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Space is the place

July 17, 2009

This week is the 40th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 mission.
Follow along in real time on We Choose the Moon.
NASA has some partially-restored HD video and more.

Enjoy George Melies's classic 1902 film Le voyage dans la lune and George Pal's Destination Moon from 1950 via the Internet Archive.

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The 5-6-7-8's: Space Rock, Part One

Off by a trillion

Click on the picture for a closer look In this General Electric promotional photo from 1953 Mrs. Connie Hodgson, of Syracuse, N.Y., displays her figure and figures after taking on GE's Office of Air Research Automatic Computer in a mathematical challenge. She was one of a half dozen intelligent adults multiplying 8,645,392,175 by 8,645,392,175. Mrs. Hodgson is pointing to the line where she forgot to carry a one and ended up one trillion off in her product. She shouldn't feel too bad, none of the humans — who took from 4 ½ to over 8 minutes — got the answer right. The correct answer, by the way, is 74,742,805,859,551,230,625 and was solved by OARAC in a fraction of a second.

Sallie Blair: Barefoot Bombshell

In the October 1963 Negro Digest a reader asked "Once Sallie Blair seemed en route to the Bigtime. Her photo made Esquire's center spread, and she was booked into the de luxe supper clubs. What happened?" The reply was "That's show business, really. However, Miss Blair now has a new act and a new look and is on the way up again." Walter Winchell called the beautiful nightclub singer who often performed barefoot "Sex with a capital X" and "sort of like Lena Horne with baby fat." She received mentions in Dorothy Kilgallen's column as well as in often gossipy-toned items in Jet magazine. Born Sarah Bolling Mason Hutchins in Baltimore, Md. to Sarah Mason and Carlos Hutchins (a golf pro, who in 1942 was secretary of the Citizens' Civil Rights Committee, which formed in response to the segregation of Baltimore's all-white — and better-maintained — golf courses), Sallie Blair had all the ingredients to be a much bigger star than sh...

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