You don't even have to be a Trekkie to appreciate the coolness of Texas Middle School teacher and avid mandolinist, Brian Altair and his New-MAD Carbon Fibre Mix A4 in space.

The 8-string astronaut posts, "This is me yesterday on NASA's C-9 "Weightless Wonder" (the more colorful nickname of this aircraft is not encouraged). I was with some teams of junior high and high school teachers demonstrating laws of motion (or in one experiment, determining mass without gravity) for use in science classrooms across the US. My team's experiment didn't take the entire 50 parabolas, so I got Peterson Tuners to donate a StroboFlip tuner, and I measured the effect of gravity on the tuning of my Mix A4. I'll tell you what I observed after a few of you posit hypotheses. I will tell you that I found if difficult to pick. The darn thing kept trying to float away!"

Of course the award-winning New Millennium Acoustic Design Mandolin was the perfect candidate for this flight. Space Age technology in Space; it's a natural.

Congratulations, Professor Altair! To infinity and beyond!

Summary and more pictures on the Mandolin Cafe Message Board

Read review of Mix A5

Posted by Ted at August 12, 2007 7:26 AM