I’ve decided that for the meantime I’ll maintain this domain until I get a few things sorted out for an undertaking I’m planning for the next year.  If that happens, the content of this current site will be printed off and saved to my computer but otherwise erased from the Internet.  Why?

This blog is most likely to become the site where I will report back to friends, family, and fans as I undertake a solo walk across the United States of America from New York City to Los Angeles.  It will be a once in a lifetime opportunity that if I do, will occur next spring-summer.  I’m looking for a cause to walk for and am adding up the costs/benefits at present, so an official decision is still a ways away.

But if I decide to walk, what better site to chronicle it on then Zeitgeist Zephyr, Spirit of the Westward Wind.  I’ll be walking west and in my walk across America, document the zeitgeist of the age.  I will have just one opportunity to do this and that will be during what would be my Junior year of college.  Of course, in taking time off from school to do this, I will be graduating at a later date, but it is a sacrifice I’m willing to make before my life becomes absorbed by my passion for space exploration.  A walk across America will surely cement my roots and mind to terra firma and the land of E Pluribus Unum.

Once again, this site will no longer be used to blog about politics, but I will update frequently regarding my theoretical trek, which at present I’m taking fairly seriously despite what the naysayers might be saying!  Stay tuned for more updates!

Today it was announced that the Russian space agency is looking into mounting a mission to deflect the asteroid Apophis from any hazardous Earthly encounter by minimizing the probability of an impact in future passes.  While the mission represents a first in getting a national space agency to take such a mission seriously, Apohpis hardly poses the threat it was once renowned for and the Russian’s have seemingly overlooked this information.

In a statement released by the director of Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space Agency) Anatoly Perminov, he said “I don’t remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032.” 

While the asteroid does in fact pose a threat in an April 13, 2029 encounter with the Earth, the risk of impact has been ruled out as the 885 foot asteroid will pass no closer than 18,500 miles (to put that in perspective, geostationary satellites orbit at 22,000 miles).  Gravitational perturbations from Earth may deflect the asteroid onto a new path that will increase the odds of impact on subsequent passes, but it is not until a 2036 pass that the odds give an even reasonable chance of impact (a 1 in 250,000 chance, up from an initial estimate of 1 in 45,000 chance.)  The 2032 pass does not even amount to a blip on the radar.

The seeming lack of information that the Russians have on the issue aside, I do applaud the move as a significant recognition of the risk that asteroids pose to humanities future and our ability to prevent a cosmic apocalypse.  Though the techniques likely to be used in such a mission will be less than extravagant (don’t expect a Bruce Willis-type mission to blow the asteroid in half with nukes), the development of such technologies will be crucial for future, more threatening encounters. 

In the same statement, Perminov invited NASA, ESA, the Chinese space agency, and other space programs to join in the endeavour.  Such cooperation will be fundamental, obviously lowering the costs for all, but the technology and information to be gained from such a feat would prove beneficial for everyone involved and will surely pave the way for future activities, beyond deflecting asteroids, the least of which would be mineral acquisition.  Perhaps this could convince President Obama as he decides on the future of NASA’s manned spaceflight program to include an asteroid mission of its own?

The American landscape is a complicated animal as any of its numerous explorers and citizens can readily attest.  The landscape is capable of rousing every possible emotion of a person while simultaneously leaving them without words or a single thought to describe what their senses are being presented with.  Any attempt to further expand on a subject that has volumes of factual information and an equal sum of attempts to characterize the continental landscape would be fruitless on my part.  However there are affects that the American landscape has on every person that crosses it that are undeniable and while perhaps not at the forefront of thought of each weary traveler, upon their return home a change has occurred that is undeniable, yet un-measurable in scope.

A century of easy access to the automobile has transformed the American landscape into a vast unending plot of land spanning oceans to one that is cris-crossed with roads as easily accessible to the casual traveler as birds have access to the air.  Where once people were confined to their region of the country, with dreams of traveling elsewhere perhaps being realized just once, if ever, in their life, the entire continent can now be reached in 3 very long days of traveling by someone with a central location.  Every road holds the potential of bringing a traveler to thousands of destinations, locally or farther away.  It is why, even in harder times economically, Americans do not lose or lack any ability to move about the continent.  Statistically, more people travel during times of economic hardship then any other time.

The investment that can and should be made in America’s vast landscape transcends anything that even a Ken Burn’s documentary can address.  The landscape speaks for itself.  From snow capped indigo mountains, framed by deep blue skies and amber plains to oceans meeting land by crashing into its high cliffs or kissing its shores on a tropic coast, the land itself speaks its own defense on the extent to which it should be valued.  That same voice though is what affects everyone, from environmentalists and ranchers to suburbanites and pop-stars.

Sometimes the voice is as loud as a mountain waterfall or a summer tornado, but sometimes it’s as soft as a sunset or wind rustling Aspen leaves through a mountain pass.  Often times the voice is something else entirely, a sweeping mountain vista or the smell of wildflowers blooming in spring on a prairie.  Indeed the voice comes in many forms, but when listened to, it has the ability to change a person from the inside out.

God spoke into existence creation and His echo can be heard everywhere in the American landscape.

Numerous road trips across the country have presented me with an opportunity to listen to God’s echo, and each trip has left me a little bit different from when I left home and hit the road initially.  It has been my conclusion that any landscape where the sights, sounds, smells and even touch of the land can overwhelm any of the advice provided by Western society, then it is a landscape worth listening to.  In my experience, no better insight into what life means has ever been offered to match the fruits of insight born by the land itself.

If I had to offer a new years resolution to anyone for 2010, it would be not just take a walk and smell the roses, so to speak, but rather to take a walk and take pause.  The voice of America’s landscape is elusive, but when it is heard, it transcends even the loudest preaching of a society dominated by information overload and over stimulation from electronic trinkets.  In terms of the three steps of advice that might be the only thing that sticks with you once you’re done reading this: unplug, pause, and listen.

You don’t need to be religious to hear what I call God’s echo, but I believe that in the landscape of this continent called North America, every person can find their purpose in life and useful insights to guide them through the daily grind.  Its not a huge time commitment and I hope that if you do decide to take time to unplug, pause, and listen that you will be rewarded with the same fruits that I have found.