“It’s the ultimate high, orbiting 210 miles above the Earth in the space shuttle watching the planet whip by at 17,500 mph and listening to your favorite music,” Gina Sunseri reports for ABC News.
“Every astronaut on the space shuttle Endeavour has an iPod. NASA certified the MP3 players for flight about a year ago. Astronauts used to carry CD players, but iPods are better because they are smaller and weigh less,” Sunseri reports.
Sunseri reports, “Canadian-born spacewalker Dave Williams has a song his daughter recorded. ‘She plays the piano and she recorded ‘What a Wonderful World It Is’ for me to play while I looked at the Earth… So it is going to be a great flight,’ said Williams, ‘and I am looking forward to looking out the window listening to the music.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “bob” for the heads up.]
Time for a new section of Celebrity Play Lists on iTunes Store: Music of Astronauts.
What’s a mile? Most of the world does not know so, perhaps you could do a little conversion for the 6.3 billion people who don’t use an archaic system of measurement. Moreover, it’s the language of science and technology which, of course, includes NASA.
“… orbiting 330 kilometres above the Earth in the space shuttle watching the planet whip by at 28,000 kph and listening to your favourite music…”.
Is there (Battery) Life on Mars?
2007 – A Space iPod-essy
If they need a little yaw, pitch, or roll jet-propulsion boost, they can instead just release a Zune on a kite string, and when it blows up, it will give them an incromental change in position while conserving energy…the Zune now has a purpose, right Zune Tang?
I meant incremental(sp)
I wonder if you have to be able to spell to be an astronaut?
@Georgy- yes
They had CD players till last year??? It’s the government in action. Or should that be, ” It’s the government inaction?”
MW – latter, as in – It’s the latter. How do they do that?
“…perhaps you could do a little conversion for the 6.3 billion people who don’t use an archaic system of measurement…”
Yes – we, too, look forward to the day when all the character is taken out of our measuring system to please the dim-wit engineers of the world. Adding prefixes to meter and liter is surely more interesting than miles, hands, bushels, leagues and fathoms – words that actually have an origin other than some anal goofball’s nazi imaginings.
Do your own f*cking conversions.
I can see the size being important, but the weight? They are in a microgravity environment. iPods are better than CD players because you can carry a big library of music in them.
I like the English system, but 25.4 centimeters sounds more impressive than 10 inches.
Guest —
Ooh ooh! I can answer that. A mile is 5280 times the length of the king’s shoe.
What do I win?
We already know they have diapers as well…
@../.
weight is an issue when getting from here to the microgravity orbit. Well spoken, numb-nuts!
metric system? We are Americans! We, as a race, are the biggest mixing bowl of the world, we have more diversified cultures living in the same area then anywhere else, why should we use something that everyone else uses and makes sense?
That’s un-American!
Grok. The metric system makes more sense… plain and simple.
People like you are the problem. People who held onto the past are still proclaiming that the Tandy 128 is clearly the best computer ever.
@Guest: in metric, we say it “km/h not kph.
Action! Thrills! Marvel at the mundane accuracy of “111,120,000 Meters Beneath The Sea”!
” . . . the Tandy 128 is clearly the best computer ever.”
Everyone knows it’s a clear tie between the Macintosh 128K and the Commodore 64 but props to the TRS-80.
I wonder if NASA had to spend $2000. to get an iPod from the government procurement system.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And kilometers to go before I sleep,
And kilometers to go before I sleep.”
– apologies to the angry ghost of Robert Frost
@@@ –
The English system makes sense as well. It just makes a more intricate and interesting sense. Measurements are how people gauge the world. Some of it is regional, some job-specific, etc. It would be also be easier to only allow one language on the planet – but you’d end up losing more that you gained.
The metric system is accurate and easy. It’s also bland, odorless, colorless, antiseptic, lifeless language. No thanks.
English sytem makes sense?? Are you kidding me?
