Free Republic

As India’s space agency prepares to make history by landing on the Moon later this week, many of the country’s citizens have been left in stitches after footage of an apparent moonwalk went viral. Just days before India’s lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 touches down on the Moon’s south pole on September 7, Baadal Nanjundaswamy, a famous Indian street artist, stole all the headlines with a wry takedown of the city council in Bengaluru. Nanjundaswamy enlisted the help of theater actor and film star, Poornachandra Mysore, who helped stage a tongue-in-cheek ‘moonwalk’ to highlight the pockmarked pavement plaguing the city’s streets. At...

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) declined a reporter's request to perform Michael Jackson's "moonwalk" dance during a press conference after he said he wore blackface in the 1980s while dressed as the performer. **SNIP** "That same year [as the previous racist photo was taken], I did participate in a dance contest in San Antonio [Texas], in which I darkened my face as part of a Michael Jackson costume," Northam told reporters Saturday at a press conference. "I look back now and I regret that I did not understand the harmful legacy of an action like that," Northam said. "It is...

The fourth person to walk on the Moon, astronaut Alan Bean, died over the weekend. This is the wild true story of Apollo 12, and how a little creativity and ingenuity saved the day. Astronaut and artist Alan Bean died over the weekend at age 86. He was the fourth human to walk on the moon as part of the crew of Apollo 12, and spent 31 hours on the lunar surface. Before he got there, the astronaut had to survive his first, hectic launch into space and help the crew find the right way to the moon in a...

In a tweet Tuesday, President Obama’s official account attempted to draw attention to the plight of women workers, saying that it wasn’t 1963 anymore — when, as implied by an image and text, man first walked on the moon.

A MOONWALKING Shetland pony that shot to fame after being seen by millions in a TV advert for a mobile network is set to return to our screens. The video of Socks dancing to the tune of Fleetwood Mac's 1988 hit Everywhere became an internet hit earlier this year, with more than seven million people viewing it on YouTube. It has now been announced that Socks has been called back to star in a second commercial for the mobile phone network Three, again set on the windswept beaches of Shetland. The company has teamed up with VisitScotland and Promote Shetland...

Posted: Jan 18, 2013 9:52 AM Updated: Jan 18, 2013 6:03 PM Police: DWI Suspect Moonwalks - KZTV CORPUS CHRISTI - A suspected drunk driver showed off her dancing skills to police early Friday morning when she was asked to do a field sobriety test. Police say 23-year-old Coral Li Rape stopped her black Cadillac, at a green light, in the intersection of Holly Road and Flynn Parkway. She eventually turned onto Flynn Parkway, driving south in the northbound lane. When officers pulled her over she appeared intoxicated and was not cooperating with police. When Rape was asked to perform...

Man Ordered to Dance “Moonwalk” at Gunpoint, Police Say Just remember always to think twice before ordering someone to dance the “moonwalk” at the barrel of a gun. An Idaho man has been hit with a felony assault charge for allegedly forcing another man to perform Michael Jackson’s signature “moonwalk” while having a rifle pointed at him, the Bonner County Daily Bee reported. Police accused John Ernest Cross, 30, of using an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle while issuing the bizarre order to mimic a dance the late King of Pop debuted back in 1983. Cross said during an initial court appearance...

July 20 is the 30th anniversary of a great moment in American and world history when a human climbed gingerly down an aluminum ladder attached to a spindly, fragile spacecraft and, for the first time, set foot on a chunk of the solar system not of this world. Neil Armstrong accomplished with one step President John F. Kennedy's call to greatness in a 1962 speech at Rice University to "go to the moon and do the other things," that would demonstrate American spirit and resolve. Armstrong's boot print in the dust also fulfilled countless speculations over centuries on how the...

Arthur C. Clarke’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey was released shortly before I left for Vietnam. My wife and I saw it in New York City, and it mesmerized us. No, not the fantasy about the lunar monolith beeping toward Jupiter or the insanity of Keir Dullea, in his best role ever, trying to complete the mission alone after the HAL 9000 computer (voice of Douglas Rain) has killed everyone else aboard Discovery One because it decided that they were a threat to the mission; not the absurdity of Dullea surviving several seconds unprotected in the vacuum of frozen space;...

No, folks, I just don't think it is going to happen. I fully intend to live well into the middle of this century, but I am afraid I won't see a man on Mars. We will never explore the Martian canals, or make our coffee with melted Martian ice, or fossick for life forms in the defunct volcanoes. We will never conquer the Red Planet. Homo sapiens will flunk the next great test not because we lack the technology, nor even because we lack the money. We will fail, because – 40 years after the Moonshot – it is increasingly...

JACKSON, Ohio — Deputies seized nearly a ton of marijuana Wednesday that had been packed inside a giant inflatable children's carnival ride in Greensboro, a newspaper reported today. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the marijuana had a street value of $4.4 million, and its seizure was the biggest drug bust in Jackson County history. The N.C. Highway Patrol tipped off Ohio deputies to the marijuana. The sheriff's office had the marijuana driven from Greensboro to a home in Jackson. As deputies were wrapping up their raid, the paper said, a truck with a second load of marijuana pulled up in...

That's one small word for astronaut Neil Armstrong, one giant revision for grammar sticklers everywhere. An Australian computer programmer says he found the missing "a" from Armstrong's famous first words from the moon in 1969, when the world heard the phrase, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The story was reported in Saturday's editions of the Houston Chronicle. Some historians and critics have dogged Armstrong for not saying the more dramatic and grammatically correct, "One small step for a man . . ." in the version he transmitted to NASA's Mission Control. Without the missing...

"Since India doesn't have manned space travel, people are curious about it": RAKESH SHARMA HG Wells would be proud of us. For, instead of heading for the South of France or the Swiss Alps for a vacation, Indians would rather take a chakker of space, according to a survey. But before Delhi fastens its seat belts, here are a few ground details... Mission Possible: India already has a strong space programme in place and taking a suborbital flight may actually happen. Says former pilot and cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, "India's space programme is famous throughout the world.

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 27 Apollo 11: Catching Some Sun Credit: Apollo 11, NASA (Image scanned by Kipp Teague) Explanation: Bright sunlight glints and long dark shadows dramatize this image of the lunar surface taken by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first to walk on the Moon. Pictured is the mission's lunar module, the Eagle, and spacesuited lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin unfurling a long sheet of foil also...