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 shot several hours of video last August during the 2017 Solar Eclipse. While most of it just shows the sun slowly getting more and more covered by the Moon (we had, I believe, 94% totality in my area) until it’s nothing but a crescent, a few frames from the video proved better than normal, […]
I swear this website has become at least 30% updates about the website itself, but I enjoy sharing updates as I work to make Xadara something better than it has been, and today I made some progress towards that cleanup which I mentioned in a previous update. I cleaned out all of the old articles […]
As I said I wanted to do in a previous update, comments here on Xadara are now open to whomever – no registration required, unlike how things had been for the past, oh, 5 years or more. It is my hope that this will spawn healthy discussion and fun conversation about the subject of the […]
Oh boy, finally getting around to these. Now, I know I normally try to get these out in the last week of the previous month, when they get announced officially by Microsoft, and a few times I’ve been late to getting these articles written. Well, in this case, Microsoft themselves dropped the ball, and didn’t […]
July was a much better month. We’ve been through over half of 2018 with somewhat lackluster article rates, but the past week has been much better and, barring a small gap, July was actually a better month than previous for “getting things back to normal around here.” This is one of those times I kind […]
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 […]
On July 28th, 1973, a Saturn 1B rocket launched from Launch Complex 39-B at Kennedy Space Center carrying astronauts Alan Bean, Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma into orbit for the Skylab 3 mission. This mission was, as you would expect, a direct follow up to the 28 day Skylab 2 mission. Skylab 3 would remain […]
Well, the past few days have shown activity on this site that hasn’t been seen in quite a while – at least, not since the 45th anniversary of the launch and first crewed mission of Skylab, and before that it had been late last year when Xadara had been this active. After taking yet another […]
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 […]