NickDG

If you're watching, and her work holds up, you just saw Felisa Wolfe-Simon win the Noble Prize in Chemistry! NickD

It's on NASA TV in a few moments: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html NickD

That's big, it really is. And I just spoke with Julia and asked what planet it was found on, and she said, "California!" LOL! NickD

It's being said now this announcement, "Will change the way we look at the Universe!" I called Julia (at JPL) to see if she had any intel, but haven't heard back yet . . . which is strange as she always calls back right away . . . NickD

Naw, this is jump rope . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O83HyQPX8-E&feature=player_embedded NickD

>>maybe some ice

NASA is scheduled to make an important announcement this afternoon . . . http://www.necn.com/12/02/10/NASA-announcement-spurs-alien-life-specu/landing.html?blockID=364767&feedID=4213 NickD

COLBERT, LOL! NickD

I actually knew Bill Dana. He lived in an apartment next door to us in New York City when I was kid. But he was the other Bill Dana, the comedian, ("My Name Jose Jimenez") who was a favorite of the early astronauts. My mom used to feed him a few times a week when he was dead broke and still trying to break into show business. Then he got his big break on the Ed Sullivan show. He still sends my family a Christmas card every year . . . NickD

Of course there was. It was then Vice President Johnson who said, "I for one, don't want to go to sleep at night by the light of a Russian Moon!" Everything we did back then had a military application. Hell, people in my neighborhood in the 1960s were installing bomb shelters in their backyards. As a kid I helped dig a few. NickD

I was kinda hoping, before the shuttle program ended, they would have sent up Chuck Yeager. Of all the publicity stunt launches involving John Glenn, Senator Cranston, or Christa McCuliff, Yeager, I think, deserved a ticket to ride more than most. I'm not sure how old he is now, or if he's still flight qualified but up in Cal City in 1997 I saw him flying around in an F-15. He had another pilot in the plane with him but he re-broke the sound barrier, that day, 50 years after he was the very first man to do so. "There's a demon lurking out there!" NickD

>>I'd always heard it was the other way around, they spent the money on space travel because in the midst of the cold war, the super-powers kind of agreed having quickly deployed ground launch bombers in space might be a bad thing.

Well, the Air Force just came clean on the X-37B which was secretly launched last April. And is on orbit now. I doubt they would have said anything but those guys who love nothing better than tracking space vehicles from their backyards spotted it. Julia had something about it on her laptop last year and when I noticed it walking by she slammed the laptop closed. I know there's somethings she can't tell me so I didn't press her. The X-37B is a robotic reusable winged space vehicle and something the Air Force would have probably had years ago if they had continued the plane into space programs of the 50s and 60s. But when "beat the Russians to the moon at all costs" became the order of the day all the funding switched from the X-planes and went into the ballistic rocket\splashhdown vehicles. There's an article in this months Aerospace Magazine about the X-37B and one thing was damn funny. They are using a new insulating material to protect the craft on re-entry. And this has to be a case where the acronym came before the actual name. The material is called Toughened Unipiece Fibrous Reinforced Oxidation-resistant Composite, or TUFROC! NickD

I wouldn't doubt it. Everything in Russia is for sale. Rides into space, 2nd generation fighter jets, diesel powered submarines, etc. They are actually better than us when it comes to free enterprise . . . NickD

You know what this site needs more than anything? A feature I see on newer style forums. If you're in the middle of composing a new post to a thread the forum let's you know if someone posts ahead of you and actually lets you read it. I could have saved myself some typing, LOL . . . NickD

The Russians are known for having a "working man's" space program and you've probably heard the following story. The U.S. spent 10 million dollars developing a pen that would write in zero gravity. While the Russians used a pencil. As for reefing the opening of the Soyus parachute system it does have a drag chute that deploys before the main (like a tandem rig) and I imagine it's large enough to provide some speed reduction. However, they did have some spectacular failures during unmanned testing. But right after the Apollo launch pad fire the Russians saw their chance to jump ahead of the U.S. so ready or not, they launched two spacecraft for an orbital rendezvous, docking, and crew transfer mission. The entire mission was plagued with one problem after another, but they managed the transfer and the remaining cosmonaut, a fellow named Komarov, attempted to re-enter and land by himself. At first the auto-retro-fire system failed so Komarov had to fire the retro system manually to re-enter. And by this point in the mission Komarov had become pretty pissed off with all the problems he was having. At the correct altitude the drag chute deployed but when the main parachute was to deploy nothing happened because the drag chute wouldn't release. Basically, Komarov had something familiar to all tandem instructors, a drogue in tow. He manually fired the reserve parachute into the malfunction and it entangled with the drogue and that was the end of that. U.S. military listening posts in Europe reported as Komarov plummeted to his doom he was cursing up a storm about how his superiors could send men into space in a such a piece of shit. The blue streak tirade continued right up until Komarov's lights went out . . . NickD

>>I walked away with not only the answer, but harsh realization that I didn't even KNOW what I didn't know!

Finished up the new seat and test rode it. This one will work as it's custom made for my butt, LOL! I went charging up a hill getting on Nina pretty hard and I was just hanging on with my fingertips. This seat finally has enough kick up to hold me in! Gee, if nothing breaks I guess I'm done wrenching for a while . . . NickD

>>(I paid my sitting fee in tasty tasty beer!)

He was good in this classic too . . . NickD

They were sitting on one of the old seats, I'm still working on the new one. BTW, anyone is welcome to come sit on Nina. Ten bucks with commemorative photo! NickD

Thanks for the visit Pokerstar. I enjoyed meeting you! NickD

Turned out nice, I made a new friend, and Lisa was a peach, as she always is! Good times and good Beer . . . NickD

Oh Gawd, Lisa's coming . . . (over) this afternoon! Moo!!! NickD

+10 on Moe Viletto! I remember when he'd purchase every new rig that came out on the market (skydiving & B.A.S.E.) and then proceed to take them apart piece by piece. He called it a rig autopsy. Then he'd point out the design flaws, construction weaknesses, and sometimes things that were outright dangerous. I'm a rigger but nowhere near Moe's league. And I've often thought the FAA needed to add another level of rigger rating for guys like him. There should be Senior, Master, and Wizard Riggers! NickD