Orbital and space

 

Ed White out for his spacewalk June 1965

Remembering the loss of 97 year old astronaut  last week...Jim Lovell flew to the Moon twice, first on Apollo 8 in 1968 and then on Apollo 13 in 1970. He is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and co-authored the book Lost Moon.

Dragon Grace on its maiden voyage to the International Space Station.

-----------

I just read/listened to the audio of the book "Orbital" by Samantha Harvey, winner of the Booker Prize. I had checked it out from our library's system Libby, and listened to it over a couple of weeks. I was warned it was due back in 3 days...so I would spend a bit more time each day listening to it. Sunday when it was due, it still played, and I had 7- 1/2 minutes left, when it stopped.

I could place it on hold and wait again,  but of course won't. So I don't know the ending. But it was like it was a beginning to ending kind of book.

Read by a nice English woman (meaning with that accent rather than American). Is that the author? I can't find details anymore since it's been turned in.

The whole short book (5 hours) is about 6 astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). Their thoughts as well as activities are throughout, and how they feel. What a wonderful glimpse into how different nationalities approach science and being away from their loved ones.

And  of course they form their own community, a family if you will. 

Wikipedia says this:

The novel, told over the course of 24 hours, follows six astronauts and cosmonauts from Japan, the United States, Britain, Italy, and Russia, four men and two women, aboard the International Space Station as they orbit Earth. In addition to detailing the official duties and tasks of the astronauts aboard the spacecraft, the novel also features their reflections about humanity and subjects including the existence or nature of God, the meaning of life, and existential threats such as climate change. Each chapter of the novel covers a single 90-minute orbit around Earth, with 16 orbits in the 24 hours.

Orbital draws upon the work and research of Carl Sagan and incorporates the use of the Cosmic Calendar, a concept developed by Sagan in his 1977 book The Dragons of Eden and on his 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.

It was published in 2023, and she wrote much of the book during COVID. It's fiction, but she gives enough details that I didn't know, it sounds as if she's familiar with the lives of the astronauts.

I highly  recommend "Orbital."

Today's quote:

For us to transform as a society, we have to allow ourselves to be transformed as individuals. And for us to be transformed as individuals, we have to allow for the incompleteness of any of our truths and a real forgiveness for the complexity of human beings.

ANGEL KYODO WILLIAMS

An old photo:

Me and Sundance. I knew next to nothing about raising or training a dog. And I lived with a bunch of other people in a big house in Tallahassee at the time, who didn't like that I'd leave Sundance tied up when I went away sometimes. He barked a lot apparently. Oops. Here I'm visiting near the Sopchoppy River. My tee-shirt says "Penny Pincher" which was a little neighborhood kind of newspaper with ads as well as a few classifieds. I helped with doing layout, which was real 'cut and paste' back in the mid 70s.