{Apr 15, 2001: Mars Odyssey on Delta II Rocket.}

"We need the stars... We need purpose! We need the image the Destiny [to take root among the stars] gives us of ourselves as a purposeful, growing   more...species. We need to become the adult species that the Destiny can help us become! If we're to be anything other than smooth dinosaurs who evolve, specialize and die, we need the stars.... When we have no difficult, long-term purpose to strive toward, we fight each other. We destroy ourselves. We have these chaotic, apocalyptic periods of murderous craziness."
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents, 1998


Music by,
Clutch: Blast Tyrant - WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get.
  less

Uncut@: http://beyondbelief2006.org/

Carolyn Porco is a truly inspiring speaker on the potential of humankind for creative accomplishment—how science and especially the exploration of space, our most challenging   more...and exciting frontier, encourage our highest aspirations for human betterment.


Carolyn C. Porco is an American planetary scientist and the leader of the imaging science team on the Cassini mission, presently in orbit around Saturn. In late 1999, she was selected by the London Sunday Times as one of 18 scientific leaders of the 21st century, and by Industrial Week as one of "50 Stars to Watch".[4] Porco was responsible for the epitaph and proposal to honor the late renowned planetary geologist, Eugene Shoemaker, by sending his cremains to the Moon aboard the Lunar Prospector spacecraft in 1998. Her contributions to the exploration of the outer solar system were recognized with the naming of Asteroid (7231) Porco: "Named in honor of Carolyn C. Porco, a pioneer in the study of planetary ring systems...and a leader in spacecraft exploration of the outer solar system".

Porco was an imaging scientist on the Voyager mission in the 1980s, and is also an imaging scientist on the New Horizons mission launched to Pluto on January 19, 2006. She is an expert on planetary rings and the Saturnian moon, Enceladus. As a young Voyager scientist, she was the first person to describe the behavior of the eccentric ringlets and the "spokes" discovered by Voyager within the rings of Saturn, to elucidate the mechanism by which the outer Uranian rings were being shepherded by the Voyager-discovered moons Cordelia and Ophelia, and to provide an explanation for the shepherding of the rings arcs of Neptune by the moon Galatea, also discovered by Voyager. She was a co-originator of the idea to take a 'portrait of the planets' with the Voyager spacecraft, and participated in the planning, design, and execution of those images in 1991, including the famous Pale Blue Dot image of Earth  less

Get Origins on netflix:
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Origins_Nova/70018490
Hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, this program reveals the origins and mysteries of the cosmos. The series examines   more...how the Earth was formed, how life on Earth began, the possibility of extraterrestrial life and how the Big Bang resulted in inhabitable planets. Join the scientists as they try to capture echoes of the Big Bang, pose the question "Do aliens already walk among us?" and dig into dozens of other mind-blowing topics.

"A Conversation With Neil deGrasse Tyson"

Neil deGrasse Tyson is used to wearing a lot of hats. He is a leading astrophysicist, the director of the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium, a columnist for Natural History Magazine, and the author or coauthor of six books. As host of NOVA's "Origins" miniseries, Tyson donned yet another hat, one that forced him to suppress his customary outspokenness to serve as dispassionate guide on a journey into the mysteries of the universe, the Earth, and life itself. In this interview, Tyson returns to his old self, holding forth on why he's not convinced there's intelligent life beyond Earth, why he feels role models are overvalued, and how he copes with the astronomical numbers that swirl around his head every day.

The start of everything
NOVA: What makes the study of origins so hot right now?

Tyson: Well, one thing that distinguishes us today from the discoveries of the past is the extent to which the exploration of the universe has become multidisciplinary. It was unthinkable not long ago that a biologist or paleontologist would be at the same conference as an astrophysicist. Now we have accumulated so much data in each of these branches of science as it relates to origins that we have learned that no one discipline can answer questions of origins alone. It requires the additional insights that one gets by merging not only the questions, but the answers, among scientific disciplines.

