One of my favorites is Space Daily
NASA wants amateur astronomers to lend their help in tracking asteroids, especially Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that cross the earth's orbit and sometimes come rather close to our planet.
Some of these asteroid are a potential hazard, or a possible threat, because some of them might collide with the earth.
If an asteroid is discovered to be on a collision course with our planet, and if discovered early enough, then we might be able to send out a probe to intercept the asteroid and to deflect it's path, thus avoiding a collision, and possibly saving many lives.
OK, this is going to be a rather long essay.
Sorry 'bout that!!!
Anyway . . . . .
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_ ... s_999.html
OK, here is a link to another web site on how NASA wants amateur astronomers to help in tracking asteroids.
NASA Mission Wants Amateur
Astronomers to Target Asteroids
A new NASA outreach project will enlist the help of amateur astronomers to discover near-Earth objects (NEOs) and study their characteristics. NEOs are asteroids with orbits that occasionally bring them close to the Earth.
Artist concept of OSIRIS-REx. (NASA/Goddard/
University of Arizona).
Starting this week, a new citizen science project called "Target Asteroids!" will support NASA's Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission objectives to improve basic scientific understanding of NEOs. OSIRIS-Rex is scheduled for launch in 2016 and will study material from an asteroid.
Amateur astronomers will help better characterize the population of NEOs, including their position, motion, rotation and changes in the intensity of light they emit. Professional astronomers will use this information to refine theoretical models of asteroids, improving their understanding about asteroids similar to the one OSIRIS-Rex will encounter in 2019, designated 1999 RQ36.
OSIRIS-Rex will map the asteroid's global properties, measure non-gravitational forces and provide observations that can be compared with data obtained by telescope observations from Earth. In 2023, OSIRIS-REx will return back to Earth at least 2.11 ounces (60 grams) of surface material from the asteroid.
Target Asteroids! data will be useful for comparisons with actual mission data. The project team plans to expand participants in 2014 to students and teachers. "Although few amateur astronomers have the capability to observe 1999 RQ36 itself, they do have the capability to observe other targets," said Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Previous observations indicate 1999 RQ36 is made of primitive materials. OSIRIS-REx will supply a wealth of information about the asteroid's composition and structure. Data also will provide new insights into the nature of the early solar system and its evolution, orbits of NEOs and their impact risks, and the building blocks that led to life on Earth.
Amateur astronomers long have provided NEO tracking observations in support of NASA's NEO Observation Program. A better understanding of NEOs is a critically important precursor in the selection and targeting of future asteroid missions. "For well over 10 years, amateurs have been important contributors in the refinement of orbits for newly discovered near-Earth objects," said Edward Beshore, deputy principal investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta is the mission's principal investigator at the University of Arizona.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Related Links
Target Asteroids! and OSIRIS-REx
Asteroid and Comet Mission News, Science and Technology
http://osiris-rex.lpl.arizona.edu/
WOW! Now this is really fantastic!
About the OSIRIS-REx Mission
Exploring Our Past, Securing Our Future
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will travel to a near-Earth carbonaceous
asteroid (101955) 1999 RQ36, study it in detail, and bring back a
sample (at least 60 grams or 2.1 ounces) to Earth.
This sample will help us investigate planet formation and the origin of
life, and the data collected at the asteroid will also aid our understanding
of asteroids that can impact Earth.
Download the OSIRIS-REx mission information sheet!
Want to learn more about the OSIRIS-REx mission? Read the answers to
some of our most Frequently Asked Questions here!
News
April 16, 2012
AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS WILL â??TARGET ASTEROIDS!â??
Amateur astronomers are about to make observations that will affect current and future space missions to asteroids.
Amateur astronomer Tim Hunter.
Some will use custom-made, often automated, telescopes equipped with CCD cameras in their backyards. Others will use home computers to make remote observations with more powerful telescopes states or continents away. Many belong to leading national and international amateur astronomy organizations with members ranging from retirees to school kids.
Researchers on NASAâ??s robotic asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, are turning to amateur astronomers for new data on near-Earth asteroids in a citizen science observing campaign called â??Target Asteroids!â? The campaign starts in April 2012 and will last at least to the end of this decade.
The full name of the OSIRIS-REx mission is Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security â?? Regolith Explorer. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is to launch in 2016, reach a well-characterized primitive asteroid called (101955) 1999 RQ36 in 2019, examine that body up close during a 505-day rendezvous, then return at least 60 grams of it to Earth in 2023.
â??Asteroids are a rich and accessible historic archive of the origin of our Solar System and life, a valuable source of mineral resources, and potentially hazardous Earth impactors that civilization must learn to deal with,â? said OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona. â??Our mission will address all these issues.â?
