Friday, July 29, 2016

World Youth Day 2016










Over five hundred thousand pilgrims are joining with Pope Francis in Krakow, Poland for World Youth Day 2016 now occurring to energize the world's young people for Christ. (Despite the title, it is actually a several day event.)

Here is the official web site. WYD is also being covered by EWTN.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Forty Seven Years Ago Today, We Stepped On Another World


NASA

Today is the 47th anniversary of the Apollo 11 pioneering expedition to the lunar surface, the day human beings first made landfall on another world. Check out Rand Simberg's ceremonial commemoration of that epic voyage. Here is a brief video capturing highlights of the first two explorers on the Moon.



The Moody Blues were one of the premier rock music bands of that era. They were (and still are) great fans of space travel. Here is a video of highlights of the Apollo lunar expeditions accompanied by the first three songs from their 1969 album To Our Childrens' Childrens' Children, which was the band's celebration of the first human lunar landing.



Today is also the thirteenth anniversary ('blogiversary') of the launch of this humble blog. Here is the inaugural post (Note that I was too inexperienced to think of giving it a title.) on Life at the Frontier.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

As It Happened, the Apollo 11 Launch

Forty seven years ago this morning, Apollo 11 lifted off on the voyage to land the first men on the Moon. Here's a replay of what it looked like on TV from ~6 min before 'til ~4 min after launch. (The video quality is somewhat degraded from that of the live TV broadcast.) The terse, crisp voice of Jack King as Apollo Launch Control added to the drama of the historic countdown. Relive the moment or experience what it was like.



Monday, July 04, 2016

Juno Arrives at Jupiter Tonight

Credit: Lockheed Martin

The Juno probe launched nearly five years ago arrives this evening to enter orbit around the giant planet Jupiter to conduct unprecedented investigations of that celestial body.

Happy Independence Day!

Stars And Stripes by Junior Libby

As we join in the festivities of the Fourth, let's strive to keep to the values proclaimed in the Declaration that make it worth celebrating.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is a time to be mindful and protective of the full range of personal, religious and economic liberties. Some additional thoughts from around the web remind us of the significance of some words from the second stanza of America the Beautiful and thoughts on the Stars and Stripes from a famous Catholic English writer.
Wow. Think about that line: "by whose stars we are illumined, and by whose stripes we are healed." Have you ever thought about your flag that way - so Christ-like? G. K. Chesterton did. It’s a stirring interpretation of America and its mission.