WOW..!!....Here we are with the 1st Issue of 2000. I guess the world didn't end after all. Let us all breathe a sigh of relief together....or should we???
Read on for some interesting details about that, some fun games to play online for free, some mind blowing facts/statistics about space exploration and of course, the usual fare about space you can always find at
...I'd like to open this issue with my favorite space quote of all time...so, jump on board everyone and...
"...let's light this candle..."
Before I go any further, I'd like to give a big plug for a killer awesome website! Jason Martell's Mars-Earth.com at
http://www.mars-earth.com
His web site is, without question, the best I've seen on the web. He's come a long way with that website. Congrat's Jason!
...ok, on with the launch...
I had the awesome pleasure of watching the night launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on my 32nd birthday last month at Kennedy Space Center. It was quite the memorable experience.
I want you to picture this, in your mind:
December 19th, a Sunday, central Florida, not a cloud in the sky, temp's in the 70's, the sun had set a few hours earlier and crowds are beginning to grow at the beaches, the parks and anywhere else you might find a spot to watch a launch at the Space Coast of Brevard County, Florida. But not just any launch...a night launch! (...and of course the last of 1999)
We pulled up to an open spot in Port Canaveral(where many cruise ships depart from) and it was obvious that we'd arrived just in time to avoid major parking issues. All of a sudden, another million people showed up. We arrived in no traffic and instantly, everybody's looking for the parking spot we'd just found....(my Parking Angel was there!)
Standing at the edge of the Indian River, looking directly across at the launch pad, the crowd grew large as we neared the scheduled liftoff time of 7:50pm. Many people had portable scanner radios tuned in to the NASA channel and we could hear the shuttle crew communicate back and forth with mission control...
...and there you have it....like clockwork, the final countdown began and as the numbers got lower, the crowd counted louder...10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1......the candle was lit! That first moment...(not that anyone could put this into words effectively enough) was like watching the sun rise. Truly spectacular!
The lack of noise at first however, was really eerie. Almost too quiet, but you don't really notice it's absence until you first hear/feel the rumbling. The crowd is cheering as Discovery rises into the cloudless evening sky, right across Orions Belt. Awesome is all I can say.
I would encourage everyone, who has a chance, to go see a night launch. You won't be disappointed. You can follow the shuttle all the way up into space with a cheap pair of binoculars (unless, of course, the launch is postponed, then you're S.O.L.)
I'd sure like to know if any crowds appear in California's Vandenberg Air Force Base to watch some of those west coast launches. Do they cheer the rockets on as they rise up towards space? Does anyone know? I'd like to hear about it.
HERE's the VAFB upcoming launch schedule.
Now here's an interesting webpage. SpaceKids.com Here you'll find a really neat game where you can figure out your age and weight if you lived on one of the other planets in our solar system. I'm 32 years old and Pluto has only gone around the sun 1 time in my life! Now that's interesting! It's a great site with lot's of neat stuff so check it out.
I would like to believe that many of you are already aware of the coming Solar Storms. (learn more about it here)This spring and summer may be quite active. Who knows how bad it will be? Well, nobody for sure, but many scientists are focusing a lot of energy on the sun as we enter the solar maximum period now. Several people have been coming forward to express their concerns. Art Bell wrote a book called The Coming Global Superstorm, EarthChangesTV has been getting a lot of attention and NASA has been paying a lot of attention to the issue. See LIVE IMAGES of the SUN here.
And the search is on for the Mars Polar Lander. NASA is hoping there might be a trace of the lost spacecraft which the Mars Global Surveyor Camera might pick up while flying overhead of the crashsite (assuming there's a crashsite with spread out wreckage large enough to be seen). THIS PAGE HERE explains the task quite well.
Play the Mars Polar Lander game!!! This game is way, way cool!! (I crash landed every time.)
THINK MARS is an online petition to move ahead with Mars Exploration and a Manned Mission. Please cast your vote HERE
Here's a well written article about the future of the hotel industry in space http://www.usatoday.com/life/travel/leisure/2000/ltl014.htm
FLORIDA TODAY and Mercedes Homes are sponsoring a student essay contest to help celebrate the year 2000 Enter and Win if you're a creative writer.
I'm sure many of you have visited Sky & Telescope's website, but how many of you have checked outAstronomy Magazine online?
Want your signature in space? GO HERE
Here's the web page listing all the missions from NASA's Human Spaceflight Program including the Space Station etc.
Spacewatch.com is the space channel of all time. Visiting this site is almost like watching tv.
A 2 second poll on your opinion of intelligent life in the universe
Drum roll please...."and the top sci-fi/space movies of the '90's are...CLICK HERE
Now this is really cool! This company sells radio controled remote UFO's! You can even see short movie clips of it in action on their website! PlanTraco.com
Here's a cool website with some neat space arcade games you can play online for free. I'm talking about Asteroids, Missile Command, Tail Gunner of a Spaceship, Space Invaders type games and more...
