I haven't seen this room before

It looks bigger than the rooms I usually see.

Edit: This is "Kibo," the Japanese Experiment Module.

I haven't watched the Space Station very much these past few months. (- I was away... then I was sick...) I think I may start watching it more again. For some reason, it brings me a great sense of peace. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it seems so unreal, and yet, it is real. I think I need that in my life in some ways. For more [good] unreal things to be real.

"Just like the Pilgrims"

Don't see a video? Click here.

Unexpected benefit from watching the Space Station

I watched a little of the Space Station this week. It's been a while since I've done that. I found it calming in a "familiar" sort of way. Weird, I know, but since I watched it practically non-stop for about a week my brain now experiences a level of comfort when it sees it. Familiarity brings me a great deal of peace. (Well... good familiarity. Familiar crap makes me feel crappy!)

Watching the International Space Station this week also made me a little sad because some of my favorite astronauts will be returning to Earth soon but that's for another post. The post below, however, is yet another that I wrote a while ago and saved to draft. Here ya go:

*  *  *  *  *

I've pretty much finished my spree of space posts, but last night I discovered what I think might be a really great benefit from having watched the International Space Station for about a week. I was able to fly MUCH more easily in my dreams last night!

Oh sure, ROLL YOUR EYES, but you don't understand what an issue this has been for me! Do you know I actually had to develop a whole other technique for flying in my dreams? I've had SO much difficulty flying at times - which is annoying because WHOSE DREAM IS IT ANYWAY???!!! But, a few years ago, I figured out that I could sometimes levitate instead - directionally too. Which is a bit different but can sometimes achieve similar results when necessary. - When I'm aware enough to remember. (BTW, I found this was also the key to moving objects in my dreams. I tried "willing" things to move for months and got nowhere, but when I tried levitating them I was able to succeed.)

I lucid dream a lot. I have since I was four. And sometimes it gets boring, so I try to master new skills (- like telekenisis.) - You would too if you found yourself sitting in your kitchen every now and realized "Huh... I'm dreaming again... Now what?" I mean one can only fly out a window so many times. And visiting your favorite literary or television characters gets tricky because it's easy to lose lucidity once you get there, and then it rarely works out right.

Last night, for example, I got my outfit right, and I got a main character right, but the setting was totally wrong. - Yet another thing I have to work on. It's not the first time I've arrived someplace, looked around and said "Ok this isn't right... This is my dream... let's change it...." -and it doesn't change :P

So anyway, where was I?

Oh right... Flying. Much easier last night. And I think it might be due to having watched others do it so effortlessly for over a week now.

So if you have trouble flying in your dreams, might I suggest watching the space station... ;)

Red Shirt Fridays

I find this a bizarrely ironic name for a movement.

People wear all kinds of stuff on the Space Station. One Friday, I tried to read Mike Fossum's shirt. Mike was not cooperative with my efforts. Seems he thought fixing the space station was more important ;)

I was able to read enough of it to see that it was titled "Red Shirt Friday" and that it had something to do with supporting US troops. I did some searching and learned that this is a quiet movement that's been around since possibly 2005. The idea is for people to wear red shirts, which symbolize the spilled blood of soldiers, on Fridays, to show support for our troops, until all of them are brought home. I found no other explanation offered re the symbolism of wearing red shirts for this movement. Blood of soldiers. That's it.

Anybody else find "Red Shirts" an unfortunate and ironic symbol for our troops?!

Non Geeks Click Here

A "Red Shirt" or "Redshirt" is slang for a nameless expendable character that gets killed soon after they appear. The term came about due to the original Star Trek series where crew members in red shirts frequently met their demise by the end of a scene, often in large numbers. Although the term "Red Shirt" is most closely associated with Star Trek, it is often parodied and referred to in other television and film genres as well. 

Equipment in space

You know how sometimes you drop something and end up searching for it all over the floor, the desk, and every little crack and space it might have fallen or rolled into? Don't you hate that?

Well now imagine that when that happened, the item in question WALKED AWAY. Just up and walked. Grew legs and, instead of staying where it fell, waiting for you to find it, or rolling within a certain range before coming to a complete stop (and then waiting for you to find it) it sprouted legs, and moved. Walked rooms and even buildings away. Every single time. Every single thing. Just "because."

Welcome to life on the space station.

Nothing falls and stays. Every single thing that's dropped, grows legs and walks away! Ok, actually it floats away. But if you think about it, that's the same thing. Nothing just falls and stays within a logical "searchable" range. Anything that is accidentally dropped can and will "wander" rooms and sometimes buildings away, all on its own and can go anywhere.

Ponder that for a moment...

While you're pondering, I'll tell you about another equipment problem that I never knew about until today. It involves headsets. See Mike below? That's Mike Fossum. I'm going to miss him someday when his time on the Space Station is up. I may have to ask him to put a camera in his home.