1999 RQ36 -- a 500-meter-diameter, dark carbonaceous asteroid -- is difficult for even powerful Earth-based telescopes to observe at this time because it is relatively distant from Earth.
Amateur astronomers are asked to observe asteroids selected because they are in near-Earth orbits that can be reached by current-generation spacecraft and are at least 200 meters in diameter, said Target Asteroids! scientist Carl Hergenrother, head of the OSIRIS-REx astronomy working group.
Precise orbits, sizes, rotation rates, physical composition and other important characteristics for these asteroids are largely unknown. Seventy-four asteroids are listed now, but the list will grow as observers get more information on known asteroids and discover new ones, Hergenrother said.
â??We want amateur astronomers to do astrometry (which precisely measures positions of objects), photometry (which measures brightness) and spectroscopy (which measures the colors, or wavelengths, of light) to discover as much as we can about these objects,â? he said.
â??These will be challenging objects to observe because they are very faint,â? said Target Asteroids! coordinator Dolores Hill of the OSIRIS-REx education and public outreach program. â??Amateur astronomers may have to make what are called â??track and stackâ?? observations,â? a technique that acquires and adds multiple short images.
â??One of the major goals of having amateur astronomers on board is they can observe these objects every night, unlike professional astronomers who may get to telescopes once every few nights, or more typically once a month or every three months,â? Hergenrother said.
People donâ??t need to own their own telescopes or live under clear skies to work on Target Asteroids!, Hergenrother and Hill emphasized.
For not much money, observers can now go online and sign up to use a growing network of quality robotic telescopes sited at some of the choicest astronomical spots in the country, they added.
Scientists will compare data from amateur and professional astronomersâ?? ground-based observations with data from OSIRIS-REx spacecraft instruments to learn more about Earth-crossing asteroids and identify likely candidates for future asteroid missions, they said.
â??The OSIRIS-REx mission truly is a â??ground truthâ?? mission, the connection between meteorites on the ground and asteroids that are still orbiting the sun that could hit the ground,â? Hill said.
Not long ago, astronomers disparaged asteroids as the â??vermin of the skies,â? said Ed Beshore, OSIRIS-REx deputy principal investigator. Astronomers saw asteroids as bothersome â??noise,â? unwanted streaks of light that contaminated their photographic views of celestial objects farther out in the cosmos.
That thinking changed when people realized how much damage near-Earth asteroids can do when they hit Earth as meteorites, Beshore said.
For example, sophisticated mathematical modeling shows that the chunk of meteorite that blasted 1.25-kilometer-wide Meteor Crater out of northern Arizonaâ??s Colorado Plateau about 50,000 years ago was less than 70 meters wide. Granted, that space rock was a rare iron-nickel meteorite that carried a much greater wallop than a stony or carbonaceous meteorite of the same size would have had. But still, thatâ??s impressive.
Until Beshore was named OSIRIS-REx deputy principal investigator earlier this year, he directed the University of Arizonaâ??s Catalina Sky Survey. This NASA-funded survey has led the world in searching for potentially hazardous NEOs, or near-Earth objects, since 2005. Amateur astronomers have helped enormously by providing follow-up observations that find orbits of newly discovered asteroids, Beshore said.
â??Amateur astronomy today is much different than it was, say, even in the mid-1990s,â? Beshore said. â??The amateur astronomy community working now is extremely sophisticated. They have more advanced computers. They have developed a tremendous number of turnkey solutions to automate their telescopes. And they now can rent telescopes larger than most amateurs can afford.
â??Youâ??ve got a lot of dedicated amateurs out there who really are working like professionals, making serious contributions to the field,â? he said.
â??Frankly, if they wanted to, many could probably get jobs as professionals. But theyâ??re probably making more money doing what theyâ??re doing at their day jobs.â?
Target Asteroids! partner organizations so far include:
The International Astronomical Search Collaboration, or IASC, http://iasc.hsutx.edu/. The IASC is an educational outreach program that provides free, donated telescope time to amateur astronomers from 30 high schools and colleges in five countries for asteroid observations. Students in the United States and Poland are already analyzing results on one of the Target Asteroids! that IASC members made using a 1.3-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson last February, Hill said.
Astronomical League, http://www.astroleague.org/. An umbrella organization of about 140 amateur astronomy organizations across the United States. Based in Kansas City, Mo., it promotes astronomy by encouraging public interest via local astronomy clubs.
Association of Lunar & Planetary Observers, http://alpo-astronomy.org/ Founded in 1947, this organization facilitates research by both professional and amateur astronomers working in lunar, planetary and solar astronomy. Members and section coordinators are scattered all over the world.
Oceanside Photo and Telescope, or OPT, http://www.optcorp.com/edu One of the largest telescope retailers in the world, based in Oceanside, Calif., OPT provides technical expertise and astronomy equipment to educators and organizations across the country.
