Jo and Bodi

Hubble Servicing Mission 4

2009-05-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

Well, the mission was a great success. I'll post some info on my Relative Navigation Sensors experiment at some point, but for now, you have to check out these pictures summarizing the mission. There are some incredible shots here.

Cosmos-Iridium Collision from AGI

2009-02-19T04:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to a cool movie from AGI of the recent satellite collision (Iridium w/ Cosmos). I particularly like the end, where they show all of the items in the database as green ellipsoids (I assume the size of the ellipsoids represent position uncertainty).

CitySweat Blog

2009-01-29T05:37:00.000-08:00

Jodi is fitness blogging. Check it out.

Anxious for spring

2009-01-29T04:48:00.000-08:00

I just finished Cat's Cradle, which I had actually read before but didn't remember it until about 50 pages in. Must not have made a conscious impact on me the first time. I loved it the second time though, and think it may have been what started my joking a couple years ago that I wanted to invent a religion. Worth checking out.

A couple lines a particularly liked:

Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.
"Certainly," said man.
"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.
And He went away.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before... He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

And the last rights of Bokononism (the made up religion in Cat's Cradle):

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait…
To find out for certain what my wampeter* was…
And who was in my karass**…
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

Overdue update to the reading list

2009-01-19T16:48:00.001-08:00

Anyone read any good books lately? I guess I haven't updated my reading list in about two and a half years, so here's all that I've read (that I can remember):

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steal - Loved it... non-fiction... been told it's a bit dry at places, which I guess I agree with

Orson Scott Card, The Worthing Saga - I always enjoy reading Orson Scott Card, even it if it's never as good as Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. That said, something about his philosophy that rubs off in his writing and alters my mental outlook in a way I don't necessarily enjoy. Someone smarter than me could probably explain it (please do!)

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha - introspective, interesting, a quick read, in the Buddhist direction. I liked it.

Arthur C. Clarke, 2001 A Space Odyssey - kinda surprised it's the first time I ever read it. I enjoyed it.

Stephen W. Hawking, The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe - I pick a Hawking book up every now and then. I guess I get a little more every time, but don't ever really love to read them.

Alan Shepard, Deke Slayton, Moon Shot - interesting, especially given my profession, but not a great read.

Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild - I love Krakauer, and this is a good read. Haven't seen the movie yet, but I like how Krakauer presented Christopher McCandless as not just dumbass who went unprepared into the Alaskan wilderness (which seems to be the general opinion of him.)

Dan Brown, Deception Point - I liked the Da Vinci Code, so I figured I'd give Dan another shot. This was a popcorn novel. I enjoyed it, but seems like we should be reading stuff with a bit more substance, no?

Cormac McCarthy, The Road - Picked this one up at BWI airport on my way out of town. Or was it at Omaha on the way home? Can't remember. Nah, must have been BWI, Carole would not have sent me home from Sioux Falls with nothing to read! I actually enjoyed this one, read it very quickly. Not sure I'd recommend it, but it makes you think about what might happen if the Yellowstone caldera erupted or the big on hit...

David McCullough, John Adams - Awesome. Watching the HBO series now. So far, I wouldn't want to watch the series without reading the book.

Stephen A. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage - The Lewis and Clark story. A good read.

J.K. Rowling, The first 3 books of the Harry Potter series - I put off reading these for quite a while, until my sister threatened to disown me. She was right. I love them. Now the challenge is not reading them too quickly (and spending time with my wife even if I have one here that I haven't finished.)

Well, guess that's it. I'm sure there were others, but that's all I remember and can find laying around...

Best of Science Blogs

2009-01-08T12:44:00.001-08:00

Being a dyed in the wool dork, I enjoyed checking out the best science blogs of 2008. I enjoyed these three in particular: Bad Astonomy, Real Climate , and 60-Second Science.

The Next Hubble

2009-01-07T05:01:00.000-08:00

The folks at Hubblesite have created a new web site for Hubble's successor, The James Webb Space Telescope. Check out both pages.

NASA TV Interview

2008-03-02T14:22:00.001-08:00

Here's some footage from NASA TV of the testing we did down at the Marshall Space Flight Center in November and December. Chapter 2 is an interview describing the testing (Top Video), so watch it first (and don't get too excited... this is engineering as advertised by NASA, after all.) Chapter 1 is the bottom video shows a bit of the testing underway.

Virgin Galactic unveils Space Ship Two

2008-01-25T16:57:00.000-08:00

Yay! Check out the movie on the VG website.

Tickets are just $200K... sign me up!

"Where is New Horizons?"

2008-01-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

This image shows New Horizons' current position. The green segment of the line shows where New Horizons has traveled since launch; the red indicates the spacecraft's path toward Jupiter, Pluto and beyond

Where should mankind go next?

2008-01-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting piece discussing what the nation's priorities ought to be in space. I think there are motivations to go the moon, but I've always thought a trip to an asteroid would be far more interesting. I also like the discussion of making JWST (the next great space telescope) serviceable...

2008 Year in Review

2008-01-21T12:03:00.000-08:00

Here's our second annual year in review... enjoy!

Kitchen progress

2007-05-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

Here's what we're up to right now...