Notice the headset on Mike's head? Earpiece and microphone? I have a similar one on my phone. In all the years weeks that I've watched the Space Station, I'd never seen someone wear a headset. Normally they talk into little wired microphones that look like a cross between an electric toothbrush, and some kind of meat thermometer or alien probe. (see below.)

Today was the first time I saw someone wearing what looked like a normal phone type headset. And now I know why. - I paraphrased two bits of dialogue I didn't write down fast enough, but this was a real conversation.

Mike

You may have noticed I'm wearing this headset today. We don't usually use these. I'm not sure if you can see this ear piece clearly if I hold it up to the camera...

Houston

Has Ronny been chewing on that?  

(* Ron is another astronaut.)

Mike

Either that or the cat. 

(pause)

That's a joke. We have no cat.

Houston

Good to know.

Mike

We have 3 of these. I'm going to see if I can find a headpiece that hasn't exploded yet.

There you go. As if working in space wasn't dangerous enough, apparently when you least expect it, earpieces on headsets can explode.

- I'll stick with the alien probe.

Shoes and Socks

Exercise

I mentioned yesterday that socks are worn around the Space Station. There's an exception to that. When astronauts are exercising (or going to and from exercising) they wear sneakers.

The guy in the back of the 2nd picture is wearing a treadmill harness. See those loops on either side of the harness? There are elastic straps that attach to each loop and then straight down to the floor of the treadmill to keep the astronaut pulled down onto the treadmill's surface during exercise. It'd be difficult to get  traction if they kept floating away ;)

I'm pretty sure this is the treadmill. They were working on it this morning and it may have been making an odd sound because they kept holding a microphone to it while it was running. Either that or it's a very small conveyer belt to nowhere - that talks.

Space Socks

It was hard for me to get a good picture of the darker socks Sandy was wearing the other day. I thought maybe the white patterns on them were starbursts, or snow flakes, or maybe even Christmas trees. Today I saw another astronaut wearing the same socks, and Sandy was still wearing hers so they hadn't mistakenly grabbed the wrong pair ;) I figured that, unless they happened to shop at the same sock store, these might be Nasa issued socks, and it looks like they might be.

Look closely. Those are little white astronauts on there! - I want a pair!!! :D (Ok I want two pairs. One to save and one to wear :) )

Things I'm learning from watching the International Space Station

I now know where the snacks, cameras, and laptops are stored. (Very important in case the aliens drop me off there.)

Lots of equipment is stored by sticking it to the walls with what appears to be velcro and/or magnets.

Many supplies, particularly small items like nuts and bolts, are stored in clear baggies. - Most people have baggies and holsters with supplies attached to them as they make their way through the space station.

One guy in particular likes to use his legs to carry equipment as he floats through the station. (If you're not using them for walking, why not? It frees up your arms to keep you from bumping into things.)

It is not unusual for them to spend time cataloging, storing, labeling, and/or looking for a particular nut, bolt, cable, or pair of gloves... The other day a missing piece of equipment was finally found floating in the middle of a room.

Everyone wears socks on the Space Station, not shoes. The men all seem to wear solid colored socks (black, white, gray) and Sandy's socks are more...  interesting. - It's hard to get a good picture of them because she flies by so quickly!

* I did a search to see if Sandy was known for having an odd collection of socks, and it turns out she lost the pink, blue, and white striped socks during her last visit to the station, and just found them again a few days ago.

Eating on the Space Station

"What did your mom pack for lunch?"

Overheard in space

Astronauts, while repairing the outside of the Space Station, 220 miles above Earth.

"Maybe I'll knock on a window and see if anyone's home..."

"Hey Ron… Don't look down!" 

"There's something about being at the end of the module that makes it look higher."

Space Walk Photos

Just a few.

I have so much to do

But all I want to do is write.

And watch space.

Except space is making me motion sick so that's not the best plan at the moment (They're doing space walks today. Pretty, but not something I'd be cut out for.)

I've just learned that the elevator in my building is out, so I won't be able to go outside in the three hundred degree heat to do laundry today.

Drat ;)

But that doesn't mean there aren't a bazillion other things I need to do.

And yet... all I want to do is write.

I've been working on a story for about a week or two and I keep wanting to return to it. Which is good as a diversion, but not good when there's other things to do.

Plus I'm nauseas and have a headache (- from "space.")

Got some good pictures though. :)

Please indulge me with the whole "space" thing for about a week. After that I'll probably be over it and stop posting about it. If not, I'll move those posts to a separate blog because this is not a space blog. ... but it might be "space week" here for a bit ;)

Space Suits

Getting ready for today's Space Walk

International Space Station

I've been watching the International Space Station for the past two days. I need to be careful with live streams of places. Any place. I can easily become addicted.

My mom has been watching too. I set her up yesterday and she was very excited. I figure it's a step up from her watching the weather channel all day.

