columns) shared many properties. This periodicity of properties led this method of organization to be called a “periodic table.” Pope Paul VI in one of the Vatican Observatory’s domes reading a message to the Apollo 11 astronauts. The lecture I’ve been asked to give is based on an essay I wrote for Nature Chemistry earlier this year, “Isotopic Enrichment” (Isotopes are variants on elements. For example, carbon-14 dating tracks the radioactive decay of a heavier than normal variant of a carbon atom.  Most carbon is carbon-12, where the number indicates the mass of a single atom,) The title of this blog post comes from an article ten years ago in … Continue reading →

Apollo Moon Masterpiece

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Way back in time when I was just 11 years old I bought myself a copy of National Geographic Magazine. The February 1969 issue came with a large comprehensive moon map. The map is jam-packed with moon information, including the proposed sites for the Apollo Missions. This Apollo Moon masterpiece shown above is a true thing of beauty. This treasure has been on my wall for decades, an inspiration every time I look at it. The original artwork for the near and far side of the moon was hand-painted by cartographic artist Tibor Toth.   There were no computers in graphic art at the time. The map was designed by Dave Cook who also did most of the writing for the gorgeous snippets of lunar information included in every nook and cranny. Others credited with the work on the map are  Richard Furno, Dave Moore, and Jay Igno. Back then copying and pasting was just exactly that, cutting out text … Continue reading →

Keep up with the Apollo 11 – 50th Anniversary

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    There is an abundance of Apollo 11 50th Aniversary  activities flooding the internet at the moment. Here below are a few that I find interesting and perhaps you have not found them yet. Hopefully, you can access most of them no matter what country you are in  while reading this write up. Share your Apollo 11 Story with NASA a call out to the world One that resonated with me is the NASA call out for oral recordings of peoples personal memories of the moon landing in 1969. This call runs up to December 31st 2019. It is easy to do and there is a list of questions to address in your recording that helps to structure your audio. The questions help to build a picture of the impact of the first moon landing on peoples lives. A few weeks ago I recorded my four minutes worth and sent it in. It felt good to do it, some … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – July 2, 2019

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This entry is part 104 of 173 in the series In the Sky This Week

My wife and I are packing up our home of 22 years, and will be moving a few miles north. While I was clearing out my bookshelf, I found a book that I owned as a child, that has somehow remained with me, albeit a bit worse for wear: You Will Go To the Moon, published in 1959 by Mae and Ira Freeman, illustrated by Robert Patterson. I was a child of the Apollo era, and like many others of that time, our lives where influenced-by, and in many cases shaped-by the events of the early space age. As I look at through the book now, many of the images are very reminiscent of Chesley Bonestell’s artwork – also something from my childhood. This book shows a Moon lander leaving from a toroidal space station – something Bonestell featured in many pieces of his art way before 2001: A Space Odyssey; there’s also a whimsical image of an adult and … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – February 26, 2019

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This entry is part 85 of 173 in the series In the Sky This Week

This summer’s nationwide library reading program, “A Universe of Stories,” coincides with NASA’s 60th anniversary, and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. The Warren Astronomical Society (Michigan) has received multiple requests from libraries for summer speakers, astronomy programs and display case setups – and they’re still coming in! I’ve reached out to other astronomy clubs and volunteer NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassadors in southeastern Michigan for help covering all the outreach requests. If you are looking for speakers for this summer, Solar System Ambassadors in your state, and local astronomy clubs are a great resource. You can find many clubs and events listed on the NASA Night Sky Network site. Venus and Saturn continue to spread apart this week, and the waning crescent Moon appears very near several planets in the southeastern predawn sky. Mercury can be seen very low in the western sky at dusk this week. Mars and Uranus are high in the west-southwestern sky before midnight; … Continue reading →