NASA Night Sky Network, http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov A nationwide coalition of amateur astronomy clubs that provide information about NASA missions and host astronomy events for the general public. The Night Sky Network is sponsored and supported by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratoryâ??s â??PlanetQuestâ? program.
University of Arizona Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, http://skycenter.arizona.edu This University of Arizona science center is located where astronomical seeing is outstanding, at the 9,200-foot summit of Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. It offers both nightly public astronomy programs and opportunities for remote observing using the 32-inch Schulman telescope and 24-inch Beshore telescope. The SkyCenter is a partner in the Sierra Stars Observing Network, http://www.sierrastars.com, a widening network of professional observatories working to make advanced imaging capabilities available to amateur astronomers at modest cost.
The Catalina Sky Survey, University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/css The Catalina Sky Survey has been the most successful near-Earth object survey for several years running. This survey discovered 586 near-Earth asteroids, or 65 percent of all NEO discoveries made in 2011. In fall 2008, CSS scientists became the first to observe an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth, allowing that object to be tracked and eventually recovered as meteorites in the Sudanâ??s Nubian Desert.
Click here to visit the Target Asteroids! webpage.
Click here to read the official NASA press release.
Contact Hergenrother and Hill for more information about Target Asteroids! by e-mail to Target_Asteroids@lpl.arizona.edu.
View our most recent news items by visiting the news archive here!
NASA wants to enlist the aid of amateur astronomers everywhere in helping to track asteroids.
The big professional observatories can not be engaged in this endeavor, because they are in the process of searching for extra-solar planetary systems around distant stars and also observing distant galaxies and quasars that are billions of light years away.
But, any amateur astronomer with a decent sized reflector telescope, 8 inches or more on a good equatorial mounting with an electric clock drive, when a camera is attached for taking long exposure photographs of distant star fields, while the telescope is tracking the background stars, if there are any asteroids in the foreground, they will show up as short streaks on the photographs.
By keeping track of the exact time, sidereal time, or "star time" which is the rotational period of the earth, NOT relative to the sun, but relative to the stars, and the exact location of the stellar coordinates, then by referring to published charts, you can tell if it's a known asteroid, or if you have discovered a previously unknown asteroid.
The sidereal period of the earth's rotation, relative to the sun, is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds. But since the sidereal rotation of the earth is also divided into 24 equal parts, then each sidereal hour is slightly shorter than a solar hour, so that, if on a particular night of the year, if 12:00 AM midnight sidereal time corresponds with 12:00 AM midnight on the solar clock, then, 6 months later, 12:00 AM midnight sidereal time will correspond with 12:00 noon PM on the solar clock, and then, in another 6 months, it will be back to midnight again.
So, if you have a solar clock and a sidereal clock side by side, the sidereal clock will run slightly faster than the solar clock. The sun crosses the Zenith at 12:00 noon every day on the solar clock, and a particular star that crosses the Zenith at 12:00 midnight, eventually after 6 months, that sidereal "midnight" will be at high noon, and six months later, back at actual midnight again.
Also, just as a globe of the earth is marked with lines of north and south latitude and east and west longitude in degrees, minutes, and seconds, a globe of the sky is also marked with coordinates.
In this case, minutes and seconds are not units of time, but are angular measurements. So, if there are 360 degrees in a full circle, then each degree is divided into 60 minutes, and each minute of arc is divided into 60 seconds, then there are 21,600 minutes or 1,296,000 seconds in a full circle. So, each second of arc is 1/1,296,000th of a full circle or 1/3,600th of a degree or in decimal units, 1 second of arc is about 0.00477 degrees.
Now, a sky globe is marked with coordinates, but east and west is called, right ascension, and is not marked off in degrees, but rather, in hours, minutes, and seconds right ascension which are unites of time, because of the direction the stars appear to move across the sky as they rise in the east and set in the west, due to the earth's rotation, while north and south latitude is called degrees, minutes, and seconds north declination above the celestial equator or south declination below the celestial equator.
So, a globe of the earth has north and south latitudes, and east and west longitudes, while on a sky globe, it has right ascension, and north or south declination.
Polaris, the north star is always at +90 degrees north declination on a sky globe, so, the celestial equator is zero degrees, and the south celestial pole is -90 south declination.
When I was a kid living up in Minnesota, the north star appeared at about 45 degrees above the northern horizon. Actually Duluth Minnesota is at 46.7833° N, 92.1064° W and the small town were I lived was about 20 miles west of Duluth, but when I was a kid, I judged the angle of the north star to be about 45 degrees. And, here in El Paso Texas where I now live, the north star appears lower, about 32 degrees above the northern horizon. Actually El Paso Texas is at 31.7586° N, 106.4864° W, so, I'm not too far off.
