49 Minutes of Out-of-this-World Entertainment
Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.
So the best way I've found to bribe myself into exercising regularly is to use the time on the elliptical machine for watching TV shows I otherwise don't have time to catch. Like Nova. For the last couple of days, I've been getting in some sweaty installments of a really fabulous episode called Astrospies---about a U.S. outer-space military spying program so secret, not even the guys recruited for it knew what the hell was going on during their training.
Not only does this show feature some great spy-vs-spy back and forth---as Russia and the U.S. vie to be the first country to put secret astronauts on a secret space station, taking secret photos of other countries, secretly---but the story also has some smaller details that are equally (if not more) fascinating than the usual Cold War stuff.
For instance, in order for the program, code-named MOL (for Manned Orbiting Laboratory), to take detailed pictures of Russian military installations, the research team had to develop a telescoping camera technology so ahead-of-its-time, that the same basic set-up is still used in modern equipment, including the Hubble Space Telescope.
Also amazing: The MOL program was responsible for recruiting Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., the man who would have been America's first African-American astronaut. Instead, his tragic death ended up marking the beginning of the end for the program.
I highly recommend watching this if you get a chance.
the latest
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Space nerds have known about MOL, like, forever. It is a cool project for model rocketry buffs; a Gemini Titan with a big cylindrical section spliced in.
But . . . it wasn't until I saw Astrospies that I learned about the real reason for MOL. None of the concept drawing showed the big circular opening in the side from which the spy telescope peered out.
Hey Maggie:
"the man who would have been America's first African-American astronaut"
wikipedia sez dude had 200 hours topside. I'm pretty sure you meant to say
"the man who, in secret, was America's first African-American astronaut."
Sadly not available in Canada.....
Maggie, get a bicycle. You will not regret it.
I saw that episode-- it blew my mind that the Soviets actually DID have astronauts up there, whiling away the time looking down on the Earth, waiting patiently for the clouds to clear so they could take pictures.
i have seen the episodes mentioned and they are very awesome
NOVA programming tipoffs! Maggie, you really know the way into a happy mutant's heart.
speaking of space nerdery, have you spied this? pretty sweet to think while all of that fancy dancing through the sky was going on, a couple of kids in italy had already started hacking it.
Hey there,
You can watch this episode along with many others at PBS's new video site.
http://www.pbs.org/video
I also recommend the episode "Hunting the Hidden Dimension." Fractal Geometry is wild stuff!
Full Disclosure: I work for PBS.
I've got one. There's tons of biking to be had in Minneapolis. :) But for some reason (possibly allergies) I prefer indoor stuff for heavy workout exercise. Yeah. I'm weird.
Speaking @#3 Anonymous,
You might use a proxy server such as
'Hotspot Shield' for the purpose of viewing country-wise restricted video content.
That's what I'm doing right now to view 'Hunting the Hidden Dimension' (about fractals)