Author ArchivesEverywhere Once |

Blogging from Space

by Brian on May 26, 2012 in Travel

SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Launch. Credit Chris Thompson

Over a year ago we toured the departure hub for all manned U.S. space flight. I have to admit, I found our visit to the Kennedy Space Center depressing. It reminded me how little our space program had achieved since the Apollo mission ended. Over the succeeding four decades we went from walking on the moon to, well, nothing.

It can be said that our original manned space program was born on May 25, 1961, when JFK announced to a joint session of Congress his intention to land a man on the moon. It’s fitting then that exactly 51 years later, on May 25, 2012, the U.S. space program was reborn. Not by NASA, but by a private company only ten years old.

For me, this Friday’s docking of Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) Dragon craft with the International Space Station represents the most exciting thing to happen since at least the first shuttle flight – and perhaps before. It’s exciting not because of the technical accomplishment. Docking with the space station isn’t new. It is exciting because of how it was done.

SpaceX is the first private company to ever deliver cargo to the orbital station. Only four governments have accomplished that feat. But shipping goods isn’t the company’s end goal. Its reusable Dragon capsule is eventually intended to ferry people too.

According to space station flight engineer Don Pettit, who got to float around inside Dragon for a time,

“There’s not enough room in here to hold a barn dance, but for transportation of crew up and down through Earth’s atmosphere and into space, which is a rather short period of time, there’s plenty of room in here for the envisioned crew.”

That crew may get to ride Dragon as early as 2014.

What we just witnessed is the dawn of commercial spacefaring.

And like the commercialization of seafaring and aviation before, leisure craft eventually follow. We never had a shot at blasting off on a government owned space shuttle. But with private companies at the helm, it is only a matter of time. Whether on Richard Branson’s sub-orbital Virgin Galactic or on a Dragon “X” orbital craft, I now firmly believe that EverywhereOnce will one day blog from space.

How exciting is that?

El Paso Mission Trail

by Brian on May 25, 2012 in Texas, Travel, United States

A nine-mile corridor through present day El Paso, Texas, connects two historic missions and a presidio chapel.

Ysleta Mission

Built in 1862, Ysleta is the oldest continuously operated parish in Texas

More Marfa

by Brian on May 24, 2012 in Photo of the Day, Texas, United States

The cool vintage sign that welcomed us to the Tumble In RV Park in Marfa, TX.

I originally planned on only posting this photo to our Facebook Page but then decided it would be a fine addition for here as well.

7 Reasons to Visit Marfa, TX

by Brian on May 23, 2012 in Texas, Travel, United States

Presidio County Courthouse, Marfa, TX

Far removed from the typical tourist trail in west Texas, we discovered at least seven good reasons to take a detour to Marfa, TX.

It’s Artsy

Ever since the renowned minimalist sculptor Donald Judd made Marfa his home in the early 1970s, the area has been a magnet for the creatively inclined. Today, the town of just 1,981 residents boasts as many as 14 art galleries. Judd’s work, along with that of other contemporary artists, is still available for tour through the Chinati and Judd Foundations.

. . . and literary

Named after a character in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Marfa retains its literary legacy to this day. Over the past decade, the Lannan Foundation has housed close to 200 fellows in Marfa through its Writers in Residency program.

The wonderfully urbane Marfa Book Company in downtown draws the area’s artists and writers together. The bookstore and art gallery functions as a gathering place that routinely stages music, readings, talks and other performances.

Impulse Buy

by Brian on May 22, 2012 in Travel

Many a travel blogger have written eulogies for the much maligned travel guide. “The internet is better. It has more stuff. Reviews and details are actually up-to-date on the web. ‘Crowd sourced’ information is far better than anything a lone travel writer can put together. Guidebooks are for dorks.”

It’s all true, too. The internet is wonderful for researching specific things.

But for macro level travel planning, guidebooks are still hard to beat. Twenty minutes spent paging through a copy of DK’s Eyewitness USA guide gives us an amazing overview of the country’s primary and some secondary sights. Assembling the same information on the internet might take several days or more of painful hunting and pecking through narrowly focused travel sites. Who has time?

Guidebooks help us narrow our focus. They show us the main attractions in a region so we can plan a route. From there we use the internet to drill down into specifics.

With that in mind, I stopped by a local bookstore today to see if I could find a regional guide for the western leg of our trip. That’s not exactly what I walked out with.

Instead, I ended up buying a guide to Southeast Asia on impulse. Does this mean we’re heading to Thailand this winter? Not necessarily, but we now have an easy way to start organizing such a trip. That, together with the fantasies such planning usually stimulates, puts Southeast Asia at the top of the list for our next big excursion.

Stay tuned!