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Thursday, 29 June 2006
Editorial Note
Blogging will be light over the next few days as I go watch it rain on the space shuttle.If possible, I'll post updates about the trip.
Space Cat-Fight!
Per The Register:A most unusual cat-fight broke out last night at the NASA Ames center here, as two women battled to learn when they will be able to take cheap flights into space.
SpaceDev founder James Benson had plowed through the majority of his presentation on space tourism opportunities when the cackling broke out. "Will you sit down. I can't see the screen," barked one woman. "Well, I can't hear the lecture. We came hear to listen to Mr. Benson not to hear you gossip," replied an older Asian lady not much more than 5 feet tall. The squabble escalated from there with both sides agreeing that they despised each other's lack of social graces.
Eventually, the bitching match devolved into a playground-level spat with both of the ladies verging on yelling, "I know you are but what am I?" A dose of comic tension filled the NASA Ames conference room, and then the two ladies quieted down.
Taking The High Road
This week's new Hatbag is now online.
STS-121 Update
Weather still looking very iffy.Official countdown is in a planned hold at T-27 hours.
Lunar Support
The Vision for Space Exploration got a huge vote of support in the U.S. House yesterday, when representatives voted 259-163 to reject a proposal by Barney Frank to shut down plans to send man to Mars.At least, that's the way the story puts it. Reading it, I'm assuming he's really talking about the plans that would, more immediately, return humans to the moon; but there's no reference to the moon in the article. My guess, and this may be unfair, is that Frank's move was part of the uninformed "we don't need to spend money on Mars" attitude that you see from people who have a knee-jerk reaction without really knowing what they're talking about.
Another vote yesterday, by a more narrow margin, also rejected a proposal to shift almost a half-billion from the Vision to local law enforcement. While the 236-185 vote was closer than the one on the Frank proposal, it was a slightly wider spread than a similar vote last year.
Clouded Vista
Per MacNN:Microsoft has cancelled one of the most anticipated features in its next Windows operating system, code-named Vista, which is slated for release next year. Microsoft previously planned to ship the WinFS file system shortly after Windows Vista. In a weblog entry on Friday, however, Quentin Clark -- an executive of the project -- wrote that WinFS would not ship separately, and that some of the feature will be included in a later product. Investors considered WinFS the crucial feature that would encourage upgrades to Vista when Microsoft separated the technologies in 2004 in order to complete Vista by 2006, according to Bloomberg. The cancellation marks the latest change involving Windows Vista, which required Microsoft to restructure portions of the operating system and drop some features.
And, in the interest of equal time, also from MacNN:
American Technology Research senior analyst Shaw Wu said he believes new versions of Apple's video iPod and iPod nano could be delayed by up to six months. "We previously believed that new Nanos and the widescreen video iPod could ship in Q3 and Q4, respectively," Wu wrote in a research note. "However, we now believe that both could be delayed by a quarter or two."
Wednesday, 28 June 2006
STS-121 Update
The clock is ticking.The countdown is officially, right now, at 38 hours, 54 minutes. And counting.
STS-121 Update
If I've counted correctly, this is my 41st "STS-121 Update" post since I started posting them on August 12.I don't know how many "RTF Update" posts I made because I started them on the old blog, but from the time I moved over here, I count 66 from Aug. 26, '04 until the landing in August of last year.
I'm looking forward to the day I don't have time to post quite so many updates between launches.
But that day's not here yet.
Today's news:
There's only about six hours left until the official countdown starts at T-43 hours.
Dick Cheney will be attending the launch.
And, per Florida Today's Flame Trench blog:
The shuttle launch team is working no technical issues that would prohibit an on-time liftoff on Saturday afternoon from the Kennedy Space Center.
Jeff Spaulding, the NASA test director on the launch team, says Discovery could get up to four launch opportunities over the five days beginning Friday. After that, the team would have to take a day or two off before preparing the vehicle for another round of launch attempts.
So it's all about the weather at this point.
Kathy Winters, the weather officer, says afternoon storms are the worry for Saturday, Sunday and Monday launch attempts. The chance of acceptable launch weather all three days is just 40 percent. Winters says conditions could actually worsen next week, though it is far too early to give specific forecasts.
"While they sound a little gloomy, we have certainly launched with a higher-percentage no-go than we have for Saturday," Spaulding said.
More on the weather can be found here.
Supes Confession Day
In honor of the premiere of the new Superman movie, here's my incredibly geeky Superman confession:I proposed to Nicole while wearing a "Daily Planet" t-shirt.
How's that for romantic? It wasn't entirely intentional, though (the outfit, that is; not the proposal, which was planned for literally hours in advance.)
Anybody else have a shameful Superman confession?
Shuttle Trivia
Here's an interesting bit of space shuttle trivia I just learned:The shuttle, of course, burns its main engines for about eight minutes and 40 seconds to reach orbital velocity. During that time, though, I didn't realize it will reach its apogee at the 5:32 mark, and then actually descend about three and a miles before beginning to ascend again shortly before main engine cut-off. At MECO, the shuttle's altitude is still under 70 miles, but it's traveling at 17,606 miles per hour.
Tuesday, 27 June 2006
Song Challenge!
I'm bored. Here are some song lyrics. Can you name what song's they're from? (Without resorting to search engines) (more)
STS-121 Update
The STS-121 crew is expected to arrive at Kennedy Space Center in about half an hour of this writing to prepare for Saturday's launch.The official countdown clock will start tomorrow 4 p.m. CDT at the T-43 hour mark. Then, at midnight, the process begins of getting the dorman shuttle ready to come to life.
