Slashdot Mirror
Soyuz With Richard Garriott Successfully Launched
Toren Altair writes "Soyuz TMA-13 with ISS Expedition Crew 18 and Richard Garriott successfully launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 7:01 UT (3:01 EDT). The Soyuz capsule will dock to the ISS in two days. Garriott will return to Earth with Expedition 17 crew members, Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko on October 23."
With the extra attention on this launch, the Russians have gone out of their way to say that the return of the Soyuz vehicle will be safe, after a couple of different malfunctions in the past year. Garriott is in space partly for recreation, and partly as a promotion for his latest MMO, Tabula Rasa. He took with him a hard drive filled with information about humanity, as well as DNA sequences from Tabula Rasa players and various celebrities (including Stephen Colbert and Stephen Hawking) to 'preserve' that data in case of a disaster on Earth. Garriott will also spend time running and participating in experiments. Coverage of the Soyuz mission is ongoing at NASATV.
If you haven't seen it yet, I'd recommend checking out Tabula Rasa . It's one of the better RPGs set in space, and I like how it has adopted ideas from science fiction writers like Vinge. Going into space seems a great way to support it, but it's a pity that the mass media now considers human spaceflight so meh that even a freakin' computer game legend going into orbit won't win too much attention for the game.
From October 14, Richard Garriot will be sending back SSTV images from the ISS. Today they're planning to test some of the equipment currently on the ISS by sending SSTV between 1800UTC and 2100UTC. Unfortunately there won't be any usable passes over where I live before 1800, but I'll still be listening on 145.800MHz just in case...
If you're interested in trying to receive images or other radio transmissions from the ISS, you can get information on its passes from Heavens Above or by using prediction software like gpredict. You may find you need a larger antenna than the "rubber duck" that most scanners and handheld radios come with, but if you're far enough south to get a good high pass you might manage to hear it. For receiving SSTV you'll need some sort of gain antenna like a Yagi, really. In Linux, you can use qsstv for decoding the SSTV images.
the Ultima Online community got it's petition through and shot him to the moon. I never played any Ultima game back then but I want his house, probably for sale by now.
Wait, what do you mean "Garriott will return to Earth"?
On a side note,
Richard Garriot, apart from being a successful video game writer, is in fact the son of a former NASA astronaut.
Yes, but did he take along any parts for the toilet?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Baikonur? I figured he'd blast off from Pirate's Harbor! I hope his Power Armor's in good condition also, or he'll never get the ring from the old man on Planet X.
They don't know what they're in for.
The last thing they'll hear before they are mercilessly ganked is "corp por corp por".
By my definition, this makes Richard Garriott the most sane man on the planet, literally by escaping it for a short time.
For years, I've been baffled by the rat race millionaires and billionaires who seem to do nothing with their copious amounts of cash than collect more of it. It isn't sane IMHO unless you do something big and spectacular with that amount of excess. At most, some of them retire and give a portion to charity (not bad per se, but even then watch them coldly calculate how they dole it out).
Richard Garriott isn't super rich on a gigantic scale compared to some, but he's always done stuff that others may define as eccentric. Seriously tho, he's more sane than the rest of that upper margin.
Kudos to him.
I had the pleasure to meet Richard Garriot at E3 a few years ago.
You would think some bigwig like Mr. Garriot would go out to eat, but no, he was standing in line with the rest of us schmoe's at the cafeteria.
I didn't even take notice of who was who until someone asked if they could sit at the only empty chair across from me, to which I muttered "whatever" and went on reading my material. When I finally looked up, I was shocked to say the least. The interesting thing was that Mr. Garriot spent the hour and a half talking to me, laughing at his past antics, moaning about all that money he had to spend on his "castle sinking". Even when we were interrupted by the occasional fan asking for his autograph, this man never once got upset or even looked cross.
I'm not much for meeting a lot of the Game Developer Gods, I've had my share of not-so-good meetings, but I will say "Good for you Richard", reach for the moon, if you miss, you will still be among the stars!
He took with him a hard drive filled with information about humanity, as well as DNA sequences from Tabula Rasa players and various celebrities (including Stephen Colbert and Stephen Hawking) to 'preserve' that data in case of a disaster on Earth.
Okay, I understand the concept of "publicity stunt", however...
What exactly is having this material a couple hundred miles above the planet supposed to accomplish, exactly? In case of a disaster on the Earth, was he thinking he'd do a spacewalk and try to throw it in a direction away from Earth? Good luck generating escape velocity that way, buddy.
Or did he think this planet-wide disaster would be over quickly, leaving an Earth-side genetics lab intact so he could return to Earth safely and somehow recreate a new race to be known as The Nerdlings? Tabula Rasa players, yeah that's the building blocks of an advanced civilization...
#DeleteChrome