A Pilot’s Blog
A blog about aviation, aviation news, and space.

I would have to count two events that I experienced today among my life’s highlights so far. Our local space museum hosted NASA’s traveling “Driven to Explore” exhibit today. Though the wind speeds forced them to close most of the outdoor display, they did have the “touch a moon rock” trailer open. So, today, I got to touch a rock brought back from the moon by the crew of Apollo 17! It was highly polished, possibly from lots of use, and felt very much like hematite.

The primary highlight of the day, however, was meeting NASA astronaut Steven G. Bowen who flew to the ISS as part of the STS-126 crew last fall. He gave a very informative talk about his mission and took several interesting questions from the audience. Afterwards, he very generously signed autographs for those in attendance. They had pre-printed lithographs available for him to sign, but anticipating the possibility of autographs, I had printed out a nice picture of him on a spacewalk for him to sign. He said that it was “one of his favorites” and wrote a very nice note.

Thanks Captain Bowen!

On this day in 2004, the first of two Mars rovers, Spirit, successfully landed on the red planet. Originally only a 90-day mission, the rovers’ longevity has surprised everyone. Three cheers for all of the scientific discoveries made thus far by the rovers, and for those to come! Way to go NASA!

There was some good news this week regarding cargo transportation to the International Space Station after the Space Shuttles are retired in 2010.

Orbital Sciences Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies – SpaceX – today won NASA contracts valued at up to $1.9 billion and $1.6 billion respectively for 20 unmanned space station cargo flights to deliver experiment hardware, crew supplies and replacement components after the space shuttle is retired.

This will greatly reduce our need to rely on Russian or European transports to send our supply obligations up to the ISS. And, if SpaceX is successful with their DragonX manned capability, we may also be able to avoid using any non-US transport for crew rotations as well. This is wonderful news.

STS-126 Mission Specialist, Dr. Don Pettit, demonstrates how you can drink a cup of coffee even in the weightless environment of space. A very fascinating video.

The 3rd flight of SpaceX’s “Falcon 1″ rocket is scheduled to happen in about 30 minutes. This is the first customer cargo flight, and it’s carrying three pieces of equipment, including a satellite for the US Government.

You can watch a live feed here and see the mission status page from SpaceFlightNow here.

Update @ 7:56p: It appears that the launch has been delayed for some reason. The chatter from Mission Control indicates that the rocket is currently being defueled. Not sure what’s going on.

Update @ 9:10p: The countdown has been reset to 51 minutes and has resumed!

Update @ 11:15p: The launch occurred and seemed to be going normally about thirty minutes ago when the live feed from the rocket suddenly cut out and the SpaceX webcast was abruptly halted with word that there “was an anomaly”. I’m afraid the rocket didn’t make it to orbit. That’s very unfortunate, but hopefully it will have provided some good data to the launch team so that whatever happened can be corrected for the next launch. Sorry guys.

Related: Second Launch of “Falcon 1″ A Partial Success

Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July, 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.

These words were on the Apollo 11 LEM Plaque as read by Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969 from the Sea of Tranquility on the Lunar surface.

In memory of all the brave men of the early space program who made the journey first to Earth orbit, and then to the Moon…and those who weren’t able to.

This afternoon in pristine weather the astronauts of STS-124 blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Space Shuttle Discovery on their way to meet up with the ISS and install the Kibo laboratory module. Best of luck to the combined crews of STS-124 and ISS Expedition 17!

Also, major congratulations are in order for NASA, JPL, and the University of Arizona for last weeks picture-perfect landing of the Phoenix lander on the Mars. What a great week for NASA and space exploration!

Update (2/20): Overcast. Bleh.

If you’re under cloudless skies this coming week be sure to take a look outside between 8 and 9 pm (Central Time) on Wednesday, February 20th. There is expected to be a beautiful total lunar eclipse which will be visible over all of the Americas. If you miss this one, you won’t have another chance until 2010.

The eclipse will begin when the moon enters the faint outer portion, or penumbra of the Earth’s shadow. The penumbra, however, is all but invisible to the eye until the moon becomes deeply immersed in it. Sharp-eyed viewers may get their first glimpse of the penumbra as a delicate shading on the left part of the moon’s disk about 20 minutes before the start of the partial eclipse (when the round edge of the central shadow or umbra, first touches the moon’s left edge). During the partial eclipse, the penumbra should be readily visible as a dusky border to the dark umbral shadow.

The moon will enter Earth’s much darker umbral shadow at 1:43 on Feb. 21 by Greenwich or Universal time, which is 8:43 p.m. on Feb. 20 in the Eastern time zone, 7:43 p.m. Central time, 6:43 p.m. Mountain time and 5:43 p.m. Pacific time.

Seventy-eight minutes later the moon is entirely within the shadow, and sails on within it for 51 minutes (about average for a total lunar eclipse), until it begins to find its way out at the lower left (southeastern) edge.

The moon be completely free of the umbra by 9:09 p.m. Pacific time or 12:09 a.m. (Feb. 21) Eastern time.

The vaguer shading of the inner penumbra can continue to be readily detected for perhaps another 20 minutes or so after the end of umbral eclipse. Thus, the whole experience ends toward 12:30 a.m. for the East (with the re-brightened moon now sloping down along the high arc it describes across the sky), or during the mid-evening hours for the West.

I was able to see the partial eclipse that occurred in March, and I hope that the weather will cooperate and I will be fortunate enough to see this one. The universe truly is a wonderful and beautiful thing.

Related: Lunar Eclipse

Michael Anderson – David Brown – Kalpana Chawla – Laurel Clark – Rick Husband – William McCool – Ilan Ramon

In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort and hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.
- President George W. Bush, February 1, 2003

We will never forget you or your sacrifice.

Gregory Jarvis – Christa McAuliffe – Ronald McNair – Ellison Onizuka – Judith Resnik – Dick Scobee – Michael J. Smith

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
- President Ronald Reagan, January 28, 1986

We will never forget you or your sacrifice.