NASA kitsch from the Space Coast of Florida where I spent my vacation:

A ticket booth in Kennedy Space Center. It’s a great symbol of all government space programs.

This obscene looking 3d mural greeted me in the airport. This is a great illustration for this proposed technology.

A phone booth in a shape of a Mercury landing module. Classy.

It’s awesome that I didn’t meet the mascot that I’ve seen on the KSC brochure.

I would have kicked him in the nuts.

Oh, did I mention that they piped horrible Christmas Muzak^TM everywhere?

Well, on the other hand I’ve seen some cool things there. But that’s for another post.

You know, it’s winter solstice and stuff. So on our lunch “hour” me and my wife went to see the Sun Triangle sculpture in front of McGraw Hill building do it’s thing.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work:

“In winter the Sun’s path across the sky stays low. Its rays align exactly with the lower side of the triangle at noon on the winter solstice (December 21), when the Sun ascends no higher than 23° in the sky. At noon on the spring and autumn equinoxes (March 21 and September 21), the Sun’s elevation is intermediate, aligning exactly with the third (upper) leg of the triangle. No side of the triangle is vertical—for good reason. At no time of day and on no day of the year is the Sun directly overhead in New York City.”

Major disappointment. First of all it was cloudy. Second of all the lower edge of the triangle points directly at an ugly wedding cake skyscraper which name I don’t know.

Besides maybe I got the date wrong. According to most tables I’ve seen solar noon occurs on December 22nd in 2003, but I see a lot of references to it occurring on December 21st.