@bryan_johnson Can I ask someone better informed than me for the #Catholic perspective on this? To my understanding this is using adult stem cells, not embryonic, so it would be okay? Because there is no actual embryo or fetus being impacted? #CatholicTwitter
At the Joffrey Ballet tonight, everyone's tornado alerts went off at the same time mid-performance. But the show must go on! A little tornado couldn't stop them. #onlyinchicago#joffreyballet Anyway, go see Eugene Onegin
Reid Wiseman told his two teenage daughters where to find his will before he got on this rocket. Heโs raised them alone since their mom died of cancer six years ago. Right now, he is 252,757 miles from home, farther from Earth than any human being has ever been.
Wiseman grew up outside Baltimore. Got rejected from the Naval Academy, went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute instead, studied computer engineering. Became a Navy fighter pilot, flew F-14 Tomcats (the jet from Top Gun) on combat missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Two Middle East deployments by his mid-twenties. He saw a Space Shuttle launch in person in 2001 and couldnโt let go of it. Applied to NASA while at sea on the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. They picked him. Nine people out of 3,500 applicants. His astronaut class, nicknamed โThe Chumps,โ included Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian whoโs floating next to him right now.
Wisemanโs first trip to space was 165 days on the Space Station in 2014. Two spacewalks. Thirteen hours outside the hull in nothing but a suit. He climbed all the way up to Chief of the Astronaut Office, the person who decides which astronauts fly and which ones sit. Then he gave it up in 2022 to put himself back on the flight list.
His wife Carroll was a nurse in a newborn intensive care unit. She got cancer. Fought it five years. Died in May 2020 at 46. His mother died from Alzheimerโs just weeks before that. Wiseman raised both daughters by himself after that. NASAโs own bio says he considers being a single parent his hardest challenge and the best part of his life. Even while she was dying, Carroll told Reid not to step back from his career. She made him keep going. His brother is a Navy SEAL. His father is 83 and battling cancer too. The old man told reporters he wanted to stay alive long enough to see his son launch.
Before liftoff, Wisemanโs daughters snuck homemade cookies into his flight bag. He posted a photo with them in front of the rocket and wrote โIโm boarding that rocket a very proud father.โ
The previous distance record from Earth belonged to the Apollo 13 crew. 248,655 miles, set in April 1970, and it was an accident. An oxygen tank blew up and the emergency route home happened to swing them farther out than anyone before. Wiseman broke that record by 4,100 miles, and his distance is on purpose. Today he flies within 4,600 miles of the Moon, photographs stretches of the far side that were too dark or at the wrong angle for any of the 24 Apollo astronauts to see, and watches a solar eclipse that nobody on Earth can see, only the four people inside that capsule.
Then he turns around and spends four days flying home to his girls.
@chrisjudetaylor Not in the city, but St. Edmunds in oak park is extremely beautiful with mosaics, stained glass, and artwork. Which polish churches would you recommend?
if youโre not ripping your โRingโ camera off your house right now and dropping the whole thing into a pot of boiling water what are you doing?๏ฟผ
@coldhealing They do full-length lunchtime mass on days of holy obligation.
And on Ash Wednesday they have an extremely speedy walk-through where you get the "remember that you are dust..." and ashes on your forehead and walk out within 5 minutes
Smile! My doorbell is filming you my car is filming you my house is filming you my garage is filming you my dog is filming you my cat is filming you my glasses filming you ๐