Orbital Express Videos

2007-05-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

Orbital Express is a cool DARPA/NASA/Boeing sponsored mission to demonstrate autonomous rendezvous and docking and on-orbit servicing. A couple weeks ago I went down to Albuquerque to watch the "Scenario 1-1" experiment. I'll be back in a couple more weeks for one of the later experiments.

Here is the DARPA website that provides updates on Orbital Express:

Here is the link to the Boeing website on Orbital Express:

There are some ‘videos’ and animation links on the right side of these pages.

A new perspective on the Big Dipper

2007-03-06T13:39:00.000-08:00

Follow the link to see a newly released set of Hubble Space Telescope images. The image covers a region "no bigger on the sky than the apparent width of your finger held at arm's length" and includes "at least 50,000 galaxies".

Amazing stuff...

Orbiting Junk... courtesy of Bejing

2007-02-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

An interesting piece on the orbital debris environment, and how the recent Chinese Anti-satellite test may change it.

A Rocket To Nowhere

2007-01-25T05:04:00.000-08:00

My mom sent me these pictures (source unknown), of the Shuttle (STS-115) launch in December, and supposedly taken from onboard ISS, so I went looking to see where they really came from (apparently they are from a NASA WB-57F Ascent Video Experiment airplane). Well, this search lead me to here, where I found a link to an interesting essay on the worthlessness of the space shuttle and international space station.

Not saying I completely agree, but there are some points that can't be denied, and this is a very well written summary of manned space exploration in the US. Here's a few excerpts I particularly enjoyed...

On the "Exploration" motivation for manned space flight (and the fact that we haven't left low earth orbit in 30 years):

But NASA dismisses such helpful suggetions as unworthy of its mission of 'exploration', likening critics of manned space flight to those Europeans in the 1500's who would have cancelled the great voyages of discovery rather than face the loss of one more ship.

Of course, the great explorers of the 1500's did not sail endlessly back and forth a hundred miles off the coast of Portugal, nor did they construct a massive artificial island they could repair to if their boat sprang a leak.

Ane on sending humans to do a computer's job:

Meanwhile, while the Shuttle has been up on blocks, a wealth of unmanned probes has been doing exactly the kind of exploration NASA considers so important, except without the encumbrance of big hairless monkeys on board. And therein lies another awkward fact for NASA. While half the NASA budget gets eaten by the manned space program, the other half is quietly spent on true aerospace work and a variety of robotic probes of immense scientific value. All of the actual exploration taking place at NASA is being done by unmanned vehicles. And when some of those unmanned craft fail, no one is killed, and the unmanned program is not halted for three years.

Over the past three years, while the manned program has been firing styrofoam out of cannons on the ground, unmanned NASA and ESA programs have been putting landers on Titan, shooting chunks of metal into an inbound comet, driving rovers around Mars and continuing to gather a variety of priceless observations from the many active unmanned orbital telescopes and space probes sprinkled through the Solar System. At the same time, the skeleton crew on the ISS has been fixing toilets, debugging laptops, changing batteries, and speaking to the occasional elementary school over ham radio

Kind of a long read, but I enjoyed it...

Jodi and Bo's Year in Review

2007-01-07T09:38:00.000-08:00

Remembering 2006... (follow link above for some pics)

Titan Has Liquid Lakes, Scientists Report in Nature

2007-01-04T05:37:00.000-08:00

Scientists think Titan has lakes of liquid methane, possibly "filled through methane rainfall." The Cassini probe, currently in orbit around Saturn, has done some cool stuff.

(Picture Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS)

A very Journey Christmas

2006-12-17T07:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice clip of Ryan table dancing to Journey. Nice mustache, dude!

We are the champions

2006-11-20T08:26:00.000-08:00

Our SOBO football team was crowned champions of the "Medium Core" league on Saturday. Go us! (follow the link to the champs).

Improv Everywhere

2006-11-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

This is pure genious. I just spent about an hour on the Improv Everywhere web page.

Here are the "missions" I checked out...

Best Buy
Millionaire

I'll leave the rest to your random wandering...

The Prodigal Returns

2006-11-12T07:55:00.000-08:00

I guess Bush senior is picking up the pieces for his son... This article (from Newsweek) is an interesting discussion of 41 vs 43. I've been annoyed by W's insistance that a vote for Dems is a vote for terrorists. It turns out it's actually a vote for his father!

The American people, as politicians like to say, spoke last week—and spoke in no uncertain terms. The 2006 vote does not suggest an eagerness for a sharp left turn. It seems, rather, to be a plea for a shift from the hard right of the neoconservatives to the center represented by the old man in Houston. The re-emergence of Iraq Study Group voices such as Baker, Gates and Alan Simpson—all longtime friends of Bush Senior—is not unlike the entrance of Fortinbras at the conclusion of "Hamlet." These are 41's men, and the removal of Rumsfeld—an ancient rival of Bush Senior's from the Ford days—is a move toward the broad middle. The apparent triumph of pragmatism over ideology on Iraq was welcome news, at least to the public. In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, 67 percent favor Bush Senior's internationalist approach to foreign policy over his son's more unilateral course

Another awesome picture

2006-10-30T09:55:00.000-08:00

This one is of Venus and the Moon, from Earth, in the daytime! (via NASA Watch)

OxymorRun

2006-10-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

We have a "Fun Run" here every six months. I call it the "OxymoRun". Most folks participate in the 2 miler, and a few participate in the 10K a week later. My goal since I got here has been to complete the two mile race in under 14 minutes without training. I finally made it this year, with a time of 13:58 (of course, my official time is 14:00 because the timer was a bit slow). Here are my official results:

2Mi. Results:
Place: 22(overall) 4(25-29 age group) Time: 14:00

10K Results:
Place: 20(overall) Time: 51:16

Great picture of Sun, Atlantis, and ISS

2006-09-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

Wow. You gotta have a look at this picture.