You can watch too if you'd like. (If the file downloads but doesn't work, download VLC media player and try opening it with that. VLC is a much better player. Everything works on there!)

What you see will vary. The camera views change depending on what's going on, and I think there might be a delay of possibly 12 hours. I'm not sure if it's 100% live (there was a delay several years ago when the feeds first started.) * The feed does appear to be live unless they're reviewing a video from earlier in the day. Also, Space Station time is usually GMT, though it can change sometimes to accommodate the hours of a short term mission.

Sometimes they show the exterior of the Space Station. Sometimes they show a supply area where people come and go a lot (often floating through which is kind of neat to see.) Sometimes there's just a still screen. Like watching paint dry…. In space ;)

UFO

The night of the fireworks, a friend of mine pointed out a UFO hovering in the distance.

I guessed "helicopter." She guessed "blimp." Once it got closer we could see that she was right.

Or was she....

In a galaxy far far away... I'll be having a panic attack

Yesterday's One Word exercise (Galaxy) reminded me of a fear I have of not knowing my way home if I ever get stranded outside of our solar system.

Who has fears like this? Apparently I do. Or at least one was fostered in me about fifteen or so years ago at a planetarium.

I was sitting in the dark auditorium, looking up at the (fake) night sky, as stars and comets and little arrows whisked all over the place pointing out this feature or that. I want to say the narrator's voice in this presentation was Robin Williams but I might be mistaken. Maybe Billy Crystal? Anyway, this was not like planetarium shows I'd watched as a child, with specs of light. This was a whole surround sound video type of thing.

At one point the video showed an example of just how small we and our planet are. The view zoomed out to show a continent... a familiar sight. Then further to show our planet.... also familiar (Look! That's home!) and then further out to show our solar system... (That's us! Third rock from the sun! Look how pretty our solar system is!) and then further out to show our solar system amongst many others.

Right about this point my brain came to a screeching halt as I realized that I had no idea which of those stars was our own solar system. Next the view zoomed to a picture of our galaxy. This made me feel a tiny bit better. Our galaxy's images are, again, familiar. Then they zoomed out to show our galaxy amidst BILLIONS of other galaxies.... and that's when I panicked. And this panic was not alleviated by the view zooming further and further and further out and my realizing OMG I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE MY PLANET IS!!! HOW WOULD I GET HOME if I was THIS FAR OUT IN SPACE??!!!!!!

I seriously panicked! I was staring at the ceiling of the planetarium thinking "I have no idea how to find or figure out which galaxy is ours!" I had no frame of reference. I know how to identify our planet within our solar system and I know that we (supposedly) live in a spiral galaxy, but if there were a BAZILLION points of light spread out in front of you, who would have the TIME (or the FUEL!) to check out the INFINITE number of possibilities! I couldn't even narrow it down to a cluster! No clue. No idea whatsoever how to identify which little spec of light might be ours, and which direction to go if I ever got "out" that far.

I had to keep telling myself, in my head, "You're still ON Earth, you're sitting in a planetarium in a museum, you haven't gone anywhere and oh btw, YOU VERY LIKELY NEVER WILL!!! SNAP OUT OF IT!!!" I even made myself look around at the room and the chairs and the people, to try to ground myself, but my brain kept yelling back at me "Yeah but WHAT IF???!!!"

You know what finally made me calmer? When the video zoomed back down little by little, back to our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, our continent, and then finally, to us. THAT put my whole body back into a relaxed state. Not my telling myself anything logical! No! My brain had been freaked out by images, and that's what it took to calm it back down. Those same images in reverse!

To this day I'm still surprised by how immersed I was and how freaked out I got once I couldn't recognize "landmarks" (space marks?) past a certain distance from "home." This has since been a source of amusement and slight concern to me. (Concern because who takes something like that seriously? Again, apparently that would be ME.)

So I thought about that again yesterday, when I had the word "Galaxy" at One Word (I also thought "NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!" - Which I quoted backwards yesterday. My bad. It sounds better to me the other way.) Anyway, I remembered seeing these once upon a time and wondered if I could find them again.

I did. They're here: Location Earth Dog Tags. (And they come with a money back guarantee if aliens fail to understand the map and bring you home while you're wearing one of these.)

But they seemed to be lacking in information. So I looked up the original Pioneer Plaque drawing,

Click picture to "embiggin"

which still leaves something to be desired in its clarity, but all things considered, it's the best I've got at the moment. (More on that image here.)

Both images are now downloaded to my iphone, which puts me in a slightly better position if I ever leave Earth while out on a walk or running some errands (and also if my phone is charged and I have a compatible power source to re-charge it "wherever.") If, however, I'm ever abducted from my bed, I'm pretty much hosed. Well... if I were ever abducted from my bed I'd be pretty much hosed with or without directions to get home.

* FYI, I've never had a fear of alien abductions. The fear was really just about how I wouldn't know how to get home from too far out in space!