The Challenger disaster was a devastating blow and prompted President Ronald Reagan to convene fourteen extraordinary specialists to investigate the cause of the accident. The result was the Rogers Commission, named for its chairman William P. Rogers, and included Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, physics Nobel laurate Richard Feynman, and mechanical engineer, Roger M. Boisjoly of Moron Thiokol, who had warned NASA of the uncertainty of the O-ring and its possible failure, which unfortunately came to fruition.

I remember when Voyagers 1 and 2 were launched by NASA in separate months in the summer of 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. As originally designed, they were to conduct closeup studies of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn’s rings, and the larger moons of the two planets. To accomplish their two-planet mission, the spacecraft were built to last five years. But as we see, they achieved all their objectives and then some!

Guess what the sun had for dinner this week? Give up? Okay, I’ll let you in on the story… Our local star ate a comet.

NASA’s orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory had been studying comet ATLAS S1 approach the sun, using its occulter to block out the light from our star’s disk and astronomers got to witness its last moments.

Ingredients
3 cans of Campbell’s beef broth (do not substitute)
3 cans of water
2-3 large onions coarsely chopped
8 ounces sherry cooking wine (I like Holland House)
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon sage
1 tablespoon (or more) extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter (unsalted preferred)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 package croutons
Mozzarella cheese shredded
Parmesan/Romano cheese shredded or Parmesan in jar