Anyway, by noting exact sidereal time, and the exact stellar coordinates of the streaks seen on a photographic plate, this is how amateur astronomers are able to confirm if a particular asteroid is one that was previously unknown or not. If it turns out to be a newly discovered asteroid, then by tracking the change of it's relative position among the stellar background each night, and if one knows trigonometry and calculus, then you can eventually plot the orbital path of the asteroid to see if it's going to be a hit or a miss.
Of course, amateur now have computers, and you computer can be connected to your telescope, and with the latest software, it makes the job much easier. So, it's because home computers are so radially available to everybody now for using the Internet, it can now be combined with astronomy.
Back in 1975 to 1978 when I was going to NMSU, New Mexico State University, my astronomy professor had a programmable pocket calculator that could keep both solar and sidereal time, but you still had to know calculus to plot orbital paths through the solar system. Today, home computers make the job easier. But you still have to know how to do the math.
I have taken courses in trigonometry, but I never had the chance to take calculus. I remember, in some other forum topic, Recovering Fan said he knows calculus, so, he's got a one-up on me in that department.
So, I had three years of college, taking courses in Astronomy, Chemistry, and Physics, and math courses in Trigonometry. Unfortunately, due to my financial situation, I was not able to complete my degree, and I never had a chance to take any courses in calculus.
Anyway . . . . .
The fact is, over the years, most asteroids and comets have been discovered by amateur astronomers with their little backyard observatories.
And now, NASA wants to enlist ammeter astronomers across the USA in tracking asteroid.
There is as asteroid coming our way, named Apophis which is about 270 meters in diameter. Fortunately, it will miss the earth, but it's coming in very close.
About 60 million years ago, and asteroid about 6 miles in diameter struck the earth wiping out most of the life on this planet, which is why the dinosaurs became extinct.
Fortunately, Apophis is not large enough to cause a major extinction event, but it is a city-buster, so if i were to come down in a major metropolitan area, like New York or San Francisco, it would wipe out the entire city, killing millions.
That's why, tracking asteroids is so important.
Anyway, I had posted something about Apophis a couple of years ago in the Sports Sucks section.
Someone had started a topic back in Thursday Feb 04, 2010 at 8:42 AM titled:
A Serious Question
http://www.sportssuck.org/phpbb2/viewto ... f=1&t=4448
I had posted an article in response sometime later on the same date, Thursday Feb 04, 2010 at 10:27 AM.
Well, here it is again, since it is still relevant.
And then I posted the article article itself.Fat Man wrote: OK everybody, I know I had posted this before, but I had to bring this up again!
ATTENTION ALL SPORTS MORONS!!!
Science is far more important than sports!
One day, science just might save the human race from mass extinction.
There is an asteroid coming! Fortunately, it will not hit the earth. Astronomers have been tracking it very carefully, and also watching out for more approaching asteroids.
All over the world amateur astronomers are also sweeping the night sky searching for asteroids. There is always the possibility that an asteroid might collide with the earth. It's not a question of IF, but a question of WHEN!
If we can spot such an asteroid soon enough, we can send out a space probe to intercept it and deflect its course so that it will miss the earth entirely.
So, having amateur astronomers everywhere scanning the skis, this would serve as an early warning system, which just might one day save our collective ass!
In fact, an asteroid is due to arrive soon and it will just barely miss the earth by 18,000 miles, and that is damn close!
Then I had posted some more comments under the above article.Asteroid Apophisâ??Hit or Miss?
[Image no longer available]
Friday the 13th, April, 2029: If you're superstitious, this might not be a good day to schedule a near-Earth asteroid encounter. But, as it happens, that's the day that the Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) Apophis will make a very close flyby of Earth, a once in 800 years event for an asteroid Apophis' size.
Fortunately, scientists have already predicted, 20 years in advance, that this is our lucky day: Apophis won't hit the Earth at that time. Rest assured (pretty much).
Discovered in 2004, Apophis is an asteroid about 270 meters across that orbits the Sun at distances ranging from about one astronomical unit (1 AU; the distance between Earth and the Sun) and about three quarters of an AU. Apophis orbits the Sun once every 323 days.
[Image no longer available]
Apophis is about the same size as the asteroid that
blasted the mile-wide Barringer Crater in Arizona.
Credit: David Roddy, USGS
After its initial discovery, before our knowledge of its orbital trajectory had been refined, astronomers had predicted that there was a small chance it could hit the Earth on April 13, 2029, but as we got a clearer picture of its orbit the probability dwindled to practically nothing. Instead, Apophis will pass by Earth no closer than about 18,000 miles. Whew! Disaster averted, and we didn't even have to send Bruce Willis to deal with it.