Now, for example, when you look for life on Mars, you need the astrophysicist to characterize the environment in which the planet is found. You need the chemist to understand the chemistry of the soils. You need the geologist to understand the rock formations. You need the biologist, because no one else will know what life will look like. You might even need a paleontologist to look for life that doesn't exist there today but might have left fossil remains.

NOVA: It's hard to imagine scientists in such diverse disciplines working well together. Do they?

Tyson: Initially it was like a shotgun wedding, where you'd say, "Well, I guess we have to talk to each other." And scientists in different disciplines don't speak the same language. They publish in different journals. It's like the United Nations: you come together, but no one speaks the same language, so you need some translators.


"The moons of the solar system may be more interesting than the planets themselves."



But in the end, what happens is that new fields of astrobiology and astrogeology and astroparticle physics arise, and they begin to develop their own language that represents the intersection of the two—say, between astrobiology and biology. That's when you know you've created a new subdiscipline, or even a brand-new discipline.

NOVA: What are some of the most exciting recent discoveries in origins science?

Tyson: I would say one, we nailed the age of the universe. Two, we have measured the existence of dark matter and dark energy. Even though we don't yet know what they're made of, we know we can measure the effects they have on the origin and evolution of the universe. Another is the discovery that the moons of the solar system may be more interesting than the planets themselves.

NOVA: How so?

Tyson: It's contrary to our earliest expectations. We used to think, Our moon is dry and barren, so why should we believe anybody else's moon is interesting? But if you loo  less

Neil Tyson - Stupid Design

NOVA: What makes the study of origins so hot right now?

Tyson: Well, one thing that distinguishes us today from the discoveries of the past is the extent to which the exploration of the universe has become   more...multidisciplinary. It was unthinkable not long ago that a biologist or paleontologist would be at the same conference as an astrophysicist. Now we have accumulated so much data in each of these branches of science as it relates to origins that we have learned that no one discipline can answer questions of origins alone. It requires the additional insights that one gets by merging not only the questions, but the answers, among scientific disciplines.

Now, for example, when you look for life on Mars, you need the astrophysicist to characterize the environment in which the planet is found. You need the chemist to understand the chemistry of the soils. You need the geologist to understand the rock formations. You need the biologist, because no one else will know what life will look like. You might even need a paleontologist to look for life that doesn't exist there today but might have left fossil remains.

NOVA: It's hard to imagine scientists in such diverse disciplines working well together. Do they?

Tyson: Initially it was like a shotgun wedding, where you'd say, "Well, I guess we have to talk to each other." And scientists in different disciplines don't speak the same language. They publish in different journals. It's like the United Nations: you come together, but no one speaks the same language, so you need some translators.  less

Richard Dawkins looks into natural selection and how humans have evolved and attempts to answer the age old question "Why are we here?"

"Most people, I believe, think that you need a God   more...to explain the existence of the world, and especially the existence of life. They are wrong, but our education system is such that many people don't know it."
-Richard Dawkins  less

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan The Cosmos Part 1 The Shores of the cosmic ocean

A few Pic's of the Milky Way

Human consciousness arose but a minute before midnight on the geological clock. Yet we mayflies try to bend an ancient world to our purposes, ignorant perhaps of the messages buried in its long history.   more...Let us hope that we are still in the early morning of our April day.
~Stephen Jay Gould

Music, Clutch - Ghost

The leather soles go shuffling in,
Stinking of smoke and ten cent gin.
Now who will toast our noble host that has this morning given up the ghost?

The wooden coffer hand to hand.
Kind words are offered, silent prayers.
But she is satisfied the most while stabbing madly at the roast.

The rib of Adam, the eyes of Eve.
The sons of Cain receive no reprieve.

The creditor rides with his men.
The death of debtors he won't forgive.
They repossess his silver eyes, now in the potter's field he lies.

