I'm sure those who are  more active in astronomical things were well aware of this for a long time, but I just became aware that there is a massive total solar eclipse that will cross the entire United States in August of 2017. And more importantly from my perspective is that it will actually cross part of Georgia, so I can drag my kids and wife out to see it! 

The American Astronomical Society has a landing page covering the eclipse and their efforts to promote its viewing. That can be found at: aas.org/education/outreach/eclipse-2017.

The AAS also points to a great page that NASA has created using Google Maps to show the path of totality as well as the lines for the outer edges of partiality all across the U.S. It's a great interactive tool. For example, in the screen capture at right, I zoomed in to show how the path crosses the northeast corner of Georgia. Clicking on any point in the map shows a popup of the eclipse conditions visible at that location. As an example, I clicked on a spot right on the central path line.

I know some people travel half way around the world, taking long trips on boats in the southern Indian Ocean just to see a total eclipse, so I would think it personally irresponsible of me to miss this chance. I'm not sure where we'll go to view it yet, but I've already informed my wife that we must be there. 

Note: Everything here is public information. I'm not a reporter, but a space fan.

2:21pm EST Update - Success, at least up to the point where they black out news coverage. It got through booster separation, main engine cut-off, second stage engine start, and nose cone jettisonning. That's probably 90% to minimal orbit, and about 50% to it's final orbit.

I used to watch shuttle and other launches obsessively, but in recent years the excitement has waned. I and many others have been more excited by the prospects of private companies getting into the space game, but that too has faded in recent years. SpaceX is doing great stuff, but at about one quarter the speed we all expected.  We'll see next month if that continues as they launch their first upgraded Falcon 9 from their new heavy launch pad at Vandenberg  But much of the other private space industry excitement has faded in the last five years. First, Scaled Composites and Virgin Gallactic had their rocket engine explosion in the Mohave desert in July of 2007 that killed three of their most experienced rocket engine guys, which completely shocked the entire private space industry.  As a result of this and other setbacks, there's been a series of slow collapses of many of these private space companies, such as happened with Armadillo Aerospace this past year.

So what's left to watch for a space enthusiast? Really, it's back to the established players. Later today, the US military will be launching a gigantic satellite (or possibly two) for the National Reconnaissance Office, the government office responsible for providing spy satellites to the CIA and other intelligence agencies of the US government. As usual with these launches, they won't say exactly what they're launching, but based on the launch time and target orbit, which have to be supplied to the public to ensure clearance around the launch pad, experts in the industry probably know what's going up today.  The photo at right was taken by a pad teammember early this morning.

So . . . Kentucky is attempting to adopt an evidence-based broadly accepted educational standard for teaching science in public schools, and during public comments, religious groups oppose it as oppressive and promoting socialism.   The quote from a Baptist minister is, perhaps, typical, but still appalling, "Outsiders are telling public school families that we must follow the rich man’s elitist religion of evolution, that we no longer have what the Kentucky Constitution says is the right to worship almighty God."

The quote comes from a Huffington Post article about the controversy, but there is much more detail about the nuances of the debate over at The Spectrum. (I gather that the latter is an AP story.)

It's all projection with these people, isn't it? (Along with an inability to sense irony.)

Leo Laporte's TWIT network has a show where they interview notable and interesting people from, well, it seems wherever they can GET them. I suspect they have some trouble with their 'gets' as they call them in the broadcast business. Outside of their little bubble of fanbase, not many people know who the hell they are. Which sort of explains this past week's Triangulation interview with Dr Kirsten Sanford. Now Dr. Kiki is certainly notable, at least in my estimation, because she's one of only five or six serious science popularizers out there in American culture right now.  NOT tech journalists, but SCIENCE journalists . . . someone who knows what it is to work as a scientist and yet can talk to a general audience in a way we can all understand. 

We have Bill Nye, Dr. Kiki, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, and who else? Perhaps Laurence Krauss, who I notice mostly because he was briefly associated with my undergraduate alma mater, Case Western Reserve Univerisity in Cleveland. But Dr Krauss is mostly a dick.^* There are a couple of people who particularly talk about space science occasionally, like Elon Musk (when it involves SpaceX), Peter Diamandis, when it comes to private industry space, and Miles O'Brien.  There is a very small cadre of people that the media calls upon when serious science topics need to be discussed. Now, Dr. Kiki, despite her long running This Week in Science (TWIS) web and radio show, is small potatoes compared to the others. She was starting to get a higher profile, being noticed in more places and getting called upon more to speak out about such things thanks to the decision by Leo Laporte to carry the TWIS show on his TWIT network.   But then, in mid 2012, This Week in Science was kicked off of TWIT.   According to a message shared by Dr. Sanford on her TWIS website, it was because the TWIT CEO, Lisa Kentzell, declared that the network was 'reorganizing' and would no longer carry other people's shows.  Just to set the scene, Ms. Kentzell is also Mr. Laporte's girlfriend.  This move came as a shock to me and many other people who watch TWIT shows and who liked Dr. Kiki's work there, especially since she had been used more and more to pick up coverage for other shows, such as MacBreak Weekly coverage of tech shows, among other things.