Tag Archives: Space

July 20th a good day for a Moon landing!

Today, July 20, 1969, America achieved something amazing, astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the surface of the Moon. And below is a marvellous photograph of his footprint in the lunar dust.

Neil Amrstrong Foot Print

So much for all of the idiots who say that this monumental event was staged!

Buzz Aldrin photographed by Neil Armstrong 20 July 1969

Sadly as far as this Cat is aware, neither the people who came up with the peculiar idea that the lunar landing was a hoax or just a publicity stunt, nor the daft people who have blindly repeated this nonsense over the years have achieved anything on this day July 20th or indeed at any day in the past.

Of course before any humans ever went into space animals had been there already. There is no truth in the rumour that any of these animal pioneers from the very beginning of spaceflight there volunteers. On the contrary animals had no choice in the matter whatsoever they were simply bundled up and tied down in the cockpits of various rockets destined for the heavens.

The first animal in space was a rhesus monkey called Albert I, he was blasted off from White Sands, New Mexico on June 11, 1948, in a V-2 Blossom rocket. Of course if you look at the V-2 Blossom rocket closely, you’ll note that it is actually the same as the ones used to ‘bomb’ London towards the end of the war.

Albert II V2 launch

Now I am not suggesting that these were exactly the same rockets that made such an impact on London or that the ones that hit London were a result of what is called ‘friendly fire.’ But I am suggesting that the Nazi technology which vanished from Germany at the end of the war turned up in New Mexico along with the scientists who had planned to use these V-2 rockets to completely re-arrange the landscape of London!

For those of you who like Cats, the nicest people in the world as far as I am concerned, I thought I would mention that the first Cat to be launched into space, very much against his will, was called Felix. Felix made a brief but successful flight on October 18, 1963 and Felix happily was landed successfully after a parachute descent.

Felix

Sadly the rocket which was carrying the second Cat to be launched into space by the French, just six days, later ran into difficulties that prevented recovery. No one knows what happened to the Cat sadly.

All wasn’t so bad for the SpaceCats though because the French government had quite a few Cats in intensive training for possible space flight in 1963. Unfortunately ten had to sacked or as the French government put it ‘decommissioned’ the official reason rather embarrassing is that under the strict training regime the Cats put on too much weight to be able to fit into the spacecraft. I have to say that I admire those ten almost as much as Felix don’t you?

This episode also reinforces the idea that the Cats used in the french space programme were starts from the streets of Paris and if they were I am sure they made the most of their good fortune.


About the Author

The Cat Portrait2

The Cat is one of the most successful feline authors in the history of Catkind. His sharp elegant wit has produced the bestselling book ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and of course the much plagiarised gag of the same name which appears on all of the funniest joke sites on the internet.

Copies of the Cat’s masterpiece of feline literature ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and his latest wonderful book ‘The Cat’s Travelogue’ can be purchased at a bookstore near you or from the internet at Amazon.com and here for the Travelogue The Cat’s Travelogue Paperback Edition or at what The Cat calls his www – wickedly wonderful website here www.thecatsdiary.com where you can not only learn more about me the genius Cat but also play my games they are all paw picked by me and have been described as “exactly what free on-line games should be, fun, free and fantastic.”

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Sinonauts take their Cats into space

While I was away or possibly asleep the Chinese have been beavering away building space rockets and even a space station. It goes without saying that they have given their space craft silly names like the “Long March” and probably “Mao’s Delight” but amazingly considering how badly they make products for western consumption their rockets are achieving low Earth Orbit.

Of course we shouldn’t encourage the Chinese by congratulating them because they might get carried away attempt to do something spectacular and actually relevant in space and not just copy the Russian and the Americans achievements from the 60’s and 70’s then over reach their abilities, which we all know are desperately limited you only have to open a newly purchased box of some electronic something or other to know that!

Still you have to hand it to the Chinese they are sending their Sinonauts, as they call their Astronauts, into space quite regularly and under their own power unlike the Americans sadly, but then that has more to do with the cash they have earned from the west than any other reason I suppose.