Space Ship Two

2006-09-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

As someone who's flown on the KC-135 "Weightless Wonder" (aka The Vomet Comet), believe me when I say that zero-g is awesome. If I had a sh*tload of money, I would defintely give this ride some consideration. Of course, as an engineer, I'd probably also let them make a few dry runs before I trusted 'em.

Passengers will have several minutes of weightlessness during the spaceflight, and then have about 40 seconds to return to their seats...

Imogen Heap

2006-09-27T06:35:00.000-07:00

Chris says:

...when you have a free moment preferably late at night when all is dark point your browser to Imogen Heap's myspace page and listen to Hide and Seek. play it loud and don't listen to the words just listen. then listen again, and maybe one more time...

Fox News?

2006-09-26T13:56:00.001-07:00

John Stewart on Fox News and the use of the question mark, brilliant.

Science and Exploration

2006-09-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin gave a speech at Goddard Space Flight Center last week. Unfortunately I was too busy to get over and see it. The link above points to the text version of the speech. Mike made some good points about the role of Science at NASA (since W's Vision for Space Exploration was released, there has been significant concern at NASA and in the science community that Exploration initiatives would steal all the funding from Science.)

Anyone interested in space, and whether/why humans should travel beyond low Earth orbit should have a look. Here's an excerpt (via SpaceRef)...

So a key point must be made: Exploration without science is not "tourism". It is far more than that. It is about the expansion of human activity out beyond the Earth. Exactly this point was very recently noted and endorsed by no less than Stephen Hawking, a pure scientist if ever there was one. Hawking joins those, including the Chairman of the NASA Advisory Council, who have long pointed out this basic truth: The history of life on Earth is the history of extinction events, and human expansion into the Solar System is, in the end, fundamentally about the survival of the species. So to me exploration is, in and of itself, equally as noble a human endeavor as is scientific discovery.

PMJ2

2006-08-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

Back to the Pluto thing. NasaWatch chimed in with this point:

IAU's definition 5A just passed - the one that excludes Pluto as a planet. It also excludes Earth and Jupiter because their zones are not cleared (NEOs, Trojans, respectively).

The scientists obviously know about the NEOs (Near Earth Objects, I believe, which are asteroids in orbits that intersect Earth's orbit) and the Trojans (objects in Jupiter's Lagrange points, which are by definition significantly influenced by Jupiter's gravitational attraction.) Obviously this resolution is a bit too vague, unless they've defined "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit" to mean cleared of objects that are not significantly influenced by its gravitational attraction. Either way, seems to me that NASAWatch is just being argumentative, instead of helping the (often confused) media understand the true meaning of the resolution. Thanks for providing such a valuable service, Keith!

Pretty obvious I don't care about this planet mumbo jumbo, isn't it!?!

Planet Mumbo-Jumbo

2006-08-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Lots of talk recently about what a planet is. I'm mostly bored by the discussion, because it's an argument on semantics for most people (except for the scientists who need to classify things). The one aspect of it that amuses me is this contradiction that I saw in a bunch of places (newsday CNN ABC News):

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.

This based on the recent IAU resolution 5 (below). So here's my question: based on the above logic, wouldn't Neptune also be disqualified since Pluto overlaps with its orbit? I suppose they (the media) phrased it this way because they figured (1)(c) below is too confusing for most people to understand. What does "has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit" mean, anyway? I think the IAU knows what it meant. I'm curious whether Neptune had anything to do with them not calling Pluto a planet. I think not (seems to me that Pluto's moon Charon, or other nearby objects might have something to do with it).

RESOLUTION 5A
The IAU therefore resolves that planets and other bodies in our Solar System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:
(1) A planet1 is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
(2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape2, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
(3) All other objects3 orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".

(see the rest of the resolutions here)

As my old man would say...

2006-08-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

AH, ya dummy Naasz!

I won a dumbshit award yesterday. I was playing street hockey and jumped over part of a fence. Unfortunately, I tripped over the other part. Twisted my knee up some. Hopefully it will go away in time for me to play in a ball hockey tournament this weekend in Ocean City, MD.

Lookout Hokies!

2006-08-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Suspected cop killer shuts Virginia Tech campus

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (AP) -- Virginia Tech shut down its campus Monday and ordered everyone to remain inside as authorities searched for an escaped inmate suspected of killing a hospital guard and a sheriff's deputy.