Length:
Inch [2.54 cm]
Link = 7.92 inches
Foot = 12 inches [30.48 cm]
Yard = 3 feet [91.44 cm]
Rod, Pole or Perch = 25 links = 5½ yards [about 5 metres]
Chain = 22 yards = 66 feet = 100 Links
Furlong = 10 chains = 220 yards [length of a furrow, about 200 metres]
Mile = 8 furlongs = 1760 yards = 5280 feet [a thousand Roman paces? – about 1600 metres]
Area:
Sq foot = 144 sq inches
Sq yard = 9 sq feet = 1296 sq inches [0.836 sq metre]
Sq Pole = 30¼ sq yards [often simply referred to as a Pole or Perch in land measurement]
Rood = ¼ acre = 1,210 sq yards = 40 sq poles
Acre = 4 roods = 10 sq chains = 4840 sq yards = Statute acre [0.40 hectare] [eg. a good-sized football pitch – but note that a Customary (or Saxon) acre was different, and that Scottish and Irish acres were different again]
Virgate = 30 acres [but varied in different districts – also called yardland]
Hide = 4 virgates [but really denoted the amount of land sufficient to support a family, and varied according to the locality or quality of the land]
Sq mile = 640 acres [259 hectares = 2.59 Sq Km]
Capacity [note, litre equivalents are for British Imperial measures]:
1 pint = 4 gills [0.568 litre]
1 quart = 2 pints [1.136 litre]
1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints [4.546 litre]
1 peck = 2 gallons
1 bushel = 4 pecks = 8 gallons
Weight:
1 ounce (oz) = 16 drams
1 pound (lb) = 16 oz [0.454 kg]
1 stone = 14 lb
1 quarter = 28 lb
1 hundredweight (cwt) = 4 quarters = 112 lb
1 ton = 20 cwt = 2240 lb [1.016 tonne]
(also called a long ton)
Money: (pre-Feb 1971)
1 penny (d) = 4 farthings [d = denarius, a Roman coin, translated to ‘penny’ in the Bible]
1 shilling (s) = 12 pence/pennies [converted in 1971 to 5 new pence]
1 crown = 5 shillings
1 pound (£) = 4 crowns = 20 shillings
1 guinea = 21 shillings
@Twisted Mac Freak
I love that conversion
but in my case 12.7 centimeters still sounds sounds more impressive than 5 inches.
as an American who programs around engineers, the Metric system is MUCH better. Damn the so-called American culture. Conversions cost money and lives. Just ask NASA.
MW: square
@MikeR
No they are off the shelf purchased.
But the did spend 1.2 million to certify the iPod as “flight safety”
rood. cool.
I like all measuring systems. Each has its place. For household measurements, I think feet and inches works better, because feet break down easily into halves, thirds, and fourths without using decimals (or worse, evil repeating decimals like .33333…). For science and engineering, metric has the nice feature of everything being based on multiples of 10, so that way scientists don’t have to think so hard or calculate so much. In publishing, we often use points and picas, which are neither standard imperial or metric units. But they work great for design and layout at page sizes.
@ noraa – conversion cost lives? wtf? Are you talking about when NASA shot that dart into Mars because that idiot forgot to convert miles into km (or whatever it was)?
Don’t engineers already have the oprion of using the metric system? [rheorical question]
They’ve been inching along with the metric system in schools since the 70’s, maybe longer, and the only inroad I can think that they’ve made on the american consciousness is the two-liter soda bottle. They’ve missed getting it adopted by a country mile, and I can’t fathom why.
@macaholic
Is ad hominem the only way you can make posts?
On earth, a CD player weight somewhere around 180 grams and an iPod nano is 40 grams while an iPod is about 160 grams. 20 gram difference (or even 140 g) on earth is not that much to begin with. And if you think astronauts should listen to MP3 players during the launch to get from here to there, we can see who the numbnut is.
At $1,000 a pound (or whatever it is) to send stuff into orbit, you wouldn’t expect them to send (Zune) bricks into space, would you?
CD players till last year?!?!? No wonder we’re stuck in low earth orbit.
What’s annoying about the metric system is how certain prefixes always get used, even when they don’t make sense. Why say something is 2000 kilometers away? Why not 2 megameters? What’s the deal with 1000mg vitamin pills? For s**t’s sake, that’s one gram! Can’t the bottle just say “one gram”?
But getting back on topic, I’m glad the shuttle astronauts have iPods. That means they’ll have something pleasant to listen to as they vaporize upon re-entry. May I suggest the following playlist?
“Burning for You”
“Hunk of Burning Love”
“Ring of Fire”
——RM
While we’re on the subject of how out of step the US is compared to the rest of the world, I’ll add that the more precise standard measurement of temperature, using whole numbers, is fahrenheit, not celsius.
water freezes at 32 degrees fahrenheit (or 0 degrees celcius). How logical is it that ?
fahrenheit more precise? maybe, but it sure is confusing…
Do the iPods come with an iFlask?
