Welcome To The Carnival of Space #132

Greetings and welcome to the launching of this weeks action packed carnival. I have the honor of hosting this event for the first time. If this is your first time to visit my blog then a double welcome to you. This blog tries very hard to be informative and entertaining at the same time. It is always a juggling act.

This week is jammed packed and stacked with great blogs so let's get right to them. First up is the closing of a Astronautical landmark after 30 years. No they did not launch rockets from there or set any records for speed or distance but astronauts did drink and hang out there at the Outpost Tavern near the Johnson Space center. Get the full story and a great one over at collectSPACE.

We are value oriented here at the Carnival of Space. The next Blog you need to read is a Twofer. It comes to us from NEXT BIG FUTURE. The talk on this blog is that we are closer all the time to getting off this third rock from the Sun and heading out into space with some very doable and need to be doable technologies in our tool box. Check it out at NEXT BIG FUTURE. and if you like that piece you will like a very good interview with Brad Edwards of Black Line Ascension. You will get the ups and downs of space elevator design right here.

Over at Cheap Astronomy the Podcast offering is all about type 1A supernovas questions, Dark Matter and if we (as a universe) just expand or do we go crunch. It is all about the critical density Man! I love theoretical stuff!

Now over at the Planetary Society we are talking Advent Calendars and these are some spectacular ones to boot. The door is swinging open to reveal the first treat of Advent and it is.... found here Hey you have got to go look.

The case for life on Mars is heating up again. Alice's astroinfo has the details. That's way up there on the potential wow meter if you ask me. Now here is another take on the life on Mars debate found oddly enough at the blog of Martian chronicles!

I love Phil Plait's blog on Bad Astronomy. In this blog It seems that the city of Denver Colorado will get the chance to vote on forming a UFO commission. I'm not kidding! Go and read this for yourself at Bad Astronomy!

Attention people we have another player in the space race and it is none other than New Zealand! Get the full story on their successful rocket launch at AArt Scope Blog. There are new photos there of the launch.

We had some late arrivals but had to include these too. Some great tips on what to look for in a scope purchase. These pearls of wisdom can be found over at Mang's Bat Page

Stuart Atkinson over at Cumbrian Sky waxes eloquently about some parallel journeys separated by 1.75 Million years. Man has left his mark. See this fascinating take at Cumbrian Sky .

Lastly we arrive at Steve's Astro corner (that sounds familiar)and it is all about where we fit in on our size in the Universe. See my blog offering here. I get that question all the time at public events. Speaking of public events, I was out on the night of the 5th of December in 22 degree F (cold!) weather showing the sky to 18 brave souls for our local park service. Is that dedicated or just dumb? Well that is it for this session so until next week,

Clear skies and great seeing too!

Steve T