Good morning.

A mostly cloudy Sunday, with a high of seventy-four, awaits.

NASA recently launched a new moon probe, LADEE, and after a technical glitch now resolved, it’s on the way.

….LADEE moon mission, short for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, is aimed at studying the moon’s thin atmosphere and solving long-standing mysteries of the moon’s dust.

The atmosphere of the moon, known as an “exosphere,” is so thin that individual molecules don’t interact with each other. Similar environments have been seen on Mercury, the moons of outer planets in the solar system, as well as some asteroids, so scientists are hoping LADEE will help better understand these strange environments.

LADEE scientists also hope the mission will yield insights into the odd “lunar glow” spotted on the moon’s horizon by Apollo astronauts during NASA’s lunar landings in the 1960s and 1970s. The mission will also track how moon dust moves across the lunar surface, which is key interest because the abrasive stuff can stick to spacesuits and clog up systems on future moon vehicles and rovers.

LADEE will take about 30 days to reach the moon and spend 100 days performing its lunar atmosphere and dust mission. The spacecraft will also test a new laser communications system that NASA has billed as a kind of new “interplanetary Internet.”

At the end of its mission, LADEE will plummet down to the moon and crash into the lunar surface.

Here’s the liftoff:

On this day in 1958, a regulation ends:

1958 – Janesville Women Belly Up to the Bar
On this date the Janesville city council voted 4-2 to finally end a paternalistic and discriminatory ordinance that prohibited women from drinking at the bar. Since the end of Prohibition in 1933, women had been banned from being served while standing at the bar in Janesville taverns. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Good morning.

Saturday will be partly sunny, with a high of eighty-five, and a one-fifth chance of afternoon thundershowers. Sunrise was 6:26 AM, and sunset will be 7:19 PM. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5% of its visible disk illuminated.

What do the skies above Japan look like? They look like this:

Good morning.

Friday arrives as an increasingly sunny day, with a high of eighty-three.

On this day in 1915, Britain produces the first tank:

On this day in 1915, a prototype tank nicknamed Little Willie rolls off the assembly line in England. Little Willie was far from an overnight success. It weighed 14 tons, got stuck in trenches and crawled over rough terrain at only two miles per hour. However, improvements were made to the original prototype and tanks eventually transformed military battlefields.

The British developed the tank in response to the trench warfare of World War I. In 1914, a British army colonel named Ernest Swinton and William Hankey, secretary of the Committee for Imperial Defence, championed the idea of an armored vehicle with conveyor-belt-like tracks over its wheels that could break through enemy lines and traverse difficult territory. The men appealed to British navy minister Winston Churchill, who believed in the concept of a “land boat” and organized a Landships Committee to begin developing a prototype. To keep the project secret from enemies, production workers were reportedly told the vehicles they were building would be used to carry water on the battlefield (alternate theories suggest the shells of the new vehicles resembled water tanks). Either way, the new vehicles were shipped in crates labeled “tank” and the name stuck.

On September 6, 1998, a Wisconsin entertainer dies:

1998 – Tommy Bartlett Dies
On this date Wisconsin Dells showman, Tommy Bartlett died. Bartlett began his show business career at the age of 13 when he went to work at WISN, a radio station out of Milwaukee. By the age of 17 Bartlett was hosting a show at Chicago’s WBBM. During World War II, Bartlett was part of the Army Air Corps. After completing his service he worked for a short time as a pilot for Northwest Airlines. In 1952, The Tommy Bartlett Water Ski & Jumping Boat Thrill Show was born in Chicago. After a single performance in Wisconsin Dells, he was asked to locate the show permenently at the growing tourist destination. The performance became the Tommy Barlett Show which is still popular with tourists today. [Source: Tommy Bartlett Show]

Puzzability‘s current series for the week, entitled Labor Unions, ends today:

Labor Unions

We’re sure you can work this all out. For each day this Labor Day week, we started with the name of a TV character and his or her occupation. Each day’s clue shows the name and the occupation melded together in a string of letters, with each in order but intermingled with the other.

Example:

SAHNDEYRTAIYFLOFR

Answer: Andy Taylor/sheriff

What to Submit: Submit the character’s name and his or her occupation, in that order (as “Andy Taylor/sheriff” in the example), for your answer.

Here’s today’s puzzle:

Friday, September 6
DIVESNCJUSOFCLYKTERAPY

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with a high of seventy-four and east winds of 5 to 10 mph.

The Landmarks Commission meets tonight at 6 PM in the City Manger’s Secret Lair Conference Room, on the second floor of City Hall.

On this day in 1836, Texas elects a president:

….Sam Houston is elected as president of the Republic of Texas, which earned its independence from Mexico in a successful military rebellion….

Houston was appointed military commander of the Texas army.

Though the rebellion suffered a crushing blow at the Alamo in early 1836, Houston was soon able to turn his army’s fortunes around. On April 21, he led some 800 Texans in a surprise defeat of 1,500 Mexican soldiers under General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna at the San Jacinto River. Santa Anna was captured and brought to Houston, where he was forced to sign an armistice that would grant Texas its freedom. After receiving medical treatment for his war wounds in New Orleans, Houston returned to win election as president of the Republic of Texas on September 5. In victory, Houston declared that “Texas will again lift its head and stand among the nations….It ought to do so, for no country upon the globe can compare with it in natural advantages.”

Houston served as the republic’s president until 1838, then again from 1841 to 1844. Despite plans for retirement, Houston helped Texas win admission to the United States in 1845 and was elected as one of the state’s first two senators. He served three terms in the Senate and ran successfully for Texas’ governorship in 1859. As the Civil War loomed, Houston argued unsuccessfully against secession, and was deposed from office in March 1861 after refusing to swear allegiance to the Confederacy. He died of pneumonia in 1863.

Puzzability‘s series for the week is entitled, Labor Unions:

Labor Unions

We’re sure you can work this all out. For each day this Labor Day week, we started with the name of a TV character and his or her occupation. Each day’s clue shows the name and the occupation melded together in a string of letters, with each in order but intermingled with the other.

Example:

SAHNDEYRTAIYFLOFR

Answer:  Andy Taylor/sheriff

What to Submit: Submit the character’s name and his or her occupation, in that order (as “Andy Taylor/sheriff” in the example), for your answer.

Here’s today’s puzzle:

Thursday, September 5
CCOARLRUIEBMRANDSIHASWT