Slashdot Mirror
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!"
...were successful missions. But apparently, I was wrong.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
from right here on earth much cheaper.
What exactly am I getting for my tax money from the ISS ?
something to ponder.
Yay! The world's.. err.. galaxy's... first splog!!
(space log)
A first post that not only wasn't just some stupid shit, it was rather insightful, and a tad witty as well.
Sir, I salute you!
they still stink
Error, does not compute!
Maybe you shitheads would like to use REAL English, and not some fucked made-up words.
It's nice to see that at $20,000/pound, we're sending gozilla toys into orbit. The true irony would be if he were doing it from the Japanese Experiment Module
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
What's too bad about the space program is there weren't enough niggers on the Columbia. We'd be doing the world a favor to kill the niggers in the upper atmosphere.
So the ISS is not about science.
Purely a Government Jobs program right now.
It may have a use as a station to build spaceships for space exploration but that won't be done for a long time.
Should never have been constructed ! Huge waste of money.
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
To be sure: Since ed's logs appeared on spaceref , I've been looking out for each new installment, they are good, really. but... since the Colombia 'mishap' (what a stupid word, why don't they call a disaster a disaster, for that what is it, for NASA, at least) NASA seems to do everything to polish up their public image, in a way that's great, but they're sometimes too obvious, and start looking ridiculous. Nasa's newsletter used to be informative, but since Colombia it's just one 'come over to the party' rag; no hard info anymore, only things like kids at nasa, nasa ont tv blablabla. I'm afraid they actually pressed lu to publish these things, because he has a good pen. I can imagine those 2 guys have a hard time up there, and nasa nagging 'hey Lu, when's the next article coming down, you can sleep if you're back on earth! Ok a bit exaggerated, i guess, but still...
Probably about what happens under gravity... gases tend to be more effected by air currents than weight, and I would immagine that space craft have much better ventilation than most enclosed areas on earth.
because THEN it would be cool.
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Yikes, I didn't think it was possible for there to be a bored astronaut before I read a couple of his posts. Title this (Waste of) Space Blog
When Kirk would start out with "Captain's log..." he was really making an entry into his weblog. Man, I'd love to see the feedback on that thing:
Captain's log, stardate 1234: Banged the green chick again today - what a wild one!
Feedback:
SpacemanSpiff: Dude! What are you drinking, Romulan Ale? Green means 1 of two things: not ripe or spoiled and either way that's one place you don't want to go where no man has gone before...
IMPORTANT NOTE: There are many merchandising attempts for goatse.cx around the web-- none of them are real, none of them are official. Do not buy this gimmick merchandise. The official goatse.cx merchandise is coming soon!
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
A gaseous outburst from one's rectum can be rather interesting, if a flame is present. --- Do not try this at home. NASA astronauts are professionals. --- ;) I believe there have been some studies done on spherical flames in zero gravity environments. This does lead one to believe that before the Bunsen burner had time to be lit; maybe a test was made using a readily available gas source. One can only imagine.
Good job Ed. He has little enough time up there maintaining that thing without having to worry about posting a blog for those of us destined to dig in the dirt our whole lives. I for one am glad he posted these, even if some are a bit bland technically for an engineer.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
April 30: The Commander is a little gruff at times and the payload specialist has been laying some major payloads of flatulence, but overall it's not so bad.
May 5: The crew acts nice and polite when I'm around, but I suspect they don't like me. They always stop whispering when they see me.
May 18: If I catch Yuri with my wife's picture again doing what he was doing, he's going to be doing some unscheduled EVA, suit optional.
May 31: They're up to something alright. They think I can't see their little conspiratorial glances and such, but I can, oh I can.
June 12: The voices are growing louder now. They're telling me the crew's true plan. Act normal, I can't let them know I'm on to them. Not yet.
June 29: I've taken advantage of the short periods I have alone to set up a little surprise for these aliens posing as my human crewmates. Almost ready. Soon, soon I'll be free.