My Pandora internet radio station

2006-08-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

Pandora is a pretty cool internet radio site. It builds a radio station for you based on your artist/song inputs, playing music that has the same characteristics as the ones you enjoy. Mine tend to include "major key tonality", "acoustic guitar", "string solos", etc. The list goes on and on, but every time I see it, I think, "yeah, that is what I like". Well, give it a shot and see if you agree. Here's a link to my favorite station.

To immediately listen to this music station I've created (named "Dar Williams Radio") simply click on this link or copy and paste it into your Internet browser:

http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh92154544887126537

This station plays on Pandora, a music listening and discovery service. Pandora enables users to easily create streaming stations that explore their favorite parts of the music universe. When you click on the link, you'll automatically receive a free no-questions-asked trial so you can listen to this station--and create some more of your own.

Enjoy!

Allen Telescope Array

2006-08-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

Still reading this one, but think it warrants a look:

This new instrument which – when completed – will brandish 350 antennas, can speed up the search for signals from other societies by hundreds of times and more. Compared to earlier efforts, it will turn SETI on its metal ear. We're not talking about the difference between a Lexus and a Toyota; we're talking about the difference between a Lexus and an oxcart.

In the next two dozen years, the Allen Telescope Array will parse the nearest thousand light-years of space. If there are other occupants of this galactic neighborhood, we could turn up a signal.

But then what? Would the discovery be put under wraps, either voluntarily or by government edict? If we found a signal, would you know?

FINALLY!

2006-08-16T10:46:00.000-07:00

College football is officially here, boyz and girls! So say the guys at Tailgate Fever. Go Hokies!

The outlook is good for us this year. Bud Foster may not be scored on all season. The man is a genius. It’s Socrates, Plato, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Foster. End of discussion. Oh, and those two guys from Guinness.

Google's gift

2006-08-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

Google is cool.

Google is about to give its hometown a wonderful gift: a municipal wireless network covering the entire city of Mountain View, with free Internet access for both residents and visitors.

Rinsing the sponge

2006-08-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

I don't remember which of my friends I first heard use the expression, "Rinsing the Sponge", but I think it may have been T Rice. I decided yesterday to see if anyone else uses that expression, and found a number of hits on housecleaning, and a couple others that I won't mention, but nothing about my intended meaning: a brief hiatus in consumption of alcoholic beverages to allow the liver to recover. Usually this act occurs after a particularly painful overindulgence, and includes almost excessive consumption of good old H20.

The Grapes of Wrath

2006-08-04T22:18:00.000-07:00

I finished reading the Grapes of Wrath a couple weeks ago. I expected it to be a difficult read, but was, for the most part, entertained. Having finished, now I think it's a tough read. What a strange ending. Certainly are a couple of interesting topics in there, though: the generosity of the poor and the greed of the wealthy; "the bitter conflict between the powerful and the powerless"; man's basic need for work. I've been looking for a reference to this third theme, but haven't found one. It seems that the other ideas are more important to people. For some reason, though, I focused on the way the men in the story were all but worthless when they didn't have work. There's a particular passage (can't find it now) that struck my fancy, dealing with how important a man's work is to him; how it's a part of him, makes him whole or something. Oh well, can't find it.

For some reason I've done a lot of other reading (at least for me) this summer. Here's my current list, starting in late June:

Read:
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Orson Scott Card, Seventh Son (Book 1, The tales of Alvin Maker)
Orson Scott Card, Red Prophet (Book 2)
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Orson Scott Card, Prentice Alvin (Book 3)
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Orson Scott Card, Alvin Journeyman (Book 4)
Orson Scott Card, Heartfire (Book 5)

Currently reading:
Sylvia Naser, Beautiful Mind

Zindane: (verb)

2006-08-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

What an idoit...

Check out this cool game.

The definition of Zidane from the Urban Dictionary:

1) (name) Captain of the French National Football team during the World Cup 2006. Apparently has a sister involved in not-so-Catholic activities. We know nothing about his mother.

2) (verb) to zidane someone/something: Irrational act of head butting during a crucial moment and being caught in the act by a third-party.

3) (verb) to go zidane: Act of accusing people of saying "bad things" about you and your family and not having the balls of saying what those exact words are to the media, leaving millions of fans in limbo and frustrated.

Judge: Defendant how do you explain your actions?

Defendant: Your honour, I was full of rage. He said bad things about my momma. The only thing I can think of was to zidane him in the nuts.

Judge: What did he say exactly?

Defendant: Bad words. I can't repeat.

Judge: Don't you go zidane on me!!!

And speaking of Chuck Palahniuk

2006-08-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

If you like non-stop entertainment in your fictional reading, and don't mind a dark story-line from time to time, I highly recommend the following books by Chuck: Fight Club, Survivor, Invisible Monsters, and all the rest except Haunted, which I didn't much care for (but in Chuck's defense, I also never finished reading... got bored and a little too grossed out).

If you like to read the book before you see the movie, it sounds like you'd better pick up a copy of Choke, Survivor, and Invisible Monsters, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed, and all of which could be coming to a theatre near you...

