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Long live and prosper or May the Force be with you?

Update: Shuttle now moving to pad

The shuttle is rolling out now. Thunderstorms prevented it from rolling out yesterday. More over at Flame Trench here:

Dawn Launch

The Dawn Launch at dawn, Sept. 27, 2007.

Shuttle rolls out today!

Shuttle Discovery will be rolled out to the Pad today for an October 23rd launch.

In preparation for the targeted Oct. 23 launch, Discovery is set to roll from the Vehicle Assembly Building out to the Launch Pad 39A aboard the crawler transporter this weekend. Earlier in the week, the orbiter was attached to the external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters atop the mobile launch platform.

In the predawn hours Thursday, the payload canister for mission STS-120 arrived at Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The Italian-built U.S. Harmony module destined for the International Space Center will be transferred to Discovery's payload bay once the space shuttle reaches the pad.

More about the Harmony module and STS 120 here.

The pressurized component was named "Harmony" by U.S. students in a nationwide contest. "This module will allow all international partner pieces of the station to connect together, so it's really wonderful that kids recognize that harmony is necessary for space cooperation," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, when the six winning schools who submitted the name were announced.

Successful SDI test

HT Drudgereprot

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - A ground-based missile successfully intercepted a target missile Friday in a test of the nation's defense system, the Missile Defense Agency said.
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An intercontinental ballistic missile interceptor blasted out of an underground silo at Vandenberg Air Force Base shortly after 1:15 p.m., and tracked a target missile that had lifted off from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska, the Boeing Co. said in a statement.

The Missile Defense Agency said initial results show the interceptor's rocket motor system and kill vehicle performed as planned. Boeing said the warhead was tracked, intercepted and destroyed.

Boeing is the prime contractor for what is formally known as the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system.

The MDA expects to invest $49 billion in ballistic missile defense development and fielding over the next five years.

Two operational interceptor missiles are currently based at Vandenberg and there are 11 deployed at Fort Greely, Alaska.

View the video of the intercepted missile here.

Fossett crashed in Death Valley?

Crews plan weekend search near Death Valley
By Brendan Riley
ASSOCIATED PRESS

7:35 p.m. September 25, 2007

CARSON CITY, Nev. – Relying on new leads from Air Force experts, crews looking for famed aviator Steve Fossett plan to comb a rugged area near Death Valley by air and foot, authorities said Tuesday.

Gary Derks, the state Department of Public Safety official in charge of the search, said the Air Force analyzed images picked up by radar and satellite and “picked up what could be Mr. Fossett, his track.”

“It gives us an idea, if it's him, what direction he was going,” Derks said of the wealthy adventurer, missing for more than three weeks.

Derks said the area stretches about 100 miles to the southeast from where Fossett took off Sept. 3, an airstrip on a million-acre ranch owned by hotel mogul Barron Hilton. Maps show the area would include Nevada's remote Silver Peak Range, close to Death Valley National Park in California.

“There's nothing definite, nothing concrete,” Derks said. “These are just some hits that we want to track.”

Search planes will fly over the area Saturday and Sunday, Derks said.

The area is “very rough terrain,” Derks said. “If he's there, he's going to be hard to see. That's why we're sending in the ground search-and-rescue crews, too.”

A private search effort by Fossett's family and friends continued Tuesday when a plane with sophisticated camera gear took off from the ranch.

Fossett, 63, has not been seen since he left on what was supposed to be a short ride in a lightweight acrobatic plane to scout locations to break the land speed record.

The adventurer, who made millions as a commodities broker in Chicago, is the first person to circle the globe solo in a balloon. He has also swum the English Channel, completed the Iditarod sled dog race and scaled some of the world's best-known peaks.

James Hansen's Fundrasing his cause

Ht from LGF here.

James Hansen received $720,000 from OSI, Open Society Institute a Geroge Sorros group and to fund his media campaign. Then he received $250,000 from the Heinz group (Mrs. John Kerry) and supported John Kerry in 2004.

