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I was planning to wax poetic about the first space rocket launch on US soil since 2011 until Mother Nature had its say. Now we wait until Saturday for the next launch opportunity but I’ll still make this a space-themed flakes. If that’s not your cup of tea, there is still plenty of other interesting articles worth reading below.
Astronomy and outer space was a passion of mine. I visited the Kennedy Space Center a few times and even got the chance to meet an astronaut at the complex. During high school, I was a member of the local astronomy club (and the youngest member by quite a bit). We didn’t have a telescope but I bought a pair of Bushnell 10X50 binoculars for stargazing in my college years. I still have a sky map on my phone to keep track of the planets in the sky and sometimes I get alerts when the International Space Station passes overhead. Needless to say, having space rocket launches back in the USA is a big deal for me because it fills my heart with pride and joy.
What does NASA and Space Exploration mean to you? Is there other life out there in the universe? Have you experienced any strange pandemic dreams lately? When was the last time you got lost with your family or significant other? Dump all the details in the comments section. Anyways onto Flakes...
Frosted Flakes
Corn Nation’s Newest Writer, Patrick Grindley: My Nebraska Upbringing | Sports | Corn Nation
My name is Patrick Grindley and I am new to Corn Nation. This is a little background of who I am, and my story of how I became a Husker fan.
Mailbag: Nonconference Schedules, Spring Practice and Recruiting | Sports | Hail Varsity
Hail Varsity staff members Mike Babcock, Jacob Padilla, Greg Smith, Erin Sorensen and Brandon Vogel tackle your questions about the latest news in Husker Nation.
Expectations Are High For Dicaprio Bootle’s Senior Season | Football | Hail Varsity
He started every game in 2019—the first eight at cornerback and the final four at safety—and finished the season with 31 tackles, six pass breakups and one forced fumble. That helped earn him Honorable-Mention All-Big Ten from the media.
Padding the Stats: Huskers Riding the Wave | Football | Hail Varsity
Momentum for the rule change has seemed to ebb and flow over the last few months, but the NCAA Division I Council decided last week to push the vote back until the NCAA convention in January, meaning all non-grad transfers will officially need a waiver to play in the 2020-21 season.
On May 5, Enunwa was placed on the reserve/physically unable to perform list, making him ineligible for 2020. The move came as no surprise; the team had expressed no optimism about his chances for a return.
Official visits, prospect camps — including Nebraska’s Friday Night Lights camps and Adidas-sponsored Pipeline satellite camp — and summer team camps for all sports aren’t likely to happen now.
Larson returned to her home in California in January after playing for a professional team in Shanghai, China. The professional season there didn’t last as long as most years because the Chinese put a big emphasis in preparing for the Olympics. Now Larson will try to see if the longest gap without playing a match in her career since college can be beneficial, and set her up to be successful during the Olympics next summer.
Sierra Hassel of the Nebraska women’s gymnastics team and David Jensen of the Husker wrestling team were honored as Nebraska’s Outstanding Sportsmanship Award winners by the Big Ten on Wednesday, as the conference announced its 28 honorees. These standouts were chosen from a group of more than 350 students honored throughout the academic year for displaying positive sportsmanship.
Travel
My Government-Mandated Stay At a Five-Star Hotel | Travel | Conde Nast Traveler
We spoke to four travelers who have recently quarantined in Israel, Australia, Cyprus, and Taiwan. Each shared the details of their stays, from the food provided to the housekeeping, to how much fresh air they were allowed each day.
I’m An Everest Guide, And I’m Worried About the Future of Climbing | Travel | Conde Nast Traveler
On Everest, nine or 10 customers sign up and we have 20 climbing sherpas. It’s impossible to keep six feet apart, especially when everyone goes up and down the same route. I’d feel safer if the guiding companies checked the clients’ temperatures and made them wear masks. We already wear buffs because of the dry air; that’s kind of like a mask.
