Holiday Card for De Vera.
Die-punched rubber leaf.

-¦ July 2022 ¦-

GROUND CONTROL

e n v o y █ Today’s astronomers worry about micro-meterorites and cosmic rays bombarding the International Space Station, close calls among satellites and spacecrafts, and especially wardrobe malfunctions in outer space. █

Yesterday’s astronomers had fewer worries, more wonderment. Taking notes, they devised almanacs and calendars. Some built structures to greet celestial returns, Karnak’s temple turns orange with the rising of the midwinter Sun, and the standing stones at Stonehenge ‘has some alignment on astronomical phenomena.’ █ The Babylonians divided the sky into twelve equal wedges, to facilitate the tracking of positions as well as movements. Then a map was passed around, showing longitudes and latitudes. The Vatican became intrigued, wanting to learn more of this new science, which arrived in Europe from Spain, in translations of Indian and Islamic texts, and a mechanism known as an astrolabe, that can show a map of heaven.

█ Caroline Herschel (b.1850) started out as an assistant to her astronomer brother William Herschel (b.1738), polishing mirrors and mounting telescopes. When he then discovered Uranus, she too took a peek, and soon enough discoverd a satellite to the Andromeda galaxy: an elliptical dwarf galaxy. █ Then a Harvard computer, while cataloging stars over several photographic glass plates by using a spectroscope, which charts ‘stellar brightness in proportion to luminosity-oscillation periods’ (i.e., the twinkle), devised a ‘standard candle for determining cosmic distances.’ Henrietta Leavitt (b.1868) had just invented a space tape measure to judge distances.

e y e w i t n e s s █ The ancients were intrigued by natural glass found in nature, able to let light through, to enhance eyesight by magnification. These qualities were refined, when glass-making was invented, to help address loss of eyesight in the aged, among many other benefits. Polished with a concave or sometimes convex surface, fitted into a holder, this became a magnifying glass. Then someone fitted several lenses into a tube and invented the telescope.

█ When the tube became much much larger, a glass plate treated on one side with a photosensitive agent was placed inside, and after a period of time, up to two years, yielded a photograph of stars. █ Author Agnes Giberne (b.1845) wrote the first astronomy books for young minds, bringing them face to face with the Moon, the Sun, comets. “Among the Stars,” which came out in 1885, is 360 pages.

e x a m i n e r █ Mary Palmer (b.1839) married a doctor, and amateur astronomer, Henry Draper (b.1837), and became an astute student of the sky. His sudden death age 45 left her with money, paperwork and photographic evidence of their galaxy quest. █ Mary Draper then bequeathed an annual sum, beginning in 1886, to Harvard College Observatory, to procure sufficient staff to finish her husband’s catalog of stars.

█ The photographic evidence were captured on hundreds of glass plates, either 17x14 or 8x10 inches in size. Each plate is overlaid with numbered grids and placed, on an inclined plane, under a microscope. A light under the glass-plate illuminates the photograph. █ The first computer, looking through the microscope, calls out each star’s name and grid position, while another computer enters the information into a ledger. █ The glass plates are also studied using a spectroscope, and requires an aptitude for mathematics to take readings ‘based on the brightness of stars.’ Descriptions can include normal, hazy, sharp, and inter-determinants (several kinds). Because of the long exposure time, the photosensitive agent was able to register ‘long integration times’ yielding data on color, temperature, chemical composition. █ Williamina Fleming (b.1857) was one of the first Harvard computers, a team of women scientists. She had no such background and trained on the job, which was to ‘compute mathematical classifications.’ It turned out she had a flair for the work: “From day to day my duties at the Observatory are so nearly alike that there will be little to describe outside ordinary routine work of measurement, examination of photographs, and of work involved in the reduction of these observations.”

e t y m o l o g i s t █ NASA’s predecessor had hired female mathematicians, as early as in 1935, as human computers in a segregated system. Assigned to different departments, they would be tasked to take down notes, parse flight test scores, run calculations, perform analytics. █ Jeanette Scissum (b.1938) on her first day, in 1964, at NASA: “Mathematician, entry level. They didn’t have computers or a computer science program at A&M when I graduated, so I didn’t know how to do that. Once I did, everybody had me doing computer stuff for them.” █ Mathematician Katherine Johnson (b.1918), working in NASA’s flight mechanic division, was told that a spacecraft would want to make a landing during prime-time television on a specific date. She then had to figure out when takeoff time must take place. Using analytic geometry, Johnson figured it out. █ High-school whizkid Mary Winston (b.1921), with degrees in mathematics and physical science, worked in the computer pool, and was assigned to assist in wind tunnel tests at twice the speed of sound. Showing promise, she went back to school and got an engineer’s degree and became an aerospace engineer. Married to a sailor in the U.S. Navy, she became Mary W. Jackson. The National Aeronautics Space Administration’s D.C. headquarters is now named after her. █

Mathematician Dorothy Vaughan (b.1910), in a 28-year career at NASA’s Langley Research Center, became a specialist in calculating flight paths. Vaughan then had access to a new office machine, read the user’s manual, taught herself the machine’s language, Fortran (Formula Translating System), and learned how to program NASA’s first electronic computer. █ Mathematician Grace Hopper (b.1906) championed the use of English in composing tasks fed into electronic computers: “Manipulating symbols was fine for mathematicians but it was no good for data processors who were not symbol manipulators. If they are they become professional mathematicians, not data processors. It’s much easier for most people to write an English statement than it is to use symbols. So I decided data processors ought to be able to write their programs in English, and the computers would translate them into machine code. That was the beginning of COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), a computer language for data processors.” █ Mathematician Evelyn Boyd (b.1924) joined IBM in 1956: “At a two-week training session I was introduced to the IBM 650 and the programing language SOAP. ... Creation of a computer program is an exercise in logical thinking. Afterwards I worked as a consultant in numerical analysis in an IBM subsidiary. When NASA awarded IBM a contract to plan, write, and maintain computer programs I readily agreed ... to be a part of the team of IBM mathematicians and scientists who were responsible for the formulation of orbit computations and computer procedures, first for project Vanguard, and later for project Mercury.”

█ Mathematician Melba Roy Mouton (b.1929) worked for the Army Map Service before working as a human computer for NASA, and figuring out trajectory and orbital solutions for a metalized balloon in project Echo. █ Writing propositions and coming up with solutions by hand was routine for mathematician Annie Easley (b.1933). Then electronic computers came along and, although Easley learned Fortran and became a more-valued asset, she still can remember the micro-aggressions: “My head is not in the sand. If I can’t work with you, I will work around you. I was not about to be [so] discouraged that I’d walk away. ... I’m out here to do a job and I knew I had the ability, and that’s where my focus was.” █ Working in the computer pool, Christine Darden (b.1947) was given the task to come up with a computer program for sonic boom. Darden, who grew up taking apart and putting back together bicycles and other manufactured contraptions, is today an aerospace engineer: “I was able to stand on the shoulders of those women who came before me, and women who came after me were able to stand on mine.”

