Image by Odalaigh via Flickr

Yes, I am a Mormon, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I favor Mitt Romney. I’m a bit more right-wing than he is. I’ve long been a fan of Newt Gingrich, until his recent comments about marital fidelity being abnormal.  I don’t know the other candidates very well, but I’ll pick someone to vote for when the time comes.  However I live in Wyoming and our vote won’t count for much anyway.

Florida, on the other hand, is a different story. With a whopping 50 electoral winner-take-all votes, a win or loss in that state can revive or kill a candidate’s fund-raising efforts. They say that if today’s vote is a squeaker then we’ll still have two serious contenders, but if somebody wins big in Florida then it could well be all over for the other guy.  Florida voters might just pick the next President this week.

As the country holds its collective breath, I have an appeal to make to any folks in Florida who read this blog.

Here it comes.

Are you ready?

Here goes…

VOTE!

Twitter embraced censorship yesterday and China called them “Responsible” and “Pragmatic”.

VOTE!

People in Syria are dying while trying to change their government.

VOTE!

North Korea‘s crazy leader died and the selection of his successor sounds like a soap opera.

VOTE!

I’m not kidding! I don’t care who you favor for the Republican ticket! I want to hear you chant the call of liberty! Make yourself heard!

VOTE!

Countless mothers’ sons bled their lives out into the soil of foreign lands, and the Amber Waves of Grain here at home, to put you in line for that ballot box.

VOTE!

Show the world what power a free and peaceful people can wield in a piece of paper.

Vote.

Please.

Related articles

• Florida and the politics of delegates (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Nearly 600,000 Cast Early Votes in Florida (blogs.wsj.com)
• Romney Makes Final Pitch to Seniors Before Florida Vote (blogs.wsj.com)
• Early Florida vote could doom Newt Gingrich by… 60,000? 40,000? More? Less? (miamiherald.typepad.com)
• 5 counties to watch in Florida’s prez primary (tampabay.com)
• What’s Next After Florida: Entering the Dead Zone (abcnews.go.com)
• Editorial: Let’s hope for smooth primary election today as all eyes focus on Florida (tcpalm.com)
• Republican candidates make final Florida push (sfgate.com)
• Republican Rivals Have Eyes On Florida Prize (news.sky.com)
• Romney confident as Florida prepares to vote (boston.com)
• Florida Young Republicans Stand Behind New Voter Laws (mtv.com)
• Groups That Could Turn Florida Vote (thedailybeast.com)

This year LTUE will continue the area’s proud tradition of sending new writing talent out into the world.  In it, experienced authors get together to share with hopefuls what they have learned on their road to success…providing techniques, industry secrets, and anything else the upcoming writer needs to know.  If you would like to get into the business of writing in any genre, and want to learn how to do it successfully, this symposium will be well worth your time.

The cost is $30 (if you register now) and is free to UVU students.  It will be held on February 9th, 10th, and 11th (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) in the Sorensen Center and will be LTUE‘s 30th anniversary.

Update: I got the student thing wrong.  This event is free for ANY student with a student ID.  See Marny’s comments below and go to the LTUE.org website if you have any questions on the issue.

Guests of honor include:

James A. Owen – Author of “Starchild” and “Here There Be Dragons”

The “Writing Excuses” team — Brandon Sanderson, 2011 Hugo award winner Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Hugo nominee Howard Tayler.

Chris Schebinger — Acquisitions Editor for Shadow Mountain Publishing

Featured Guests:
Larry Correia
James Dashner
David Farland
Tracy & Laura Hickman
L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
Brandon Mull

All of these guests will be there handing out advice to anyone who cares to listen.

I’ll be there too…on a Friday afternoon panel with Jaleta Clegg, Larry Correia, and Bree DeSpain discussing how to hold successful book signings, and again on Saturday with Laura Swift Lind, Roger White, Brad R. Torgersen, and Dan Lind on a panel about the science fiction of space propulsion.

So go to the website and sign up (do it soon and save some money).  I hope to see you there…but I especially hope that you’ll come away with from it with the tools you need to become yet another best-selling author to spring from the Intermountain West!

Update: There will be a huge group booksigning from 8-10 pm on the 11th.  I’ll be there signing copies of my book, Into the Dark: Escape of the Nomad.

Related articles

• LIFE, the UNIVERSE & EVERYTHING (jesssmartsmiley.wordpress.com)
• Opportunities for Writers in Our Neck of the Woods (writingsnippets.wordpress.com)
• Updates + Hugo-Eligible Works & Gemmell Award Nomination (brandonsanderson.com)

Image via Wikipedia

I purchased an Old Farmers Almanac the other day and made an amazing discovery.  The 2012 annular eclipse on May 20th will center in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with one edge of it reaching across the Western United States. 