Then the hockey puck theory was kicked out from him here:

After the the GISS data error was revealed, Hansen finally agreed to make public the method he uses to generate "official" temperature records from the actual readings. That process has been revealed to be thousands of lines of source code, containing hundreds of arbitrary "bias" adjustments to individual sites, tossing out many readings entirely, and raising (or lowering) the actual values for others, sometimes by several degrees. Many areas with weak or no rising temperature trends are therefore given, after adjustment, a much sharper trend. A full audit of the Hansen code is currently underway, but it seems clear that Hansen has more explaining to do.

In the Shadow of the Moon

A movie you must go see, "In the Shadow of the Moon." Here's some facts I did not know about Apollo 11:

The film also devotes time to a disaster that never happened - Armstrong and Aldrin being stranded on the moon. There's astonishing footage of President Richard Nixon delivering a eulogy to the astronauts, which, of course, never aired. Obviously, the fact that the speech was written and recorded says a lot about NASA's lack of confidence about the success of the mission - and the effect that failure would have had on the American public. The film continually makes the point - as do some of the astronauts - that the Apollo program represented what was good about the United States not only to Americans but also to the rest of the world.

Where is Steve Fossett?

From Flame Trench
Steve Fossett is missing.I remember his 2002 circumference of the world in a balloon. I pray for his wife Peggy and family. Let's hope he is safe.

Re-write history?

HT From Hotair here:

“The only moon landing in history is NASA’s Apollo expedition in 1968.”

Well lets see, did we or did we not have 6 Moon landings from 1969 to 1972? Is there something wrong with this story here.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia plans to send a manned mission to the Moon by 2025 and wants to build a permanent base there shortly after, the head of Russian space agency Roskosmos said Friday.

"According to our estimates we will be ready for a manned flight to the Moon in 2025," Anatoly Perminov told reporters. An "inhabited station" could be built there between 2027 and 2032, he said.

I guess the AFP in Moscow doesn't fact check at all!

Full Lunar Eclispe tonight

NASA
Map of coverage here:

Article here:

Conversely, almost the entire Pacific Ocean is turned toward the Moon during this August eclipse. In fact, at mid-totality the Moon will appear directly overhead for a spot over the open waters of the Pacific, roughly 1,800 mi. (2,900 km.) south of Hawaii.

And whereas, for the March lunar eclipse those near and along the Pacific Rim could catch a brief view at dawn, while the Americas view coincided with moonrise, in August we are presented with the converse of these circumstances. For the eclipse will already be underway at moonrise for Japan and much of Australia on the evening of Aug. 28.

The rest of eastern Asia will either have the Moon rise during totality, or will see it as it is exiting the Earth's shadow.

But from North America, the eclipse occurs during the early morning hours of Aug. 28.

On the Pacific coast it will start at 2:51 AM PST.

Bio Fuel Launch

The Orange County Space Society's yearly Summer BBQ meeting at Brookhurst Park. The rocket is a 2 liter coke bottle with vinegar and baking soda for fuel.

The rings around Uranus

Taken by the Hubble
Story here at NASA.

Mars soil has microbes?

Viking Lander
Phoenix Lander
I remember the Viking data was sort of like microbial but not like on earth. It was not proven to be life 30 years ago.

The soil on Mars may contain microbial life, according to a new interpretation of data first collected more than 30 years ago.

Scientists want to know whether or not Mars ever supported life.

The search for life on Mars appeared to hit a dead end in 1976 when Viking landers touched down on the red planet and failed to detect biological activity.

But Joop Houtkooper of the University of Giessen, Germany, said on Friday the spacecraft may in fact have found signs of a weird life form based on hydrogen peroxide on the subfreezing, arid Martian surface.

His analysis of one of the experiments carried out by the Viking spacecraft suggests that 0.1 percent of the Martian soil could be of biological origin.

That is roughly comparable to biomass levels found in some Antarctic permafrost, home to a range of hardy bacteria and lichen.