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WHAT HE SAID
Gary Hustwit quote: I saw Helvetica everywhere [in New York City], and watched how people were interacting with - but not really thinking about - it. People going about their lives, letting a typeface tell them which direction their subway train was headed, where they could park, where the bathroom was, how much to pay for a hot dog. I felt like I’d stumbled onto a secret language.

Gary Hustwit quote: I saw Helvetica everywhere [in New York City], and watched how people were interacting with - but not really thinking about - it. People going about their lives, letting a typeface tell them which direction their subway train was headed, where they could park, where the bathroom was, how much to pay for a hot dog. I felt like I’d stumbled onto a secret language.

ROCKETEER

a n a l y s t █ On April 15, 1726, while taking tea in the garden with his friend, Issac Newton (b.1642) pondered on an apple which had just fallen to the ground. William Stuckeley records how Newton mused:

█ “Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground? Why should it not go sideways, or upwards? but constantly to the earth”s centre? Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. There must be a drawing power in, and the sum of the drawing power in the matter of the earth must be in the earth’s centre, not in any side of the earth. Therefore does this apple fall perpendicularly, or toward the center. If matter thus draws, it must be in proportion of its quantity. Therefore the apple draws the earth, as well as the earth draws the apple.”

a n g e l █ The ancients, unconcerned of this “drawing power” that Newton was to articulate, mocked the gravity throne and continued sending prayers to heaven. Entreaties written in temple script on paper were then folded into a pouch. A lit candle attached to the pouch sends smoke inside, causing its ascent. █ Humankind then followed the lanterns, yet the earliest ones didn’t know to carry oxygen, and returned spouting the wildest tales of beings living in the upper air. The four winds, curious, would approach with whistles and roars and yells, asking questions, including that confounded new contrivance, a wind tunnel. █ Sensing fear in their visitors’ eyes, the thunderous voices abated. Zephros drew closer and whispered: “We are wind gods of the four cardinal points, heralds of seasons, sons to Typhöeus, fifth and final monster born to mother Earth. We too seek a reason for existence, and whether or not it becomes us to be suited up in turbines, pumps, and such fetters.” █ Notos spread icicles while parting his lips: “Can these regulation systems really help with my restlessness? and what’s up with welded insulation?” Euros brought up the sorest point: “Can gravity weigh me down and curb my mood.” Boreas’ grumble rumbled: “Magnetosphere constrains our empire but why? And who are these rocketmen and their reckless aerial turns in guidance and control?”

█ Sensing fear in the visitors’ eyes, their thunderous voices abated. Then Zephros drew even closer and whispered: “We are wind gods of the four cardinal points, heralds of seasons, sons to Typhöeus, fifth and final monster born to mother Earth. We too seek a reason for existence, and whether or not it becomes us to be suited up in turbines, pumps, and such fetters.” █ Notos spread icicles while parting his lips: “Can these regulation systems really help w/ my restlessness? and what’s up w/ welded insulation?” Euros brought up the sorest point: “Can gravity weigh me down and curb my mood.” Boreas’ grumble rumbled: “Magnetosphere constrains our empire but why? And who are these rocketmen and their aerial adventures in guidance and control?”

a i r m a n █ The four winds invariably took their gasping guests on the grand tour. Earth’s atmosphere is spherical and contains a precise mixture of gases such that oxygen becomes its miraculous chemical product. It has the same shape as mother Earth due to her gravitational grit, which she bestows also to water and all living things. The sea and mountains are deemed to be sentient by the ancients, and so too is Aether considered a being, having undergone “biochemical modifications by living organisms” ever since its aboriginal form coalesced into a paleo-atmosphere. Material enough for Earth to lassoo the grandson to Chaos with a girdle tight enough to separate the deity into distinct layers, and is the main cause of clouds. █ This primeval sky god can only be discerned when he digs into his bag of optical tricks and throws mirages, or scatters light. Aether is patron to Earth, whose existence depends on a narrow band of the bottom layer, beginning at sea level.

a v a t a r █ Innovative proto-aviators watched how birds populate the air and go where they will. Wings got built and tied to men. Jumps happened. Leonardo da Vinci (b.1452) had his own solution; yet his own design, wings that can flap, never left the sketchbook. █

⁝ Bird wings are folding fans, able to expand and collapse. Each wing is a web of arm bones, having joints which, by evolutionary decree, have quills on the knuckles; each quill grasps one feather.

a e r i a l i s t █ Divinities of the air were entranced to receive paper prayers heaven-bound using paper, glue and heated air. They also found out that hydrogen, when it is unadulterated, possesses levitational abilities also. But being a gas, it would simply dissipate when in contact with one or more gasses. █ Rare and difficult to distill, hydrogen requires a chamber, white-hot iron, running water; and had to wait until a non-porous material to contain the new gas, was was discovered around 1780, had not yet been developed. █ A ginormous pillow, with a small opening, tied to a large basket and fed a healthy gulp of heated air, took to rising into the atmosphere. Then, as the trapped air cools, this “hot-air balloon” will descend. The first companions chosen to carry out this maiden flight were a french sheep, duck and rooster.

a c r o b a t █ Smoke from large fires first showed the way during wartime: to send a signal, or initiate a maneuver. Kites were another way to harness wind behavior to send sturdier signals. It can also be used as a measurement of distance, or just to “test the wind.” Kites can also fight each other.

█ Dog-earred generals carried mint editions of “The Myth of Icarus” into battle and tasked military engineers to accessorize kites so as to become fit for carrying a passenger. Eventually squadrons of passengers paid visits to the sky, and giving notice that the empire of the four winds was coming to an end. █ Kites were invented for children when they first became aware how they might have, as playpals: the four winds. █ Not for war’s sake, Benjamin Franklin (b.1706) is probably the first to use wind power to send a laboratory into space: kite + key + lightning storm.

a l c h e m i s t █ Through trial and error someone came up with gunpowder. That a right mixture of carbon, sulfur and saltpeter (an efflorescence mineral found on the surface of stones) will produce a flash accompanied by fire that burns off – an explosion. A wrong mixture produces instead just “smoke and flames.”

█ Soldiers saw the promise and quickly adopted the recipe. Dreamers invented fireworks. Paper tubes filled with confetti and a spoonful of gunpowder then sealed with a fuse sticking out. The tube is tied to a long stick that will act as a tail, then aimed towards the sky. Flame is introduced to the fuse and the detonation produces a propulsive force inside the tube, which ascends before spilling out its contents. █ Although it was John Bate (b.1600s) figured out how to make compound-rockets, which boosted the appeal of his brand of “fyer workes,” it took until Hermann Oberth (b.1894) to sheath it in metal, for the first time, to insure a sturdier flight.

█ Fireworks are propelled missiles guided during a brief initial phase of powered flight. Then a subsequent trajectory that obeys the laws of gravity, and codified as classical mechanics.

a r c h e t y p e █ When World War 2 was over, pilots and other aeronauticals returned to civilian roles. █ Back to working for a paycheck, these airmen flexed their know-how and birthed an aerospace industry that nowadays has gone global. By 1960 the skies were already beginning to get mighty crowded.