That last week in March was really eerie. We were talking to the pilots as they were inbound, asking them, “Just out of curiosity, how many passengers do you have on board?” And they would say 10, or eight, or six.
The airport had indeed been opened at one point, Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra reported via CNN, but at the time of the Eurowings flight, the Olbia airport was only accepting private flights with a capacity of no more than 19 passengers. The Eurowings spokesperson blamed the four-hour flight to nowhere on “a misunderstanding in the consolidation of the relevant flight information.”
Qatar Airways Launches Unlimited Flight Chance Policy | Travel | Lonely Planet
Qatar Airways has promised a flexible new flight change policy that could keep travellers from cancelling their plans. The airline is now allowing free unlimited date changes as well as the ability to swap to a new destination as long as it’s within 5000 miles of the original, making it one of the most generous rebooking policies in the industry.
The Mediterranean country has resumed regular ferry services to its islands on Monday as it presses ahead with efforts to revive its tourism season after closing restaurants and cafes on 13 March, and imposing a nationwide lockdown on 17 March.
As of 25 May most of Spain is in phase one or phase two of the government’s deescalation plan, with Barcelona and Madrid finally leaving phase zero, the first stage. Phase one allows for social gatherings of up to ten people and sidewalk cafés and bars with terraces to reopen at 50% capacity,
Japan May Pay For Some of Your Trip If You Visit | Travel | Lonely Planet
The government is now looking at ways to boost tourism by subsidizing a portion of travel expenses when the coronavirus outbreak is under control. According to the press conference, the programme aims to potentially provide ¥1.35 trillion ($12.5 billion) in funding.
How Lack of Tourism Is Affecting Wildlife Conservation in Madagascar | Travel | National Geographic
In mid-March, Patricia Wright was in Madagascar, where the renowned primatologist travels six times a year, to oversee the transfer of a dozen greater bamboo lemurs from a rice field into the rain forest. Just before the expedition launched, the coronavirus hit. Flights in and out of Madagascar came to a grinding halt, and the Malagasy government restricted travel between cities.
Here’s Where to Find Rockets and Wildlife on Florida’s Space Coast | Travel | National Geographic
But what’s surprising about the Space Coast isn’t NASA but nature. The protected surrounds of the space facilities include not only the Merritt Island refuge, but also Canaveral National Seashore, the largest natural beach on Florida’s east coast, and the Indian River Lagoon, one of the most biologically diverse estuaries in North America.
Here’s Why Planning a Trip Can Help Your Mental Health | Travel | National Geographic
Planning and anticipating a trip can be almost as enjoyable as going on the trip itself, and there’s research to back it up. A 2014 Cornell University study delved into how the anticipation of an experience (like a trip) can increase a person’s happiness substantially — much more so than the anticipation of buying material goods.
A Mysterious US Desert Civilization | Travel | BBC
In the heart of the San Juan Basin, in the arid north-western corner of New Mexico, stands one of the greatest ancient treasures in the US: the remarkably preserved remains of a vast building complex believed to have been constructed between 850 and 1250 AD that may have housed as many as 5,000 people.
An Italian Town Surrounded by Switzerland | Travel | BBC
The town is a geographic rarity known as an enclave – a territory completely surrounded by another territory. It’s also an exclave, a closely related term describing a portion of a territory separated from its main part by another territory. While it’s less than a mile hike to the Italian border through the wooded hillside above town, it’s a 40-minute drive to Como, the Italian region’s governmental centre.
Out Of This World Reading List
NASA and SpaceX Count Down the Next Age of Space Travel | Space | The Ringer
For the first time since 2011, astronauts are scheduled to reach orbit from American soil—and the mission could mark the inauguration of a new normal for travel to the stars.
The program has many goals, but its biggest is this: have private companies, not NASA, create the next generation of spacecraft that can take US astronauts to orbit. The hope was that these commercial vehicles would be cheaper than what NASA could make, saving taxpayer money.
