Further Assimilations

This is the first shuttle launch in decades that I've managed to watch live. The experience takes my breath away; so daring, so defiant, putting people atop all that high explosive and flinging them into the hostile vacuum above us. I'm not always thrilled with my species, but this sort of thing restores my faith in our future... at least briefly.

In a very small way, I contributed to this launch, which only adds to the thrill. I contributed indirectly, to be sure, just by doing my day job keeping the Macs of Langley humming; but I'm proud nevertheless.

Since my 'Net connection is still wonky, I may be reduced to watching this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special on SciFi. The horror.

On the other hand, I received a nice Who fandom Xmas present in the from of this Livejournal artwork post by _tonylee_. The image linked at the bottom cheered me greatly; the likenesses are a bit off, but it's still my desktop wallpaper for a while. (One of them. The other wallpaper is the Apollo 8 "Earthrise" shot right now.)

As Starr works tonight and tomorrow, we finished the majority of our own gift-giving last night. Among other things, I received two hardcovers: an H.P. Lovecraft collection, and a Hitchhiker's omnibus of all five novels and the short story. In each case, these will supersede paperbacks already on my shelf, thus retaining the integrity of the Stuff Reduction Plan. Starr, on the other hand, got a gift card for plenty of crochet yarn, and a brand-new toolbelt to aid in her remodeling projects (she's already done a den and a bathroom). She wore the toolbelt around all evening to 'break it in', so I think it was appreciated.

I am messing with my co-workers today, playing Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra with album breaks provided by cuts from the "Sailor Moon SuperS Christmas For You" album.

Space is getting a little more interesting now, with reports of developments in both government and private sectors.

The Chinese astronauts have returned safely to Earth after almost three days in space; one 'taikonaut' performed a spacewalk during the mission, a task which remains difficult and risky despite many successes on the part of the U.S. and Russia. The Chinese return capsule made a 'hard' landing on solid ground, which is a bit trickier than landing in water. According to Wikipedia, an airbag-based 'hard' landing system for NASA's Orion capsule has been removed for weight and complexity reasons, returning Orion to water landings.

Space X's Falcon 1, carrying a dummy payload, achieved orbit around the Earth on Sunday morning. This is the first time a privately funded company has done such a feat with a liquid fuel rocket; the company's press updates page has some cool pictures from a webcam mounted on the side of the launch vehicle. Video is supposed to follow soon. By 2010, the company plans to have a version that will safely launch heavy payloads and human beings.

The last thing the U.S. needs right now is another artificial "space race" where we pick a goal, achieve it, and rest on our laurels for another 40 years. But competition, both at home and abroad, is a good thing if it provides motivation and options. A problem suffered by both the American and Soviet space programs is that they generally had the budget to choose one method to achieve a goal, and if committing fully to that choice turned out to be inefficient, tough. No going back. Perhaps this is changing.

Only vaguely related: if you don't read XKCD, you need to check out "Height". There's a poster of that image, and yes, I want it.

Once again, here at Langley we have more work than we have people to perform it.

If you have at least a year of IT experience, and are interested in temporary work in Hampton, VA, you're encouraged to drop me a note. We are slowly moving the whole base from their old subcontractor-owned Mac, Windows, and Linux machines to our own equipment, and we need people who work well with the public and can handle unexpected glitches in file transfer and account configuration.

General aerospace fanaticism not necessary, but makes the job cooler.

T - I - R - E - D.

Went back to Roanoke on Saturday. My mom's doing great: she can move both her leg and arm now, and on Sunday took a few steps (with a great deal of support). I'm told this is still Gold Medal performance, and my optimism was repeatedly fed this weekend. nanoreid was there for a bit, and I got to say hi to Ginny and Ian as well. Starr bought my mother a knitting loom which can be fastened to a solid surface, and now my mom can indulge her addiction one-handed for the duration!

Roanoke felt a little odd, there are buildings and shops which weren't there last time I passed through - a bit like hearing an old song on the radio and finding an entirely new chorus after the second stanza. I took a hotel room there Saturday night to save us the drive to and from shrewlet's offered crash space in Blacksburg, but while the room was huge, the bed was hard as a plank, and we slept poorly for folks who would be driving 204 miles home. Route 460 was a beautiful, tranquil drive, though. I'm sold on that road for now.

