Happy New Year, Everyone!

Just thought I'd share these new photos that I took of several albums that I created over 25 years (from 1990 to 2015). 2015 marked the final year that I collected space-related articles from various newspapers (mostly the Los Angeles Times) and compiled them in Acco plastic binders. If you click on the photo above to enlarge it, you'd see that there's a 2-year gap between the 2012 album and the one for last year. That's because 1.) I only had one more binder left and didn't feel like buying more, and 2.) I wanted to save the final binder for a year in which very significant space events took place. Those events originally were Dawn's arrival at dwarf planet Ceres last March and New Horizons' flyby of fellow dwarf planet Pluto last July...but I didn't know that 2015 would also mark the Planetary Society's successful test flight of its LightSail solar sail prototype last May, Blue Origin and SpaceX's triumph in safely landing rocket boosters back on the ground after launch last November and December, respectively, Japan finally inserting its Akatsuki spacecraft into orbit around Venus on December 6 (Pacific Time) following a 5-year delay due to a propulsion problem, and the historic discovery that water still flows on Mars last September.



The coming years will also mark historic moments for spaceflight (especially in 2018...when the Space Launch System hopefully lifts off for the first time, Europe's second ExoMars mission heads to the Red Planet, and the James Webb Space Telescope is finally sent into the heavens)—but constantly browsing through every single page of a newspaper (except the sports section, obviously) to find a space article is time-consuming. It is time to move on... But don't worry; this blog will always be here for me to post press releases and personal news and pics in regards to the awesome events that take place in space exploration almost every day. Other than that, carry on— And have a great year!

Photos of the Day... Almost two years ago, I posted an entry about several albums I created featuring space articles that I found in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers since I was in grade school. Just thought I'd post new pics showing the album (which is actually more of a scrapbook...but let's just refer to it as an album here) I created for 2012. Considering the fact that last year was a very action-packed one for manned and unmanned spaceflight [the retired space shuttle orbiters finally being sent to their museum homes, SpaceX's Dragon making its debut flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in the spring, several astronomical events such as last June's Venus transit taking place, and of course, the Curiosity rover's triumphant landing on Mars last August], I almost ran out of space (no pun intended) in the binder because of how thick the album grew. On the plus side though, I don't need to worry about this again till 2015...which is when I'll work on the next (and presumably final) Space Scrapbook. What's happening that year, you ask? The Dawn spacecraft arrives at dwarf planet Ceres, New Horizons makes its long-awaited flyby of dwarf planet Pluto and the first two-man crew is scheduled to launch to the ISS and spend a full year aboard the orbital outpost. Fun times, indeed.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY... In case you wanted to know how huge of an obsessive space nerd I am, here are the latest (or oldest) evidence of that. Ever since I was in 4th grade (back in um, 1989-90), I would cut out practically every space-related article from a newspaper (specifically the Los Angeles Times, since I live in SoCal) and put them in plastic report covers I bought at the local supermarket. My interest in the space program started in the 3rd grade, and increased dramatically around August 25, 1989, when the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Neptune and its icy moon Triton. During this flyby, I would get up early in the morning and see a photo that Voyager 2 took of the giant gas planet and its main satellite on the front page of the L.A. Times almost every day during the following week. In the photos above is the very first album (I don’t want to call it a scrapbook, despite the fact the latest albums are entitled The Space Scrapbook, haha) I worked on. As you can see, it was actually autographed by someone who worked at NASA. He visited my elementary school and gave a presentation to the entire student body when I was in 6th grade back in 1992.