Fight Club

2006-08-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to decide how I feel about this article (via DrudgeReport). Apparently some high school kids are organizing fight clubs, like in one of the greatest movies ever made. It sounds like most of the fighters are willing participants, but it seems the rules have changed a bit from "don't talk about fight club": they're actually making and selling videos of the fights. Also, it sounds like the Project Mahem aspect of Fight Club the movie is being taken up by Fight Club the reality.

Anyway, if you've read any of Chuck Palahniuk's books, this quote won't surprise you:

Chuck Palahniuk, author of the cult 1996 novel Fight Club that was the basis for the 1999 movie, declined an interview request but said, "God bless these kids. I hope they're having a great time. I don't think they'd be doing it if they weren't having a great time."

40 seconds is a long time

2006-07-27T07:35:00.000-07:00

I've talked to some folks, and seen some blog posts from folks who are comforted by the fact that North Korea's recent launch attempt only lasted 40 seconds. The best was the Daily Show's "Taepodong is not a funny name" video (which I can't find, now).

I for one am not comforted. I commented a while back on some launch failures. It turns out that almost every launch vehicle's maiden launch ended in flames. There are a few exceptions, but most of them had a failure at some point.

Well, anyway, even the veteran Russians have had some failures of late. So don't be fooled into thinking that just because Kim Jung Il is a dope, his engineers are, too...

By the way, check out this Russian (maybe-not) failure:

Launched skyward on June 21 atop a Russian sub-launched Volna rocket, the spacecraft may have actually made it into Earth orbit.

From wikipedia:

The launch took place from Delta III Submarine "Borisoglebsk," in the Barentz Sea. The spacecraft failed to reach orbit after stage one shut down prematurely at 82.86 seconds instead of the expected 100 seconds. The failure was attributed to “critical degradation in operational capability of the engine turbo-pump”. The second and third stage did not separate and the payload did not reach orbit.

I mean, they launched a satellite from a ballistic missle submarine. How cool is that?

"Star Spangled" Launch

2006-07-27T05:58:00.000-07:00

I commented before on Discovery's July 4th return to flight launch. Here's a new composite video of the launch, with views from cameras on the Solid Rocket Boosters (those white rockets that are jettisoned first), and a view from the External Tank (the big red thing that they've been having all that foam trouble on).

I like this video because of the perspective it gives on all three of the jettisoned pieces of the launch. Too bad there isn't a fourth view from somewhere on the shuttle.

If you get bored, make sure you fast forward to about 7.5 minutes in to see the SRBs splashdown (watch for the parachute's shadow on the ocean), and then watch the rest to see the ET jettison.

The Fun Also Rises

2006-07-07T07:46:00.000-07:00

This weekend Dewey Beach-goers will participate in the "10th Running of the Bull -- Just One -- With Apologies to Hemingway". I like this quote:

"If Hemingway was right . . . and you should 'always do sober what you said you'd do drunk,' " McDonnell wrote on their beach house Web site, "then doesn't it also follow that you should always do drunk what you swore you'd never do sober?"

Read, and then go to Dewey and run with the bulls.

The rocket's red glare

2006-07-07T06:10:00.000-07:00

Discover has safely rendezvoused with the International Space Station, and is in the process of attaching the Leonardo module to the ISS. I didn't see the rocket's red glare (I was in the midst of a Tucson-Phoenix-Prescott-Vegas trip), but I assume the folks in south Florida had quite a Fourth of July fireworks display.

Here's an interesting discussion about the launch, and whether Shuttle and ISS are worth the risk of human life. A few quick highlights:

At least two key personnel had given a “no-go” authorization at the recent [Discovery] Flight Readiness Review. One of them was Bryan O’Connor, the Associate Administrator for Safety and Mission Assurance, who (as his title indicates) is responsible for flight safety and reliability. The other was chief engineer. Mike Griffin, the NASA administrator, overruled them and made a decision to fly.

So NASA got a lot of flack for going ahead with the launch, and an important question came up: Is ISS worth it?

...no matter how much more time and money is spent in trying to reduce the risk, “safe” will always be a relative, not an absolute term.

Space travel is not safe. Everyone knows that. So why does everyone get so upset when astronauts die? Here's an interesting (and think correct) theory:

What upset people so much about the deaths in Columbia, I think, was not that they died, but that they died in such a seemingly trivial yet expensive pursuit. They weren’t exploring the universe—they were boring a multi-hundred-thousand-mile-long hole in the vacuum a couple hundred miles above the planet, with children’s science-fair experiments. We were upset because space isn’t important, and we considered the astronauts’ lives more important than the mission. If they had been exploring another hostile, alien planet, and died, we would have been saddened, but not shocked ... we would have mourned, but also been inured to their loss as true national heroes in the service of their country (and planet).

Unfortunately, I'm not sure anything can be done to inspire the public more. Space travel is going to take a lot of slow years to become a reality. Those years will require engineers to solve thousands of seemingly boring, unimportant problems. The fact that American's aren't interested is hardly surprising, if you ask me.

The President's New Helicopter

2006-05-08T11:44:00.000-07:00

Do we really need to be spending 6.1 billion dollars on some new helicopters for the president? I mean, isn't that a bit much? I guess driving a car to one of his two $325 million dollar (each), $56800 per hour airplanes got to be too expensive, what with gas prices being so high.

