News Release: Satellites

NASA press release of satellites in orbit
It’s a space race score sheet!

April 14th, 1961: NASA publishes a list of satellites and space probes orbiting the Earth, Moon, and Sun, and it all fits on a single, ordinary, typed sheet of letter-sized paper. Twenty-six in all.

Just take a moment to marvel at that.

Now, of course, we (as in humans, not the physics shop) are still sending scads of objects into space, and NASA maintains the ARES Orbital Debris Program to keep track of all the crap up there.

Remember: wishing upon the burning reentry of space debris is just as good as on the remnants of comet dust!

Copper-coated

Shiny!

Copper-coated steel BBs, used in several different labs throughout physics and astronomy. Like many of the odds and ends we use for labs and demonstrations, these aren’t used as intended by the manufacturer. In this case, one can only imagine that off-label use is actually safer.

News Release: Metric System

NASA news: metric system
‘Bout time.

NASA makes an effort to switch over to the metric system. (For some things.) Because when your day-to-day job involves a lot of calculations and unit conversions, decimal-based order takes a lot of irritation out of doing ordinary stuff.

NASA data with hand-written kilometers to miles conversion
Working units to brain-thinking units.

Of course, when you make the changeover from one system to another, it’s a challenge. Sometimes it’s necessary to use a few crutches before the comfort and ease settle in. (Note that this particular sheet predates the press release by the better part of a decade.)

Enlargement of handwritten note
We’ve all been there.

Odd observations:

  • It’s written out in plain English, rather than as a symbolic equation, like ” 1 km = 0.6214 mi. “
  • There’s no 0 before the decimal point.
  • The k for kilo is capitalized, and there’s a period after the m.
  • But there’s no period at the end of the actual sentence.
  • Love that old-school printed g.

Chair

Remember back when desk chairs didn’t swivel?

Classic and simple, this wood and… leather-like chair has probably been in this office since the mid-20th century. Still in good shape! Nice curves, old-style rivets with a hammered finish, and a subdued brown-on-brown color palette. Sits comfortably.

B’Gosh.

Somehow, despite surviving the decades of use and age, a misaligned decal proclaiming “quality” gives one pause. Was it really that hard?

News Release: Space Toilet

Title: Bathroom Commode Design for Space Shuttle Passengers
Cannot overstate the importance of this project.

In cleaning out decades of old papers, attempting to determine what’s worth saving, one occasionally stumbles across the in-betweens: those bits worth remarking upon, but not worth keeping.

For those who’ve kept up on reading Mary Roach’s books, the importance and extreme engineering challenges of making a good space toilet are immense. Suffice to say, the problem was far from solved in 1972.