Meet the First Astronauts SpaceX Will Launch Into Orbit | Space | The Verge
They’ll be the first passengers that SpaceX has ever launched into space, and they’ll also be the first people to launch to orbit from the United States since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. All of NASA’s astronauts have had to fly on Russian rockets out of Kazakhstan for nearly the last decade.
SpaceX And the New Meaning of ‘Astronaut Wife’ | Space | The Atlantic
The reality of the moment is finally sinking in. Karen Nyberg and Megan McArthur, two NASA astronauts, have spent years waiting for this mission. Now the launch is just days away. Nyberg and McArthur, however, won’t be on board. This time, it’s their husbands’ turn to leave the planet. Nyberg and McArthur will be watching from the ground, cheering them on.
What’s It Like to Be the First to Fly In a Brand New Spacecraft | Space | WIRED
Although the Crew Dragon capsule is designed to fly autonomously, Behnken and Hurley will pilot the craft briefly during its flight to test its manual control systems. As part of their training, they had to use a simulator to practice using the Crew Dragon’s touchscreen interface to control the vehicle.
Meet the Man Who Started the Illuminati | History | National Geographic
Adam Weishaupt would have been stunned if he had known his ideas would one day fuel global conspiracy theories, and inspire best-selling novels and blockbuster films. Until he was 36, the vast majority of his compatriots would have been equally stunned to discover that this outwardly respectable professor was a dangerous enemy of the state, whose secret society, the Illuminati, was seen to threaten the very fabric of society.
The End of Plastic? New Plant-Based Bottle Will Degrade In a Year | Environment | The Guardian
Avantium’s plant plastic is designed to be resilient enough to contain carbonate drinks. Trials have shown that the plant plastic would decompose in one year using a composter, and a few years longer if left in normal outdoor conditions. But ideally, it should be recycled, said Van Aken.
Why Humans Totally Freak Out When They Get Lost | Science | WIRED
To be lost is a dreadful thing. Most people are unsettled by the slightest threat of it. Fear of being lost appears to be hardwired in the human brain, as visceral as our response to snakes: Millions of years of evolution have taught us that the experience tends not to end well. The fear runs deep in the culture. Children lost in the woods is as common a motif in modern fairy tales as in ancient mythology.
Meet the Güiña—A Six-Pound ‘Mystery Cat’ Vulnerable to Extinction | Animals | National Geographic
Half the size of a house cat, with a bottlebrush tail and a cartoon-cute face striped with black, the güiña holds the record for smallest wildcat in the Americas. Its petite stature—just under six pounds — combined with its extreme shyness and scientific obscurity means most people don’t even know it exists. Until now.
Kids Are Having Pandemic Dreams Too | Family | National Geographic
Millions of kids around the world have been sheltering in their home; some of them haven’t seen their classrooms in over a month. This break in routines, combined with the emotional effects of the pandemic, is likely giving kids pandemic dreams just like it is for adults.
How Will Americans Commute After Lockdowns End? | Future | CityLab
Will car traffic surge as lockdowns end, or will millions of Americans decide to bike, walk, or work from home permanently? Emerging research offers some hints.
Coronavirus Has Spawned Suspicion of Paper Money | Health | Los Angeles Times
From the supermarkets of the U.S. and Japan to the shantytowns of Africa to the gas stations of Tehran, a growing number of businesses and individuals worldwide have stopped using cash for fear that physical currency, handled by tens of thousands of people over their useful life, could be a vector for the spreading coronavirus. Public officials and health experts have said that the risk of transferring the virus from person to person through the use of money is minimal.
Last But Not Least
This is absolutely incredible!
This 70-step trick shot just keeps getting better
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 26, 2020
(via creezy/YouTube) pic.twitter.com/2kBqQ04C0U
Look who go the last laugh
So my Dad made good use of his time in lockdown and built a huge laughing Kookaburra. pic.twitter.com/UGVC4dZsCL
— Rafaan (@RafaanDaliri) May 26, 2020