September 12th is
Boss-Employee Idea Exchange Day
Chocolate Milkshake Day
Programmer’s Day *
U.N. Day for South-South Cooperation *
World Maritime Day
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MORE! Mahler’s 8th, Kate Hepburn and Bonanza, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Muslim Eid al Adna (Feast of Sacrifice) world-wide
Armenia – Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Cape Verde Islands – National Day
Gibraltar – National Day
United Kingdom – Abbots Bromley:
Wakes Monday Horn Dance
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On This Day in HISTORY
1846 – Elizabeth Barrett elopes with Robert Browning
1866 – The first American burlesque show, The Black Crook, opens in New York City
1873 – First practical typewriter offered for sale
1910 – Gustav Mahler’s Symphony #8 premieres in Munich
1916 – Adelina and August Van Buren finish first successful transcontinental motorcycle tour by two women, after leaving New York City on July 5, 1916
1922 – The Episcopal Church removed the word “obey” from the bride’s wedding vows
1928 – Katharine Hepburn made her stage debut in the play “The Czarina”
1940 –The Lascaux cave paintings discovered in France, outstanding examples of Paleolithic period art, estimated to be 17,000 years old
1954 – Lassie made its television debut on CBS
1959 – Bonanza premieres, first TV series in color
1964 – Canyonlands, near Moab UT, becomes a National Park
1966 – The Beatles receive a gold record for “Yellow Submarine”
1977 – South African anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko died at age 30, while in police custody, which triggered an international outcry
1978 – U.N. General Assembly adopts a plan of action to promote and implement technical cooperation among developing countries
1991 -Space shuttle Discovery launches an observatory to study the Earth’s ozone layer
1992 – Dr. Mae Jemison becomes first African-American woman in space. She was the payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavor. Also onboard: Mission Specialist N. Jan Davis and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Mark C. Lee, the first married couple to fly together in space, and Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese in space
2007 – Programmer’s Day launches
2009 – Russia President Dmitry Medvedev signs decree Day of the Programmer
2011 – U.N. General Assembly approves September 12 as United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation, * commemorating the 1978 U.N. technical cooperation plan
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Visuals
- Chocolate milkshake
- International flags
- Portraits of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett
- Katherine Hepburn – 1928
- Lascaux cave paintings
- Canyonlands National Park, Utah
- Jan Davis and Mark C. Lee
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Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
I was curious if the two astronauts are still married. Turns out NASA didn’t know they were married until shortly before the flight when it was too late to train a substitute.
Both made other flights but never together. NASA banned married couples on the same flight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_C._Lee
The American Puritan ethic. Somewhere, somehow, somebody is having fun and it must be stopped immediately. Simple skin contact fun, much less sex.
Some nursing homes try to make it impossible for grandma and grandpa to cuddle and have…..gasp…..sex. From accounts I have read and some I am personally aware of, most of those are run by Catholic nuns.
Sounds like what happened with my aunt who was in a nursing home for a several years because of a stroke. Made quite a todo amongst some of my other aunts (big family) because she had a boyfriend in the home.
Since some of these flights are coed, it has probably not occurred to NASA that lack of a marriage license does not necessarily prevent sex. Wonder if they have heard of pheromones?
Hi pete –
Seems pretty arbitrary to me – and on a long mission, if we ever do start sending humans far out into space, you’d think it would be desirable to have committed couples of whatever sexual orientation instead of random singles.
Vows of celibacy doomed the Shakers to extinction.
I’m pretty sure no one has ever accused me of Puritanism, but hear me out.
For the time being, I’m against sex in space. Not for recreational or moral reasons, no, but for consequential reasons. On longer missions, pregnancy could be a death sentence. We don’t know how it would play out in human models for certain, but there would be developmental problems for the fetus and that could cause possibly fatal problems for the mother. Even if it survived to term, growing up in a low or zero G environment would mean a child that could not return to Earth and expect to survive let alone have a normal life. The only scenario where this might be possible is in a ship under constant 1G acceleration (or if we had a ship that was engineered to mimic 1G via rotation or some other heretofore unknown mechanism). We know that on adult organisms, there is substantial bone loss, vision problems and immunodeficiency issues to deal with. For a child, these could be crippling if not fatal. This could be the case even if the child comes to term on Earth after substantive development in space.
Then there is the radiation hazards. Our shielding technology is one of the big impediments to long term exploration within the system let alone contemplating anything interstellar. Space is not necessarily hostile to life. Some microbes, if they have food, can survive in space quite handily. But it is ridiculously hostile to humans and all known complex multi-cellular life. The chance of mutation in a long term mission is pretty good which means illnesses like cancer have a ripe environment should they occur (or indeed any disease that could be caused or exacerbated by copying or clonal errors in the DNA).
Don’t get me wrong. I think sex could be a lot of fun in a zero or low G environment. I’m a sci-fi nerd so it isn’t a new subject for me to contemplate. However, at this time, it is technologically imprudent at best and really stupid and disastrous at worst.
And that is what I have to say about that.
It is my understanding that there are certain protective “coverings” available in any drug store that should work even in space (some testing on this may be required). That will protect the female from pregnancy and perhaps more importantly keep a male astronauts “little spacemen” from floating around the spacecraft.
Although, now that I think about it, given the how long some astronauts have spent in the ISS, the subject of stray “little spacemen” may have already come up.
Years ago, there was a classic science fiction novel entitled, “Prison Planet.” The gravity on this planet was something like 2G on Earth. Pregnancy carried an almost certain death risk for the mother. However, the babies born in that gravity adapted well, and were enormously strong compared to people born in Earth gravity. The planet was devoid of metallic minerals except for large deposits of gemstones. It turns out that a lot of gemstones contain elements, that when extracted, could be used for building radios. They sent out signals, which alarmed their captors who came scurrying back to quell any potential problems on the prison planet. IIRC, the planet was named Ragnarok, which under the circumstances, seemed appropriate. When the captors returned, they were faced with the new younger generation born and raised in the crushing gravity. They were not prepared for that evolutionary development and it did not end well.
Hey, I trust one of my few episodes of sexual restraint is safe with you guys, eh? I have a reputation to maintain.
LOL – I won’t be posting it on Twitter!
I understand your concern, but I believe that a woman determined to go on a long-term space mission would sacrifice her fertility to do it, so pregnancy wouldn’t be an issue. And since human men just might encounter an alien species enough akin to us for sexual relations, they should also be on some form of birth control!