The Rest Is Travel

Mobbed by pooches I didn’t know, today, on my walk. And it was rather lovely, because they tune into our nervous systems, as we do to theirs, and it was relaxing. Like a snooze. Not the muddy sweaty pooches so much, but the Hugo poodles 🤩 nose-to-nose 🥰 mwah.

Christina Koch was a firefighter at the South Pole at -111°F before she ever applied to be an astronaut. That was maybe the fourth most interesting line on her resume. She grew up in North Carolina, got three degrees from NC State, and her first real job was building deep-space instruments at NASA. Then she left for Antarctica. Spent three and a half years bouncing between the Arctic and Antarctic as a research scientist, including a full winter at the South Pole base. That means going months without sunlight or fresh food, with a crew of about 50 people and no way out until flights resume. While she was down there, she also joined the glacier search-and-rescue team. After coming back, she went to Johns Hopkins and built instruments for two NASA missions (one of them is still orbiting Jupiter right now). She figured out how to start a tiny vacuum pump that NASA designed for a future Mars rover. Johns Hopkins nominated it for their Invention of the Year in 2009. Then she went back to the field. More time in Antarctica and a stretch up in Greenland. A government research station in northern Alaska, near the top of the world. Then she ran another one in American Samoa, near the equator. In 2013, NASA selected her from 6,300 applicants. Eight people got in. Her first space mission was supposed to be a normal rotation on the International Space Station, but NASA extended it. She ended up staying 328 straight days and orbiting Earth 5,248 times, covering about 139 million miles (roughly 291 round trips to the Moon). Up there, she ran over 210 experiments, including tests of cancer drugs in zero gravity and 3D printers that can build structures close to human tissue. Six spacewalks, 42 hours floating outside the station. She learned Russian for the training. She flies supersonic jets. Right now, Koch is on Artemis II, heading for a flyby behind the far side of the Moon. The crew launched on April 1 and is on track to travel about 252,000 miles from Earth, which would break the all-time human distance record of 248,655 miles set by Apollo 13 in 1970. That record has stood for 56 years, and it was set during a disaster that nearly killed the crew. Fred Haise, one of the Apollo 13 astronauts, is 92 now. He told Koch: "I heard you're going to break our record." Nobody had left Earth's neighborhood since December 1972. Koch and her three crewmates are the first in 53 years, and they are coming home at about 25,000 mph. That is faster than any crewed spacecraft has ever come back through the atmosphere.

PREACHHHHH

"Trust us, you look amazing. You look beautiful." Artemis II astronaut Victor Glover says seeing Earth from space has made one thing clear: “We’re all one people.” Glover said from up above, the planet looks like “one thing,” adding, “homosapiens is all of us.”

Happy birthday to Phil Morris, aka Jackie Chiles. May your birthday be restful. Resplendent. Magnificent. Stream the complete series on Netflix.

What a gal! Making jokes as she flies to the Moon 🤩

Let’s have some shoulder dancing, with Frank and Elvis 🤩

This is dynamic equilibrium 🤩 (the answer to how to stop stagnating alternating between safety and vulnerability) instagram.com/reel/DWoxalrCP…

😀🤩🤣 instagram.com/reel/DVbul2WDg…

Like Lord Sugar, I am catching up at the halfway point #TheApprentice

The Killers paying tribute to The Beatles, covering "I Want to Hold Your Hand"

Alec Guinness was born today in 1914. Here he is in the 6 part BBC dramatisation of Smiley's People (1982), talking to a young Alan Rickman at The Savoy.

The puppet of Mother Clanger has returned to Canterbury to be put on display after being stolen from an exhibition in London more than 50 years ago. More here: bbc.in/4djWTPQ

In which Congressman @jamie_raskin warns Steve Bannon is trying to export Trumpism around the world…but tells me why Brits won’t fall for a “fraud” like @Nigel_Farage . More importantly, he confirms what his favourite Clash song is.

Aujourd'hui, Le Petit Prince célèbre ses 80 ans de publication en France 🎂 Depuis sa parution en 1946, il est devenu le livre le plus traduit au monde, avec plus de 650 langues 🌍 Aidez-nous à lui souhaiter un joyeux anniversaire en commentaire 👇

In a cosmic coincidence, Carl Roth, who worked on the original Apollo program that sent men to the moon, turned 108 on Wednesday — the same day NASA's Artemis II mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center. Follow live updates on Artemis II: abcnews.link/eS5QID6

Trying out a ‘voice’ #drama

People have been saying that Trump can’t tell friend from foe. That goes for mothers and lovers too, in my case. My father was indifferent. He thought about himself. He didn’t think anybody else cared. I love people. I could always see the bad guys. Still can. Aren’t I lucky?

Oh my goodness! I needed to hear this today! 👏👏👏 instagram.com/reel/DWn7jSfiF…

Who can tell me what Burnham on Crouch is like #askingforafriend 🤩