Eyes on the Sky

Grandrabbit’s has products to get any little astronaut off the ground, including space suits, books, solar system models and more! Come into the store for our full selection.

Since the beginning of August our attention has been turned to the sky. On August 5 (Neil Armstrong’s birthday by the way) NASA’s Curiosity Rover successfully landed on the surface of Mars. The nights of August 12^th and 13^th were lit up by the Perseid Meteor Shower, and on the 25^th Neil Armstrong, the first man to ever set foot on the moon, passed away.

With all this space talk, you may find your kids wanting to know more about our solar system, NASA and space travel.  Here are some tidbits we picked up to help get your conversations started.

Did you know?!?-- Neil Armstrong was flying planes before he could drive, he served as a Navy fighter pilot in the Korean War and was a student of aeronautical engineering at Purdue University. He never dreamed that he would someday fly to the moon. In fact, during Armstrong’s first year of college Charles E Yeager broke the sound barrier in an experimental aircraft called the Bell X-1 and Armstrong felt that he “had missed all the great times and adventures in flight.” Good thing he was mistaken! Once he got a job at NASA Neil Armstrong piloted many of the most innovative aircrafts of all time, including the successor to the Bell X-1, and eventually moved on to flying spacecrafts. Armstrong took the first human steps on the moon on July 20, 1969 accompanied by his colleague and friend Buzz Aldrin on the Apollo 11 Mission. In a statement regarding Armstrong’s death, his family stated that “He remained an advocate of aviation and exploration throughout his life and never lost his boyhood wonder of these pursuits.” What an inspiration. In remembrance of Neil Armstrong, rekindle your own sense of childhood wonder and see where it takes you. You never know, you could end up on the moon!

Speaking of childhood wonder, who else is still waiting for some aliens to show up on the camera of the new Mars Rover Curiosity?!? Okay, so the Rover is actually looking for microbial life forms, but we can dream right?

Here’s some real info!--Unlike previous mars rovers the Curiosity has greater mobility and the ability to explore more of the red planet than we’ve ever seen before.  Previous Rovers such as the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration relied on solar energy, limiting them to areas of Mars that received enough sunlight to keep them powered. The power for the Curiosity Rover however, comes from a “radioisotope power system that generates electricity from the heat of plutionium’s radioactive decay.” Wow! Thanks to this new power source, over the next martian year (687 earth days) the Curiosity will send us never before seen images of mars, and assess whether or not the red planet has, or ever had, an environment that could support life. We can’t wait to see what’s out there!

Just for fun, if one martian year= 1.88 earth years. How old would you be if you were a martian? (Hint: Divide your age in years by 1.88)

Want to know more?

NASA has heaps of great information and cool interactive material such as Be A Martian so be sure to explore their website if you’re interested in keeping up to date with Curiosity’s location, photos, technology, etc.