Rockets and Cows - Nowhere But Texas!

Check out the latest test of the "Grasshopper" reusable rocket in McGregor, Texas.  This rocket, from Elon Musk's SpaceX, takes off, flies to the side a bit, hovers for a little while, then returns to the exact spot it took off from.  Pretty impressive. 

They threw in a small cattle stampede and a flock of birds just for good measure too. 
No word on how the bar-b-que was after the test. 

The Best Mars Curosity Rover Trivia You'll See All Day

I was cruising Jesse's Just A Car Guy Blog today, and saw something that I just had to steal borrow to share with my dozens of regular readers. Did you know that as the Mars Curiosity Rover travels across the surface of the red planet, it will be leaving the letters "JPL" on the surface in Morse Code? Check out the picture of the tire treads.

Click to enlarge

As both a car guy, and a geek (I hold a Tech Plus amateur radio license), this is something that put a big smile on my face.

Here is another Morse code Easter Egg for those of you in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas area.  If you find yourself in the North Dallas area some night, take a look towards the Texas Instruments headquarters site near LBJ and US 75 (Central Expressway) and look for TI's radio antenna.  You'll see it because it flashes the letters "TI" in Morse Code (one long flash, then two short ones).  I wonder how many other Morse Code Easter eggs there are out there?

Just A Car Guy
The ARRL website about the tire tread code.  

Mercury, Close Up

Image from NASA

At 5:20 am EDT on Mar. 29, 2011, the space probe MESSENGER captured this historic image of Mercury.  This is the first image of the planet Mercury taken from an orbiting spacecraft and the first time Mercury has been seen in such detail.