Super Poll
So the new Superman movie opens tonight. When are you planning to go see it?Tuesday late premiere (0 votes)
Opening day Wednesday (3 votes)
By opening weekend (1 votes)
Probably sometime later (1 votes)
Probably not in theaters (2 votes)
Too Much Stuff
Turns out my house has a couple of things in common with the International Space Station -- they both have the equivalent of three bedrooms, and they're both filled with too much stuff.There's so much stuff on the station that it blocks access to storage cabinets, fills up rooms and makes losing objects easy. And the overflow is about to get worse. NASA plans to have space shuttle Discovery drop off 5,000 pounds of supplies next week. The shuttle will haul items back but will leave behind more than it takes away.
If No Rumors
If no news, send rumors.If no rumors, send impressive mock-ups.
So, would you want one of these, were they real?
Monday, 26 June 2006
STS-121 Update
Lacking for actual updates, here's a link to a profile of Mark Kelly, who is the one astronaut on the STS-121 crew whom I've actually met.In the history of the astronaut program, there have been three people selected with the last name Kelly, and they were all brought in as part of Group 16. (A big coincidence, but not as odd as Group 7, which included two men named Gregory Johnson.) Two of the three Kellys were are twins, Mark and Scott. When I met Mark, the story was that one of the twins had a mustache, but that you couldn't really use that to tell them apart, because it wasn't always the same one. At any given time, one did and one didn't, but they would take turns shaving and growing it out. That may be apocrophyl, but it's a good story.
On an only semi-related note, it's looking now like I may be heading down to the launch, due to peer pressure.
Progress Towards ISS
The International Space Station is about to be the Grand Central Station of space, currently preparing for the first of two arrivals in as many weeks.A Russian Progress spacecraft will dock with the station today at 11:30 a.m. CDT, after launching on Saturday. The ISS crew will unpack only critical items this week, leaving the rest until after the STS-121 crew leaves.
Two other spacecraft are already docked to the station -- the crew's Soyuz and the last Progress, which docked on April 23.
Next Stevenote
Apple is giving me a bit of a birthday present by scheduling the next Stevenote for August 7 at the WWDC in San Francisco.The announced topic will be a Leopard preview, but I'm sure the rumors about what else he will discuss will soon begin in earnest.
Saturday, 24 June 2006
Tomorrow Is Doomsday
Per Metafilter:
In 2003, Paramount proposed redoing the special effects for the original "Star Trek" series and rereleasing the episodes as "Star Trek Enhanced". Two CGI firms redid the effects for the teaser, the opening credits and title, and the first two acts of The Doomsday Machine as a proof-of-concept with no changes to the acting or the story. Paramount ultimately decided not to pursue the project, but it's interesting to see how two different CGI firms handled the transporter, phasers, and starship effects.
Version One
Version Two
STS-121 Update
It's now less than a week until launch.Cool, huh?
Friday, 23 June 2006
Return To The Moon
Apollo 17's Harrison Schmitt will be signing copies of his book, Return to the Moon, at Rocket Town next month, and signed copies can be pre-ordered now. Schmitt's cut down on his signing in the past few years, so it's really a great opportunity.
(If any ATW readers who know me personally are interested in this, let me know, and I'll sweeten the pot a bit.)
Chasing Dreams
I do understand why, in many ways, the space shuttle was a flawed vehicle, doomed by the very hubris of its creation. I also understand why, for moving ahead with space exploration, for once more traveling beyond low Earth orbit, a completely different architecture is extremely advantageous. I'm looking forward to the return to a straightfoward capsules-and-big-rockets system.That said, having lived with the shuttle basically my entire life, I do like the idea of the still being a spacecraft flying that is vaguely shuttle-esque.
(Oh, and, hey, for the sake of full disclosure, I own stock in SpaceDev, which is developing the vehicle; but that has nothing to do with this post, inasmuch as I didn't even make the connection until I was about to save it to the blog. Still, that's kinda cool. [Although it would be much cooler if I hadn't lost money on them; albeit way less than I've lost on Apple and Space Propulsion Systems. This whole buying stock thing isn't working out nearly as well as I'd hoped.])
Steve Versus Hollywood
The first time I read it, it seemed like such a non-story that I didn't bother posting it. After all, it's just the latest version of something we've been reading all year, at least.But, it's been all over the place, so -- Apple's apparently having tough negotiations selling Hollywood on putting movies on iTMS.
It seems pretty obvious, but one interesting point is that it's pretty much now taken as a given that Apple is working to do this. I wonder how intent Apple is on working toward the iTunes music launch format -- almost everybody on board from the outset -- versus the TV show format of getting people involved when their ready to come. It seems hard to believe they couldn't even convince a studio or two and do the latter, but maybe not.
Thursday, 22 June 2006
SuperQueue
But, it gets even better -- We're proud to announce the release of the first Hatbag collection!
"Bagged & Bored" collects all of the Hatbag strips from 2005, along with the Easter egg strips and other bonus material. You can buy a copy online here.
Also, we got our first fan art!
And, as always, vote Hatbag!
Moons Get Names
The two recently discovered moons of Pluto have been given names. Like Charon, the two names fit with the mythology of the planet -- Nix after the Greek goddess of night and the mother of Charon, and Hydra after, of course, the Hydra, which guarded Hades. The names are also a ti