 |
Thursday, 31 August 2006
STS-115 Update
You'll notice that the countdown clock in the upper left is running again.Sept. 6 is now official. 12:28:49 p.m. EDT.
There will be three chances to launch -- five minutes each on Wednesday, Thurday and Friday.
Lie Around
It's Thursday, so this week's new Hatbag has been posted. A little look at relationships.As always, please vote Hatbag. Thanks.
And, since apparently a bunch of ATW readers don't follow the weekly Hatbag link, I thought a brief explanation might be in order -- Hatbag is a weekly webcomic Lain and I create. If you read ATW, take a few extra seconds to go read Hatbag. Please? Please?
Orion Update
Per NASA:In what amounts to one of the most significant NASA procurements in more than 30 years, two industry teams have spent the past 13 months refining concepts, analyzing requirements and sketching designs for Orion. On Thursday, managers of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate will reveal which of the two teams has been chosen to build it.
The two competitors are a Northrop Grumman/Boeing team and a Lockheed Martin team. The announcement will be made at a 3 p.m. CDT press conference, which will be aired on TV and the Web via NASA TV.
STS-115 Update
Still technically no official launch date, but they're working towards Sept. 6, weather allowing. The window has been extended through Sept. 8, meaning there will be three launch opportunities. After that, who knows?
Wednesday, 30 August 2006
Martian Party Line
So that whole 90-day lifetime thing for the two Mars rovers -- they didn't really believe that, did they?As that initial estimate has proved so far to be over an order of magnitude off, people have asked how that number was derived, and whether it wasn't an intentionally ridiculously low figure.
Regardless of how confident they were in exactly 90 days, it appears they really didn't beleive there was a chance the rovers would last this long -- it turns out the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was built using a spare transmitter from Spirit. What that means is that the two use the exact same frequency, and, thus, if they transmit at the same time, basically talk over each other. The move was seen as a reasonable way to save money and time, and nobody thought that Spirit would still be alive when MRO started transmitting.
The problem can be worked out, but is a testament to the surprising durability of the rovers. (And, hopefully, a lesson learned for future Mars exploration -- one would hope that next year's Phoenix lander will have its own dedicated frequency.)
Regular Richie Feature -- Special Space Edition
Among the search strings that have brought people to ATW in the past couple of days:- space blog cev winner
- crew exploration vehicle orion rumors
- CEV rumor
- CEV Orion award contractor winner build
- orion cev winner
- cev rumor
Folks, they're gonna announce it Thursday. You're not going to find out their decision on some space blog. I have no clue.
(Well, actually, I have heard a rumor, and I'd say I'm about 50 percent confident it's right.)
Also in the last 20 search strings:
- xena the planet,
- NASA xena
- xena
- Xena planet
- Xena planet
- xena nasa
Non-space searches in the last 20:
- richie younce (Yay for Richie making his own feature!)
- woman driving (Which is actually a not-uncommon one in the image searches)
- disney ears
- funny hair
- nick cage wife
STS-115 Update
So, maybe a week from today. If not the 6th, the window closes on the 7th, though NASA is reportedly trying to negotiate with the Russians to get maybe an extra day or so.If that doesn't happen, right now the next window would open in late October. That brief window, and another short one in November, would make it possible to still keep STS-116 on schedule for Dec. 14. However, another option would be to change the lighting requirements for this launch. Allowing a night launch would create several new possibilities. (Plans are currently for STS-116 to be a night launch, so it would only be dropping the lighting requirements one flight earlier than planned.)
Tuesday, 29 August 2006
One Year
Image from NASA
STS-115 Update
Rollback should be underway right now.There is currently not a scheduled launch date for STS-115.
More as it develops.
As mentioned the other day, this one should be interesting, folks.
CG TOS
A while back, I blogged a couple of links to video clips created by CG firms that had been asked to submit proposals for redoing some of the special effects from the original Star Trek series.The proposal dated back to 2003, and word at the time I posted in back in June was that Paramount had decided not to pursue the project.
While it appears to be true that neither of those proposals are being followed up on, it turns out that CBS Video is working on new CG effects for a forthcoming HD release of the series.
The story indicates that the change will focus on spaceship scenes, so I have mixed feelings about it. There are more than a few special effects in TOS that look a bit dated, but I'm not sure how I feel about cutting out the original Enterprise.
We shall see.
