Merry Christmas from Apollo 8

We are so going into space today

50 years ago, we sent Apollo 8 to the moon.  It wasn't originally planned as a moon mission, but rumor had it, the Soviets were going to send someone to the moon by the end of the year, and we had to beat them.  The Saturn V rocket had only been used once before in Apollo 7.  The newly redesigned crew capsule had never been tested in flight before.  Nor had the guidance computer.

(Full disclosure:  the human works for the company that designed the original Apollo guidance system.)  

And they made it to the moon.  It's not a mission you hear about a lot, but it's the mission that paved the way for Apollo 11.  Apollo 8 showed that we could get someone to the moon and back.

The place the human works had a wonderful tribute night to the engineers and scientists behind Apollo 8 at a special event to preview the new PBS NOVA episode on Apollo 8 (broadcast at 12/26 9pm EST, on PBS.  You should go watch it, because it is has all the fun stories behind the scenes on what the scientists and engineers were up to.)  The human also got to meet people like John Aaron (the original steely-eyed missile man), Jerry Boswick (CAPCOM for Apollo 8), Poppy Northcutt (Return to Earth specialist for Apollo 8.  Whoever thinks there weren't women in mission control is LYING), and Margaret Hamilton (who designed the Apollo Guidance Computer.  Now (in)famous because she has been immortalized by LEGO as a minifig.  So of course the human had the minifig on hand when she met Margaret Hamilton and showed her the minifig...)

There was a panel discussion at the event, and someone from the audience asked John Aaron, Jerry Boswick, and Poppy Northcutt what the most terrifying thing about Apollo 8 was for them.

John Aaron:  We had 55 days between Apollo 7 splashdown and Apollo 8 countdown.

Jerry Boswick:  I was told on a Friday afternoon to give an answer by Monday if Apollo 8 could go to the moon or not.

Poppy Northcutt:  The return to earth system didn't work.  I heard rumors that Apollo 8 was going to the moon, but that I thought that was *&^%$^ because we couldn't be sending anyone up when we couldn't get them back.  We were doing bug fixes a few days before launch.

(Keep in mind 'bugfix' in those days involved wrapping wires around magnets to change values in computer memory...)

Our favorite story involves the Apollo Guidance Computer.
The lead engineer of the Apollo Guidance Computer, Margaret Hamilton, let her daughter play with the simulator for the guidance computer.  And one day, her daughter managed to crash the guidance computer by giving it a command of 'change to program 01' when it was in flight mode.  Program 01 is a test program for use before launch, so the guidance computer thought it was back on the launchpad when it was supposed to be in space.  

And Margaret Hamilton, being a good engineer, brought this fact up to her bosses, and said 'We should make it so someone can't accidentally change the computer to Program 01 during flight.'

And her bosses, being men in the 1960s, said 'This can't possibly happen.  Our astronauts are some of the most highly trained men we have.  They can't possibly make a silly mistake like this.'

And on the way back from the moon, astronaut Bill Anders was making a star sighting (to give the guidance computer a stable reference point to work with).  He was supposed to type VERB 37 NOUN 23, VERB 5 NOUN 01 (in English, that means 'Change program to star sighting, use star 01 as a reference').  What he actually typed was VERB 37 NOUN 01 ('Change program to program 01'), the exact thing that triggered a crash in the simulation...
So the capsule started going crazy, because the guidance computer thought it was back on the launchpad...

A frantic call to Houston, and a computer reset later...they were back on course and Bill Anders was no longer allowed to touch the computer...

The crew of Apollo 8 orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968, and, in a live TV broadcast, read from the Book of Genesis.  Here's the transcript, directly from the mission control log files:

We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth.  And the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said "let there be light." And there was. And God saw the light and that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called light Day and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said "let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. And let it divide the waters from the waters." And God made the firmament and divided-the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said "let the waters under the Heavens be gathered together into one place. And let the dry land appear." And it was so.  And God called the dry land Earth. And the gathering together of the waters called the seas. And God saw that it was good. 

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth.

(https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/apollo-8-earthrise)

We'll go back to the moon some day...

Christmas Eve Coloring Books

It's Christmas Eve, and we're enjoying the vacation with cookies, milk, and a stash of new coloring books for the winter.  

These would make great absolute last minute stocking stuffers.  Each book has 6 pages to color.

Get the coloring books here!

Chistmas Papercrafting 2018: Christmas Cards

Hi!  It's your hosts, Lily and Z (yes, the human has pulled out the stash of Christmas sweaters...luckily she doesn't have enough for everyone yet...) with this year's stash of Christmas cards.

The human might have fallen behind with her card-sending this year, but we haven't.  It really is customary for us to use an old-fashioned fountain pen and real ink in a bottle to write our cards, like the human does.  It's only a matter of time before the calligraphy and manuscript illumination classes start again.