█ Governments were wont to fund space explorations, get bragging rights, so they practised by dividing up North Pole, a melting continent. █ Longitudes and latitudes led to precision mapping of the world, and in the co-mingling of new disciplines rocket science took off to map a hypothetical heaven.

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WHAT SHE SAID Mae West quote: His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Photo taken from outer space of Northeast Africa

★ With over 50 space programs, mother Earth is getting concerned about losing emigrés to a hypothetical heaven. Already there are six space agencies in the Middle East, and five in Africa. Looks like eight in Central Europe, and around ten in the Americas. Asia has maybe ten, if India, Pakistan, New Zealand and a part of Russia are excluded.

South African National Space Agency

Since 1841, Cape Town has had a magnetic station. Today it is part of a global network collecting data on Earth’s magnetic field. Early thinking gave “an important role in making the planet habitable” to it. Inside the iron core the metal turns liquid, making out the surface as the least-hot portion of iron’s properties. This skin, as it sheds and cools, crystallizes and will emit rule-driven electro-magnetic arcs. A healthy geo-magnetosphere can impart spherical harmonics to the ionosphere and ocean tides. ❚ ❚ ❚ The Hermanus Magnetic Observatory now lives on university grounds, and is also a part of the country’s space program. Today, the South African National Space Agency is the sole weather-activity center for all of Africa, employing satellite feedback for fires and flooding.

New Zealand Space Agency

Learning that its remote location was ideal for a launch site — vast stretch of ocean, negligent ship traffic means a misfired rocket does no harm, this island nation slipped into entrepreneurial shoes, donned ministerial gloves, and opened its doors to welcome science, aeronautical engineering, remote communicating and space law. ❚ ❙ ❚ The New Zealand Space Agency keeps track of methane in the atmosphere, and shares its database in a bid to slow global warming.

United Arab Emirates Space Agency

United Arab Emirates started a space program in 2014. Eight years later this fledgling has landed on Mars, only the second nation after America to do so. ❚ ❚ ❚ The UAE rover was developed in-house, assembled in the United States, took off, inside a Japanese lander, aboard a SpaceX rocket in 2020.

Apollo 12 takes a photo from deep space of Earth's atmosphere backlit by the Sun during a 1969 eclipse.

Photograph of Venus silhouetted by the Sun

International Space Station

The era of comfort in zero gravity took place quietly, in 1988, as the first module of the International Space Station flew towards the stratosphere. It was designed to be “an autonomous space habitat for eight months,” waiting for the next component. Zarya was equipped with “container connections for contingency transfer of water, container bags, wipes, filters.” There were six nickel-cadmium batteries, two solar arrays, three docking ports. A pressurized valve unit with air ducts, funnel containment filters, dust collectors, smoke detector, gas analyzer, gas masks, portable fans. A pole, handrails, hooks, instrument containers in the cabin. In 2020, Legacy loos were replaced with new ones. On the drawing boards: a waste management system common to all vehicle platforms. ❚ ❚ Fifteen nations are members to this International Space Station, a potentially expandable habitat, while five coordinate the day-to-day. All have signed agreements covering legal, financial and political implications in how the station is utilized, its traffic routes, crew time. ISS is serviced by a team of three robots, capable of independent or conjoined activities. ❚ ❚ Nextgen spacesuits are coming, with sizes to fit all astronauts, allowing comfort for scientists working in zero gravity. Whereas European Space Agency also adds high-tech underwear on crewed missions.

Italian Space Agency

Italy looked at the 19th century sky with scientific eyes. Inventor Luigi Gussali (b.1885) would go on to propose, in 1946, the use of solar rays as a propellant. Engineer Gioulio Gostanzi (b.1875) thought instead it would be nuclear power. He also thought about the plight of weightlessness, lethal rays from the Sun, whose proximity would bring on heat death. ❚ • ❚ Italy joined the space race in 1968 with a satellite launch. Twenty years later, the Italian Space Agency moved next door to the Vatican.

China National Space Administration

China sent a satellite to space in 1970 for a song. Aboard was a music tape on perpetual loop playing a eulogy to Mao Zedong, broadcasting the sino revolution to outer space. A space program emerged, orbiting around the figurehead of rocketeer Tsien Hsue-Shen aka Qian Xuesen (b.1911), who had returned after being expelled from JPL for political uncertainties. ❚ ★ ❚ By 2007, the China National Space Administration could afford to use a spent satellite for target practise, and created a debris field containing some 30,000 pieces. ❚ ★ ❚ China has now built its own space station. Begun in 2016, the final parts come onboard six years later, which was the plan. But not before an unannounced rocket launch carrying two modules to the build “reentered Earth’s atmosphere and crashed west of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean,” angering everyone. During the build, there have been rotating construction-and-maintenance crews living aboard. ❚ ★ ❚ Engineers in Chengdu have designed Moon 2.0, a fixed a “fixed” illuminated satellite, 22,000 miles (33,400 km) up and fifty miles (80.5 km) wide. In 2022, alien signals were detected.

Collage of actual and artificial Earth moons

Indian Space Research Organisation

India’s first Moon mission ended on November 14 2008 when ground control lost contact with the lunar orbiter, but not before its sensors had detected magmatic water on a crater. The second Moon mission was launched in 2019 and, having successfully gone into lunar orbit, some sixty-two miles above the surface, the spacecraft released a robot lander on an orbital descent that would last five days for a smooth landing. That was when a cyberattack disabled the lander and created a new crater on the Moon. ❚ ❚ ❚ In between these two lunar mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation sent a spacecraft which arrived and then went into orbit around Mars, and did this when others have tried but all have failed. ❚ ❚ ❚ Wanting better endings, the nation seems transfixed on the latest scifi releases from Bollywood, adrift in temporal time shifts, smart-monsters, time-traveling love songs, and a mission to the red planet based on the real one.

European Space Agency

Europe at the end of World War 2 was shell-shocked, there had been a massive brain-drain in every field. Remnants of aeronautic science kept in contact and in 1975 came together to sign on to a “cohesive approach to space.” Established for uncrewed space exploration, the European Space Agency soon enough changed its approach to space science. Initially founded by ten nations, ESA now has twenty-two members, and a waiting list. ❚ e ❚ Missions overlap. Ariel and Cheops are two exo-planet hunters. Mercury and Venus are about to receive visitors. Is there life on Mars? will have to wait longer, because of the war in Ukraine. What happens when dark matter touches dark energy? A mission to draw a map of one percent of the known universe. An asteroid defense solution, a way to corral space debris.

Collage of space rocks in the Asteroid belt

National Centre for Space Studies

France went through the rubble of World War 2 on the search for all things ballistic. Victorious though battered, the nation had already set altitude records when the 18th century was still young. In 1947, a lab was set up to tinker with these finds to glean achievements in German “rocket propulsion and guidance.” ❚ ❙ ❚ In 1961 France established the National Centre for Space Research, with a mission to transpose civilization to space. Before that could happen, they inaugurated space medicine in 1982 by hooking up astronaut Jean-Loup Crétien (b.1938) to monitors. The go-to space agency for all things UFO, with a collection going back to 1954. ❚ ❙ ❚ Today, France’s aerospace program, having just joined the air force, faced a setback from Covid-19.