Trek XI Update
Per TrekWeb:The search for Spock is on again, as it becomes apparent that J.J. Abrams' Star Trek story shall focus on younger versions of the original crew. With the Canadian Fan Expo nigh, the Ottawa Sun made a call to Leonard Nimoy, who joked about having to write a sequel to his I Am Not Spock and I Am Spock books.
"My next title should be I Am Not Necessarily Spock," laughed Nimoy as he considers that his signature character may be played by another actor, one who might need blessings from the archetype.
Having received a call from Paramount, Nimoy now speculates about his participation in the next Star Trek film, suggesting that he may be willing to come out of retirement to reprise his Vulcan persona.
"The head of production at Paramount called my agency to tell them about this project and they are aware of Bill [Shatner]'s and my contribution to the franchise," Nimoy explains, "and they'd like us to know they might want some involvement. It was all very, very general.
"They might possibly want Bill and I to set up the story as a flashback. But that's just conjecture on my part."
Conjecture is often agreeable to negotiation, so the big screen may yet again see Nimoy as Spock. Shatner has already expressed an interest in more onscreen Star Trek.
Monday, 28 August 2006
Going Pro
Well, on Friday, I'm going to miss the deadline on my book for a second time, and then go to Atlanta to celebrate.
(I guess this is kinda like a version of the "I just won the Superbowl; I'm going to Disneyland" thing -- "I just missed the deadline on my book; I'm going to Six Flags")
It's like I'm a real writer now.
Iron Supplements
In The Houston Chronicle, the headline for a story was "Variety adds a little spice to meals on the shuttle"In the daily NASA News Summary, though, they titled it "Space Food Includes New Items, Old Staples"
Uh, ow... And you thought that old astronaut ice cream was bad.
Trek XI Update
So it turns out that Leonard Nimoy has a contract that gives him casting approval over anyone else selected to play the role of Spock, which would be relevant if the Abrams movie is, in fact, a young TOS adventure.(Which, personally, I'm still hoping its not.)
The TrekWeb article goes on to say, "It may be safe to assume that William Shatner has similar influence over Kirk's new face." I wonder if that's true -- the biggest difference is that other actors were cast as young Spock in the movies, including the one Nimoy directed, which might have made it more relevant. (That said, if Shatner heard Nimoy got that in his contract, I imagine he would have requested the same.)
iWoz Sooner!
I saw this story about an interview with Woz last week, but I missed the coolest part at the end -- the release date for iWoz has been moved up from Nov. 1 to Sept. 25!This makes me happy inasmuch as a) I'm really looking forward to this book, and I'm excited I can get it over a month sooner, and b) it no longer comes out the same day as the book about Jerry Carr, commander of the third crew of Skylab, so I won't have to decide which to read first (which would probably have been the Carr book, since it would be of more immediate relevance to me).
In other book news that makes me happy, when I went to Amazon to confirm those dates, I found out that they finally have a release date and info on another book I've been waiting on for a while, John Grisham's first non-fiction book, The Innocent Man, scheduled for release on Oct. 10.
(I'm also looking forward to Grisham's follow-ups to The Innocent Man -- The Uptown Girl and They Didn't Start The Fire.)
More Microsoft Innovation
According to AppleInsider, the object to the right is Zune, Microsoft's in-development iPod-killer.So, looking at it, it appears to be a white rectangular box, with a video screen at the top and a scroll-wheel controller beneath that. There also apprears to be a headphone jack on the top end above the screen, and a wide port at the bottom below the scroll wheel for connecting to a computer's USB port.
Where do they come up with this ideas?!
Oh, and it looks like it's also available in black. Genius!
Excelsior Mail!
In my opinion, to really get the most out of reading comics, you have to be either a DC person or a Marvel person. Even if you prefer indy stuff and don't read superhero books, you still are missing out if you don't have a preference between the big two, just like, even if you went to MIT or something, if you live in Alabama, to really participate in society, you have to have at least some minimal preference between Alabama and Auburn. Even if it's completely random, you have to pick one or the other.When I started reading comics, I pretty quickly identified myself as a DC person. My regular reading list included Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, JLA. Every once and a while, I'd pick up a Marvel book or two, but, yeah, I was a DC guy.
