Characters Who Blog

First of all, I want to say my first official "hello" as a new member of the A to Z team! I am honored to be joining this amazing group and I simply cannot wait for April to get here.

My favorite part of the A to Z Challenge every year is always checking out all the different themes people come up with. I'm often surprised at how inventive they are, not to mention how wide-spread. The themes we come up with are wonderful reflections of each blogger's own interests and, in a way, our chosen themes express our personalities.

Which got me thinking . . . I wonder what themes and topics some my favorite characters would come up with if they blogged. Would they write about books or TV shows? Scientific studies or supernatural forces? 

For example, what would the blog of one of film's most infamous villains look like? Well, let's see . . .

I've got to say, if Mr. Vader really did have a blog, I'd be his very first follower. I could use a few lessons in world domination. 

Have a villainous Monday and happy blogging!

Upcoming A to Z Challenge Co-Host S. L. Hennessy can be found blogging at Pensuasion. 

It's Friday! What is your #FridayReads ?

We made it to Friday, friends, hooray! Give yourself a pat on the back.  If you're like me, you're always reading and Fridays are no exception.  If you're short on ideas during April's A to Z Challenge maybe you can do a #FridayReads post each friday? Surely you're reading something, right?

Currently I'm reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  I know it's not my usual kids' book, but I'm reading it for one of the book clubs I host at work.  It's a great story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic champion, WWII vet, POW survivor, and all around amazing guy.

It's non fiction so if that's your schtick then you'll understand why it's ben on the New York Times bestseller list for years.  Nonfiction takes me a long time to read, because I have to look up all the references and then I get distracted learning what an atoll is, for example, and then before I know it, I've spent an hour studying something marginally related to the book.  

But oh the knowledge I've gained!

The better news is that the movie of the same title is slated to be released during the holiday season and it looks like a winner. I'm sure I'll drag my family to see it.

So, that's my #FridayReads.  Post yours below!

Pam

Asteroind Mining: Good Idea or Bad?



You can visit guest blogger Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs 

After spending a year gazing at Vesta , NASA's Dawn spacecraft was set to cruise toward the most massive space rock in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — a voyage that will take nearly three years. 

Dawn slipped into orbit last year around Vesta — about the size of Arizona — and beamed back stunning close-ups of the lumpy surface. Its next destination is the Texas-size Ceres, also known as a dwarf planet (folks, these are some very large pieces of rock!!!). 

Vesta and Ceres are the largest bodies in the asteroid belt littered with chunks of rocks that never quite bloomed into full-fledged planets. As cosmic time capsules, they're ideal for scientists trying to piece together how Earth and the other planets formed and evolved. 

This Being Said: A group of wealthy, adventurous entrepreneurs announced a new venture called Planetary Resources, Inc., which plans to send swarms of robots to space to scout asteroids for precious metals and set up mines to bring resources back to Earth, in the process adding trillions of dollars to the global GDP, helping ensure humanity’s prosperity and paving the way for the human settlement in space. 

“The resources of Earth pale in comparison to the wealth of the solar system,” said Eric Anderson, who founded the commercial space tourism company Space Adventures. 

Nearly 9,000 asteroids larger than 150 feet in diameter orbit near the Earth. Some could contain as much platinum as is mined in an entire year on Earth, making them potentially worth several billion dollars each. 

The new company is backed by Google’s CEO Larry Page and executive chairman Eric Schmidt, former Microsoft chief architect Charles Simonyi, and Ross Perot Jr. The venture also counts on filmmaker James Cameron, former astronaut Tom Jones, former JPL engineer Chris Lewicki, and planetary scientist Sara Seager as advisors.

Platinum Alone Is Worth:  around $23,000 a pound — nearly the same as gold. Mining the top few feet of a single modestly sized, half-mile-diameter asteroid could yield around 130 tons of platinum, worth roughly $6 billion. One possibility might be to find a useful asteroid and push it closer to Earth. A fairly low-power solar-electric ion engine could nudge a hunk of rock into orbit around the Earth, effectively creating a small second moon that could be easily accessed. 

Asteroids contain water that can be used for drinking and broken into its constituents. Oxygen is valuable for life support in space-based habitats, while liquid oxygen and hydrogen are both used to produce rocket fuel. Having a “gas station” in space could help enable missions to Mars and beyond. Such a refueling depot might allow people to permanently live and work in space, another goal of Planetary Resources. 

Question: Do you think its a good idea to mine asteroids by pulling these monstrosities into our orbit? Better speak up now or forever hold your peace because it's probably going to happen. 

 Reference