I hear the CEO of Walmart doesn't even fly first class (ie, he sits where the people that pay his salary sit). From now on, I'm only voting for the presidential candidate that takes the carpool lane.

NASA and Partners Release New Movies of Titan

2006-05-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

This new video from Saturn's moon Tital is way cool. I don't know what all the "bells and whistles" mean, but I like 'em.

Carpool, stupid

2006-04-23T19:57:00.000-07:00

Man I wish I could walk to work. Unfortunately, work is 30 miles away. OK, the title of this post should be "Live close to work, stupid", but for an unfortunately large number of us, that either isn't an option, or for some reason just isn't desireable. I could explain why that's true for me, but that isn't the point of this rant, so I will move on. When I drive to work I carpool. I carpool as often as I can. I am a bit of a carpool whore. I give up playing company softball, and happy hour with my colleagues all the time (unless I can convince my fellow carpoolers to participate) because I'd rather share the expense, driving, and most importantly boredom of sitting in traffic with someone other than the local radio traffic guy.

I go out of my way to carpool. So when I see newslines about gas pricing being high, when I read reports of traffic problems in the city, I am always annoyed that those articles never mention the most obvious solution. We could cut our consumption in half immediately if everyone decided to "inconvenience" themselves, to agree to arrange their schedule around one other person, and carpool. Imagine the affect that would have gas prices, not to mention your daily drive time. Hello reporters? Hello politicians? Hello miserable (stupid) people sitting in a car by yourself every morning?

On your way to work tomorrow, try to notice how many people are in the cars you pass. Ever see more than one person in the car next to you? Not really.

Rant over. You get my point.

Falcon I Launch Fails

2006-03-25T08:46:00.001-08:00

SpaceRef is reporting that the maiden launch of the Falcon I rocket has failed. The future of space exploration will have to wait a few more months, I suppose. Hopefully this won't be too much of a setback. They don't call it rocket science for nothin'...
SpaceRef reports:

The Falcon I rocket was launched today at 5:30 pm EST from Omelek Island and climbed upward for around a minute.
On board video failed less than a minute into the flight.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's Vice President for Business Development, has confirmed that the rocket has been lost.
Just before the onboard camera went dead the webcam pointing back at Earth (see below) seemed to show some gyration of the vehicle.

SpaceX Reports:

Falcon 1 Maiden Flight Update: Posted March 24, 2006 3:00 pm
We had a successful liftoff and Falcon made it well clear of the launch pad, but unfortunately the vehicle was lost later in the first stage burn. More information will be posted once we have had time to analyze the problem.

---Elon

Sounds like the vehicle started to lose control and the launch safety official hit the self-destruct button (or the vehicle self-destructed on it's own). I surfed around and found some other recent rocket failures:

12 March, 2000: Sea Launch Fails to Deliver ICO Satellite

"I can only express sincere regret to Hughes and ICO for this event," [Sea Launch president and general manager, Wilbur] Trafton said. "Weve got a good rocket and weve got a great team, and as someone once said, this business is not for the faint of heart."

Maiden Launch Failures:
Ariane 5 Flight 501 Failure

On 4 June 1996, the maiden flight of the Ariane 5 launcher ended in a failure. Only about 40 seconds after initiation of the flight sequence, at an altitude of about 3700 m, the launcher veered off its flight path, broke up and exploded.
...
Ignition of the Vulcain engine and the two solid boosters was nominal, as was lift-off. The vehicle performed a nominal flight until approximately H0 + 37 seconds. Shortly after that time, it suddenly veered off its flight path, broke up, and exploded. A preliminary investigation of flight data showed:
...
The origin of the failure was thus rapidly narrowed down to the flight control system and more particularly to the Inertial Reference Systems, which obviously ceased to function almost simultaneously at around H0 + 36.7 seconds.

Dec 21, 2004 : Boeing Delta IV Heavy Achieves Major Test Objectives in First Flight
or did it?
Delta IV Heavy Launch Failure Investigation Continues

Of course there are plenty of other examples (the launch success rate for most space-capable nations is at about 90%.)

UPDATE:
Fuel leak blamed for rocket failure

SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who also co-founded the PayPal Inc. electronic payment system now owned by eBay, wrote on his Web site earlier this month: "No major surprises were uncovered in the course of the investigation." The company plans two more Falcon launches this year, according to its Web site.

NY St. Pat's chairman compares gays to neo-Nazis

2006-03-22T05:29:00.000-08:00

"If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow neo-Nazis into their parade? If African-Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?" Dunleavy was quoted as saying.

The main difference being that the two groups he refers to lynched and murdered hundreds to millions of people, while the group he banned just loved each other...

150 Places To Live Rich

2006-03-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

I like the sound of this idea (from Forbes):

We've all heard about the wonders of the broadband Web. You can stream video, surf at lightning speeds, search for God-knows-what, get your e-mail in a blink. Here's what you may not know: It can let you live far richer than you probably live now.

Let me explain: For most of us, our biggest expense is the monthly mortgage payment that buys our house. The median house in America costs $210,000. Let's put in a new kitchen, redo the bathrooms and place the house in a good school district. Bingo, $300,000. For this money, you'll get a 2,300-square-foot house on a quarter-acre.