July 7: This is my last blog entry All is prepared. The crew knows I know now. I have only miuntes now to save the world. Just one push of a button and it will be all over for these invaders.
In this case (for a body enclosed by the space shuttle in free-fall) you can assume that momentum is conserved. So you you expel gas, the total momentum of you and the gas is 0.
By the same token, the force exerted by you on the gas is the same force extered by the gas on you. That's newton's third law.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Todays Entry: Saw aliens destroy half of the world, more importantly, Yuri is hitting on me.
Another plus for the ISS.
I understand in space, they don't pressure the vessel to atmospheric 14.7 psi, so if the pressure is lower, the diffusion should take place at a much faster rate. Not to say it won't be noticed, though.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Green means not ripe or spoiled? What do they teach you young people these days?! You obviously have never met the triple breasted whore of Eroticon Six.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
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
They have a Godzilla toy onboard the ISS.
:)
The desks of geeks are all very similar... even in space. I'm glad they're allowed to keep a sense of humor even though they're in space - despite what it would have cost to loft that toy into orbit.
On orbiting: "A good way to imagine our view is to stand up and look down at your feet." He continued, "For some of you this will be an exercise in imagination. If you lack imagination, clown shoes will also do the trick."
What would be a small toot at sea level would be a station shaker at partial pressure.
Plus, the fart/air ratio would be higher, so it might disperse quicker but might be gaggingly worse till it does.
Number 29:
Americans complaining about Russians behaving like capitalists.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I understand in space, they don't pressure the vessel to atmospheric 14.7 psi, so if the pressure is lower, the diffusion should take place at a much faster rate. Not to say it won't be noticed, though.
Actually, ISS, the space shuttle and soyuz all run at near sea level pressure. This allows a more direct comparison to ground based medical studies, eliminates the health problems associated with long term exposure to low pressure, as well as the fire risk from higher oxygen concentration which would be required. OTOH, it means that you need an extensive pre-breath bends before EVAs, and requires a more massive pressure vessel.
With no shower, no laundry facilities and 2+ hours of exercise required every day, ISS is most likely a smelly place, with or without farts.
Maybe I'm just noticing this for the first time, but is Slashdot.org now in the spyware business? Getting all kinds of Spybot Search and Destroy warnings about "Avenue A" spyware?
Anyone else?
Has any astronaut ever loaded goatse.cx in outer space?
Its one thing to load it on Earth.. but goatse in space.. thats a different matter.
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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
Parent is flamebait ;)
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
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
And I didn't read a single entry about using the toilet in the whole blog.
Come on, there's gotta be a humorous story somewhere up there about someone "following through" when farting as they were getting dressed ("one in the eye" for international relations? :).
Zillions of dollars and no toilet humor? Tch, what is the world coming to?
.02
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
did you actually read any of his entries? how do you know they don't provide value if you didn't?
Given that I will probably never have the chance for long-term spaceflight in my physically capable lifetime, I would darn well like to know what it feels like to sit in a capsule, and what it's like to have a few million pounds of highly explosive stuff behind you blast you up at incredible speeds - the moments when the boosters are jettisoned, etc.
I'd like to know what it's like to fly through a space-station, and what particular difficulties are encountered during what's run of the mill on earth (eat, sleep, brush your teech, go to the restroom).
I'd like to know the views, the feelings, the daily life - because even if I cannot make it up there physically, for at least a short while my imagination can.
So, you think tax dollars are better spent to make some astronomers giddy about this nebula or that galaxy they can see? well, those nebulas and galaxies arn't going anywhere for the next few billion years. But there are people who might be interested in what space is like but won't ever have a chance to go up there. They won't last nearly that long.
What's wrong with providing a taste of space for everyone like that? do we not deserve some piece of the rewards for all these achievements in space? human experience should be shared by all, not just a few scientists, methinks.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
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'.
