Monday, October 18, 2010

Mapping Space Crafts

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Space Map update! A huge one this time...! This past week, I used yellow tags to add the locations of all American NASA space crafts on display in NASA facilities, museums, science centers and planetariums.

This update also marks the first move into international territory, given that much of [what is left of] Skylab resides in Australia, and one of the Apollo capsules is on load to The Science Museum in London, England.

Space Map Update

This took no small amount of research, believe me! The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules do move about from time to time... one is even located on a ship (though the ship doesn't run errands terribly often anymore).

Click on the map to go to the main Space Map page at Pillownaut.com, or click over to the main engine on Google Maps. In both of these spots, you'll see a larger screen where you can zoom in, zoom out, and examine precise locations.

Click on each yellow marker for descriptions of each NASA craft, including the year it launched, the crew that flew inside of it, and it's official call sign.

ALSO NOTE: The main page lists crafts by state, but this can be a bit bassackwards if you're one of those "organizational brains" like me who like to see things in order. So, I've made a secondary Space Crafts Checklist page for serious travelers, where all the crafts are in chronological order by program.

That's not OCD. It's just detail-oriented.

Pillownaut Space Map
While pondering world-wide sites, I also decided to add the NASA DSN, or DEEP SPACE NETWORK. The DSN is an international network of antennas that supports earth orbiting missions, interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the universe.

The DSN consists of 3 facilities placed 120 degrees apart around Earth: Canberra, Australia; Goldstone (Mojave Desert), California, USA; and Madrid, Spain in Europe. This strategic placement permits constant observation of a spacecraft mission as our planet rotates.

On the Space Map, the three DSN markers are in green! Go find 'em!