Does $300,000 sound cheap or expensive to you? Depends entirely on where you live, right? You'd say ridiculously cheap if you happen to live in Boston, New York, Washington, the Florida coasts or anywhere in California.

What if you want to live in a grander fashion? Say a 4,000-square-foot house on an acre.

What would that cost you? In Palo Alto, Calif., Greenwich, Conn., Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown or San Diego's La Jolla, easily $4 million. In just as lovely Bend, Ore., where the sky is blue and dry, the Deschutes River trout jump year round and Mt. Bachelor winter powder is bitchin’, maybe $700,000. You'll get more than an acre, too.

I guess I've got a few more years in the rat race before I can afford that $700K thing, though...

UPDATE:

I went ahead and read more, and found out I already live in one of the 150 places to live rich!

Bohemian Bargains:

Baltimore, MD
City Population: 651,000
Metro Population: 2.6 million
House Price: $369,000

Baltimore got its groove back, baby. Pride sparkles in the bold designs of the skyscrapers and museums that surround the Inner Harbor, boast civic leaders. You can see it in the smiles of Little Italy's restaurant hosts and in buffed-up neighborhoods such as Fells Point. Baltimore also boasts the second-highest concentration of professional and technical workers in the United States. The city is a price bargain compared to nearby Washington, D.C.

NASA's Cassini Discovers Potential Liquid Water on Enceladus

2006-03-10T05:27:00.001-08:00

This image from the Cassini-Huygens Multimedia Collection, JPL/NASA, may show evidence of liquid water on Saturn's moon Enceladus. This is, of course, a major discovery, since scientists have always been able to find life wherever liquid water exists (on Earth, anyway).

NASA's Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about the mysterious moon.

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion -- that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."

The future of space exploration?

2006-03-08T05:53:00.000-08:00

Us space types have had our eye on the new Falcon 1 launch vehicle from SpaceX for quite a while. The maiden launch is tentatively scheduled for March 21-25, after a few months of troubleshooting on the pad.

SpaceX is one of those new-fangled aerospace companies trying to provide cheaper access to space. Founded by Elon Musk of PayPal (sold to Ebay for $1.5 Billion) and Zip2 (sold to Compaq for $307 Million) fame, SpaceX is "Revolutionizing Access to Space" by providing, among other things, "a long term reduction in cost by a factor of ten."

In addition to their new launch vehicle designs (photo above), SpaceX is designing the Dragon, a vehicle that could become "America's First Privately Financed Manned Orbital Spacecraft."

Great Baltimore happy hour specials site

2006-02-17T16:16:00.000-08:00

OK, maybe I'm biased... this page has been a hobby of a couple friends (Nat and Brent) and I for the past year or so. It is an awesome source for information on food and drink specials in Baltimore. Want to know where to go out in this fine city? Well, fortunately the Barbeerian research team is out on the streets scoping out specials so you don't have to pay an arm and leg for a decent beer and a meal. Check it out.

Am I biased? Nah, this site rocks.

Blogger Virgin

2006-02-10T17:07:00.000-08:00

Here I am. I am admittedly a blogging virgin. From what I've witnessed I'm just supposed to write what's on my mind. So here goes. I am in the final frustrating stage of openning my business where I'm ready to open but the city won't let me yet. There is nothing more frustrating than relying on other people who don't share your sense of urgency. At any rate, it's not worth getting upset about. So at this point you can check out the website for Charm City Fitness that our friend put together for us...

Revenge of the bull

2006-02-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

At least two people are being treated in hospital in Mexico City after a bull leapt into a crowd during a bullfight. The half-ton bull - named Pajarito or Little Bird - breached the safety barrier and landed on the fans. The rampage ended when a fight participant entered thestand and killed the animal with his sword.

Consumption Junction...

2006-01-07T23:00:00.000-08:00

... has found the main vein where great local, and indy music is concerned. We spent the evenning with our friends Ryan (CJ blogger), Tom, and Jill, eating yellowtail and salmon at the newest Mt. Vernon sushi bar (oops, can't remember what it's called), drinking beer and eating pizza at one of Mt Vernon's coolest bars, hanging out, and finally decided to grab some new music from his blog. So far, I'm a fan...

Rate it? Drink it!

2006-01-06T20:14:00.000-08:00

OK, I don't know a thing about beer, except that I like to drink it, and on occassion brew it. The folks at ratebeer seem to revere the frothy stuff at a level far beyond my comprehension. Not that I don't enjoy it, but I guess I'm not the type to analize stuff to the most minute of details. Anyway, my favorite local brew these days is from Brewer's Art. Here's a sample review of their most popular brew, Ressurection, from RateBeer:

3.2 Aroma Appearance Flavor Palate Overall
6/10 3/5 7/10 3/5 13/20
Hazy amber body with minimal off-white head. Aroma is medium sweet, herbal hoppy, nutty. Taste is herbal hoppy, nutty, medium sweet, light otange. Medium body.

Maybe it's just me, but shouldn't they comment on whether they liked it or not? I, for one, like it... a lot.

Thin, hun?

2006-01-06T09:38:00.000-08:00

Need to lose weight? Move to Baltimore!

