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Space Blog
LooseChanj writes "Ed Lu, a member of
the Expedition 7 crew of the ISS has been sending back some extremely
well written and interesting commentary
about his mission, and some of the things one has to deal with in
space. This is exactly the kind of stuff we need to see more of
out of NASA!"
The same principle that makes the shuttle go forward (conservation of momentum -- gas goes backward and you go forward) would propel you forward too. Because of air resistance, however, you would gradually slow down.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
They run Windows. Actually; the first crew, under command of Bill Shepherd had some problems with it initially, what didn't help was the fact that shepherd was a Mac user, some funny entries in his -extensive and really interesting- mission log on that topic. like, he being very proud to have installed a harddisk on a windowssystem, being a Mac head. http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp1/ex1l ogs.html
Given the high risks inherent in each mission, I wonder what NASA really feels about astronauts blogging from space. NASA probably has mixed feelings about "personalizing" these high risk individuals. Did you all catch that recent story of the speech Nixon had ready had the Apollo 11 crew been unable to return from the moon. Compelling stuff.
Nixon's unused speech
This is exactly the kind of stuff we need to see more of out of NASA!
Count me out. Manned space flight is very expensive and risky. I'd rather see NASA explore Venus or Io or put more budget into their space telescopes a la Hubble.
My karma ran over your dogma
It will be cool, too, if we can read the weblog of the astronauts that will go to mars in n years.
Right now I'm reading Mars, by Ben Bova. This is a really great novel if space exploration and/or Mars exploration interrests you. BTW Ben Bova work[ed?] for the NASA so he knows what he talk about, from the technical point of view.
If China succeed with its space ambition to go to the moon one day (they are still very far from that goal, see various Slashdot articles in the last few weeks), it can be cool to read the weblog of this mission, too. This one maybe of less interrests because the Appolo mission was very well documented but the detail, expectation and goal of the mission will likely be somewhat different.
but I know about the problems of accounting in Russia. I would want very much that the bulk of the money goes to the space program and doesn't get diverted via miscellaneous off-shore companies and swiss-bank accounts.
See my journal, I write things there
As a longtime fan of NasaWatch (which is a weblog), I'd loooove to see a real ISS weblog, which would be updated continually with all the tidbits passing thru the crewman's interest, and addressed to his peers.
But what Lu is doing isn't even a Web journal-- he's writing long essays on set topics that are targeted for a popular audience by 'talking down'.
Each spaceflight has a number of fun events and ceremonies that never go to official press releases. For instance, I hoped that Ed wouldn't be a hypocrite and will clearly state that he had to piss on a Russian bus as a part of the 'piss ceremony' (scroll down to the Baikonur piece), but no, he shamefully tosses that fact and tells us the dull story of leaving signature at the apartment's wall. He didn't even mention that every single Soyuz spacecraft carrier gets 'Tatiana' name hand-painted on it shortly before launch.
I think if NASA wants to popularize space exploration among the youth, it should openly declare that antisocial behaviour and graffiti are mandatory parts of space travel.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.