The rib of Adam, the eyes of Eve.
The sons of Cain receive no reprieve.

Waiting for a dead man's shoes.
Have you heard the latest news?
Lazarus is back from the dead looking as one would expect.
Dripping with the waters of Sheol.
Babbling about body and soul.
And Then he found his wife in their bed buck naked and already wed.

The tax collector beneath his sheets.
The door swings open. Floorboards creak.
Now who will toast our noble host who has this morning given up the ghost?

The rib of Adam, the eyes of Eve.
The sons of Cain receive no reprieve.  less

I found this on youtube:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMEkCHU2KtA">Mag4105 </a>

The Sun (Latin: Sol) is a Star. A third generation star.
Music,
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X
The Laboratory

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-Carl Sagan

"Woodpecker From Mars" is an instrumental Faith No More song first released in 1989 on their third studio album, The Real Thing. It shares its title with (and was inspired by?) a 1956 Woody   more...Woodpecker cartoon.

Musically it sounds similar to a heavier version of pre-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd songs, such as "Interstellar Overdrive", "Astronomy Domine", "A Saucerful of Secrets" and in that context, the title probably refers to mythology, the Woodpecker being the bird of the Roman God Mars.

"Woodpecker From Mars" was the first song finished for the album, as it had been recorded before the band hired Mike Patton.

On the vinyl release of The Real Thing, "Woodpecker From Mars" is the final track.
We must colonize space to survive...




"Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds."
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."
Stephen Hawking, interview with Daily Telegraph, 2001

"Let me end with an explanation of why I believe the move into space to be a human imperative. It seems to me obvious in too many ways to need listing that we cannot much longer depend upon our planet's relatively fragile ecosystem to handle the realities of the human tomorrow. Unless we turn human growth and energy toward the challenges and promises of space, our only other choice may be the awful risk, currently demonstrable, of stumbling into a cycle of fratricide and regression which could end all chances of our evolving further or of even surviving."
Gene Roddenberry, Planetary Report Vol. 1, 1981  less

http://www.FreeScienceLectures.comSagan was central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of the planet Venus.In the early 1960s, no one knew for certain the basic conditions of Venus'   more...surface and Sagan listed the possibilities in a report later depicted for popularization in a Time-Life book, Planets - his own view was that the planet was dry and very hot, as opposed to the balmy paradise others had imagined.He had investigated radio emissions from Venus and concluded that there was a surface temperature of 500 C (900 F). As a visiting scientist to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he contributed to the first Mariner missions to Venus, working on the design and management of the project. Mariner 2 confirmed his views on the conditions of Venus in 1962.This video shows an interview with him before the first missions to Venus in 1960 or 1961.--- It's Never too Late to Study: http://www.FreeScienceLectures.com --- Notice: This video is copyright by its respectful owners. The website address on the video does not mean anything. ---  less

FREE MP3: http://www.SoOutThere.com
Get Torrent: http://www.mininova.org/tor/3119497
Carl Sagan Cosmos - Glorious Dawn (ft Stephen Hawking) - Colorpulse (SO OUT THERE Remix).
A musical tribute to two great   more...men of science: Carl Sagan and his cosmologist companion Stephen Hawking.
Music written by John Boswell of http://www.SymphonyOfScience.com with Post Production and Remix by Tim Jones - http://www.SoOutThere.com
Almost all samples and footage taken from Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's Universe series.  less

Carl Sagan Cosmos Who Speaks For Earth

Carl Sagan Cosmos One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue

Carl Sagan - Cosmos The Backbone of Night

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan - Episode 1 Wanderers

Carl Sagan's infamous speech

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. Edited by Jonathan Man

Found@:http://www.youtube.com/klockantre
Recorded in 1989

Darwin's idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition.
~Daniel Dennett

I think many people are terribly afraid of being demoted by the Darwinian scheme from the role of authors and creators in their own right into being just places where things happen in the universe.
~Daniel   more...Dennett  less