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Selected Articles from the
February 2001 Odyssey

Editor: Terry Hancock

NEAR Shoemaker Touches Down, Terry Hancock
Annual Activities Report for 2000, Steve Bartlett
A Matter of Attitude, Part 2, Robert Gounley
The Surf Report, Diane Rhodes

The Surf Report

By Diane Rhodes

Welcome to the OASIS Surf Report! In this column, we'll give you some ideas for neat places to check out on the Web, relating to space and technology (and sometimes, just neat stuff, in general). First up, a couple of sites which are devoted to helping you see the sights in the night sky and for looking down on your neighborhood.

Heavens Above

At Heavens Above, you can find a list of sightings of the ISS, Hubble Space Telescope, and Mir (before its demise) with detailed listings given for the next 10 day period, tailored to your city. It also gives you star charts, satellite flares, spacecraft locations and planet locations. There is also a link to a site which gives accurate ``footprints'' for events like lunar and solar eclipses.

My rating: 4 stars of a possible 5

Spaceflight Now

The second site to see, in light of the latest in space this month, is the Spaceflight Now web site at:

They have right-up-to-the-minute space mission reports and breaking news, such as the NEAR landing this afternoon (Feb. 12, 2001), with pictures! I'm new to this site, but so far it gets a 5 star rating from me!

NEXRAD

The last site for the month is an interesting take on space: it involves a view from the other direction! It is a weather site, which features satellite views from space, and has a really cool tool called NEXRAD. You can zoom in on your particular area and see a real-time (or nearly so) radar image of a storm which may be hammering you at the time!

Have a fun month!