[TheZookie007]

That would be easy! Let me start searching in the couch cushions for some spare change

[solvegas]

Virgin Galactic test flight. 

[solvegas]

Ah, the good ol' days.  Saturn V rocket being transported to the launch pad.

[solvegas]

 

[TheZookie007]

We're not traveling across the Sun, we're revolving around the Sun, relative to the Sun that is.

[Shadowmuse Blown]

We're not traveling across the Sun, we're revolving around the Sun, relative to the Sun that is.

Truth.

We’re also traveling a thousand miles per hour just spinning around the center of the Earth.  And, don’t forget: as we travel 67,000 mph around the Sun, the solar system itself is also traveling around the center of the Milky Way at a rate of 493,200 mph! 

Circles within circles within circles. 

[TheZookie007]

And the Milky Way galaxy itself is rotating around the center of the Local Group. And on and on it goes!

[TheZookie007]

"This stunning image of the Horsehead Nebula, in the constellation Orion, was captured by a telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.

This dense dust cloud formation is approximately 1,375 light-years from Earth."

[Shadowmuse Blown]

And the Milky Way galaxy itself is rotating around the center of the Local Group. And on and on it goes!

Yeah, but I couldn’t find info on our speed for that. 

[solvegas]

A little book from 2015. 

[TheZookie007]

"Happy #MoonDay! 🌕 👩‍🚀🚀 Today marks the day when astronauts first landed on the moon in 1969, and that wouldn’t be possible with these amazing #WomenInSTEM.

Top left: Mathematician and “hidden figure” Katherine Johnson helped calculate the trajectory for the 1969 #Apollo11 flight and later won the same medal the Apollo 11 astronauts accepted decades prior for her work. She also won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015!

Top right: Margaret Hamilton was the computer scientist who led NASA’s team of software engineers; she helped develop the onboard flight software for NASA’s Apollo moon missions.

Bottom left: During Apollo 11’s liftoff, JoAnn Morgan became NASA’s first and only female engineer in the launch firing room when she worked as an instrumentation controller for the mission. She later went on to become NASA’s first female senior executive.

Bottom right: Mary Jackson, who became NASA’s first African-American female engineer in 1958 (and may have been the only Black female aeronautical engineer in the world at that time), also helped calculate flight trajectories for the mission.

And these are hardly the only women who contributed to the mission, either. Learn more about these incredible trailblazers here!"

[solvegas]

I remember the Moon landing so well when Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin landed the Moon capsule Eagle ( Houston, the Eagle has landed. By the way, Houston is the first word spoken on the Moon ). I was twelve years old and it was exciting times. I remember the adults saying things like, " We beat the Russkies, those commie pinko bastards! " and other such things. I was going to post a photo of Buzz Aldrin saluting the USA flag on the Moon but that would put me over the top on image postings for now so I'll do it later. 

[TheZookie007]

I remember the Moon landing so well when Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin landed the Moon capsule Eagle ( Houston, the Eagle has landed. By the way, Houston is the first word spoken on the Moon ). I was twelve years old and it was exciting times. I remember the adults saying things like, " We beat the Russkies, those commie pinko bastards! " and other such things. I was going to post a photo of Buzz Aldrin saluting the USA flag on the Moon but that would put me over the top on image postings for now so I'll do it later. 

A commonly repeated myth, but: nope.

KHOU, June 23, 2015: "Houston, we have a myth: What was really the first word spoken from the moon?"

HOUSTON - Here in Space City, it is the stuff of legend: Houston was the first word spoken on the moon.

The governor has bragged about it. Advertising campaigns have been built around it. It even turned up in the lyrics of a mayor's campaign song.

Only one problem with that idea: Sadly, it's just not true.

...In fact, a closer look at the transcripts reveals the landing clearly happened several seconds before Armstrong said, "Houston."

"It's a technicality, but if you want the first words from the moon, they were 'contact light,''' Aldrin told KHOU 11 News.

Aldrin spoke those words the instant he saw an instrument panel light that illuminated as probes extending from the lunar module footpads touched the moon's surface. His next words were telling: "OK, engine stop." Once the engine had shut down, it's obvious the lunar module was sitting on the moon.

Aldrin rattled off some more technical mumbo-jumbo. Then after a moment of silence, Mission Control basically asked a question.

"We copy you down, Eagle," said Charlie Duke, the capsule communicator in Houston, which was another way of saying, "Looks like you guys have landed."

Only then did Armstrong transmit the announcement beginning with the word "Houston."

"The first symbolic word was 'Houston, Tranquility Base.'' Aldrin recalled. "However, before we got to that point, when we touched down I said - because I watched the light - 'Contact light, engine stop.'''

The story got more complicated decades later, when NASA released previously unpublicized recordings from inside the lunar module. Shortly after Aldrin said the word "contact," Armstrong is heard saying "shutdown." Chaikin contends the spacecraft wasn't actually sitting on the moon until that moment.

"Neil says 'shutdown,' which means that he has at that point shut down the descent rocket, the descent engine of the lunar module,' Chaikin said. "And he only did that after they were actually on the moon."

Aldrin, who's long resented Armstrong's role as the first man on the moon, bristled at the suggestion Armstrong uttered the first word after the landing. He was there, Aldrin said, and the first words were his.

"Let's not deal with trivia as to what the recording was," Aldrin said. "Andy may want to do that for his book, but what I recall I just told you."...

[Shadowmuse Blown]

James Web pic of a galaxy that formed when the universe was a mere 300 million years of age. 

What’s really cool isn’t that it took 13.4 billion years for the light to reach us; what’s so cool is that the light travelled 33 billion light years to reach us because the universe has expanded so much.  Weird.

[solvegas]

Makes Earth's hurricanes and tornados speed seem slow.