SpaceX, one of the new private space race competitors, has announced the “Falcon 9″:http://www.space.com/news/050908_spacex_falcon.html project, a launch vehicle with enough oomph to send big satellites into orbit or supplies up to ISS. Better yet, launches could be as cheap as $20 million each, which puts it smack in the middle of “Space Prize”:/mt/archives/000412.html territory. Go SpaceX!

To take my mind of the latest “depressing Shuttle news”:http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12424377.htm, I followed a Google Ad to the “Moon Landing Hoax”:http://www.moonmovie.com/ page. Since “they faked the moon landing” is a running joke at “the office”:http://evdb.com, I figured it would be worth a chuckle. Unfortunately, the assertions were so rhetorical and so easily debunked that it was unsatisfying. (And the really compelling evidence? “Buy my movie and I’ll show you.” Feh.)

If you decide to watch the intro, here’s a hint: think about speed and mass instead of distance. The Shuttle flies at 17,000 mph and carries tons more payload than Apollo did. Now spot the fallacy.

36 years ago today, men landed on the Moon. That makes this Armstrong Day 36 on the “Tranquility Calendar”:http://www.mithrandir.com/Tranquility/tranquility.html. Google has put together a “fitting tribute”:http://moon.google.com/ based on Google Maps.

They went “in peace, for all mankind”:http://www.alanbeangallery.com/WeCameInPeace.html. Let’s hope we go back soon.

From CNN today:

“Astronomers have detected a planet outside our solar system with “not one, but three suns”:http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/14/planet.suns.reut/index.html, a finding that challenges astronomers’ theories of planetary formation.”

Indeed. I used to think that the whole multiple-suns (think Tatooine) sci-fi thing was artistic license. Truth really is stranger than fiction…

At a recent open house, Palomar Observatory showed off their new “Palomar Testbed Interferometer”:http://talesoftheheliosphere.blogspot.com/2005/07/oh-its-not-interoceter-its.html, a set of ‘scopes that work together to produce resolution equivalent to a much larger telescope. Who says that land-based astronomy is dead?