No delay in future Shuttle launches

From Florida Today here:

NASA is leaning toward launching shuttle Discovery on Oct. 23 without external tank changes despite heat-shield damage done to Endeavour during its blastoff earlier this month.

The agency also aims to launch Atlantis and a European science laboratory to the International Space Station on Dec. 6.

But NASA on Tuesday acknowledged it will be hard to launch 13 station assembly flights and a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission before a presidential deadline to retire the shuttle fleet in September 2010.

"I think we get into trouble if we start holding up some kind of standard that we have to complete all remaining 14 flights and it's a failure if we don't get all 14," NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier said after Endeavour's landing at Kennedy Space Center.

STS-1 and tiles lost

Commander Kelly was not a bit worried about the tile damage on STS-118. He said John Young, commander of STS-1 Columbia, spoke at meetings with STS-118 crew and stated that many tiles were lost on Columbia on her maiden voyage. She came home safely on her first trip out to space.
From the STS-1 Mission page:

Major systems tested successfully on first flight of Space Transportation System. Orbiter sustained tile damage on launch and from overpressure wave created by the solid rocket boosters. Subsequent modifications to the water sound suppression system eliminated the problem. A total of sixteen tiles were lost and 148 tiles were damaged.

The three inch gouge was not in a critical area such as the wing tips or the nose cone. The felt between the tiles was not burnt at all.

Endeavour's home

The damaged tile after the landing.

8:25 AM PST Deorbit burn is occurring and going well. Endeavour should be landing in an hour at KSC. Mission control said no further trim necessary.

You can follow the landing from Flame Trench as always here. I have kid detail to do. I'll be back soon!

9:00 AM PST Endeavour is entering the atmosphere right now.

9:02 AM PST Weather good at KSC but wind is changing.

9:06 AM PST First roll off manuver. Its banking to slow the spacecraft down.

9:12 AM PST Will target landing runway 15.

9:13 AM PST Less than 20 mins to go. Over Central America.

9:15 AM PST Over Costa Rica now. May be they will see the Top of Hurricane Dean as they go by.

9:16 AM PST 5 Mins. from Merrit Island tracking station.

9:17 AM PST 15 mins to touchdown at KSC. Over the Carribein now.

9:18 AM PST Almost over Cuba now. Getting closer.

9:20 AM PST Communication back with Endeavour. Crosswinds at landing strip.

9:21 AM PST Merrit Island tracking is picking up Endeavour now.

9:22 AM PST Endeavour using the GPS now.

9:23 AM PST Less than 10 mins. to landing.
9:24 AM PST Take the data Endeavour.
9:25 AM PST 6 mins and the cameras are picking her up!
9:28 AM PST Boom Boom!
9:33 AM PST Wheels stopped. Endeavour has landed safe and sound.

10:18 AM PST The crew is getting into the crew carrier. I'll be waiting for Commander Kelly to do his walk about the orbiter. More at NASA landing blog here.

Endeavour to land Tuesday

Deorbit 201

Endeavour’s first landing opportunity on Tuesday is at 12:32 p.m. at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., with the deorbit burn occurring at 11:25 a.m. A second opportunity is available at the Florida spaceport at 2:06 p.m. The deorbit burn would occur at 1 p.m.

All times are EST.

More here at the Space Shuttle site.

Over at Flame Trench they discuss the flight path over the Hurricane if Endeavour lands tomorrow as planed. Endeavour will pass 180,000 feet over head of Dean as it lands in Florida. I'll try to live blog the landing tomorrow sporadically with kid duty in between. God Speed Endeavour!

Dean's a Cat 5

Dean's clocking at 160 Mph winds and will hit Yucatan very soon

Endeavour Might be coming home a day early

NASA has decided not to fix the gash on Endeavour's belly. Underneath the gash is aluminum and can withstand 350 degrees F of heat. NASA's models conclude that it will only heat up to 330 degrees F.

Another issue is Hurricane Dean might effect Space operations in Houston so they want Endeavour to come home next Tuesday instead of Wednesday. A Crew might be transferred to Kennedy to assist in the landing.