NASA

When World War 2 ended, America set in motion Operation Paperclip, to retrieve German rocket science. They found production site blueprints, V-2 rockets (100), other technology. They also found rocketeer Wernher von Braun (b.1912), who was amenable to continue where he had left off, and who crossed the Atlantic into another life. ❚ ❚ ❚ Soon enough, in Pasadena, the rocket-building Jet Propulsion Lab was conducting numerous tests. The government noticed, and in 1958 built NASA with them and the Cold War in mind. ❚ ❚ ❚ In 2019, never before seen footage from the Apollo 11 mission were stitched with memorable moments for an edge of the seat account of the first crewed mission to the Moon. ❚ ❚ ❚ Today, NASA wants to be the first to reach jupiter moon Europa, in 2030. It wants to partner with other space agencies for an expedition to the moon, and maybe build a telescope on the far side. Their astrobiologists are monitoring how the human body can be harmed by cosmic rays and its “diverse combinations of multiple ion-energy beams.”

Closeup photo of Kuiper belt object Ryugu

Japan Aerospace Exploratory Agency

Hideo Itokawa (b.1935), graduate at Tokyo’s imperial university with a major in aeronautics, test launched a small rocket in 1955 and ushered in Japan’s space age. ❚•❚ Fast forward fourteen years, when three science laboratories found that they all needed more room. Since their research into radio astronomy, deciphering the magnetosphere, and secrets of X-ray were complementary, they came together in 2003 as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. 宇宙航空研究開発機構 (JAXA)’s motto is “explore to realize,” and today conducts innovative research. Theirs is the largest ISS module and given wholly to experiments. JAXA has already sent a spacecraft to rendezvous with space rock Ryugu and, before releasing a lander, took a potshot to create a crater and expose some underlying stuff. Placing 0.19 oz (5 grams) of soil into an envelope, the lander flung these ancient samples back to Earth, some 190 million miles (300 million km) away. Now it wants to repeat the exercise on the martian moon Phobos.

Canadian Space Agency

The Royal Canadian Air Force fought for the allies in World War 2, and flew transport, reconnaissance, fighter and bomber missions. Afterwards, they maintained their fleet and thought about going higher. In 1962 they sent a rocket into space. ❚ • ❚ Today, the Canadian Space Agency shares its knowledge for the “benefit of Canadians and humanity.” CSA has joined the Artemis mission to the Moon, and their website has indigenous Moon tales plus the thirteen-moons cycle of First Nations. ❚ • ❚ Footage from an astronaut training camp in Canada exists, so too of a singing astronaut.

UK Space Agency

Sometime in 1933, august British sky watchers created the world’s first interplanetary society. After World War 2, the government set in motion Operation Backfire, in an effort to recover V-2 rockets. In 1957, a rocket launch successfully reached an altitude of 124 miles (200 km). ❚❚❚ Today, the United Kingdom Space Agency is a champion for sustainable development, wants to tackle space debris – an emerging menace, and design their spaceport. Patience may be rewarded perusing the Royal Air Force website to find a folder on UFOs, “comprising entirely of correspondence with members of the public” and going back fifty years.

National Space Agency of Ukraine

Hearhiy Fedorovych Proskura (b.1876), graduate of Moscow’s imperial technical college, went into the manufacturing of pumps, gears and turbines for purposes of hydraulic thrust. Gathering together like-minds, they formed an aeronautics club, and, in 1937, shot a missile high over Kharkiv in Ukraine. Fast forward to the 1960s, when the soviet government retooled an automobile plant there and began manufacturing rockets. This factory is today the National Space Agency of Ukraine, a descendant of the soviet space program. ❚❚ On February 24 2002, Russia invaded Ukraine and a special force was sent to capture Kharkiv, where the space agency has its headquarters.

Russian Federal Space Agency

Russia’s rational rendering of heaven had its beginnings in the 19th century. Theorist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (b.1857) mulled on how humankind will survive in space and drew cut-away spaceship habitats. Scientist Friedrich Zander (b.1887) figured out practical applications for liquid-fuels, a necessity for escaping Earth’s gravity. Adherents and students built an academy, which was folded into a classified military program in 1992, and Roscosmos is its public face. ❚ ❚❚ When they sent the first dog into space, in 1957, their motto in 1957 was ‘In Space We Trust.’ The first woman, Valentina Tereshkova (b.1937), and first man, Yuri Gargarin (b.1934), were also Russian. Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (b.1934) performed the first space walk in 1965 (12:09): “I stepped into that void and I didn’t fall in. I was mesmerised by the stars. They were everywhere – up above, down below, to the left, to the right.” The best-looking satellite is still the first, also launched in 1957: Sputnik-1, a globe with four antennae. ❚ ❚❚ When the soviet union fell, its space program was split: the main site remained in Russia, but a sliver, responsible for rockets, was marooned in Ukraine.

Romanian Space Agency

Conrad Haas (b.1509) was a “fyer workes” technician and had developed a multi-stage display that always drew a gasp from his audience. He was born in present-day Romania, where a taste for shooting things into space has never waned. The Moon was wooed in 1906 by aero-mechanic Traian Vuia (b.1872), inventor of the “autonomous take-off aeroplane”. Henri Coanda (b.1886) wooed her four years later in a “jet aeroplane”. ❚❙❚ When director Fritz Lang (b.1890) made Woman on the Moon, a 1929 silent black-&-white scifi adventure, he brought on board rocketeer Hermann Oberth (b.1904) to make the look and feel of sequences involving spaceflight authentic. Oberth recalls: “During my work on the film I was able to convince Lang that it would be great publicity for his movie if we did some serious research at the same time. He was able to finance me and I was finally able to begin performing actual experiments.” ❚❙❚ Today, the Romanian Space Agency has signed on to the Artemis mission, NASA’s lunar exploration expedition, and hosts the annual Yuri’s Night.

German Aerospace Center

In 1907, mechanic Ludwig Prandtl (b.1875) set up a rudimentary aerodynamic laboratory and conducted experiments. Soon enough, interest came from a society, an association, an institution and a consortium. They all shook hands while studying the sky, in hopes of designing the perfect airship. Their efforts were repurposed during World War 2. ❚❚❚ In the final days of fighting, astronomer Gerard Kuiper (b.1905) drove an allied jeep into Berlin to find and bring physicist Max Planck (b.1858) to safety. The 87-year-old theorist was researching how atoms (matter) and sub-atoms (light) are governed, and many were paying attention. ❚❚❚ When the fighting was over, nearby aviators, generals, researchers, coders and scientists found each other again, and resumed research for a propulsive physics as a space society. Then became the German Aerospace Center, a national center for energy, transport and aerospace research.

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PIXELS

DISPATCH

Putin sits in front of wall-size map of Russia.

The seat of national power, Kyiv was the main prize. Thus the thrust by elite airborne forces in the war’s opening hours.

