Location: At the dude ranch / above the sea Gender:
Posted:
Sep 22, 2024 - 3:06pm
Here's a fascinating program that is/was on PBS that includes Marc Buie (he was awarded the Order of the Lion by the Sengalese government). He's working with a local astronomer to do something incredibly controversial: tell the Muslim community what the right time is to pray. The clerics there have their times, but the planet shifts and those times are wrong. Now, science abuts religious practice. Wow.
Here's Marc explaining what the consequence would be if you don't get the right measurements at the right time in the right place (maybe because of weather or other logistics). Well, maybe you can get it later?
I was a freshman, 1976, at LSU, walking down the hallway of Hatcher dorm when I heard a 'boop' repeatedly coming from a room, that sounded exactly like the opening of Echoes. Aha! Another Floyd fan! Turns out it was something else, but I became friends with Marc Buie. We roomed together, played in a punk band together, won (!) a campus Trivia Bowl together, got put on disciplinary probation together, and have been friends ever since.
I was a freshman, 1976, at LSU, walking down the hallway of Hatcher dorm when I heard a 'boop' repeatedly coming from a room, that sounded exactly like the opening of Echoes. Aha! Another Floyd fan! Turns out it was something else, but I became friends with Marc Buie. We roomed together, played in a punk band together, won (!) a campus Trivia Bowl together, got put on disciplinary probation together, and have been friends ever since.
Location: At the dude ranch / above the sea Gender:
Posted:
Sep 20, 2024 - 6:25pm
I was a freshman, 1976, at LSU, walking down the hallway of Hatcher dorm when I heard a 'boop' repeatedly coming from a room, that sounded exactly like the opening of Echoes. Aha! Another Floyd fan! Turns out it was something else, but I became friends with Marc Buie. We roomed together, played in a punk band together, won (!) a campus Trivia Bowl together, got put on disciplinary probation together, and have been friends ever since.
NASA will announce today whether its stranded astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, will come home on the problematic Starliner craft they arrived on, some time in September, or will be enjoying an even lengthier stay on ISS until returning home on a SpaceX Dragon with Crew 9 in February 2025. Launched on June 5th, Butch and Suni's flight to ISS and stay was only supposed to last only eight days.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and leadership will hold an internal Agency Test Flight Readiness Review on Saturday, Aug. 24, for NASAâs Boeing Crew Flight Test. About an hour later, NASA will host a live news conference at 1 p.m. EDT from the agencyâs Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Rumours are suggesting the nod will go to SpaceX Dragon. If so, the Starliner program suffers a massive credibility hit - and may go back to development and testing, or get cancelled altogether. Boeing is rumored to have already lost ~$1.6B on Starliner.
This is so embarrassing for Boeing and NASA, and the most insane advertising campaign imaginable for SpaceX.
NASA is having a bad run of luck. Now the Cygnus resupply craft to ISS, launched yesterday, failed to conduct some altitude raising burns. Will they fix it? Will it make it to ISS? Stay tuned!
Shortly after launch, the spacecraft missed its first burn slated for 11:44 a.m. due to a late entry to burn sequencing. Known as the targeted altitude burn, or TB1, it was rescheduled for 12:34 p.m., but aborted the maneuver shortly after the engine ignited due to a slightly low initial pressure state. There is no indication the engine itself has any problem at this time.
Cygnus is at a safe altitude, and Northrop Grumman engineers are working a new burn and trajectory plan. The team aims to achieve the spacecraftâs original capture time on station, which is currently slated for 3:10 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 6.
At issue is the performance of the small reaction control system thrusters in proximity to the space station. If the right combination of them fail before Starliner has moved sufficiently far from the station, Starliner could become uncontrollable and collide with the space station. The thrusters are also needed later in the flight back to Earth to set up the critical de-orbit burn and entry in Earth's atmosphere.
