Cassini

Today, from 9-12pm I watched the Cassini satelite enter into Saturn's orbit. This spacecraft travelled 900 million miles all the way to Saturn, and this whole journey took 7 years! Isn't it amazing? The reported speeds to which the craft is travelling relative to Saturn is >30km/sec, which translates to 66,000 miles per hour or 106,500 km/h.. now that's wickid.. It would be like travelling from Penang to Brunei (1500 km) in 50 seconds! Later at 10, I'll be watching the NASA Satelite feed via National Geographic. I think we'll be seeing the first images taken of Saturn's rings. One thing that bothers me tho, is the cost of the project: US$3.3 billion. In a time where 1/5 of the world is living on an income below US$50 a month, people are actually splashing such large sums of money on space exploration... all in the name of Science and the "spirit of exploration". In other news, I skipped Malay classes today. Just felt the need for a sabbatical... nope.. just a rest! As ranted over and over again, I study 6 days a week and travel 15 km to college everyday... so its time for a break. Watching the TV isn't exactly every parent's dream-activity for their child to do, but ... what the heck. Hopefully, as the 2nd semester approaches on Aug 15, they'll somehow fit in morning and afternoon classes into one single day. FYI, I study either from 9:30am - 1:00pm or 2:00pm to 5:30pm with 30 mins break in between. Oh, my prediction of the footie scores this morning turned out the opposite... Portugal 2 - Holland 1.. Its good to see Man U's youngster, Ronaldo flourishing in such a prestigeous event. AS usual, the referees were biased towards the home team, Portugal. Every 50-50 decision went for them. Its unfair, but that's the way the cookie crumbles! All the best to Ronnie and the Portugese team. I hate that deco guy tho, and the diving antics... Them portugese like to DIVE alot. Haha....