I've continued to self-identify that way, even though my reading habits have greatly changed. My favorite superhero books today include Daredevil and Ultimate Spider-Man, while DC is cancelling or ruining my favorite books over there. By my reading and purchasing habits, I'm probably, realistically, a Marvel person. But, being grounded in reality not a comic-book-reader's strong suit anyway, I continue to consider myself a DC person.
That illogical decision got a boost this morning.
I love the new DC superhero stamps, and have bought I think four books of them so far, and want to get some more to make sure I'll have a supply to last a while.
On the flip side, reading the roster of the new Marvel stamps that were just announced, my reaction is basically "Eh." My desire for a Silver Surfer stamp or a Sub-Mariner stamp is really not all that great.
STS-115 Update
Per NASA:NASA mission managers Monday morning decided to scrub Tuesday's scheduled launch attempt of the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Preliminary preparations are also under way to roll the orbiter back to the Vehicle Assembly Building, although no final decision has been made to allow for possible changes in Tropical Storm Ernesto's track. That decision is expected by midday Tuesday.
NASA's lighted launch window extends to Sept. 13, but mission managers are hoping to launch by Sept. 7 to avoid a conflict with a Russian Soyuz rocket also bound for the International Space Station. Officials are talking with our Russian partners about the issue.
I really don't know what exactly is going on, but this one could end up having an unusual solution, such as possibly a back-to-back roll-back and roll-out to avoid the storm and sill meet the window. Also talk of trying to get the Soyuz up ahead of schedule so that they can get up and back down to let Atlantis launch before the max window deadline without the two overlappping at station.
Stay tuned.
Sunday, 27 August 2006
Orion Update
So it turns out that the Orion logo that I'm not terribly keen on was created by Mike Okuda.
Which may explain the current state of Trek.
STS-115 Update
Scrubbed for Monday, too.And possibly getting even more complicated.
Saturday, 26 August 2006
Mike Brown, Destroyer of Worlds
My thoughts about astronomer Mike Brown have been greatly influenced by his Huntsville origins.When he discovered 2003 UB313, he was a hero, and I was proud to see someone from my hometown accomplish something like that.
On the flip side, while living here, he attended Grissom High School (named, natch, for Gus Grissom), which, for me at least, was my alma mater Huntsville High School's biggest rival. So when he tried to call that small ice ball a planet, my reaction was along the lines that it was typical arrogance of a Grissom alum.
This week, though, I'm once more proud to call him a Huntsvillian. I really admire the stand he's taken that Pluto, and thus the other KBOs, should not be planets. By standing up for his convictions, he may well have cost himself a place in the history books as the discoverer of perhaps multiple planets. With a different definition, he could perhaps have been the most significant astronomer, with respect to our solar system, since Galileo. But he fought against that for what he felt was right.
The Huntsville Times had a great story yesterday about him, but it was a combination of AP and local reporting, so its neither on the wire nor on the HT Web site, with some great quotes from both Brown ("It's all my fault. I may go down in history as the guy who killed Pluto.") and his mom, but I can't post it here.
I can, though, post The Times' story today about Pluto, with a lead I was less than impressed with: "For years, Davina Mann, a Madison County Elementary School teacher, has collected three-dimensional models of the solar system showing Pluto hovering at the edge of the galaxy."
Well, I mean, yeah, I guess it's kinda near the edge of the galaxy, but, um, not so much relatively speaking compared to the rest of the solar system. (In fact, I guess sometimes less so than the rest of the solar system, as it reaches the part of its orbit opposite the galactic rim.)
STS-115 Update
SCRUB!On the good news front, though, they did manage to get my STS-115 stories online Friday, before the launch. (Barely. [Hopefully.]) So that's something.
Friday, 25 August 2006
Regular Richie Feature
Recent search strings on Alltheseworlds.net:- "God of Earth and Outer Space"
- star wars transformer vader
- david hitt splat
- 10th planet Xena
- Silver Dart
- "for 75 years pluto"
- What day is STS-115 scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Centr
- NASA CEV contractor Rumor
- npr pluto hate mail IAU Tyson
- second hand machine of Kato-Green
- pluto loses it's status webcomic
- superman virgin
- "porkins"
- klingon
- star trek manga
MST3K STV
So it's not exactly a Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of Star Trek V, but it's pretty darned close.Mike Nelson of MST3K fame has a site called RifTrax, where he posts downloadable audio commentaries for movies.
In the latest one, he and Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) take on Star Trek V.