moon traveller herald

  Cassettes were revolutionary to me!. You could catch music of the airwaves and carry and share. You could do long interviews with bluesmen, and transcribe when you got home. The media is the message. 

  Rotor damage ends JPL’s history-making Mars helicopter’s mission https://t.co/dTN68OJ4SE — Jack Vaughan (@JackIVaughan) January 26, 2024

  Slim quote: Muddy had soul with one string on the guitar. What did he mean? First of all, he meant Muddy Waters was the greatest bluesman, I think. And that his music touched the soul. He also meant that Muddy needed no big accompaniment, or fanfare, and what he had shared was only what was essential. Sunnyland helped a lot of other musicians. He like to make things happen. He had a session with the Chess Brothers when they had the Aristocrat Label. He made a point to get Muddy on the session, and to tell them Muddy should be recorded as well. Muddy had recorded before, but the Chess Brothers had their own studio and would take all the time in the world to achieve what they thought were the best possible blues recordings. So Muddy's talent and their talent would become famous. "Can he sing?" Leonard asked Slim of Muddy. "Can he sing? He can sing like a bird." Slim replied. There is another level too. What Muddy Waters did was strip away artifice to find the fu...

 Japan’s SLIM lander has softly landed on the moon - that is the good news. But its solar cell was not generating power, forcing the vehicle to rely on batteries.  Its mission is to  test technology fundamental to exploration in low-gravity environments, an important requirement for future scientific investigation of the solar system. Still, the soft landing is marked as a step forward for Japan Space program. Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in thee my soul takes refuge. A step forward although when a picture finally came back from Luna, SLIM was nose deep in moon dust.     https://www.isas.jaxa.jp/en/missions/spacecraft/current/slim.html

  Blues is fading because the bulk of people with the soul of blues have left the world. Young people are either cool to a frozen degree [that is, my view of pop is it’s a kind of empty with cheap majesty ] or wildly hot [Garbage Metal]. The big beat is big. Electronic Dance Music, a Spanish World Beat Big. And rhyming. Maybe rhyming is eternal. The idea of a fade speaks also for Jazz.  Jazz built on blues, had a couple of blues refreshes [MJQ, Les McCann …] but blues gave way to swing. Finger snapping. To me the roots of jazz are as much a commentary/statement/riff/re-imagining of American popular music from 1915 to 1955, as anything. Reflection on Bing Crosby. With swing and then just abstraction. Jazz musicians rightly held up their music as as good as classical, but in the process got academic. Intellectual. Young people are not likely to relate to any of the above. All moot points. Jazz ages - the audience is gray haired in large part. At least in this country. . I...

  Earth seen from space at night 🎥 ISS pic.twitter.com/3P7HOTu7PQ — Latest in space (@latestinspace) January 17, 2024

  Jan 24 Vulcan launch of Peregrine Lander [From A.P] - The first U.S. moon landing attempt in more than 50 years appeared to have hit a mission-threatening snag. A fuel leak and “a critical loss of fuel” just hours after Monday’s launch caused a failure in the propulsion system of private company Astrobotic's Peregrine lander. That is bad news for the mission, which was expected to place the lander on the moon Feb. 23. Separately, NASA has rescheduled planned manned moon missions by as much as 12 months. NASA will now target September 2025 for Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon, and September 2026 for Artemis III, which is planned to land the first astronauts near the lunar South Pole. Artemis IV, the first mission to the Gateway lunar space station, remains on track for 2028. Now you know the rest of the story Update Jan 15 -  The Peregrine lander was due to deposit several people’s ashes on the Moon. The Navajo Nation is calling for broader discuss...