I have read in the past about folks who travel great distances, brave third-world food and political turmoil, and elbow around in over-crowded spaces… just to get a first-hand view of a solar eclipse.  Now, this year, you can pick your spot anywhere along a track from pretty much New Mexico westward.

Great huh?  You’ll miss totality unless you want to go on a long boat ride, but it’s a great opportunity anyway. 

I’m telling you now so you still have time to book cheap airfare.

So what are you waiting for?  Go on!  Open another tab on your browser and make your reservations.  No, no, It’s ok. It’s an eclipse…you won’t hurt my feelings.  I’ll still be here when you get back.

Here…I’ll help.

Eclipse Chasers

Priceline.com
Expedia.com

Delta Air Lines
United Airlines

Don’t look right at it.  Use a pinhole camera or a welder’s mask or something like that.  I’m serious!  You’ll do permanant damage to your eyes if you don’t.  Anyway, it’s worth driving or taking a short flight to go and see this.

Related articles

• Eclipse! (atraveldiary.wordpress.com)
• 2012 – A Preview (starsandstones.wordpress.com)

Image via Wikipedia

I can’t go to the moon.  Yes it bugs me that we don’t fly people to the moon, but you probably already know that.

For me personally however…even if I had a ride…there are other concerns.  Although I am quite healthy for my age, I doubt I would pass a physical for lengthy space flight.  Plus, people who rely on me cause me to prefer to avoid certain types of personal risks, not to mention the very real fact that the serious neglect of my education back when I was young means that no one anyone has reason to send me there.

However, yesterday I orbited the moon anyway.  I know it isn’t the same thing, but I rode along with Grail-A on New Years Eve using NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System and hung on while the spacecraft, engine blazing, shot over the moon at sixty-something miles above the surface.

Now Eyes On is just a simulation, and it was just showing me what the probe had been programmed to do, not necessarily what it was actually doing (realtime communications were probably not active anyway because of the spacecraft’s orientation angle during the burn).  The view of the moon was not real and not high-resolution; there are no cameras aboard this spacecraft that are designed for realtime imaging; and the GRAIL twins are too far away from each other to see more than a dot of each other.

But it was realtime and it was fun, even from my livingroom.

Do you want to try it?  GRAIL-B is next and is coming in fast toward the moon as I write this.  Click here for your GRAIL-eye view!  Also helpful are the mission status updates through SpaceFlight NOW.  GRAIL-B’s engine kicks on at 5:05 pm Eastern Time to slip it into Lunar orbit, but you can beam on over to the spacecraft any time and have a look.  After that both spacecraft will take some weeks to work their way into the flat orbit they need to do their science.

If you get bored hanging out with GRAIL, you can click the “Destination” tab and jump on Voyager-2, or Juno, or Cassini or something.  Here’s one…someone online asked if the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter could image the arrival of GRAIL.  The answer is no, but just because LRO isn’t designed for that, doesn’t mean that you can’t use Eyes On to jump to the LRO and spin the view around to face a GRAIL spacecraft, unless the moon is in the way.  I just tried it and even though there are roughly 12 thousand miles between them at this writing, I can see the location and path of GRAIL-B flying overhead.

Or maybe you’ll just say, “This is silly and Bill Housley is a hopeless geek.”

That’s fine too.   

Related articles

• NASA spacecraft enters moon’s orbit (cbc.ca)
• NASA probe orbiting moon for New Year’s (cbsnews.com)
• First of twin NASA probes reaches moon orbit (sfgate.com)
• Nasa Probe Circling the Moon on New Year’s Eve (maboulette.wordpress.com)
• First of NASA’s Two GRAIL Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around Moon (prnewswire.com)
• Moon countdown: NASA probe enters lunar orbit (newsok.com)
• NASA to map moon’s gravitational field (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• NASA’s New Year’s Resolution: Have 2 Gravity Probes Orbit the Moon (space.com)
• NASA spacecraft seeking lunar answers (mysanantonio.com)
• Twin NASA Probes Have New Year’s Date with the Moon (foxnews.com)
• Moon countdown: NASA probe enters lunar orbit – Salt Lake Tribune (sltrib.com)
• NASA’s GRAIL-A spacecraft 24 hours away from Moon (physorg.com)
• First of two NASA probes reaches lunar orbit (vancouversun.com)

Image via Wikipedia

In space, as in the future, destinations are objects in motion.  I thought of that today as I pondered my last blog entry for the year.  So many exciting things are in motion right now, ever-moving ever-changing.