This web site is way too much fun!! It's a race car that you race down a track to demonstrate time and distance in space
Another really cool shockwave game site is here. These are cool Mars related games
Check out this PBS site about a new film called LIFE BEYOND EARTH. It looks like a great movie!
Also, have any of you seen the commercials for the new movie called SUPERNOVA ? It looks interesting. I believe it's coming out in a couple of days. They also have THIS neat Shockwave Game
...but the movie I'm really looking forward to seeing is MISSION to MARS due out in March, I think. Now this looks good. Here's the trailer clip you can view now. I love movies like that!
You know, speaking of movies, does anyone remember DEEP IMPACT? Their website is still up and running and they have this really cool comet/asteroid page.
I'm going to be linking to some 3D images so if you don't have any 3D glasses around HERE'S how you can make a pair!
Ok here's the 3D Space Vixens online comic book.
I was all ready to post the winning Pic of the Month image here, and then it hit me: "Now how could I have a diddly Pic of the Month when I'm writing this column at the Dawn of a Thousand Years?"
So instead, I'm going to post my own choice for the best space image of all time.
However, it needs a little pre-amble. Hundreds of years ago, people looked up to the sky and could only wonder what was there that they couldn't see. So they built telescopes to help see more. A few years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope took some images of a spot in the night sky where we thought there was nothing. And what they found was truly stunning. It takes an incredible stretch of the imagination to comprehend what your looking at in this image below. Mankind is so small, oh so small. Even now, we look up to the sky and wonder what is there that we cannot see. So we build bigger telescopes...
We've got a galaxy right up our wazoo! It was only discovered in 1994!!! It's got a name something like Gigalo. We've all seen what happens when galaxies collide, right? Well, maybe the gravity from this nearby galaxy will begin to affect us in incredible ways! Here it is.
There's been some controversy recently over the true color of Mars sky. It seems the Red Planet might not be so 'red' after all. In fact, it may be a lot more like Earths own sky during the day. Blue. But that leaves a question..."why might NASA alter and hide Mars true color from us? I have no idea. But some other people do... and here are their websites: Mars Blue Sky
Conspiranoia!This book looks very, very interesting. You can read an exerpt which will give you a pretty good idea of what it's about.
This guy has a show on public television here in Tampa about UFO's and Aliens and that whole deal. It's called UFO Reality. I watch it is because it's local but I thought I'd give his web site a plug. HERE
I wonder if he had any witnesses on his show for this local UFO sighting.
This guys site does a pretty good job at Anomaly Hunting. It's become quite the cottage industry as the internet continues to grow. I'm truly scared by some of the things these guys have found. CHECK IT OUT for yourselves.
Canadian Cydonia Research on the Mars Face
An interesting article on sci-fi and space.
I don't know about you, but I sure am glad that New Years is behind us. I certainly wouldn't call 1999 a great year for space. But, there were a lot of success stories: Speaking of Challenger, I'd like to add something here about the previous Issue of The B~Hive Cafe/Eyes on Space. The reason I wrote that column and published the supposed transcript of the dying astronauts aboard Challenger was to also point out that NASA had the ability and technology to design equipment which would have saved their lives. Yet they chose not to. I have a problem with that.
So with that said, I'd like to apologize here if anyone was bothered or offended by the transcript or it's contents. It was meant only to inform, not to offend
OK enough of that, and enough of this...
I leave you all with 'THIS', somebody's predictions for the future.
Easy Bucky
Galileo at Jupiter sending back incredible data and surviving brutal levels of radiation exposure
Mars Global Surveyor trucks along, even helping to look for the lost MPL
SOHO survives another mishap and bounces back yet again
Cassini seems to be doing well on it's way to Saturn, it made a successful flyby of Earth without killing us all with an accidental re-entry (although, it seems it very well could have happened based on the navigation mistake with the Mars Climate Orbiter. Maybe all those protesters weren't too far off the mark)
The Space Station is now a reality (but way behind schedule)
Hubble Space Telescope was given a trip to the fountain of youth
Chandra Xray Telescope is now operational and will probably make the HST look like a back-yard telescope
Stardust is on it's way to a Comet Sample Return Mission...now this one will be cool!
Here's NASA's opinion on their own top ten 1999 success stories
...and some of the not so succesful stories...
Mars CLimate Orbiter drifts off towards the asteroid belt, lost because of a bad conversion from imperial to metric. A mistake that should have been prevented.
Mars Polar Lander disappears and we have no idea why.
Deep Space 1 had some trouble and shut itself down. Now it will miss one of two scheduled asteroid flybys.
Lunar Prospecter purposely crashed into the moon, hoping to kick up some water but we saw nothing there and don't know what happened.
The Japanese launched a rocket to Mars and although it's on it's way, the trip will take over 4 years instead of a few months.
Space Shuttle fleet grounded because of old wiring that needed replacing, which led to the fewest number of shuttle launches in a year since Challenger.
I hope you all really enjoyed this issue of The B~Hive Cafe/Eyes on Space and I hope you'll come back and visit a future column, or maybe even one from the past. 
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