When I was growing up, my grandfather had one of those old school satellite dishes that moved. You could tune in to different satellites in orbit and browse available channels like surfing the internet. One of the gems we found exploring all those channels was the NASA channel. There was a little bit of scheduled programming there, but mostly it was just live feeds of whatever shuttle missions or launches or landings were going on.
However, I never really got that into space stuff. I was too obsessed with computers to geek out about it.
Fast forward 15 years and suddenly I’m rediscovering how awesome this stuff is.
Why?
- Back in July, celebrations of the Apollo program’s 40th anniversary led to discovering a few resources, but most notable was SOMA FM ‘s Mission Control channel. Non-stop mission audio mixed with ambiant beats, perfect for coding. There is something hearing astronauts landing moon vehicles that makes fixing whatever software bug I’ve got seem pretty easy.
- The Curiosity landing was live-streamed to much applause.
- ISS Astronauts are on Twitter
- Astronaut Chris Hadfield turned into a youtube sensation with this awesome rendition of Space Oddity. (He also gives great photography lessons)