Brian Yee

This is really cute.  Although, maybe a pregnant mother wouldn’t think so.

Geeky maternity t-shirts

(From Boing Boing)

I tried to stay up to watch the start of the rollout live – scheduled for 12:01AM this morning, but it got delayed about an hour, so I’m glad I didn’t.  The last bit of the rollout is happening right now.

Someone on the nasaspaceflight.com forum this morning noted that the last rocked to rollout from the VAB that wasn’t the shuttle was ASTP (on a Saturn 1B), which rolled to pad 39B on March 24 1975.  It was an interesting sense of scale.  And it’s neat to finally see something new.

Spaceflightnow.com Gallery

It was an interesting first attempt to make pasta. I’ve learned why pasta machines exist, also.

Before launches at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Helicopters search the downrange path of rockets to find any nomads in the vast grasslands of Kazakhstan.  If any are found they are warned of the upcoming launches.

Link

This picture of this activity was particularly interesting:

(image from russianspaceweb.com, copyright noted)

The americans launch with ocean downrange. and a similar search is performed for boats that are in the wrong spot.

One of the things I’ve been looking forward to recently is the rollout (on 10/20) and the launch (scheduled for 10/27) of  Ares I-X: NASA’s first test flight of the new rockets in support of the Constellation Program (created by Bush II in his Vision for Space Exploration).

It’s been exciting to read about the development, creation, and assembly of the new rockets — the first new thing from NASA since the launch of STS-1 in 1981.  Even more exciting, in a different sort of way, is to read the debates going on right now on the web and trying to figure out what’s going to happen next.  There’s been a review of the entire program by the Augustine Commission — and the future direction of NASA is going to announced soon by new NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

Whether or not Ares I continues development, it’s still an exciting time in Human Spaceflight…even if you only get to watch from the sidelines.

anyone using webfaction? thinking about moving off dreamhost.

Great set of photos of an airplane factory in Burbank, CA that was hidden during World War II using netting and fake houses on the roof.  I guess being on the coast, it was much more vulnerable than, say, Willow Run.