From Acceralator to Erection Day :-)
drt on Jan 30 2007 at 10:55 pm | Filed under: Space Flights
My son got a kick when he saw this sign somewhere in Tokyo with the words “Defend the children.” I also laughed at it when he told me the link. Indeed, the Japanese words ‘mamori’ or ‘mamoru’ means ‘to defend’ when it refers to “defend the country against the enemy.” However, as the Japanese words in the picture imply, I think it would be better to translate it as ‘(We) Protect the Children’. That is what the big Japanese words is saying, i.e., to protect the children (from harm or something to that effect.)
I remembered this picture, when someone sent me the following link on ‘Wish Upon the Moon’ campaign and I went to check that site. Here is what you can find there:
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch the lunar orbiter “SELENE” on a H-IIA Launch Vehicle from Tanegashima Space Center in the summer of 2007.
The SELENE is an artificial satellite that aims to collect closely featured scientific data on “The formation of the moon and its transitional history up to today,” which is the biggest lunar exploration project since the Apollo Project.
JAXA will accept from the public names and messages to deliver to the moon aboard the SELENE. Please send us your wishful messages.
There are also pictures of the size of the sheet (160mm x 282mm) where your message will be engraved, the location of the sheets in Selena, and the information on the size of the letters (35 micron per letter). You can also find these small prints:
* Your names and messages will be engraved on sheets and attached to the satellite. In order to carry as many messages as possible, we have set a limitation on the message length.
* We may publish your message on JAXA’s web page or send it to the media to help promote the campaign without informing you, so please understand this upon applying.
The first thing that caught my eyes are the label of the picture, the Acceralator Panel and Adopter Truss. Did you see that? I also curious, was that adopter or adaptor? I think in Japanese they’d say, a-dap(u)-ta in both cases.
Out of curiosity, I googled the word ‘acceralator’ and holy cow, there were 673 entries. Do we need to add that word to our dictionary? I then went to dictionary.com, but got a suggestion like the suggestion from Google asking me to try the words ‘accelerator’ or ‘Accelerator’. Of course, being a physicist/electrical engineer in my previous life, I definitely knew that. However, the word “acceralator” itself brought back some good old memory of my years as a graduate student living in the snow country of Hokkaido. The old jokes such as ‘today is erection day’ when people went to vote, or defend the children sign mentioned above came to mind when I saw the label of the panel. I tried to google the words ‘erection day’ and found this site with more humorous sentences there. However, after enjoying these jokes, please don’t forget to visit JAXA site and submit your message to be carried to the moon. Here are the “Application Details” as listed there:
Please apply by sending in the “name” and “message” you want to deliver to the moon aboard the SELENE.
Name: Under 10 Japanese characters (Under 20 letters in English)
Message Length: Under 20 characters (Under 40 letters in English)
By the way, please don’t forget:
Application Period: Friday, December 1, 2006 to Wednesday, February 28, 2007
How to apply: You can apply via the Internet.
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