Cool things

It is really cool how far we have come technologically speaking.

For instance, last night I stepped outside on our back patio and watched the ISS fly overhead. First of all, it is a huge piece of equipment orbiting our planet, and getting all of those pieces up there has been an amazing feat of its own. Secondly, the fact that we can now pinpoint to the almost exact second when one can step out is almost unreal. All one has to do is go to www.heavens-above.com and input your location, and look for the next pass. Here this giant structure, and now with Shuttle Atlantis docked, goes screaming by our eyes at a blistering 17,000 mph, at 200 miles above...amazing. Even more amazing then all of this is the fact that we would see none of it if God gives us cloud cover. All the tracking, planning, and straining our necks is for nothing if there is a low over cast.

As we near the 50th anniversary of our first artificial satellite in orbit, Sputnik, the best we could do then was pick up the radio transmission. Now we can almost see the activities in real-time on board the station, or shuttle. We can pull up a website and find the location, altitude and speed of the ISS. Of course, thanks to the pioneers of space, we can listen to satellite radio, geocache, watch 24/7 news or see what the weather in Hawaii looks like. We can download the Astronomy Photo Of the Day, call loved one's overseas or find out what Pluto really is.

Pretty cool things.

~N