Happy New Year, Everyone! 2012 looks to be an action-packed year in terms of sports, movies, politics, space exploration and—if you’re gonna buy into the hype, the end of the world. With sports, you can look forward to the XXX Olympic Summer Games taking place in London. With movies, you have huge summer blockbusters such as The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers waiting to storm into your local theater...with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings follow-up, Part 1 of The Hobbit, storming cinemas this winter. Oh, and don’t forget that Beauty and the Beast, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Titanic and Finding Nemo are returning to the multiplex as well, in 3-D. With politics, you have the U.S. presidential election taking place this November (we'll see if the slight improvements in the economy, the conclusion of the war in Iraq and last spring’s elimination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan will send Obama back to the White House).
With space exploration, you have SpaceX and a few other private companies finally launching commercially-made spacecraft into Earth orbit and to the International Space Station itself. Plus, the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia will finally receive the retired space shuttle Discovery in April while the California Science Center (in downtown Los Angeles...30 miles from where I currently live) will get Discovery’s sister ship Endeavour, also decommissioned, this August. Taking place in August as well will hopefully be the safe and successful landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.
I'm sure that all of you have things to look forward to this year as well (positive things—not Doomsday this December). Let them come to fruition. As for the Mayan calendar coming to an end on December 21: I hope it doesn't affect the box office take of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey too much...otherwise, Peter Jackson probably won’t be too thrilled. Just being facetious. That is all.
January 2012
-NASA's GRAIL-B spacecraft arrives at the Moon (Jan 1)
-BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans, Louisiana: LSU vs. Alabama (Jan 9)
-Contraband (Jan 13)
-Beauty and the Beast 3D (Jan 13)
-69th Annual Golden Globe Awards (Jan 15)
-Red Tails (Jan 20)
-Underworld: Awakening (Jan 20)
-The Grey (Jan 27)
-Near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros passes Earth at 16.6 million miles (Jan 31)
February 2012
-Super Bowl XLVI in Indiana (Feb 5)
- First flight of SpaceX’s Dragon ship to the International Space Station (Feb 7)
-Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D (Feb 10)
-Launch of Japan’s third H-2 Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station (Feb 18)
-54th Annual Grammy Awards (Feb 12)
-Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (Feb 17)
-This Means War (Feb 17)
-54th annual Daytona 500 in Florida (Feb 26)
-2012 NBA All-Star Game in Orlando, Florida (Feb 26)
-84th Academy Awards (Feb 26)
March 2012
-Launch of Europe’s third Automated Transfer Vehicle, Edoardo Amaldi, to the International Space Station (Mar 7)
-John Carter (Mar 9)
-2012 NCAA March Madness basketball tournament begins with Opening Round Game (Mar 13)
-21 Jump Street (Mar 16)
-The Hunger Games (Mar 23)
-Conclusion of the March Madness tournament prior to the 2012 Final Four games in New Orleans (Mar 24)
-Wrath of the Titans (Mar 30)
-2012 NCAA Final Four basketball tournament in New Orleans, Louisiana (Mar 31)
April 2012
-NCAA Final Four Championship Game in New Orleans, Louisiana (Apr 2)
-American Reunion (Apr 6)
-Titanic 3D (Apr 6)
-Retired space shuttle Discovery is transported to Washington, D.C. for permanent museum display (Apr 12)
-The Three Stooges (Apr 13)
-Space shuttle prototype Enterprise is transported to New York City for permanent museum display (Apr 17)
-NFL Draft (Apr 26-28)
May 2012
-The Avengers (May 4)
-Battleship (May 18)
-Annular solar eclipse over the Pacific Ocean (May 20)
-Men in Black III (May 25)
-Start of the 2012 French Open tennis tournament (May 27)
-96th Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (May 27)
June 2012
-The second and last solar transit of Venus of the century (Jun 6)
-Prometheus (Jun 8)
-Conclusion of the 2012 French Open (Jun 10)
-G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Jun 29)
-Start of the 2012 Tour de France (Jun 30)
July 2012
-The Amazing Spider-Man (Jul 3)
-2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Kansas City, Missouri (Jul 10)
-SpaceX’s Dragon ship launches cargo to the International Space Station (Jul 10)
-Start of the 2012 World Rowing Championships in Bulgaria (Jul 18)
-The Dark Knight Rises (Jul 20)
-Conclusion of the World Rowing Championships (Jul 21)
-Conclusion of the Tour de France (Jul 22)
-Opening Ceremony – XXX Olympic Summer Games of London (Jul 27)
-NASA’s Dawn spacecraft departs from asteroid Vesta and heads for dwarf planet Ceres (TBA)
August 2012
-The Bourne Legacy (Aug 3)
-Total Recall (Aug 3)
-Retired space shuttle Endeavour embarks on brief cross-country tour before arriving in Los Angeles for permanent museum display (Aug 4)
-NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover arrives at the Red Planet (Aug 5)
-Closing Ceremony – Olympic Summer Games (Aug 12)
-The Expendables 2 (Aug 17)
September 2012
-The 9/11 Memorial Museum is scheduled to open in New York City (Sep 11)
-Finding Nemo 3D (Sep 14)
-Resident Evil: Retribution (Sep 14)
-Dredd (Sep 21)
October 2012
-Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus freighter launches to the International Space Station (Oct 2)
-Taken 2 (Oct 5)
-Gangster Squad (Oct 19)
November 2012
-Red Dawn (Nov 2)
-United States presidential election (Nov 6)
-Skyfall (Nov 9)
-Total solar eclipse over Northern Australia and South Pacific (Nov 13)
-The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (Nov 16)
December 2012
-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Dec 14)
-The Mayan Long Count calendar ends...a.k.a. Doomsday (Dec 21)
-World War Z (Dec 21)
-This is Forty (Dec 21)
-The Great Gatsby (Dec 25)
-The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires (Dec 31)
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