4012

Launch on Nov 14. One of these guys was in my Navy OCS class.

4013

I was watching a bunch of livestreams over the weekend, including grizzly bears and Japanese coastal parks, but a couple that stuck with me were NASA streams. One was of Mars, with some amazing (if rather monotone, to be sure) vistas of the red planet. Another was exterior views from I think the space station, showing Earth. Neat stuff.

There was though also a video of some more complete and not CNN branded coverage of the Challenger disaster. I remember being at work and one of the people there, in an office outside the SCIF, had it on a small TV. We were all geeks in a geeky profession, so of course we were watching it. The shock and sheer impossibility of processing what we saw has stayed with me to this day. The video on YouTube is the CNN coverage without the branding and going on longer; it brought back so vividly that stunned moment we all felt, punctuated by the “we appear to have a major malfunction” comment that I still think was the only thing the NASA engineer could actually get his brain to say due to the shock (that, and training).

Sort of a relevant reminder too in this day of politicized science. Launching that day at that temperature was not something that ever should have happened.

4014

The situation is particularly dire because both of the failed cables were attached to the same tower. Each of the remaining cables is now supporting more weight than ever before, increasing the likelihood of another failure. Unless engineers can support the dish and ease the stress on these cables, the entire structure could be brought down by a domino effect; with each cable snapping in succession as the demands on them become too great.

Despite its importance in continuing the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), DSS-43 was showing its age and had to be scheduled for repairs. As we reported back in July, the big dish was taken offline in March of 2020 and has been getting upgrades ever since. After eight months the repairs have progressed to the point where DSS-43 could try out a simple command link to Voyager 2 — just a basic “Are you still there?” ping, which was sent on October 29.
Happily, despite the fact that Voyager had crossed an additional 300 million kilometers of interstellar space in the meantime, the probe returned confirmation of the command almost a day and a half later. There are still a number of DSS-34 upgrade tasks to complete before the antenna is returned to full service in January of 2021, but it seems like the controllers just couldn’t bear to be out of touch with Voyager any longer.

4015

As of this post where about an hour and 20 minutes form the the first full crew launch by SpaceX to the ISS.

https://youtu.be/bnChQbxLkkI

4016

Of course it just started raining here in Orlando, so I won’t be able to see it outside :(

4017

I can hear it. But no visual yet.

4018

There’s a stowaway!

crew1-130

4019

Gabe Newell got rocket lab to launch gnome chompski into space.

4020

Sadly, there turned out to be no safe way to save it

4021

I believe the deal is that they have to restore the valley to its previous condition if the telescope is ever permanently shut down. So that means demolishing and removing all of the telescope.

4022

I thought there were other facilities at the site that were still functional?

4023

Farewell Arecibo.

4024

It sounded from what I read like the other facilities such as the LIDAR should remain operational, and the visitor center may also be able to stay there.

It sounds like tearing it down and cleaning it up was estimated in the ballpark of $18 million BEFORE there were new safety problems due to main cables failing.

4025

A whole $18 million for space science without even a car tube to show for it? Inconceivable waste of money.

4026

NASA Hijinks:

The bit about Kraft and Kranz had me in tears.

4027
4028

This one shows the before and after.

4029

It’s really sad. I hope that they look at the site and decide to rebuild some day.

Mad props to the engineers who said it was too dangerous and to abandon it though. It’s got to be a tough call to say “no hope” with so many people asking “why?” and sticking to the decision.

4030
4031

I can’t wait til we have a probe on the ground in one of the Moon craters with higher levels of H2O. Since they’re in the dark however we’d probably need RTG plutonium based batteries. But we’re unfortunately running out of that material.