All of which brings me on nicely to a picture I saw, and was touched by, this week. It’s of three brave members of the party and army (of course) one of whom had not only to be qualified and fit enough to get fired into space but also to had to be married and had a baby (guess which one). Surely these requirements are a little odd for anyone wanting to go into space aren’t they well that is what I thought.

The picture that caught my attention was of the brave trio, one of whom was married and had had a baby, saluting, I don’t actually know who or possibly what they were saluting but that is not important. What I thought was important and rather touching was that the three, as you can plainly see, were allowed to take their Cats into space, safely housed in their Cat carriers for the journey.

I think that the Chinese authorities have been rather nice in allowing their Sinonauts to do that and in addition I think that it is such a wonderful co-incidence that all of the Sinonauts on this mission to nowhere own Cats, although the Cat carrier of the lady Sinonaut might be adapted to carry the baby that she had to have had to qualify for the journey mighten it!

Sinonauts and their Cats


About the Author

The Cat Portrait2

The Cat is one of the most successful feline authors in the history of Catkind. His sharp elegant wit has produced the bestselling book ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and of course the much plagiarised gag of the same name which appears on all of the funniest joke sites on the internet.

Copies of the Cat’s masterpiece of feline literature ‘Getting Out – Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary’ and his latest wonderful book ‘The Cat’s Travelogue’ can be purchased at a bookstore near you or from the internet at Amazon.com and here for the Travelogue The Cat’s Travelogue Paperback Edition or at what The Cat calls his www – wickedly wonderful website here www.thecatsdiary.com where you can not only learn more about me the genius Cat but also play my games they are all paw picked by me and have been described as “exactly what free on-line games should be, fun, free and fantastic.”

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Not So Pretty Pictures From Space

Sssh! Don’t say anything and never you mind about my disguise, and yes, before you ask this false beard is ticklish but I’ll tell you this not half as annoying as the false eyelashes or the padded bra – ok I have got my disguise mixed up a little but what I have to tell you is important and I’ve only got a minute – they’re after me!

The shocking photograph which came into my possession recently was secretly given to me by a ‘source’ at NASA knowing that I would publish it and not worry about the consequences because I know you would like to see what the Chinese are doing right now – well ok at the beginning of last month! And frankly I am too famous to become the main course at a Beijing restaurant aren’t I?

“In early October 2010, a high-pressure weather system settled over eastern China, and air pollution began to build up for nearly a week – which means that instead of flying off and poisoning the rest of the world the Chinese got a does of their own ‘medicine.’

By the 9th of October, China’s National Environmental Monitoring Centre declared air quality ‘poor’ to ‘hazardous’ around Beijing and in 11 eastern provinces.”

Apparently visibility was reduced to 100m in some areas (not a long way in good old fashioned non-metric measurement), and at least 32 people died in traffic accidents caused by the poor visibility, many more suffered with asthma and other respiratory problems.

The Ozone Monitoring Instrument on Nasa’s Aura satellite detected extremely high levels of aerosol particles (visible in the lower left of image so my contact said) and sulphur dioxide, from coal-fired power plants (lower right) on 8th of October. Apparently peak concentrations were six to eight times the norm for China, and 20 times the norm for the US.

Pollution-over-China-004.jpg

So as well as making very poor quality products like say oh Mac Mini’s for instance and annoying famous Feline authors the Chinese are doing their best to kill us all with air pollution, just when we in the west are making things a little better bit by bit.

Nice to see that the US of A is looking clean these days (although could do better is on the school report I believe) what a shame we have to put up with the Chinese filth, their badly made products and worst of all their bellicose attitude to the rest of the world.

As of today we in the know are still waiting for China to say sorry that they are a bunch of nasty polluters and do something about this and worse we are waiting for charities like Greenpeace and the WWF to at least say something about this disgraceful and dangerous behaviour or even go out on a limb and actually criticise countries like China and of course those arch polluters in India, but they don’t they, like western governments these days handle them with kid gloves and don’t annoy them by doing something simple like oh I don’t know – tell the truth for a change!

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