Rocks, Lapel Pins and the Smell of Space

Rocks are the foundation of civilization lapel pins are not.

At the request of NASA, a British chemist has begun to recreate the smell of outer space to help astronauts in their training.

If you’ve ever had the urge to know what space smells like, you can now find out -fried steak, hot metal and welding a motorbike. Mix them all together and you now have a good idea what Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and company snorted when they went into space.

Now chemist Steven Pearce has been commissioned to recreate that smell to help trainees get used to the odor before they take off into the galaxy. read more

Stepping Out into The Sunlight

I know I have been negligent in writing as I feel as if I have been living Plato's Allegory of the Cave, defeated, chained to the wall, drinking the Kool-Aid and watching the shadow people determine my reality. There were moments that I turned my head in dissent only to be made to feel as if I was caught double dipping at a cocktail party. I worked and avoided political conversation, knowing it would lead only to arguments, as the opposition knows no decorum in debate. I found myself feeling alone in my personal political misery, defeated. Sure, I could tune into Greta and she might have a piece on Sarah Palin, or I might listen to Alex Jones tell me the fault for the crisis lie in a group of secret people who did secret things in secret places. But it did little to help my despair. I contemplated buying a cabin in the mountains of WV, where I would raise honey bees, grow whatever one would grow, watching comedies on blue ray and live alone in the solitude of my political beliefs knowing that I must have been bred of an alien race that had a history of constitutions, founding fathers and tea. Just as I was packing up my mental U-Haul, I heard a voice, a voice of compassion and humor; it was Glenn Beck on Fox. He told me I was not alone. Thank god I have now found my alien relatives born of a race that believed in the god given right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness...um without being forced to share, but willing too if so inspired. Check it out; it may make you feel better, www.the912project.com