July 16 + 40 years. Apollo 11 launches.

"Liftoff! We Have a Liftoff! 32 Minutes Past the Hour-Liftoff of Apollo 11."

-- Jack King 9:32am EDT on July 16, 1969

Space shuttle in your pocket.

I found another really cool thing that the iPod touch can do. You can now watch live streaming NASA TV if you to go this link - iphone.akamai.com. You have to go there with your iPhone/iPod touch. Then click the link and you'll have a rocket in your pocket!
I watched the STS-127 launch today, chipped tiles and the whole thing on my little iPod Touch. Sound and video was very good too.

| NASA TV |

Trailer parks on Mars?

Spirit rover despite being pretty much stuck ankle deep in the Mars soil, is still busy looking around at it's surroundings. Some new dust devil images have been released including one that is about 1,350 feet across! Despite the hugeness of this thing, due to the thin atmosphere, the rover isn't in any danger of being sucked away to the land of Oz and scary flying monkeys. It would most likely give the solar panels a good cleaning of the dust that falls on them. These devils are what have been keeping the rovers going with their occasional cleaning.
But if this was on Earth, and this was a tornado rather than a dust devil (big difference), you know this would be headed directly toward the nearest trailer park or farmhouse!
Click heels together "There's no place like Earth....there's no place like Earth..."

| See huge dust devil on JPL site |
| Get your 3d glasses for this dust devil |

LRO camera web page.

No Apollo sites yet, but I found a web page for the LRO's camera. I figure this might be the place to see them first when they release the photos possibly.
I'm kind of wondering if JPL is holding out on us and waiting until July 20 to release the good stuff we all want to see? That would be a fitting tribute to Apollo 11's 40th anniversary wouldn't it?

| Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera |

Anak Krakatau and and the Dipper

If you follow my blog you know that I really like volcanoes. This photo came out yesterday in Astronomy Picture of the Day. Fantastic!

Anak Krakatau is the "Child of Krakatoa". Krakatoa if you haven't heard of it, blew away it's entire island, was heard nearly 3,000 miles away, and killed over 36,000 people from the resulting tsunami back in 1883 when it had it's biggest eruption. One of the biggest and nastiest volcanic eruptions in recorded history.

| Astronomy Picture of the day |

Mercury model - only if you have a sharp knife and steady hands.

A friend sent me this link the other day to a site with a paper model of a Mercury spacecraft. I've made a few (I'll say very few) paper models. These are the model "kits" that you can download a .pdf file from the internet for free in many cases, print on card stock paper, then cut out and build. Seems easy, but not really. Try cutting out a detailed part that has to be creased at a 45 degree angle, then curved to fit around a rocket body. Nearly done cutting the part out on a sharp corner then - OOPS! - knife slips and you screw up the part and have to print a new one out. Been there, done that.
I'll stick with plastic with pre-shaped parts. I'll deal with the pain of gluing clear parts without getting glue fingerprints on the windows!

| Spacecraft Replicas web page |

Saturday launch scrubbed, try again today.

The several times delayed STS-127 launch should hopefully launch today. Easy to see why they didn't go on Saturday. Shuttle can't fly in rain since the delicate thermal tiles could get damaged.
....and after Apollo 12 got hit by lightning twice during launch, lightning isn't a good thing either. Saved by Alan Bean hitting the "SCE to AUX" breaker on John Aaron's recommendation. I still need to get that on a license plate I think. Only a few would know what SCE2AUX would mean!
Anyway, Endeavor should go at 7:13pm EDT (or 4:13 pm Pacific).
(Photo by Gene Blevins)

| Updates at Spaceflightnow |

Martian version of "Were's Waldo" (where did the lander splatter in 1999?)

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE site has a challenge posted to ask for help in solving a mystery of the lost spacecraft. Back in December 1999, the Mars Polar lander vanished when it was making it's final approach for landing on Mars. I remember it well, I was watching streaming video at work that day anxiously watching coverage to hear that he lander made it. A totally clueless coworker walked by and asked what I was looking at. "I'm watching the Mars landing, we almost have another lander on the surface!" I replied. He then said, "Are there people landing on Mars?". I bit my tongue, and gently said "No." Afterwards, I think I had to leave the building, go in the back alley and scream and kick stuff in my frustration with stupidity that I had just witnessed. Hopefully, as a Solar System Ambassador now, I can clear up some of this cluelessness - or at least I'm trying!
Anyway, JPL is asking for help. Download the photos and search for anything that looks like a pile of wreckage on the surface. Probably has ice on it, and maybe a parachute could be seen somewhere but this is still a mystery. The lander most likely had a problem where it though it was near the surface, but wasn't there yet, and dropped from the chute too soon and splattered all over the ground. I don't know if there is a reward for who finds it, maybe you get the crater named after you? If that is the case, someone needs to find it before Steven Colbert!

| JPL HiRISE site with the search photos |

MLAS launch test.

MLAS - Max Launch Abort System was successfully tested in a simulated pad abort test at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island today. The stubby rocket launched a simulated crew module to an altitude of about a mile then separated to a parachute assisted landing in the ocean.
Strange looking test rocket. Look at the video how this thing comes apart into a bunch of smaller parts. Kind of reminds me of one of those Russian dolls that have smaller dolls inside each other!


| NASA site |

Fly along with LRO

There's a video out that shows the moon as a video from the LRO obiter now. No Apollo stuff yet though, still waiting for the infamous hoax to get whacked....






| LRO Blog site |

Not quite space related, but we all love the Blue Angels.

The topic diverts slightly, but it's my blog so I write what I want!
I came across this little video in one of my many aviation related email lists that I'm on. It's such a fine view from the Blue Angles taken by some very lucky guy with a camera. Not sure if he barfed, but I'm sure he did and came out with a full bag (or lap?) and a smile on his face afterwards!




| Click on the video for full size |

New images from Phoenix.

Been a while since Phoenix died. It's cold corpse is probably frozen at the Martian tundra now, I hope we'll see some recent images of it from MRO one of these days.
A few new photos and some evidence of climate cycles. Read the full article on the link below.

| Latest from Phoenix |
| Photos |