NASA Shuttle program mission history (1981-present)

Shuttle program mission history (1981-present)

See all the135  Shuttle badges at this link

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-shuttlemissions-pg,0,2129731.photogallery

The shuttle Atlantis rises no more. Or leave it all to the Russians, why don’t we.

Technicians search for possible systems leaks Wednesday, May 26, 2010 after space shuttle Atlantis on STS-132 landed for the last time at Kennedy Space Center after completing its last mission. NASA has two more launches and landings before the space shuttle program retires. (RED HUBER, ORLANDO SENTINEL

“It was the last shuttle flight for all six astronauts on board — mission commander Ken Ham, pilot Dominic “Tony” Antonelli and mission specialists Garrett Reisman, Piers Sellers, Stephen Bowen and Michael Good – though some will likely get trips back to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft or maybe a new generation of U.S. commercial rockets that NASA may hire as space taxis./ May 26, 2010)”

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-space-shuttle-atlantis-lands-20100526,0,7495388.story

There are two more missions slated but not with Atlantis. Then access to the Space Station will be all up to the Russians or entrepreneurs?  Have I said “stupid” before?  (Yes, I have).

Talk of going to Mars.  Great! I am all for that. But you better have an intermediate station too for any outward exploration. Moon, Mars or otherwise. And leaving the Space Station entirely in the hands of another country – refer to the adjective above.

Watch BP’s latest efforts to clean up the Gulf oil spill here

Watch BP’s (British Petroleum)  latest efforts to clean up the Gulf oil spill here

http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=3

Down with vagueness. Up with touch, hear, see, taste, or smell.

I am recommending Becky Levine’s blog, especially her post today. Perhaps this only speaks to me, but it is, as Dick points out in my writing and in others’ as well, going to the specific rather than the generic term makes the writing more vibrant and alive. Here’s the beginning paragraph.

Vagueness or: You Know, that…that…that…THING!

Posted by beckylevine

When I critique, I make a lot of notes asking for an author to be more specific, more concrete, to come up with a tangible image or object or action to take place of a vague word or phrase. And when I revise my own work, frankly, I love the  magic that happens when I manage to find those vagueness in my writing and replace them with something a reader can touch, hear, see, taste, or smell.

http://beckylevine.com/

Trust Me. In French, German, Italian, Russian, Hindi and the list goes on.

I was reading a post at http://cafegirlchronicles.wordpress.com/ where she quoted her father, I think it was, as saying – “Never trust a man  who says trust me.”  I would change to to ‘Never trust anyone…’ – male or female. It works both ways.

Easier said than done. She said she had fallen for that line once, A quote from the blog – “I’ve fallen for it at least a half dozen times and in as many languages. I should have paid better attention. And just to make sure I don’t repeat the same mistakes I’ve committed the words to memory.”

Here’s her list with a few added by myself. I haven’t heard those words in all those languages and probably never will, but I do know friends and family (male and female) in all of them, so I am passing the advice along. I didn’t include some languages because I didn’t have a romanization available. (right to left languages – Arabic, Persian, etc.). I’ll add them later on.

Cafegirl’s list:

• Croyez-moi      French      (My translator says ‘believe me’. And it has ‘confiance en moi’ for ‘trust me’. So who knows?  translate.google.com says so, but it has been wrong before. Both phrases ought to be in there anyway.)
• 相信我…Chinese (Xiāngxìn wǒ)
• Fidati di me      Italian
• Lita på mig      Swedish
• Confía en mí     Spanish
• Vertrauen Sie mir      German

I added to the original list:

• încredere în mine      Romanian      (My nephew lives there. He probably already knows about this phrase.)
• πιστέψτε με      Greek (pistépste me)
• muinín dom      Irish
• bízz bennem      Hungarian
• Поверьте мне      Russian (Poverʹte mne)
• मुझ पर विश्वास करो      Hindi      Mujha para viśvāsa karō