When President Vladimir Putin launched his war on Feb. 24 after months of buildup on Ukraine’s borders, he sent hundreds of helicopter-borne commandos — the best of the best of Russia’s “spetsnaz” (special forces soldiers) — to assault and seize a lightly defended airfield on Kyiv’s doorstep.

On the first morning of the war, Russian Mi-8 assault helicopters soared south toward Kyiv on a mission to attack Hostomel airfield on the northwest outskirts of the capital. By capturing the airfield, also known as Antonov airport, the Russians planned to establish a base from which to fly in more troops and light armored vehicles within striking distance of the heart of the nation’s largest city. It didn’t work that way. Several Russian helicopters were reported to be hit by missiles even before they got to Hostomel, and once settled in at the airfield they suffered heavy losses from artillery fire.

The fact that the Hostomel assault by the Russian 45th Guards Special Purpose Airborne Brigade faltered might not stand out in retrospect if the broader Russian effort had improved from that point. But it did not. ... Last week the Russians abandoned Hostomel airfield as part of a wholesale retreat into Belarus and Russia.

An effort to take control of a military airbase in Vasylkiv south of Kyiv also met stiff resistance and reportedly saw several Russian Il-76 heavy-lift transport planes carrying paratroopers downed by Ukrainian defenses.

A sidelight of the battle for Kyiv was the widely reported saga of a Russian resupply convoy that stretched dozens of miles along a main roadway toward the capital. It initially seemed to be a worrisome sign for the Ukrainians, but they managed to attack elements of the convoy, which had limited off-road capability and thus eventually dispersed or otherwise became a non-factor in the fight. “They never really provided a resupply of any value to Russian forces that were assembling around Kyiv, never really came to their aid,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. “The Ukrainians put a stop to that convoy pretty quickly by being very nimble, knocking out bridges, hitting lead vehicles and stopping their movement.” Using a wide array of Western arms, including Javelin portable anti-tank weapons, shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and much more.

“That’s a really bad combination if you want to conquer a country,” said Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel and professor of military history at Ohio State University. “[The Russian Army]’s proven itself to be wholly incapable of conducting modern armored warfare”. ... Some analysts did question whether Putin appreciated how much Ukraine’s forces had gained from Western training that intensified after Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and incursion into the Donbas.

“It’s stunning,” said military historian Frederick Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War, who says he knows of no parallel to a major military power like Russia invading a country at the time of its choosing and failing so utterly. The Russians underestimated the number of troops they would need and showed “an astonishing inability” to perform basic military functions.

Putin failed to achieve his goal of quickly crushing Ukraine’s outgunned and outnumbered army. The Russians were ill-prepared for Ukrainian resistance, proved incapable of adjusting to setbacks, failed to effectively combine air and land operations, misjudged Ukraine’s ability to defend its skies, and bungled basic military functions like planning and executing the movement of supplies.

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EXCERPT

Battle of the Three Emperors, from War and Peace 1869 by Leo Tolstoy

ON the 18th and 19th of November the [Russia and Austria] army advanced two days’ march, and the [French] enemy’s outposts after a brief interchange of shots retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the 19th a great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till the morning of the 20th, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz was fought.

UNTIL midday on the 19th the activity, the eager talk, running to and fro, and dispatching of adjutants, was confined to the Emperor’s headquarters (i.e., Alexander I of Russia). But on the afternoon of that day this activity reached [General of the Russian Army] Kutuzov’s headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns. By evening the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the army, and in the night from the 19th to the 20th the whole eighty thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of voices, and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles long.

THE concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor’s headquarters in the morning and had started the whole movement that followed, was like the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower-clock. One wheel slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third, and wheels began to revolve faster and faster, levers and cog-wheels to work, chimes to play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with regular motion as a result of all that activity.

JUST as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted to them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a neighbouring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever catches it, and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak, and joins in the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.

JUST as in a clock the result of the complicated motion of innumerable wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the hands which show the time, so the result of all the complicated human activities of 160,000 Russians and French – all their passions, desires, remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and enthusiasm – was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the so-called battle of the three Emperors – that is to say, a slow movement of the hand on the dial of human history.

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4L83R7 31N5731N Quote: 7H3 M345UR3 OF 1N73LL163NC3 15 7H3 481L17Y 70 CH4N63.

POSTCARD

± Roosevelt Island

Tata Innovation Center on Roosevelt Island, designed by Weiss/Manfredi Architecture.
Sitting on the East River in New York is a cigarette-shaped island, two miles long and under a quarter-mile wide. Known then as Mason’s Island, it was a yellowed blade of neglected farms. Today, the island has a new name, where a five-acre plot is home to Cornell Tech Campus, sitting among restored woods and wetlands.

± New Zealand

Ringed by extinct volcanoes, Auckland looks east over Hauraki Gulf to the horizon. + Billboard on the way to the airport.
Located in the North Island of New Zealand, home to the largest Polynesian population in the world, and where the Symonds St Cemetery gives context to when this port-of-call was a ‘fledging colonial country’.

± Brazil

National Museum of Brazil vanishing. + Luzia’ is twelve thousand years old. She is the oldest person in South America, and now has lost 20% of her skull.
A fire on September 2 2018 gutted the National Museum of Brazil, turning a million art objects into ash and smoke. Gone are collections on paleontology, anthropology, archaeology, and indigenous Brazilian ethnology. Disappeared is a wing devoted to ancient Egypt, including a throne room. Bendego meteorite pre-inferno

Mostly intact is the second largest space rock on Earth. The Bendegó meteorite was discovered in 1784 by a boy in Monte Santo, Bahia. ... Watch a 38-min. documentary from 2019 of the retrieval phase; in Brazilian-Portuguese.

± Western Australia

Aerial view of the coast to Western Australia. + 2016 Super Moon over Perth. + Geode from Mammoth Cave, a 1,600-ft wide by 98-ft deep limestone cavern.
Yagan Square + brick building + wall plaque for J. Crothers

Yagan Square + brick building + wall plaque for J. Crothers

Yagan Square honors the fourteen Noongar language peoples of Western Australia. + Repurposed building in William St downtown, detail of original façade with a modern topping. + Plaque for J. Crothers Perth, constructing Western Australia since 1896.
detail of carbon fiber outdoor sculpture

detail of carbon fiber outdoor sculpture

Spanda, a carbon fiber sculpture by Christian de Vietri, can be seen at Elisabeth Quay on the Swan River.

± Reno

Vintage hot rod cruises N. Virginia St. + St Francis Hotel (1925) used to be where visitors roomed while seeking a divorce.
The city of Reno in Nevada came into being around 1852 by western-bound settlers chose a spot along the Truckee River, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Then, when nearby Virginia City struck silver, someone built a toll bridge across the Truckee River. This new route allowed for an easier to and from the California Trail, and the spot became known as Lake’s Crossing. The First Transcontinental Railroad would make Reno a depot, and the Lincoln Highway system connected the city via automobile with the rest of the United States.
Reno is now a city of casinos. Watch six minutes of 1953 in color, featuring neon signs, one-armed bandits, and Harold’s Club and the Ship Bar, when the Nevada state speed limit was 25mph.