"Baltimore Is Named America's Fittest City", Washington Post (via Drudge Report):

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore has been named America's fittest city, with Chicago overtaking Houston as the fattest. Last year's fittest city, Seattle, drops to No. 8 in the new list, released today by Men's Fitness magazine.

When the annual survey named Baltimore the fittest city in America, many Charm City residents had the same response: You gotta be kidding.

This is great news for a certain someone's soon to open fitness center...

Mister House

2005-12-30T11:46:00.000-08:00

I've been curious about home automation lately. Mainly, I want a system to automate the openning and closing of my HVAC vents, and the setting on my thermostat so that my bedroom will be warm at night (when I'm in there), and cool during the day (wouldn't want to waste heat on an empty room!)

Well, Mister House seems to do all I had hoped for and more. Check out this list of things it can do:

* Executes actions based on voice input, time of day, etc
* It has a web interface to allow control and feedback from any browser, either on a local intranet or on the internet.
* Reads/writes any data from any serial attached device.
* Speaks the speed, course, and position of vehicles, by interfacing to a ham radio modem (TNC).
* Shares a modem for caller ID and paging.
* Reads/writes internet mail, http, and ftp files unattended.
* Sends/receive instant messages using AIM, MSN, or Jabber
* Uses free internet TV web pages to allow for VCR programing and show reminders.
* Has an entertaining 'chatbox' web page that will listen to all your problems.

And a bunch more

Here is some example speech output:

* Turning furnace heat off after 20 minutes at 69.1 degrees
* Notice, the sun is bright at 32 percent, and it is cold outside at 24 degrees, so I am opening the curtains at 8:07 AM
* The van is traveling north at 58 mph 0.8 miles west of Walmart.
* The car is parked at Friedell School.
* Email account nick has 1 new email message from accountmanager.
* Notice, Nick has been on the computer for 2.1 hours today.
* The front door has been left open.
* Phone call from Mal and Beth Winter from Montana.
* Notice, there is 1 favorite show starting now: Dilbert on channel 8.
* 8:58 PM. VCR recording will be started in 2 minutes for Southpark on channel 47.
* Notice, there were 668 web hits from 74 clients in the last day.

OK, so I don't think I'm handy enough, or enough of a hacker to give it a try. But it sounds cool, and it's Open Source, so who knows... (thanks to Makezine for the link, and High Earth Orbit for telling me about Makezine)

Rigel Kentaurus

2005-12-28T18:15:00.000-08:00

Rigel Kentaurus, from the Arabic Al Rijl al Kentaurus, "The Centaur's Foot" is better known as Alpha Centauri. Why have you heard of this star? Because it is one of the closest stars in the universe to Earth, and it is VERY similar to the sun. Want to find ET? Here's a good place to look (especially if you want to go there sometime soon).

Alpha Centauri is actually believed to be a trinary star... meaning there are three stars in orbit around each other. I suppose that means three sunrises every day for any planet in the system.

Anyway, Alpha Centaur A is almost identical to our Sun, and has great promise for hosting life-sustaining planets. Plus, at 4.35 light years from Earth (only 41,000,000,000,000km) it's just a hop, skip and jump away.

How will we find out if the star next door has planets? Well, according to this web page the Hubble Space Telescope is already looking for them, and "recently, at an experts meeting in Toledo/Spain, the chief of the NASA research program Mike Kaplan stated that '...we will discover extraterrestrial life in the next 25 years'."

Possibly he was talking about the next great space telescope: the James Webb Space Telescope, or perhaps one of the telescopes to follow: Terrestrial Planet Finder, one of the formation flying missions; or one of the huge orbiting telescopes that will require Human/robotic in-space assembly... a topic I am very interested in as a result of my recent involvement in the Hubble Robotic Servicing and Deorbit Mission .

Picture of the Year

2005-12-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

I love this image of Saturn, and its moon Dione, taken by the Cassini spacecraft (story at SaturnToday.com.)

I would argue that the entire expense of sending Cassini to Saturn is justified even if all we get back are stunning images like this one, which seems to be leading the race at Time Magazine for picture of the year.

Days are getting later!

2005-12-24T09:18:00.000-08:00

I play flag football with some friends at work every week, and we have been frustrated by increasingly shorter games as winter solstice approaches. We noticed lately that our games have been getting longer, even though we hadn't reached Dec. 21 (shortest day of the year) yet. I told my fellow flag-footballers that this is because the earliest sunset occurs before the shortest day of the year. I thought it had something to do with either Earth's orbit is not being circular (it is slightly elliptical), or the tilt, or obliquity of the Earth's poles with respect to its orbit around the sun.

Well, it turns out I was correct. This page describes how Earth's obliquity and Earth's eccentricity affect the shape of the analemma (the path the sun traces out on Earth over the course of a year).

So, in case you were wondering, the earliest sunset occurs on Dec. 7th. The latest sunrise occurs on January 4th.

Performancing for Firefox

2005-12-24T08:40:00.000-08:00

Maybe this Firefox extension will make me blog? Seems pretty simple. Find a page you want to blog about? Just click on the Performancing button and blog away...

The first post...

2005-12-23T06:25:00.000-08:00

OK, let's try blogging. This could be the last post...