Into the Dark went into its second year in September, a little after its “new book momentum” quieted down.  However, on the 17th of December it embarked on the first step of a new journey with a new distributer and an exciting new marketing paradigm and new array of book stores.  Anyone who follows the publishing industry knows that the current easy path to publishing has led to a frightening and exciting time as all players, both old and new, who scramble to keep up with the trends and stay ahead of the game.  New ideas and old are combined in strange ways as authors, publishers and booksellers try to piece together their plans for the future.  My new effort began with a group signing at Eborne Booksellers in the Valley Fair Mall in West Valley City, Utah.  Starting in March, I’ll kick-off a spring book signing tour designed to further enlarge the book’s reader base and set the stage for the sequel that I’ll finish drafting sometime in 2012.

Space exploration is also changing with an ever-increased vision focused on private companies with a new approach to funding and a whole new industry sprouting.   Many have heralded these developments as the first colors of a space race that will revolutionize space flight and steal Earth-to-orbit launches away from government sponsored space programs the world over. 

All the while, NASA didn’t sit still in 2011 either, sending up several aggressively innovative technologies to keep up the pace of discovery and maintain its niche, even during its current lull in manned-launch ability.  The plans underway for future missions are equally forward-thinking, extending our exploratory grasp ever outward into our solar system and into the cosmos. 

Did I hear someone shout something about Google’s Lunar X Prize?  Suborbital tourism?  China?  The awakening Middle East?

Not to mention a presidential election in the United States in which space is positioned to have a historic influence.  I smell a lot of change coming there.  I usually don’t try to call elections because too often they ride on far too many late season variables.  However this year I predict that Obama will lose Florida, and with it the election.  I feel comfortable going on record with this, even before the Republican nomination process is fully developed, because I think it will be Obama’s record that will sink his chances in Florida.

Yessiree, there will be lots for me to write about here in this space in 2012, so stay tuned.

Related articles

• Russian Space Program Suffers Another Failed Launch (forbes.com)
• Space Ball Falls from the Sky Over Africa (newsy.com)
• Space Tourists: a cinematic journey to the ISS (w/ Audio Interview) (gadling.com)
• The year’s top flying machines (cbsnews.com)
• Space junk crashes in Namibia (mnn.com)
• Nasa’s Kepler space telescope looks deep into space for planets that could support life (telegraph.co.uk)

I really like Christmas and I haven’t blogged much in the way of personal things.

This will probably be more important to those of you who know me personally than to the rest of you.  I put together a playlist of many of my favorite Christmas songs, performed by some of my favorite artists, as a YouTube playlist.  I shared it on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, but it’s been pushed kinda far down my wall by now, so I thought that sharing it here would be a good way to refresh it.  Fair warning…my music tastes and Christmas celebration focus might not be what you’d expect.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0FDC4AE44FBD3A9E (Kathy Mattea, Josh Groban, Bing Crosby, Roger Whittaker, Marty Robbins, Lynn Anderson, Faith Hill, The Judds, The Carpenters, Dean Martin, George Jones, Glen Campbell, Jim Reeves, Kenny Rogers, Enya, Adrian Bella, Alabama, Casting Crowns, Ed Herman and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir)

May everyone here have a very Merry Christmas and a Glorious and Successful New Year.

HubbleSite's NewsCenter is the place to find the story behind the image used in this card: Peering into the Core of Globular Cluster Omega Centauri — from the release Peering into the Core of a Globular Cluster

Related articles

• YouTube’s Snow Effects (googlesystem.blogspot.com)
• 9 Awesome High-Tech Holiday Easter Eggs (mashable.com)
• YouTube gets into Christmas spirit, adds falling snow video overlay (sociable.co)
• How to optimise a video for YouTube (marketing.yell.com)
• How to listen to Christmas songs from your computer (examiner.com)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ZQLAgKW7c

It won’t be long before we won’t have Hubble anymore.  Will we have the James Webb Space Telescope to replace it?  It’s up to you.  Write your congressperson and find out where they stand on the JWST.  Tell them where you stand.

Related articles

• Hubble serves up a holiday snow angel (physorg.com)
• Happy Holidays from the Hubble Space Telescope: A Cosmic Snow Angel (bigthink.com)
• Hubble repairman to lead NASA science division (blogs.nature.com)
• Celestial ‘Snow Angel’ Dazzles in Hubble Telescope Photo (livescience.com)
• Hubble telescope shows ‘Snow Angel’ (news.blogs.cnn.com)
• Hubble Serves Up a Holiday Snow Angel (yubanet.com)
• Hubble images celestial snow angel in 3D (newscientist.com)
• Hubble snaps view of celestial ‘snow angel’ (msnbc.msn.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Astronomers everywhere were geeking out last week about Comet Lovejoy and its close-brush with oblivion.  Some folks on Twitter called it “The little comet that could”.  The satellite that took the cool images of Lovejoy’s dramatic adventures was the “Solar and Heliospheric Observatory” (SOHO) which orbits Earth’s L1 Lagrange point.