But waitâ??that's not all. Though Apophis almost certainly won't hit us in 2029, there's a chance that this close encounter will set the asteroid up for an impact with Earth in 2036â??something like 1 in 45,000.
So, if we know there won't be an impact in 2029, why don't we know whether or not there will be one in 2036? Why all the suspense?
Here's where I pull out my pinball analogy. Think of a pinball machine. The play zone around your flippers represents near-Earth space, the various bumpers up in the field represent all the planets, the Sun, and other large asteroids of the Solar System, and the pinball represents a Near Earth Asteroid, like Apophis.
When the pinball inevitably comes into the play zone, there are two possibilities: either it will hit (or be hit by) one of your flippers and thus be deflected back into the field where it will bounce around some more between bumpers, or it will sail right through that dreaded "window" between the tips of the flippers and fall into the end pocketâ??which represents Terra Firma and a catastrophe if a NEA falls there. As any pinball player knows, it's nearly impossible to predict exactly what path the pinball will follow into the play zone until it gets close.
It's a lot like that with a NEA in the Solar System: as it orbits around the Sun, its course is influenced by the gravitational pull of planets, large asteroids, and potentially smaller asteroids that it might pass close to. A very small deviation in a NEA's direction or speed can, over time, "amplify" into a very large difference in position much farther down the road.
Given the 2029 close encounter with Earth, though we're reasonably confident Apophis won't hit us on that pass, we don't know precisely how that encounter will alter Apophis' orbit. The gravitational interaction between Earth and a NEA passing close by is a complex one, with many variables, not the least of which is Earth's non-uniform gravitational field.
If Apophis passes Earth through precisely the right "window" in 2029â??say, right between the flipper tipsâ??then it could be set up for an impact at its 2036 encounter. That window, called a gravitational keyhole, is only about 600 meters across for the 2029 encounter.
As we gather more data on Apophis, we'll get a better prediction for what may happen in 2036â??but right now the odds are that it will ultimately miss us at that time. That's a good thing, too, because at that time Bruce Willis will be 81 years oldâ?¦ and even John Glenn was only 80 when he returned to spaceâ?¦
Yeah! Back when I was a kid going to school, I wanted to study science. Astronomy was my absolute favorite.Fat Man wrote:Anyway . . . . .
We can all be thankful for the Astro-nerds or Astronomy geeks who are patrolling the skies above us for any incoming asteroid. The last time an asteroid collided with the earth was about 60 million years ago, and that is what wiped out the dinosaurs and most of the life on the planet.
It could very well happen again, unless we act to prevent it, and we do have the technology to prevent it.
So, science is far more important than sports, and someday, sports fans, science just might save your moronic monkey-boy-asses!
I think they should make all night sporting events illegal and they should only be held during the day, because we don't need to have so many sports arenas lighting up the night skies and interfering with astronomical observations.
And besides, all of you immature sports-tards should not be out so late at night. You should all be in bed while those of us who are more grown-up are out at night, and believe me, a 12 year old amateur astronomer is more grown up and adult-like than a 30 year old wife-beating child raping redneck Sports Bore!!!
You monkey-boys and Sports Bores, or rather, Sports BOres, because you all stink and you all suck, you're all parasites and a drain on resources, and a threat to humanity.
Sports is about as useless as tits on a nun and balls on a priest!
You all got that, you fucking sports-tards???
But, unfortunately I had this sports obsessed teacher who was really Gung-Ho when it came to PE and sports, and he really liked to humiliate me in from of all the other students in the gym.
One day, we went to the school library, and while all the other kids were allowed to check out any book they wanted, I was not. I saw this Astronomy book that I wanted, and when I was not allowed to check it out, I got into an argument with the teacher, and he dragged me out int the hallway, pushing me backwards, and bashing my head up against the corner of a concrete block wall. As a result of the severe head concussion, I had headaches and dizzy spells for years afterward.
Yeah! I was often beaten and bullied around because I had no interest in sports, and was called a "fag" because I preferred "sissy stuff" like science and art.
During my teenage years, I wanted to build my own telescope. I had ordered a kit for about $30 dollars from the Edmund Scientific Co. to grind and polish an 8 inch mirror for a reflector telescope.
It meant keeping my bed room clean and free of dust. Unfortunately, my brother and I shared the same bed room, and the only thing I required of him was that he not hang his dusty jacket on the curtain rod. We use to get into arguments over that.
Yeah! My dear sweet brother tried to steal a shotgun form a neighbor. Fortunately, the owner saw my brother come out of his house, and took the shotgun away from him. My brother wanted to blow me away because he felt that my wanting to build a telescope was disruptive of our family.
