Tag: space

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 10, 20269:06 pm

Welcome Home!

Ten days that may change humanity ended this afternoon, with the successful splashdown of the Orion capsule carrying the valiant crew of Artemis II. I was a junior high school student the last time humans traveled to the moon and back (December 1972). Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen have gone where no one has since.

Hansen comes from the Canadian Space Agency, and he is the first of his countrymen to go to the moon. The other three crewmembers are longstanding NASA astronauts—2009 for Wiseman; 2013 for Glover and Koch. All four are heroes tonight.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 18, 20249:16 pm

Falcon Flies Into Space

So-o-o-o, tonight, I sit at my desk participating in a meeting over Zoom, with 15 other people, and suddenly startle looking out my office window. A rocket rises upwards in the Western sky from Vandenberg Space Force Base, and I so want to be outside with camera in hand.

Two problems: I can’t politely leave, and the thing rises really fast; this isn’t like the slower-moving Alpha that I watched in September 2023. I rudely turn off video, pull out Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, snap shots (three total), and resume video. The Featured Image is best of the trio.

Photo by Joe WilcoxSep 14, 20238:27 pm

Alpha Rises

The best camera is the one with you—and that proved true tonight with Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. As I walked down Monroe Ave. in my San Diego neighborhood of University Heights, something odd caught my attention in the sky.

I spent too much time trying to make sense of the oddity and as such missed the best shot—of continuous cloud trail. I mistakenly thought that the setting sun illuminated the exhaust of an airplane. Then the notion clicked, examining the trailing bloom, that I watched a rocket launch in the far distance.

Photo by Joe WilcoxOct 2, 20157:03 am

Flickr a Day 275: ‘Spacesuit Selfie’

You can believe Christopher Michel‘s claim that his photos come from “extreme locations like the South Pole, Everest, The Korean DMZ, Papua New Guinea, and at the edge of space”. Eh, yeah. He shot self-titled […]