± Four Corners

Spanning the borders of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, Tsé Bii’ Ndzisgaii ‘valley of the rocks’ is home to Navajo people. Monument Valley is also non-federal territory and a park, where sandstone formations ‘rise into the air’. The entrance by way of Utah, on U.S. Highway 163.

± Great Barrier Reef

Pages from ‘The Great Barrier Reef of Australia’ (1893) by William Saville-Kent.
Found in the Coral Sea off Queensland on the north-east coast of Australia, part of indigenous spirituality, a built structure, the largest one in the world made by living organisms, this World Heritage site comprises some 900 islands and 2,900+ individual reefs.

± Osaka

The Sun descends over an 18th-c. roadway to give way to 21st-c. Osaka night, a jumbo colony of joined cities, the ‘kitchen of Japan’, where nineteen million people call home. The ‘megalopolis of water’ has an underground city of arcades, cafés, and people movers to get around.

± Paris

The last mass of the day was in session when a fire alarm went off. It was Monday during Holy Week 2019; and mass resumed when nothing was found. Thirty minutes later a second fire alarm went off: the attic was on fire. Soon the roof of the world’s most famous cathedral, built between 1163-1345, was burning. The spire then snapped and collapsed into the inferno. Response arrived, just ‘fifteen to thirty minutes’ away from the complete destruction of Notre Dame Cathedral.
An onsite journalist witnessed Rev. Jean-Marc Fournier, chaplain to the Paris Fire Brigade, running into the burning church and saving the Crown of Thorns. Bought by Louis IX in 1239, and believed to be the one worn by Jesus Christ.
+
(excerpt) ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ (1831) by Victor Hugo. ❝He therefore turned to mankind only with regret. His cathedral was enough for him. It was peopled with marble figures of kings, saints and bishops who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with only tranquillity and benevolence. The other statues, those of monsters and demons, had no hatred for him—he resembled them too closely for that. It was rather the rest of mankind that they jeered at. The saints were his friends and blessed him; the monsters were his friends and kept watch over him. He would sometimes spend whole hours crouched before one of the statues in solitary conversation with it. If anyone came upon him then he would run away like a lover surprised during a serenade.❞ 1859 architectural model of the roof and spire

1859 architectural model of the roof and spire

An 1859 model, made for architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, of the spire sitting on the wooden-beamed roof, known to habitués as the ‘forest’.

± Prague

The construction of Charles Bridge in 14th-c. Prague took up 45 years. Built of stone, this span over the Vitava River became, until 1841, the only ‘solid-land’ trade route between eastern and western Europe.

± PNG

Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, looks southeast over the Gulf of Papua to the Coral Sea.
Motuans were the original people. To trade with others in the Gulf of Papua, expeditions of up to 600-men would embark on sea voyages.
+
(excerpt) In his autobiography ‘My Wicked, Wicked Ways’ (1959), actor Errol Flynn describes sailing to Port Moresby in 1930: ❝We piloted our ship into the rather fine harbor of Port Moresby. We arrived during the rainy season and the whole area was brilliant green. The region seemed beautiful to me and I poked around searching its resources. About thirty miles from the port the Laloki River flowed through an emerald countryside. I fell in love with it. My partners made their way back to Australia, but I decided to settle there. ... Around me, from Laloki to Port Moresby, was a territory plentiful with nutmeg, rattan cane, the okari nut, bananas, mangrove, coconuts, and sandalwood. There was fish in the river, and the natives brought food to my door. For a pence or two I could have the fruit of the region.❞

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-| July 2022 |-

WHAT SHE SAID Mae West quote: His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.

ROMANCE COMICS

♛ EPILOGUE

Looking back at the Golden Age (which took place on Earth-Two), it has come to light that the biography of Lois Lane, beginning in the early 1950s, has properly belonged to the Silver Age.

All along, readers had grown up w/ a golden-age Lois. There was a golden-age Clark; and Superman too. It turns out there has been – and always has been – some other Lois, who lived on Earth-One, w/ another Clark and a different Superman.

EARTH-2 LOIS

[-1954-] In a grand send-off to Earth-2 Lois, she gets to step into the shoes of other women and lead a different existence, if only for 12 pages. Florence Nightingale; Betsy Ross; Barbara Fritchie; Annie Oakley; Madame Curie; Queen Isabella.

In 1956, fan loyalty was rewarded when DC Comics put out the first issue of SUPERMAN’S GIRLFRIEND LOIS LANE. Once again, a newer Lois Lane sprang forth, and helped to usher in the Silver Age. This Lois again came fully formed – and a lived-in backstory spooled out. The first two tales, about a witch and a wig, looked forward towards the experimental 1960s -- when beauty was redefined, and backwards, w/ a ginned-up glance at the battle of the sexes, when it was still in black-&-white.

What is left of the original Lois are some stories about the Man of Steel in which she features prominently, where she proves herself an intellectual equal of a super man. These historic events embark embryonically from the heartland of America during the onset of World War II. They then roam globally, and extra-globally, only to disembarked at the untested outpost of the Cold War.

Lois of Earth-Two became marooned until the DC universe took on a reimagining. By 1978, her story was rethreaded into the continuity. Lois married Clark in the late 1950s, discovered his secret identity, went on to new adventures -- even after their son was born, passing the mortal coil in 2005, in events occurring during Infinite Crisis. All of this happened before the 21st century woke up.

I Love Lois

Working nine to five as a reporter for a city daily must not leave time to do much else. As a single female working and living alone in Metroplis, how do you find balance in your life?

Lois Lane, Clark Kent and Superman are the creations of writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, two Cleveland teenagers nurturing keen tastes and quick psyches, who combined complementary skills to make manifest their dream of another world. Inventing a city of skyscrapers where an otherworldly creature lives and makes its living as a newspaperman, while wooing a wonderful woman, and using as his secret identity a coward’s persona. Overnight their comics become a bestseller, starring the Man of Tomorrow opposite Lois Lane.

The Golden Age 1938-1955

Lois Lane is already there when Clark Kent arrives on his first day at the Daily Planet, she’s a lonely hearts advice columnist. Clark, a seasoned reporter, gets called in to the editor‘s office and is assigned a new beat. In a supreme act of irony, he’s to cover someone who has been seen in Metropolis and word has it a champion of the oppressed. Proximity to the vibrations of an unknown being notwithstanding, Lois soon slips into a vaudevillian vortex. Somehow a dastard is sure to create chaos, usually a damsel-in-distress episode plays out, acrobatic acts can follow before displays of unnatural skills bring back the normal. This and a secret identity plot to string it all together and tie into a bow.

Page after page, the reader gets to know more about a super-being living in Metropolis, while he himself is getting to know more about Lois -- exposing her to the maw of mayhem by his dada duels w/ weird foes. Lois can’t see Clark for the super-simulacrum that he’s hiding behind; is drawn to Superman instead. Clark smiles and winks at the fourth wall, at ease and worldly wise.