This was back in 1970 -1971 when my brother played the trumpet (he was damn good at it too!!!) in high school, and our mother worked her butt off for him, making sure his marching uniform fit just right. Our family had invested a lot of money in his venture, and there were times when I needed new clothes or new shoes, and couldn't afford it.
So, my mother was happy for me when I ordered the telescope kit from Edmund Scientific Co.
Yeah, please do check out a topic I had posted titled . . .
How Sports Destroyed My Family Life! Please Read And Reply!
http://www.sportssuck.org/phpbb2/viewto ... f=1&t=4773
This was posted back in Wednesday Nov 17, 2010 at 11:55 PM.
Well, I'm going to re-post it here again, because I feel it's relevant to this topic.
Sorry for having to re-post this again, but this is important.Fat Man wrote:OK, everybody.
I have been putting this off for far too long, but now I need to come clean once and for all.
I believe I have mentioned somewhere before in these forums that I'm the oldest of three kids in my family, and I believe that I mentioned that I have a younger brother, and my sister being the youngest.
Now, in a topic I had posted earlier this year THE HORSE THIEVES AMONG US!
http://www.sportssuck.org/phpbb2/viewto ... f=1&t=4425
I had mentioned the times I was suspended from school.
But what I have never mentioned was that my younger brother and sister disowned me, and were actually ashamed to be seen in public with me after I was suspended from school for three years when I was in the 7th grade.
And I had mentioned quite a few times here about having an emotional and mental breakdown and spending three weeks in a mental hospital.
Well, after that, my own brother and sister treated me like dirt, like I was an ex-convict or something, or even worse. Ex-mental-patients are looked down upon with even lower disregard than an ex-convict, even though I had never committed any crimes or broken any laws.
Of course, my mother stood by me, and we became very close through my emotional crises while I was trying to recover from what had happened to me.
That was when I was 17 years old back in 1969.
Then, back in 1974, my younger brother joined the Army and a few years later my sister also joined the Army. Naturally I knew the Army wouldn't take me, because when I turned 18 back in September 30,1969, I had to register for the draft, and the Army wouldn't take me for three reasons.
1.) Because of my crippled up left knee, I was unable to run and I would be unable to hike the long distance that would be required in Boot Camp.
2.) I was about 120 pounds overweight. They'll take you if you're only 50 pounds overweight because they can get that off from you once you're in.
3.) The fact that I spent three week in a mental hospital.
Well, I was actually glad that I didn't have to worry about getting drafted.
Ah! But after my dear sweet brother and my dear sweet sister joined the Army, they lorded it over me! They thought they were better than I was because the Army took them, while I was rejected!
They both looked down on me as a total reject, first rejected from school, and now, rejected by Uncle Sam! So they both thought they were better than I was.
OK, now lets go back to around 1970 or 1971.
We had moved out into the high desert where we had bought 2 acres of land at a development area named Moon Gate outside of Las Cruces New Mexico on the way toward the Organ Mountains.
Here are some more beautiful pictures of the Organ Mountains.
New Mexico's Organ Mountains Tribute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbV2XPSgOEI
Las Cruces, New Mexico Organ Mountain (I've Been Through The Desert On A horse With No Name)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV_-jvpsZFE&NR=1
Organ Mountain Sunrise - Native American Flute music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0geWM3c ... re=related
People have died trying to climb these mountains. These are the kind of mountains that say "You may look, but don't touch!"
I loved the high desert. It was actually about 10 degrees cooler than it was back down in Mesilla Valley where Las Cruces was located. The Organ Mountains rose to over 9000 feet above sea level. Where we were living we were about 5000 feet, almost a mile above sea level, and Las Cruses was about 3,500 feet above sea level, so it was a little bit cooler on the high desert.
I loved it there because at night the sky was much darker and I enjoyed going out with my little 2.5 inch refactor telescope to observe the stars and planets.
I also enjoyed the desert, because I wanted to create a desert garden, so I would walk around out in the desert and bring back some cactus for my cactus garden.
Living out there was good for me, because after having come home from the mental hospital I very seldom wanted to go outdoors, because I felt shame, and of course, my own brother and sister only added to my feelings of shame.
But out at Moon Gate, living on the high desert, I enjoyed going outdoors again. I have always loved the high desert, so living there was good for me.
I love that which is beautiful, such as the high desert, high mountain ranges, the night sky. Astronomy is beautiful. Sports is ugly! Sports ruins people's lives, and I hated having the ugliness of sports imposed on me, and sports destroyed my family life and inspired the hatred my brother and sister had toward me, because they were ashamed of me for being suspended from school on three different occasions.
I was betrayed by my own brother and sister. They are traitors!
Anyway . . . . .