This year, we have 12 miniature Tasha Tudor cards, depicting old-fashioned Christmas in rural New England.  Having spent some time in central VT with the human, the churches-in-a-town-square-covered-with-snow cards are SPOT ON.  These cards are all miniaturized versions of vintage Caspari cards, with the same message the real card would have had inside.

Get your Christmas cards HERE.

Last year's Christmas cards are HERE.

Christmas 2018 Papercraft-a-long: Advent Calendars

Welcome to the 2018 Christmas Papercraft-a-long, with this episode hosted by your favorite dolls, Samantha and Nellie!

This year, we're going with a vintag-y theme for decorations and cards.

Our living room has been decorated with card garlands and assorted paper sculptures, including an paper nativity scene from an antique french pattern.

The cards are miniature versions of Tasha Tudor's Christmas card designs.  For a bit of a Scandinavian influence, we have some miniature yule goats (No, we are not setting these on fire.  We are not allowed to set anything on fire.  The human has ruled that right out.) and a pair of Dala horse, all made from paper.

The kitchen is ready for some baking goodness.  We're planning a gingerbread house this year, along with peppermint bark and even more cookies.

And for today's papercraft:  Advent calendars!

The original designs are (as always) from Canon Creative Park.

We've shrunk these down to our size.

House Advent Calendar

House Calendar Instructions

Tree Advent Calendar

Tree Calendar Instructions

Print the calendars out on lightweight cardstock for best effect.  

The house is simpler to make than the tree.

We have 2 calendars, one shaped like a Christmas tree, and one shaped like a house.  Each calendar has 24 little drawers to pull out.  These two designs actually have interchangeable drawers, if anyone wants to mix-and-match.

We're just showing off the contents of the drawers...  The other girls aren't getting sneak peaks of the treats.

The giant stash of candy we have actually fits in the drawers quite well.

...and meet a different furry interloper.  This one wants to play with the candy.
Notice the devil-may-care look as she paws at the candy drawers.

Not that the normal furry interloper isn't around...

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween storytime at the bookstore

And this is what happens when the human finally lets us loose in the book-and-candy store.

There's storytime an cookies.

And coloring on the floor.

Or just catching up with friends about the latest books.

Candy and afternoon tea in the sweet shop

There's a place for tea for two.

Or just filling up the candy box

At the end of the night, it's time to see what's in the final haul

The owl is here to supervise.

Someone did in fact hand out apples to go with all that sugar.

But there is more than enough candy to go around.

Even if there's a furry candy thief lurking and waiting to pounce.

Countdown to Halloween: Lily's Candy Stash

Lily here.  I promise promise promise I didn't do anything to the candy.  Really.  I swear.  None of the candy went anywhere near my potions lab.  The owl can vouch for me.  It's been keeping a very close eye on all the goodies, and there are an awful lot of goodies.

We've got four major groups of candy right now:  the penny candy, the chocolate, the candy boxes, and the candy bars.

First off, the penny candy.  The jars came from Joann's, and are perfect for penny candy at a store.  The candy itself is actually oblong glass beads wrapped in paper.  They're maybe 1/2" long and a 1/4" in diameter.

We've got 4 sorts of bubble gum, tootsie rolls, and 5 flavors of fruit chews.  Gorgeous candy, but not the best to find in your trick-or-treat bag.

The chocolate is a much better haul.  We've got Hershey's (with a wrapper from 1908), Nestle Crunch (the wrapper dates to the 1950s), Kit Kat bars (1960s wrapper), and a pile of Hershey's mini chocolates in 4 varieties.

These are all made from rectangles of craft foam, first wrapped in a scrap of aluminum foil and then wrapped in the paper wrapper.  The little pumpkin gift box is the freebie for the day.  It's another Canon Creative papercraft design, shrunk down to doll size.  It holds quite a bit of candy too!

Pumpkin Gift Box

Instructions from the Canon Creative site

Next up:  a very large assortment of vintage candy boxes.  There's 25 designs in all, all sized to fit in a doll's hand.  They're all stuffed with seed beads to make a lovely rattling noise when you shake them and give them a realistic weight.

Do we have enough varieties?  I think we need more than 25 types of candy, don't you?  I really want some Atomic Fireballs.  Are we missing your favorite old-fashioned candy?  Let us know so we can remedy that oversight.

And finally, the chocolate bars.  The full size ones that you really want inside your trick-or-treat bucket.  The good stuff.  These are made from craft foam with a paper wrapper.

We went all vintage with these candy bars.  All the wrappers are from the 1930s and 1940s, depending on when the candy first came into production.  The human ended up doing quite a bit of research when she was looking for the vintage wrappers.

Did you know that the 'Three Musketeers' candy bar used to actually be 3 tiny candy bars in the same wrapper?  The three flavors were strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate, but during World War 2 and rationing, they cut the strawberry and vanilla bars and just left the chocolate one we still have today.

Eventually, eventually we will convince the human to make us Reese's peanut butter cups...maybe for Christmas...