Lois and Clark start dating right away, in the first story they put on evening attire and go out on the town. The next week she flies off on assignment to a foreign land and, due to misadventure, ends up blindfolded and standing in front of a firing squad. Back home again, Lois thinks little of dropping a sleeping pill into Clark’s cocktail so as to chase a lead and beat him to a scoop. This brazen stunt backfires when she lands in trouble and, for the very first time, falls out of a window.

But first, she hones in on Clark’s beat by looking up the Man of Mystery herself, trying to score an exclusive. Going to a traveling circus where he was performing for charity, an unexpected occurrence ensures she will not get her scoop. Editor Perry White sometimes sends both out together, especially when murder has occurred. On these occasions, Lois often ends up solo because Clark can and will disappear at the first sign of trouble. One time this happened, she was tied down next to a table saw w/ the on-switch deployed, too annoyed though not surprised w/ Clark to bother about her imminent demise.

Chastened to live another day, Lois expands her comfort zone, finding it in herself to bring joy to a thawed caveman, out of time and gravely disoriented. Lois was as one reborn some other time when she ran around w/ a great ape. Through all this, Lois kept up her advice column, where once a grateful writer bequeathed a gold mine to her and which, sadly, she lost. She then plunged herself into a murky episode about a fifth columnist movement in Metropolis, wading into espionage, disinformation, and sabotage.

Around this time she meets Lex Luthor. Picking through the day’s press releases, Lois sees a tony and toothy one: Someone has called a gathering of the millionaires of Metropolis. Intrigued, Lois finds a way into the mansion and hides behind draperies. Eight men enter, followed by their host; Lois pulls out her notepad. Altogether, these men control railroads and airlines, real estate and financial firms. Each involved in prohibition-era rackets. One has a publishing firm hawking inspirational books. Another runs a secret fascist cell. The last to speak turns out to be a common man who had shown up disguised in order to give a rant on the wickedness of wealth. Lois is taking this all down, filling one comic book page w/ nine long speech balloons. When suddenly Luthor appears w/ a weapon and knocks everyone -- including Lois -- out.

By 1943, budding popularity for her character propels Lois onto the cover w/ Superman, gasping as he goes head-to-head with crime’s comedy king, the Prankster. Lois is also on the splash page, because she has inadvertently wandered too close to a giant jack-in-the-box … Then a year later lands her first series, LOIS LANE GIRL REPORTER, focusing on her exploits without Superman or Clark, which had a thirteen issue run.

The Silver Age 1956-1970

The winds of change began blowing in the mid-1950s, when DC Comics rehabilitated a dormant character from the past and re- introduced Flash, giving him a new backstory and wearing a different costume. Gradually, this new universe folded outwards and at first divided into two.

In 1956, a seminal tale had taken place on Earth-One, where Barry Allen was working late one stormy night, when a lightning bolt comes crashing in, striking chemical vials filled w/ stuff. Barry is knocked out and falls to the floor. Lying in a suspicious-looking soup of laboratory juices the entire night, he undergoes a molecular sea change. What had lain on the lab floor that October night was a police-lab scientist. What woke up the next morning turned out to be an agile Adam – harbinger to a new aeon.

This refashioned “human thunderbolt” draws a chalk line at the starting point, resets the timer to zero, jumps into his costume and takes off. Soon enough he learns of the existence of Earth-Two, and he visits w/ the original Flash, semi-retired but still contending w/ super-foes. Overnight, the aggregate number of costumed beings doubled -- then grew, as readers couldn‘t get enough.

The Lois of Earth-One lived a complicated existence, being routinely subjected to Imaginary Tales of what-ifs that bedevil storylines, confounding known facts w/ familiar fantasy. This Lois had her own title, which ran for 137 issues, ending just in time to usher in the Bronze Age, and are known chiefly as having imparted a level of light-heartedness to her life.

In between, Lois left her classic looks behind and is shown on a 1968 cover tearing down part of her own masthead containing the words "GIRL FRIEND", and throwing it to the ground. This was just one step less shocking than her get-up: knee-high go-go boots and a rocking aquanet hairdo, declaring that she was over the Man of Might. This fit of feminist zeal subsided, though, and the designation reappeared on the next cover. Lois Lane, born on Earth, had up until then led an unearthly existence, all because she chose to be near the one she loves, and do battle w/ battalions of babes intent on becoming the one to make children w/ the alien Adonis.

★ As our story begins, Lois is about twenty-three years old, and Clark is two years older than that.

▶ Champion of the Oppressed
Action Comics №1 - 1938

Lois Lane sprang into life fully formed, alongside the genesis story of Superman. On his first day at the Daily Planet, Clark Kent is smitten and begins to court Lois.

When Clark is then assigned to cover a mystery man showing remarkable potential, Lois is intrigued and goes on a first date to find out more. Twirling about the dance floor, he asks pointedly, “Why is it you always avoid me at the office?”

“Please Clark-! I’ve been scribbling sob stories all day long. Don’t ask me to dish out another.” Bored and staring away, her eyes happen to lock onto Butch, who’s been staring at her for quite some time.

Seeing his move Butch cuts in, then things turn ugly, and Lois gets an inkling that Clark may not be a man’s man. When Butch facepalms her date she storms out and calls Clark, for the very first time, “… a spineless, unbearable coward!”. Catching up w/ the car that has just abducted her, Superman upturns the vehicle and catches Lois, for the very first time, as she spills out of the backseat window. What he does next is famously depicted on the iconic front cover - lifting the car above his head. ... turning his attention back to Lois, she backs away in mild terror until he says, “You needn’t be afraid of me. I won’t harm you.”

Transfixed, she lets the strapping stranger scoop her up into his arms and, leaping high, carry her away. This winning formula provided years of creative chaos as the three main characters circled each other round and round.

This ends the first tale of Lois Lane’s life, and the beginning of her startling adventures to document the existence of this mental marvel and physical wonder, devoted to daring deeds she knows will reshape the destiny of a world.

▶ How Lois Got Her Job
Lois Lane №17 - 1960

(An Untold Story) (Demand Classic)

Every year on the anniversary of her first day to work for him, Perry White has thrown an office party to celebrate. One time he turned sentimental -- opened up: “... When Lois first asked me for a job, I told her I would hire her if she brought me three scoops in three days! She did it ... w/out Superman’s help!”

Picking up the cue, Lois blows out the candles and hands the first slice to Perry. While his mouth is full, she gives her side of the story. On the first day at work Perry had given her a choice of several assignments, she chose the easiest one: securing evidence on a team of safe-crackers.

Dressed as a cleaning lady, Lois walked into their lair w/ a vacuum cleaner, plugged it in, turned it on. This disguise turned up pure gold when a torn-up note was retrieved, then taped back together. Implications were deduced; arrest warrants eventually issued. More cake was passed around.

Her next assignment was to secure the first-ever photograph of a reclusive royal, prone to strongarm tactics to ensure his privacy -- she comes back w/ the photo. Clark and Jimmy ask for another slice -- at the same time.

