I didn’t get much sleep last night. I, of course, stayed awake to watch the launch of the Parker Solar Probe. Sadly, that launch didn’t happen this morning as planned. The original launch time of 3:33AM Eastern was pushed back by 20 minutes to accommodate some issues experienced in the countdown. Those issues were resolved, […]
Here we have the third video I wanted to share today regarding the Parker Solar Probe. This video is titled “It’s Surprisingly Hard to Go to the Sun” and covers, in pretty simple terms, the actual difficult faced in going to the Sun from Earth. Orbital mechanics is a funny thing – to go higher […]
Next up in my pre-launch sharing of content related to the Parker Solar Probe mission is this United Launch Alliance video on the launch vehicle for this mission – the Delta IV Heavy – and the flight plan that will put the Parker Solar Probe on a course for the Sun. Delta IV Heavy is […]
It’s time for another historic NASA mission to begin. This time, it isn’t to another world – this isn’t a Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, or even a Pluto probe. Oh no, this is something much more intense. Tonight or, more correctly, early this Saturday Morning, August 11th 2018 a Delta IV Heavy booster will launch […]
I mention in my previous article about the launch of Skylab 3 that I would hunt for videos related to the mission. Well, sure enough, I quickly found a solid one – Skylab, A Scientific Harvest is a 1974 produced NASA Film on the two month long Skylab 3 mission. The video goes into light […]
If there’s one thing anyone could gather from the bulk of my space related posts (both the positive ones and the not so positive ones) it’s this: I freaking love NASA. It’s funny then that it would come as a surprise to me today to see that today, July 29th, marks NASA’s 60th birthday. While […]
I’ve been on the internet for a long time. Well, not that long, but long enough to remember when people had web pages and not whole sites. Not often, anyway, did an individual have their own complex site. I remember when message boards were something special, IM chats were actually fun, and most importantly (for […]
I consider myself a moderately tech savvy person. I’m not some kind of expert, but I manage to keep this website up and running. I understand in general what’s going on, the logic of a PHP database and other things, at least far enough to keep things functioning here. So, when I got the news […]
This morning marked the final launch of the “Evolution Storable” or ES variant of the amazing Ariane 5 rocket. Without going into great detail on the history of the Ariane 5 launch vehicle and its variants, the “ES” variant combines an improved core stage of the still-flying ECA variant with the older storable propellant second […]
In an article I wrote back in April, titled “I’m Quite Certain YouTube Is Re-Subbing Me To Channels I’ve Unsubscribed To!” I discussed that YouTube was showing in my subscription feed channels which I was certain I’ve unsubscribed to. Well, it’s still happening. I’m not just sure it’s happening this time, I *know* it is […]
As far as modern computer usage goes, I’ve always been a Windows guy. Granted, I’ve spent quite a bit of time messing with Linux, and have had dedicated Linux machines from time to time (as secondary machines, anyway) but not since high school have I actually really spent any time with Apple Macintosh machines. Through […]
On July 18th 2018 aerospace company Blue Origin conducted the 9th test flight of their New Shepard launch vehicle. New Shepard is a booster intended for commercial suborbital missions for both scientific research and space tourism, and holds the much-ignored distinction of being the first booster to reach space and safely land vertically, predating a […]
The Russian cargo vehicle Progress MS-09 launched on July 9th 2018 carrying approximately 2400 kilograms of supplies for the International Space Station. A pretty typical resupply mission save for two interesting facts: 1: This mission was launched at such a time that it could dock faster than any previous mission to the ISS, spending a […]
Here we have a slightly different episode of The Computer Chronicles. While normally the show takes a look at the more personal end of the computer revolution – how individuals and small businesses use various machines, sometimes breaking into big business where it seems relevant, the show tends to not focus on the upper end […]
I’m only a month behind on covering this one, but I thought it might be nice with the recent sharing of the rollout of Progress MS-09 to share the launch and docking of Soyuz MS-09, since I missed covering it on time last month. Soyuz MS-09 launched on June 6th, 2018, carrying Sergey Prokopyev, Alexander […]