Gene Cernan, the last man to have his boots on the surface of another celestial body, died on Monday, January 16, 2017. NASA summed up Cernan’s career by saying: Cernan, a Captain in the U.S. Navy, left his mark on the history of exploration by flying three times in space, twice to the moon. He also holds the distinction of being the second American to walk in … Continue reading RIP Gene Cernan: In Words & Images
Also, look at Paris: Antique Aviation Shop for the first part of this story. On Saturday, 14 June 2003, Pierre Farman was a passenger onboard the very last flight of Air France Concorde F-BTSD. Informally known as Sierra Delta (the last two letters of the aircraft’s call sign in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) alphabet, this particular Concorde was a record breaker, holding the … Continue reading Farman Magasin d’Antiquités (Part Deux)
Recently, we brushed up on blogging by reading The Golden Rules of Blogging and, as a result, cleaned up this blog’s look. You may have also noticed that we’ve been playing around on social media lately. We’ve both been on Facebook a long time, and we added a page there for Generation Space. We’ll continue to share on our personal pages, of course. And followers there can see “public” posts … Continue reading 5 Facebook Tips for Authors (and others)
It’s August and we’re back at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, which has us thinking about what we can accomplish as writers this month and this year, if we use our time well. Here are five snippets from A Writer’s Time by Kenneth Atchity. Quick aside: In just the sort of serendipity the Lofty duo likes, Atchity is the president of Atchity Entertainment International, whose clients include Australian millionaire-turned … Continue reading 5 Tips from A Writer’s Time
Today marks the 49th anniversary of the launch of Gemini XII, the last Gemini space mission. Here are five fun facts to ponder as you celebrate. The crew was Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin. Lovell would go on to fly Apollo 8 and Apollo 13, and Aldrin was the second man to set foot on the Moon during Apollo 11. We’ve seen both astronauts in … Continue reading Gemini XII: On the 49th Anniversary
At the beginning of the summer, Anna usually takes a look at a few writing handbooks, in part to switch her mindset from the varied demands of the semester’s work a more writing-focused stretch of time and in part to keep an eye out for future textbooks she can use in the classroom. A few weeks ago, she read A Writer’s Guide to Persistence: How … Continue reading Persistence & Writing
This week’s post is a bit different. We’ve taken the week away from our day jobs. Here’s why: My Sorta Spontaneous Vegas Wedding at OZY’s First-Person Friday We hope you’ll click on the link and read about our Las Vegas wedding five years ago. It’s a very happy Thanksgiving story. We’re having a wonderful time celebrating our anniversary, including the Jane’s Addiction concert (it’s the end of … Continue reading Our Spontaneous (sort of) Vegas Wedding
Last week, we were back at the University of Maryland. We lived in College Park, Maryland, in the early 1990s while Anna was earning her MFA and working at the Entomological Society of America and Doug was working for NASA at the Center for AeroSpace Information as an abstractor and indexer. The University of Maryland and the surrounding communities have changed in twenty years, with … Continue reading On Traveling: NASM & Other Serendipity
August 6, 1945: An atomic weapon named “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. An estimated 70,000 people—almost one-third of the city’s population—and more than 90% of the physicians and nurses were killed by the bombing that day. In the days, months, and years after that event and the bombing of Nagasaki three days later, others died as a result of radiation exposure and related … Continue reading The Next Year: Countdown to The Cold War, Cancer, and Space Exploration
We’ve spent a lot time and posts thinking about George Ellery Hale and his observatories over the last nine months or so, and it’s come time to say good-bye to this topic. We visited Hale’s crowning achievement: the 200-inch telescope at the Palomar Observatory that bears his name. That’s where we started this journey nine months ago, and that’s where we’ll end it. As was … Continue reading Hale, Palomar, and (the End of) the Story (Part 11)
Lofty Ambitions Blog 