Yesterday we woke too early, and headed over to spend lunch with Starr's mom, then the afternoon at Amy's with the gamer group. Her mom was going to gas grill the food, but after the gas loop rusted away at a touch, we went with good old charcoal, and lunch was yummy. I now know where Starr gets her habit of cooking a regiment's food for a few people, and felt guilty leaving before I could consume a second hamburger.

While the afternoon was sold as a combination grilling / gaming event, I'm not sure anyone was really into the gaming, and after a few hours of excellent chatting and cattching up, we left to get me some badly needed quiet time. I developed yesterday something that feels much like my old migraine headaches, something which comes in short, searing pulses then goes away for a half-hour or so. (One of the first things Starr did when hearing about that was to check me for stroke indicators - of which I seem to have none.)

In geek news, the Mars Phoenix robot probe has a Twitter account. Andy Ihnatko referred to the account as cosplay for rocket scientists, but I'm enjoying keeping up with what the probe's doing (or at least what it was doing 15 minutes ago - speed-of-light lag, y'know). Some quick Googling finds images taken by the Mars Recon Orbiter of Phoenix on the way down (Phoenix Down?) which means that we Earthlings not only managed to hit a target scores of millions of miles away, we got a picture of it from another camera that had previously done so under our instruction. [T]hese are the things that hydrogen atoms do when given 13.7 billion years. - Carl Sagan

So, yeah. Probably another early bedtime tonight, which is a shame because I wanted to get some WoW levelling in. With luck, the rest of the week will go a little easier on me!

Taking a short break from reporting on weather and virtual worlds:

Tomorrow is Yuri's Night, the anniversary of the first human spaceflight, and of the first space flight of the Shuttle. Forty-seven years ago, a Soviet cosmonaut took mankind's first step toward the final frontier. Twenty-seven years ago, the American space program began our first experiment with reusable spacecraft. On April 12th we celebrate a milestone which will stand as long as we reach for the stars.

There are Yuri's Night parties in Richmond, DC, and the Raleigh area, and more all over the world - even in Second Life! The Yuri's Night website has plenty of information about the celebrations, including a chance to win a ride on G-Force One, a plane that performs weightless simulation flights.

Our space exploration efforts have faltered in recent years, but mankind hasn't given up; whether it be aboard an Orion capsule, a Soyuz spacecraft, or a Rutan spaceplane, a steadily-increasing number of us will have the chance to see the world from above, and dip their toes in the vast sea of stars that awaits the human race.

EDIT: jameshroberts correctly points out that our robotic exploration efforts are remarkably successful; it's just the manned side which has faltered somewhat.

• 10:48 Reading BadAstronomer's live tweets of the launch of the space shuttle this morning. I love this Internets thing. #
• 10:50 Hating the fact that, due to the early EDT changeover, I'm getting up in the dark again :( #

Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter

Got some cool stuff from Starr for my birthday... a refractor telescope, a black tee with a handcuff graphic ("I can't believe I'm buying you another black t-shirt") and... this!

Can you guess what it is (besides an afghan, of course)?



( The answer's behind the cut )

I quote the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait:

"Most people are surprised — I was when I first heard — that Brian May is actually a scientist. He had just started working on his PhD thesis when he got distracted by his guitar playing in some band or another. But he knew was gonna be a big man someday."

His thesis is entitled Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, and it seems he now has his degree. I only hope the "Flight of the Hawkmen" theme played as he accepted the honors.

This is just... excellent.

Last night, I heard that Virgin Galactic will be testing their SpaceShipTwo prototype this year, and expects to start its public, commercial, sub-orbital flights before the end of 2008 (possibly early 2009, depending on which part of their website you're looking at). They expect to take several hundred people up to 100km (official Astronaut altitude) within the first year of the company's operation.

Even after the success of SpaceShipOne, the whole thing still seemed a bit pipe-dreamy. "Maybe we can do this as a business one day." Now, somehow, it seems real, and I hear the sound of Richard Branson buying himself a major turning point in human history. Not that I mean to be too dismissive of the man: it's a much healthier way to establish a presence in the textbooks than trying to establish a 1000-year Reich, for example.

I cannot help but look at their promotional materials and realize that my dream of going up is about to change from "realistically impossible" to "currently impractical". Don't let anyone say that's not an enormous difference. There was a time in my early 20s when it was "currently impractical" for me to walk unassisted. "Impractical" is a lot easier to change.