This event, along with recent news from Voyager-1, and the Mars Science Laboratory, highlights a category of space study that I’ve long wanted to talk about here called Heliospheric Science.  This research uses a group of robotic probes operated by NASA and ESA to gather data and images on our sun, the solar wind, solar flares and other activity, solar and cosmic radiation, the Sun and Earth’s magnetic fields, and how all of this interacts together to effect us here on Earth, made-made objects in space, and human space travelers.

Most of these probes don’t take cool photos that could end up on a lot of desktop wallpapers, however the research conducted with them is no less valuable.  Here is a list of these satellites, some are better known than others.  Which ones do you recognise?

SOHO

Cluster-1, Cluster-2, Cluster-3, Cluster-4

Fast

Timed

Traced

Hinode

Rhessi

Geotail

Stereo-A, Stereo-B

ACE

Wind
Themis-A, Themis-B, Themis-C, Themis-D, Themis-E

C/NOFS

AIM

Voyager-1, Voyager-2

The following YouTube video describes some of them.  You can also learn more by clicking the relevent links in Wikipedia or Google searching on some of these.

SOHO, Stereo, and Voyager are three of my personal favorites.

Of course, the best way to learn more is to get involved!  That’s right, you can become a part of Heliospheric studies by participating in a group-source project called Solar Storm Watch.  Go to http://www.solarstormwatch.com/ and go through a short training session to learn how to help scientists weed through the mountains of data collected by the twin space probes called Stereo.

Beats the daylights out of compter games!

Related articles

• Comet Lovejoy Plunges Into the Sun and Survives (science.slashdot.org)
• Comet Lovejoy is still with us! (sluggerotoole.com)
• Comet Lovejoy’s death-defying plunge into the sun [Video] (csmonitor.com)
• Comet Lovejoy Survives Fiery Plunge Through Sun, NASA Says (livescience.com)
• Newfound Comet Lovejoy Makes Fiery Death Dive Through Sun (space.com)
• Voyager 1 Speeds Toward The Brink of Interstellar Space (npr.org)
• Comet Lovejoy Survives Fiery Plunge Through Sun, Nasa Says (maboulette.wordpress.com)
• Comet to Make Death Dive Through Sun Thursday (livescience.com)
• Comet’s death-plunge into sun will be well documented (csmonitor.com)
• Comet Lovejoy Defies Death, Brushes Up To Sun And Lives (VIDEO) – Huffington Post (huffingtonpost.com)
• This Is Comet Lovejoy (or The Silver Surfer) About to Plunge Into the Sun [Video] (gizmodo.com)
• Ode to a Comet: Q & A With Discoverer of Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy (space.com)
• Science Nugget: Using Many Instruments to Track a Comet (spacefellowship.com)
• Comet Lovejoy lives on, survives sungrazing (gearlive.com)

If you live in the area and read this blog I’d love to meet you.

Into the the Dark is a story about an astronaut who gets laid off when NASA gets canceled in the year 2023, but he doesn’t take it lying down!  He steals the plans to NASA’s starship project he was working on and turns it into a home-built project.

But it turns into a very large and complicated task, made more complicated by the alien superpower that got NASA canceled in the first place.

A fun, fast-moving Scifi action thriller, filled with gadgets, interesting characters, and technology predictions, Into the Dark will keep you at the edge of your seat from start to finish.

You can read chapter 1 here.

So stop on by Eborne Books and let’s chat.

Then I saw the proposed size of this thing!  Wow!

This is gonna be really, really cool.

Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

Related articles

• Paul G. Allen Announces Revolution in Space Transportation (spacefellowship.com)
• Billionaire plans world’s biggest plane for orbital launches (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
• Microsoft billionaire launches new space venture – Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com)
• With Stratolaunch, Paul Allen Attempts To Realize Childhood Dreams (huffingtonpost.com)
• Billionaire Paul Allen’s New Space Project Has Deep Roots (space.com)
• Stratolaunch plane could make space tourism affordable (csmonitor.com)
• Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen Unveils Plane for Private Space Launches (scientificamerican.com)
• Stratolaunch Systems announces “a radical change in the space launch industry” (gizmag.com)
• World’s Biggest Aircraft Will Ferry Passengers to Space in Stratolaunch Vision (foxnews.com)
• Billionaire starts up air-launch rocket venture (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)