The guest of honor takes this opportunity to sit down, staring into the cavern now developing in the cake. Her car had unexpectedly broken down on the third assignment, and she ended up walking miles out to nowhere in order to interview an archaeologist who was claiming a new discovery. She gets her story, and it’s a doozy but, w/ no easy access back, Lois devises the most ingenious method known to correspondents worldwide – enabling her post to reach Perry. It is front page news, and Lois lands her dream job.

▶ Man or Superman?
Superman №17 - 1942

Lois and Clark once teamed up to track down the Talon, titular head to a gang of thieves. She later returned to her desk, thinking she was going to write up a scoop, only to learn that Clark got there first. Exasperated, she then asked and he then gave a reason so lame that it was enough to make her wonder if Clark might be Superman. (There have been many versions of this story since.) Clark is the archetypal nerd, wearing glasses because he really has to -- it’s his secret identity. But how his physiognomy didn’t give him away as son of Krypton is one for the books. This instance of willful ignorance apparently is impossible. Because mental snapshots. In one telling, while at the office a commotion on the street below draws them to the window -- a necklace robbery was in progress. She suddenly got a feeling she knew what Clark would do next, which was to give a flimsy excuse and disappear, then a minute will pass and Superman should (and will) fly past the window. This quizzical look does not go unnoticed by eagle-eyed Clark as he stages a retreat. Changing into his costume he thinks back to the very first time Lois ever did all of her wondering. It had happened one morning when he had flown over the Daily Planet, and she had caught a quick glimpse. Lois was rounding a corner and became aware of his landing on the roof of her office building. “… and now he’s dropped out of sight! Good gracious! Maybe he works on the Planet staff, under a secret identity!”

▶ Miss Lonelyhearts
Lois Lane №3 - 1958

Lois once went above and beyond her duties as the advice columnist. She had shown up at the eighth floor landing window of the Belvue Apartments, where a despondent man was threatening to jump. Lois climbs out, telling him she too wants to jump, “Er-(gulp!) Do you think you’re the only person in the world w/ a broken heart?” Promptly losing her footing, Lois goes over the edge. Manages to catch the corner of a election banner hanging below. Before it can tear off she has swung into position to plummet through a number of window awnings. Cushioning her fall until a fireman’s net catches her. This vivid demonstration of falling in love cures the man’s sick heart, so he climbs back in and goes to where Lois is being treated. “You’re wonderful, Miss Lane! The next time I commit suicide, it’s going to be over you!”

▶ School for Scoops
Lois Lane №29 - 1961

Through pluck and perserverance Lois becomes the number one female reporter in the United States! The University of Metropolis asks her to give a lecture course. Hearing this news, racketeer Nick Roker sends two gunmen to the campus. Because.

Lois proves a precocious professor and, w/ the help of Jimmy Olsen, stages re-creations of actual cases. Jimmy walks the class through the first scenario. Drugged by a gang she’s been after, Lois gains consciousness to find that she is bound, gagged, inside a tiny basement. Someone behind is about to put a blindfold on her. At this critical moment, Lois locates the basement’s electric meter and memorizes its serial number.

This bit of information helps break the case and gets her a scoop. Before dismissing the class, she hands out writing assignments.

The next day students are greeted by a gruesome set piece: Having once crossed the line w/ racketeer “Duke” Benson, he has enticed her over to his office and there ties her to a chair, placing a bomb beneath the chair before his exit. Ignoring the lit fuse, she leans forward and nudges the phone off its cradle, picks up a pencil w/ her mouth, and dials 9-1-1, ... in the time it takes for her to grade this second assignment, Lois has deduced that two are not written by journalism students.

Thinking to instruct her class by treating this development as a case study, she outs them only to realize too late they were sent to off her. Lois’s quick thinking distracts them long enough for Jimmy’s signal-watch to summon Superman, who makes a brief cameo at the very end.

▶ Lois’s College Scoops
Lois Lane №55 - 1965

(An Untold Tale)

One time, Lois took Jimmy Olsen and Superman to her college reunion. There she grew nostalgic and, picking up a school scrapbook, leafed through to find a clipping of her first scoop for the Raleigh Review. It was an impossible first assignment: to join an all-male only fencing team and write about the experience. The fencing captain, who was a good sport and willing to go along, gives Lois a week to practise before they were to meet in a bout.

Through diligence and sheer love-of-reporting, she outfences the captain, landing Lois her very first scoop.

Then she puts down her cup of punch and begins to leaf through a second scrapbook, locating a clipping of her first-hand account of discovering a new comet – by fluke, during a night at the Smallville observatory, where she was using the telescope to write a paper for astronomy class.

The last page held a tattered clipping of her strangest scoop. Taking a solo field trip for biology class, Lois had stumbled across – and captured on film – a live pterandon and a living sabre-tooth. Her biology teacher is wowed. “Those prehistoric creatures vanished without a trace, Lois! But thanks to the movies you took, we know exactly how they looked and acted!”

▶ How Clark Kent First Met Lois Lane (Bonus Tale)
Adventure Comics №128 - 1948

(An Exclusive Adventure of Superboy)

While still in high school, Clark receives a letter from the Daily Planet: Clark Kent, 713 Main Street. Congratulations! You are one of the two winners of our annual contest to honor the best school newspaper reporters. Your prize is a free-trip to Metropolis, where you will be allowed to work as cub reporter for one week.

Overjoyed and full of bonhomie, Clark shows up and is introduced to Lois Lane, the other winner; he takes an instant shine to her. The editor tries to break this spell by assigning a competition to see who can bring in the best story of the day, with the winner getting a front page byline! Lois suggests a side bet to Clark, “The loser treats the winner to an ice cream sundae?”

“I never bet … but I’ll make an exception in your case!” After handshakes, Lois ventures out and, based on a hunch, stumbles into criminal activity, resulting in being tied up and about to meet her end – Superboy arrives and saves the day. After he has dispatched her attackers, this unknown being glides over and unties Lois. On an impulse she jumps into his arms and asks to be carried away from the scene, a request the Boy of Tomorrow was fated to grant. She later on wins the competition (Clark has been busy elsewhere) and, after work, he takes her to a soda fountain and pays his bet. They spend the week chasing stories, then it’s time to wave goodbye to Lois from a train platform, wondering if he’ll ever cross paths w/ her again.

| NOTES

[1]

BASED ON reports from, among others, Tricia Annis, Tim Hanley, Steven Thompson, and Internet searches.

[2]
BACK COVER AD – The back cover ad for Action Comics №1 was bought by the Johnson Smith & Company in Detroit, Michigan. They were purveyors of, among other things:

- pocket radios - midget radios - midget pocket radios - magic radios - crystal radios - radio & television books - experiment sets - wireless transmittals - telegraph sets - electric phones - electric baseballs - world mikes (a microphone) - deluxe microphones - big entertainers (an air mattress) - Stinson Reliant giant flying planes - all-metal model airplanes - wigs (blond only) - yacht caps - live chameleons - x-ray glasses - booklets on hypnotism, learning to dance, learning to tap dance, ventriloquism, and ju-jitsu - whoopee cushions - joy bussers - rings - luminous photos - luminous paints - movie projectors - telescopes - field glasses - world's smallest candid cameras - bull dog fish hooks - and Japanese rose bushes.

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