Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetleju — let’s stop right there.
There are two more days till Halloween and Montreal is ready, meteorologically and otherwise.
After a chilly start to the week, the old bones get some relief Tuesday with a high of 13 C and a mix of sun and cloud. The UV index remains at an autumnal 2, or low, and the nighttime low will be 10 C with rain.
Meanwhile in outer space
China ays all systems are go to launch the next crew to its orbiting space station early Wednesday, the latest mission to make the country a major space power.
The two men and one woman will replace the astronauts who’ve lived on the Tiangong space station for the last six months.
The new mission commander, Cai Xuzhe, went to space in the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022, while the other two, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, are first-time space travellers both born in the 1990s.
The three appeared at a brief news conference Tuesday behind protective glass, declaring their intention to carry out their scientific projects on the space station and “bring pride to the fatherland.”
The Shenzhou-19 spaceship carrying the trio is due to launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China atop a Long March-2F rocket, the backbone of China’s crewed space missions. Launch time is set for 4:27 a.m., according to the space agency’s spokesperson Lin Xiqiang.
China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely due to the United States’ concerns over the program’s complete control by the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese Communist Party’s military arm.
Besides putting a space station into orbit, the space agency has landed an explorer on Mars. It aims to put a person on the moon before 2030, which would make China the second nation after the United States to do so. It also plans to build a research station on the moon.