In zero gravity, however, it would mix perfectly to the air, and maybe the stink would last indefinitely. If I remember correctly, farts consist most of methane, but the stinking ingredients are some sodium compounds. Maybe I'm wrong.
A good blog, agree. But it's strange to read here the following:
We launched a little over 2 weeks ago from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Russian spaceship called a Soyuz TMA. It is the latest in a series of spacecraft based on the design of the spacecraft that the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, first flew into space over 40 years ago.
Soyuz is a completely new design, quite different from Vostok. It has its origins in the Soviet manned lunar program...
Lighter objects? In zero-G? I think he may mean objects with large surface areas compared to their mass,
Powered by onion juice.
Rule of thumb, don't do it in your spacesuit, you're only screwing yourself.
Beware blue cats moving at
are for them to tell the truth about the Alien Technology! About the UFO's the have captured, about the reverse engineering of the flyving saucers!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
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.
The blogs are extremely informative..Its nice to see Lu mentioning in intricate detail about orbits,the ride to the station in the Soyuz, the mating of Progress with the ISS (about the lag in response of the Progress to impulses provided by Yuri and Ed's joystick and compensation & patience results thereof).
Nice to see him talking about trivial things like what they have for dinner and how. While not getting into the larger debate of the ISS being this huge waste of money, I must admit this is pretty interesting stuff, and I'm sure it will help in ensuring sustained interest of the common man in the space program.
I'm sure Ed will get into more interesting sermons like experiments aboard the ISS, EVA's, LOS/AOS and TDRS satellites and probably with the shuttle mission coming up in December or January,and since I think the Columbia commission's recommendations call on all future Shuttle missions making it to the ISS, there will be some interesting observations on that,if and when it happens.
Nice work Ed! Keep up the good work!Actually, in microgravity you tend to fart a lot more. Because there's not enough gravity to cause solids to settle inside you, gasses can percolate around much more freely.
I am told that the air on board the ISS smells quite badly, but the people living on board get used to it pretty quickly.
They get sucked and filtered out by the a/c.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
"Captain's log. Commander Hoëk here, on a thirty-six year mission to the Crab Nebula. We've made this trip dozens of times. You know, they say sometimes people go CRAZY on these long trips. They get the, eh... SPACE MADNESS. Heh. Space madness."
BLOGS... IN... SPAAAAAAAAACE!
A rolling stone is worth two in the bush!
My friend in 3rd grade told me about this catalog he found. It had fart jars and fart tubes and stink jars etc. He said the fart jars were for farting in so you could save the smell for later, and the fart tubes were for farting into so the 'marvelous' odor could be carried directly to your own nostrils. The stink jars were for boogers shits and puke so you could watch it bubble and spew on your nightstand. Prolly all made up....
Yeah but if you're wearing a space suit It just smells real bad for a while...
but be warned: The sequel sucks. Return to Mars is a disgrace to the trees that had to die for it to appear in print. When you finish Mars, savor it. It is a masterpiece. Just don't get pulled into buying the second one.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Of course GWB had the speech ready if WMD's were used on our troops. What GWB didn't have ready was the speech to use if WMD's were not used on our troops . . . or not encountered by our troops . . . or not found after a couple of months of really hard searching.
My mother always warned me about floating around in space like that because the when you float around like that you get giddy, and when you get giddy the next thing you know you've poked someone's eye out!
In the entry about eating aboard the ISS, I was stunned to read that much of the Russian space food comes in cans, which they open with a can opener. Cans?? The Russians haul food up to a space station in CANS??? My American preconception of the Russian space program as somewhat clunky (re: the cigarette-smoking fuel station attendant in Armageddon) just did an Olympic triple back-flip.
While NASA may well be polishing their image up (doesn't it need some shining?), Ed wasn't the first one doing this sort of thing. Don Pettit, Science Officer on Expedition Six) did something similar, called Space Chronicles before Columbia was lost. He also did Saturday Morning Science basically in his own free time and of his own volition.
--buck