So, the Shuttles have been retrofitted with iPod charging stations. How BMW of them.
“water freezes at 32 degrees fahrenheit (or 0 degrees celcius). How logical is it that ?”
And minus 40 F. is minus 40 C. Time to chill.
Is Kelvinism the rule of absolute zero over all things?
Conversion gone bad has cost lives, or could have in the case of the dramatic example I have provided,
http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/acsdisplay.html?DOC=vc2\2my\my2_143.html
MW = wall
as in, they stopped just short of the wall
iYann: water freezes at 32 degrees fahrenheit (or 0 degrees celcius). How logical is it that ?
At the time when the scale was invented, the lowest temperature Fahrenheit could achieve using ice and salt was designated as zero. Obviously, the freezing point of water itself is above zero degree Fahrenheit.
But how much salt did they use ? …The imperial system is so relative… on some sorts of weird archaic legends…
I’d say it’s a non-system.
Time to move on America !
1 liter = 1 kg = 1000 grams = 0,001 tons
Everything is simply related in 10. Couldn’t be any easier…
Forgot to mention that water boils at 100°C
“…Everything is simply related in 10. Couldn’t be any easier…”
Well said. And still, we don’t want to use the simpler system. We like that only horse traders readily know how high a 15-hand horse stands. We like to buy strawberries by the bushel.
The point is not which system is better or simpler – but why only metric system proponents demand that all other systems be disallowed. No one cares if cubicle-boy draws his little pictures with metric units – so why is cubicle-boy so incensed that farmer Joe measures his land in acres?
goyim: …for the same reason maybe we, mac users, secretely want our friends, relative and everybody else to use a better, easier to use and more elegant OS. And still we can respect other people’s choices.
Although in science and many aspects of the industry it’s not just a matter of buying strawberries by the bushel, but building cars, launching rockets or making a cure for cancer; in a more efficient and collaborative way.
Anyway, just talking…
Stuff the weight — it’s the fact that you can pack in your entire music collection that’s important.
When Virgin Galactic’s prices come down a little, I’ll be up there too!!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
I like all the viewpoints on this topic, but overall, it’s about a given individuals familiarity with a subject. I find the French language incredibly confusing-but it certainly wouldn’t be to someone who has spoken it since the age of 18 months. I’m a CPA-I don’t find most accounting topics particularly difficult. How many non-accountants can say that?
While I don’t find celsius “impossible”, I constantly catch myself mentally converting a temperature to fahrenheit. I have no doubt it would be quite natural if celsius was all I had ever used.
Agreed, iYann. As a mac user, it’s my hope that everyone can benefit by a more colorful and meaningful vocabulary, resisting the impulse to reduce our hard-won view of the world around us to a dry recitation of bland, decimal-point exactitude.
On the other hand, I would encourage the relatively microscopic percentage of human beings who are working on rockets or curing cancer to use something mundane and easily calculable – like the metric system.
Six of one and a half-dozen of the other.
Nicely put !
Being in the design & printing business, we get to work with the imperial system every single day. But even if I don’t quite agree that only a microscopic percentage of human beings would benefit from the metric system, we’re not gonna change anything about it whatever we say in this forum…
Even if a law would be passed, it would take at least one generation to get people on board…
Peace goyim,
yeah – and it’s important to bandy about from time to time… peace
I’m old enough (just) to have lived through the metric imperial conversion in Australia, I don’t hear people clamoring to go back to the imperial system.
example…..1 liter of water weighs 1 kilo,
so roughly a 50 liter tank of fuel weighs 50 kilos, it is so easy to do quick mental calculations with metric.
“What’s a mile? Most of the world does not know so, perhaps you could do a little conversion for the 6.3 billion people who don’t use an archaic system of measurement. Moreover, it’s the language of science and technology which, of course, includes NASA.”
Build your own damned shuttle and then you can do whatever you want! When I drive everyone suffers with what’s on my iPod. He who drives gets to make the rules. Nah nah na nah nah.
The U.S. Gov’t tried to get the country to convert to the metric system in the 1970’s. I distinctly remember the great American spirit that was taken up by U.S. engineers, with their battle cry “We don’t need no foreign rulers!” And that’s why the U.S. is the *ONLY* country in the *THE ENTIRE WORLD* that does not use the metric system.