I do one of these posts every year. But truth is, I have no idea how things will go this time around. I’m not a psychic. I don’t get supernatural messages from my canned asparagus or anything like that.
2020 was a wash in many different ways, but maybe 2021 will have a different vibe. Who knows what will happen, or what will be rescheduled? If everything goes according to plan…
Summer Olympics: Let’s Try This Again
The Summer Olympics are now scheduled to occur from July 23 to August 8, 2021, after being cancelled last year.
The cancellation was of particular note around these parts due to John Titor’s comments years ago about the Olympics. The dates are of course way off, but I’ve received more than a few emails from individuals who feel Titor’s “predictions” may still be in play, if only somewhat divergent.
I’ll admit: I sometimes feel like we’re lurching back toward his timeline, whatever that means. Consider checking out some of his old forum posts. And believe it or not, this is the 20th anniversary of Titor’s alleged appearance (and later disappearance) on our worldline.
More on that in March. Maybe.
CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Powers Up
After the Long Shutdown 2 (which began on December 10, 2018), the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland will begin circulating test beams in September 2021.
During its long sleep, the LHC has been undergoing upgrades to implement the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider project, set to be completed by 2026. The project will eventually buff up the collider’s luminosity by a factor of 10.
What will happen then? Well, things have been screwy ever since that whole Berenst#n Bears reality shift, and there are no end of weird stories involving CERN’s particle accelerator. Maybe jump us back into a more preferable universe?
Grand Egyptian Museum Opens
The Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, is scheduled to be completed later this year. Located in Cairo, Egypt, it’ll be the largest archaeological museum complex in the world, featuring more than 100,000 artifacts, including King Tut’s full treasure collection.
Plans for the GEM, also called the Giza Museum, began all the way back in 2002, when the first foundation stone was laid by then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The museum was originally scheduled to open last year.
Launch of the James Webb Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope will launch on an Ariane 5 rocket in 2021, possibly on Halloween. According to NASA, it will be “the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built and launched into space.”
NASA refers to the James Webb Telescope as a successor to Hubble, not a replacement. It’ll have longer wavelength coverage and improved sensitivity, allowing scientists to see farther into space and “closer to the beginning of time.”
“The longer wavelengths enable Webb to look much closer to the beginning of time and to hunt for the unobserved formation of the first galaxies, as well as to look inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today.”
Check here for a detailed comparison between the Hubble and Webb.
NASA’s Artemis I Mission to the Moon
NASA also intends to launch an unmanned test flight to the Moon in 2021, ahead of the manned Artemis II mission in 2023. It’s all leading up to Artemis III — landing actual humans on the Moon’s surface once again.
According to NASA, Artemis I, originally called Exploration Mission-I, will see an uncrewed Orion spacecraft venture about 63 miles above the surface of the Moon, and then about 40,000 miles beyond it. The spacecraft will then return to Earth. The mission will take about three weeks, with another to follow later on a different trajectory.
“Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before.”