We lived out there for a couple of years, until my stepfather died then we had to move back to Las Cruces again, but I was happy when we were living out there at Moon Gate.
So, I would walk around out in the desert looking for cactus to transplant in my cactus garden.
But I also wanted to build my own little observatory out there. I had bought a kit from the Edmond Scientific Company so that I could grind and polish an 8 inch mirror to build my own Newtonian style reflector telescope, and after the Pyrex mirror blank was ground and polished, I would have to send it off to be aluminized, where they place the mirror blank in a small vacuum chamber and coat it with a thin layer of vaporized aluminum to about a millionth of an inch thick.
OK, this was back in 1970 and 1971 when my brother and sister were still going to high school, and I had been suspended from high school, and this was about a couple of years after my three week stay in the state mental hospital.
My brother was in the marching band. He played the trumpet, and he was damn good! My mother worked her butt off for him, getting his marching uniform altered so it would fit him properly and taking him to play in the high school concerts and marching in the football field during the night games. My mother worked very hard for him.
So, my mother felt that I deserved to have something for myself as well.
In order to work on grinding and polishing my concave mirror, I needed to keep my bedroom absolutely clean and as dust free as possible.
But my brother, he was going "Stomp" at the time, wearing cowboy boots and coming in from the desert all dirty and dusty after hunting with his air rifle and he kept hanging his dirty dusty jacket on the curtain rod in our bedroom.
I was a Hippie back then, having long hair and listening to rock music and I also enjoyed classical music, while my brother went "Stomp" listening to redneck music and wearing western clothes and coming in all covered with dust.
Well, we got into an argument over how he was getting dust all over my optical work causing scratches when I was in the polishing phase of my telescope mirror.
My brother got all pissed off, and he started pounding me on my back and kicking me in my left leg, my crippled up left knee, so even my own younger brother was a bully who liked to beat up on me.
Oh! And my sister, she was just as rotten. She once borrowed some of my records, one of my favorites was a 45 RPM with a song by Ed Aims, Who Will Answer, which she left laying on her desk in her bedroom, the sun beating down on it and it got all warped. I also had a large 33 RPM record with Space Odyssey 2001 which came out in 1968 I believe, and she had borrowed that from me, and never returned it. So, she liked to steal from me.
OK, over the years, my brother and I, we had been on and off speaking terms.
One day, back in 2003 I believe it was, we use to chat using the AOL Instant Message, and it was during one of our many disagreements that my brother finally came out with the truth.
HE TRIED TO MAKE AN ATTEMPT ON MY LIFE!!!
I never knew about this at the time, but he finally told me, that back in 1971, when were were living out there at Moon Gate, he was pissed off and went into a neighbor's house and stole a shotgun, and as he was leaving the premises, the owner of the house was out in the yard, and he grabbed the shotgun from my brother.
During our AOL Instant Message chat on the Internet, I asked my brother why he wanted to come after me with the shotgun, and he said that it was because I was being a disruptive influence in our family, that I was disrupting our family because I wanted to build a telescope and a small observatory outdoors, that my insisting on keeping the bedroom so immaculate was disrupting our family.
My brother and I shared the same bedroom. I only asked that he would not hang his dirty jacket on the curtain rod.
I also pointed out, that he had a brand new $150 dollar trumpet and our mother was working her butt off for him so he could play in the high school band, and she felt that I was at least entitled to my telescope mirror kit which I had ordered from the Edmond Scientific Company for a lousy $35 dollars.
Sometimes my brother would be practicing for hours on his trumpet and it was pretty loud. But we all listened because he was really good, and we were all proud of him, including me, I was proud of my brother because he was damn good! Yeah, I was proud of him even though my brother and sister were ashamed of me! So, there were times when I could not watch TV or listen to my records because my brother had to practice.
And he says I was disruptive to the family because I wanted to build a telescope???
I also wanted to get a guitar, and learn how to play it, but my stepfather objected, I was damn lucky to have anything at all, and it was only because my mother stood up for me.
And there were times when I needed new clothes or new shoes, but because of our limited income and our mother having to invest time and money in my brother because he was in the high school band, I sometimes had to make due wearing old clothes and worn out shoes.
Yeah! My own dear sweet brother wanted to blow me away with a shot gun! That ungrateful sanctimonious scum-bag piece of dog shit!!!
And recently, a couple of years ago, my brother dropped another bomb shell on me. When we were kids, our stepfather use to get drunk and beat up on my mother and I, however, my brother got along with our stepfather much better than I did.
Our stepfather passed on back in September 1971, about a month before his 80th birthday. He was a World War One veteran, and he was stationed in Germany. He was a tail-gunner in one of those bi-planes they had back then, or so the story goes.
