We had this whole big beautiful place for discovery, and all we could think to do with it was wipe out everything that made it worth discovering.

Where fifty years before, a congressman’s standard move to get reelected was to talk about the programs he had voted for, nowadays it was to talk about what he had blocked, stopped, frustrated, investigated, or marginalized.

welcomed the opportunity to become the first astronaut trained underwater in a swimming pool to simulate the effects of neutral buoyancy, trying to maneuver in a weightless environment in space. Some of my colleagues thought I was being eccentric, but the sensations in the pool prepared me for what it might feel like drifting along at 17,500 miles an hour, tethered to a spacecraft.

My MIT rendezvous studies really paid off. I knew that the critical key to our success would be our ability to separate the lunar landing module from a launch-and-reentry “mother ship,” a command module, land it on the Moon’s surface, then lift off and reliably rendezvous the two spacecraft in orbit around the Moon, a risky maneuver. If it failed, there would be no way to rescue the astronauts who had landed. Luckily, my MIT work was exactly what was needed to help figure out these complicated rejoining procedures. I thought about space rendezvous; talked about space rendezvous; ate, slept, and dreamed about space rendezvous so much that I became known to my astronaut peers as “Dr. Rendezvous.” Mercury

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To help create awareness of this new practice, I created an organization called VetSalute.​org and have been attending more sporting events than ever before in my life! I’ve been to a Los Angeles Dodgers game on Memorial Day and to an Angels game on another occasion, and when “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played, I raise my hand in salute of our flag.

Phobos is the innermost moon of Mars, only 16.7 miles (26.9 kilometers) in diameter but the larger of the two moons. Diminutive Deimos is a little over 7 miles (11 kilometers) in breadth. Scientifically, both Martian moons are oddballs. There is continual dispute as to where they came from. Just how did they get there? Conjecture about them being captured asteroids or cogenerated with Mars is debatable. These two objects are a cosmic detective story, and we need more clues to sort out their true nature. Years ago I stirred up a little more than Phobos dust by calling attention to a strange feature spotted on that moon. I termed this oddity a monolith, a very unusual structure. While there are those who view it as a large, rectangular boulder, visiting Phobos can categorize this curious creation, put there by the universe, or God if you prefer.

A lot of times when you just don’t want to think about something, when there is nothing you can do and the waiting is just unbearable, it helps to demand a lot from yourself, to do or learn more than you thought you could, and just let your concentration get you through the bad time.

Anyone who saw Albert Einstein trudging along the sidewalks of Princeton University with a briar pipe hanging out of his mouth might have assumed the odd fellow in the old, frumpy overcoat and socks that didn’t match was a hobo.

"The IAU may go to the devil, and undoubtedly they have the address," Auricchio said. "I found it, I named it. No gaggle of fuzzy-minded internationalists is going to call my discovery after some stone idol or swaggering dictator. Now let's have an interesting question."