OK, now my brother and stepfather were much closer to each other while I was very close to my mother, so my brother got along with our stepfather better than I ever could.
Now here's the bomb shell my brother dropped on me back in 2008.
Back in the summer of 1971 when our stepfather became ill and was diagnosed with cancer of the colon, he knew that he didn't have much longer to live, so he wanted to clear his conscience before he died, so one day, my brother and our stepfather had a conversation together, while my mother and I were out somewhere. I always went out with my mother when we went out shopping or something in Las Cruces.
Anyway . . . . .
Our stepfather confessed to my brother during one of their many private conversations, that when he was stationed in Germany, he killed a security guard. Not an enemy security guard, but a US security guard, one of our own soldiers. He deliberately pushed the guy into a cold fast flowing river where he drowned, and his body was never recovered. And my brother knew about this for years, before he finally revealed it to me back in 2008.
So, all through out my teenage years, my mother and I lived with a killer in the house and never suspected it, and I lived with a potential killer, my own brother, and never knew it until he finally confessed it to me during an AOL private chat on line.
Oh! And by the way, my dear sweet brother has always voted Republican in all the Presidential Elections since we were both old enough to vote, and while I'm in the process of converting to Judaism, my brother became a Catholic back in 2004.
[UPDATE: TONIGHT MAY 5,2012 - I HAVEN'T BEEN GOING TO TEMPLE FOR THE PAST FEW MONTHS. I'M BECOMING MORE AGNOSTIC. I WILL ALWAYS CONSIDER THE PEOPLE AT TEMPLE AS DEAR FRIENDS, BUT I'VE BEEN LOSING MY RELIGION AS THE SONG GOES.]
My brother also has racist attitudes and he's prejudice against us fat people!
AND BACK IN 1971 HE WANTED TO BLOW ME AWAY WITH A SHOTGUN!!!
Our mother passed on back in the summer of 1985, and she never knew about how my brother tried to steal a shotgun from a neighbor when we lived out at Moon Gate from March 1970 to September 1971. She never knew how he wanted to come after me with a loaded 12 gauge shotgun! And I didn't know about it, until he confessed it to me, almost bragging about it back in 2003 or 2004 during an AOL chat session on the Internet.
And, I have to live with this knowledge for the rest of my life!
Yeah, knowing that my own brother wanted to kill me!!!
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because of dreams I can only vaguely remember.
YEAH! MY OWN DEAR SWEET BROTHER ONCE TRIED TO COME AFTER ME WITH A SHOTGUN!!!
It's just too bad that back in the 1970s that NASA wasn't enlisting the aid of amateur astronomer back then. But, back in those times, there was no Internet, no home computers, and therefore, no computer software for home computers for amateur astronomers to use.
Of course, even back then, there were a few asteroids and comets that have been discovered by amateur astronomers with their own backyard observatories.
If the circumstances of my life had been better, I could have been one of them myself.
But, it was not to be.
I think what seriously need to be done, is for some officials from NASA to travel across country and go into all of our high schools to encourage more students to get interested in science.
Hey! I have a really cool idea.
How about forming a nation wide ASTEROID PATROL, and they can even wear really cool uniforms with a badge that says ASTEROID PATROL, and of course, the badge would have a micro-chip that registers on a scanner, only to make sure it's authentic, not for surveillance of members, but only for authentication to make sure it's not a fake.
Yeah! I'm sure the best and brightest students in our schools would go for it. Also, in our schools, they would have certain privileges.
HEY! Our schools have been granting extra privileges to dumb jock-bullies who can't read beyond the second grade level! Right???
So, why not grant a few privileges to the science nerds and techno-geeks in our schools? Right?
Yeah! That's the ticket!
Also, anyone who bullies and assaults a science nerd or techno-geek who is a member of my proposed ASTEROID PATROL in our schools, will get charged with TREASON for being a danger to humanity, and gets sent up the river for life!!!
Because, who knows? One of those ammeter astronomers might one day discover a large asteroid that is on collision course with the earth, and if found early enough with advanced warning, some probes could be sent out to intercept said asteroid, and deflect it's path just enough so that it will miss the earth entirely, thus saving millions of lives in the process.
Yeah! It will probably be some science nerd or techno-geek who just might save our collective ass.
Who knows? If the circumstance of my life had been better, I might have been the one who discovered the asteroid early enough.
Of course, I'm merely speculating.
I don't claim to have the ability to predict anything with absolute certainty.
Nobody has that ability.
OK! Does this make me sound like some kind of elitist prick?
Well, I don't give a flying fuck if it does!
Oh gee! Am I being cynical again?
I hope so, because I love being cynical!
Yeah! I'm a bitch!!!
OK?
I'm fat and sassy! I love to sing & dance & stomp my feet & really rock your world!
