Pillow Astronaut

Excellent summary. It is very difficult to descri...

2012-05-29T13:19:12.024-07:00

Excellent summary. It is very difficult to describe the difference between contractors and commercial. Another piece of this is who assumes the overrun costs and the risk. SpaceX gets money from NASA to build this, but not the total price of developing their vehicle. They will make their money selling their vehicles to NASA (and others). If it doesn't work, SpaceX and the other commercial companies are out money, not NASA.

Amen! And it's not over yet! 2:30am PT tonight...

2012-05-25T10:16:13.668-07:00

Amen! And it's not over yet! 2:30am PT tonight for hatch opening... WHO NEEDS SLEEP!! ;)

This week truly has been invigorating for my inner...

2012-05-25T10:02:27.741-07:00

This week truly has been invigorating for my inner space loving soul.

Happy Berthday Dragon!

Me too! Everyone is nail-biting breathless waiting...

2012-05-24T11:16:52.391-07:00

Me too! Everyone is nail-biting breathless waiting to see if the berthing goes over without a hitch so they can unload! :)

Wow - didn't know about the 'tube cargo...

2012-05-24T04:20:37.064-07:00

Wow - didn't know about the 'tube cargo'. I am VERY excited for SpaceX to do well!

I just came cross this ouside my local post office...

2012-05-23T13:36:53.982-07:00

I just came cross this ouside my local post office here in Chico Ca. There I was, minding my own business. Going into the post office, when...WHACK. Godwin's Law. A massive picture of President Obama with a huge Hitler mustache. With tons of little satellite signs with "Save NASA" and "Impeach Obama".

Honestly I am all for peoples right to protest what ever threat real/perceived that gets their dander up. But when will they realize that no one can take them seriously with Beckian propaganda of this magnitude.

robert: that's normal. What the Dragon capsule...

2012-05-21T11:42:38.563-07:00

robert: that's normal. What the Dragon capsule will be doing is actually called berthing, and it's the expected behavior for this flight.

Another interesting thing seems to be it is not an...

2012-05-21T10:49:17.957-07:00

Another interesting thing seems to be it is not an active docking.

Based on the video on their web page, they get the capsule close and it is grabbed by the station arm and mated to the station.

I'm not sure if that was a contingency or normal maneuver.

Anything that achieves extremely fast sublight spe...

2012-05-19T03:12:13.054-07:00

Anything that achieves extremely fast sublight speeds will have to contend with the mass problem if we don't find a way to subvert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. As the amount of kinetic energy necessary to accelerate a particle with mass to light speed is infinite, the theory dictates that so, too, will the mass of the particle be when light speed is achieved. Therefore, as energy approaches infinity, mass does too. This will be a significant problem even if we do find "the fuel." I seem to think that the fuel is only the first hurdle. Tricking Einstein? Good luck with that. However, a cool sidenote is that if we do come close to the speed of light, say, close enough that the difference in speed might be equivalent to the difference in speed between my car and the Porsche speeding by me on the highway, if I looked out my special space window (hurdle #3 in construction... hopefully that plexiglass guy in San Francisco who was supposed to invent transparent aluminum 20 years ago hasn't given up on salvaging Scotty's data from his old Apple II computer), light would still appear to be "going the speed of light", instead of just a small fraction of it.

LOL, if it ever gets more business, it could easil...

2012-05-18T14:43:27.880-07:00

LOL, if it ever gets more business, it could easily turn into Mos Eisley... and I hope you get to see it someday! It's actually a shame more people don't know about it. They have had some great spaceflight milestones, and a lot of amazing research is happening there :)

You got to me through DONUT PILLOW? Hahaha, that&...

2012-05-18T14:38:35.947-07:00

You got to me through DONUT PILLOW? Hahaha, that's classic. I don't know if I should be alarmed at the association or flattered that pretty much any "pillow" search term entered into Bing or Google these days brings up my web sites! ;)

I was searching for a
2012-05-17T16:11:31.834-07:00
I was searching for a donut pillow and your site came up. Anyways, WOW! Launchapalooza seems so fun. Space has always interested me as a child but, as I grew older, I didn't like the idea of working in a bureaucratic (sp) so I crossed it off of my list.

It sure doesn't look like a wretched hive of s...

2012-05-09T15:35:03.211-07:00

It sure doesn't look like a wretched hive of scum and villainy. ...sorry, I'm just jumping on the bandwagon of bloggers who think its nifty that Mojave and Mos Eisley both have three syllables and begin with the letters "Mo".

Thanks for posting about this. I wasn't aware of the history prior to its becoming a space port.

And I finally made it, thanks to you and Mr. L, ha...

2012-05-03T18:30:36.677-07:00

And I finally made it, thanks to you and Mr. L, haha!! Thanks for everything, and I'll be very active on Facebook and Twitter tomorrow. Hmm... I get the feeling Camilla will be too ;)

Looking forward to reading about your trip to Dryd...

2012-05-03T13:34:49.652-07:00

Looking forward to reading about your trip to Dryden but also the Moon Tree in Monterey!

That must have really been something. I watched so...

2012-04-23T10:24:44.312-07:00

That must have really been something. I watched some of the interviews on CNN, but I found more about the entire event from your links! Thanks Arch!

It's a while since I posted at pillownaut'...

2012-04-20T19:47:22.176-07:00

It's a while since I posted at pillownaut's journal [hello Heather], I posted this at a science forum...

Arab named stars, gypsies? They travelled from arabia/Iraq/Iran settling in Spain and were known as Gaelic, the Celtish peoples religion was a version of Zoastrianism, studying stars, they moved into France, walked to the then connected with mainland Europe, England, walked into the then connected Ireland part of England.

The Irish Republican Army Known as the IRA declared it had been fighting a four hundred year war against England. From what I could tell from my own knowledge of astronomy was that an element fallout was occuring at the constellation of Auriga into which is above Ireland and southern England. The apparent fallout causing a distressing painful occurance onto the Irish sub element atmosphere [hell].

John F Kennedy encouraged the IRA in america, you see the historical contrast considering the Kennedy government stance against Fidel Castro, ironically Castro in Spain the region of Fidel Castro's origin and one of the largest most important Gaelic settlements in world history of the Gaelic ancestry. The arrival of many Spanish men for potato farming in Ireland around two hundred years ago watched an integrating process move on from older connections to moving to America 150 years ago during the potato famine. The significance of Gaelic ancestry has not been lost and many Irishmen would be happy to remember older days of Irish explorers of the likes of Culculan and the Kings of mount Tara...

The holy grail has brought the cures to all of the unsolved pending issues, among others the end of the element fallout to the good people of Ireland.

House of pain / Jump around

[song at music video]

Oh man I wish I could be there :( Thank science fo...

2012-04-20T07:30:35.180-07:00

Oh man I wish I could be there :( Thank science for live streaming and Twitter! :D

Thanks for the shout out Heather! Pic is not amazi...

2012-04-19T14:37:43.308-07:00

Thanks for the shout out Heather! Pic is not amazing but it's cool that I was close by. Thanks for featuring it.

I was happy to see the collective interest and pause around my office and around NoVa. I can tell you there was a beautiful gasp of wonder and excitement that occured in my building during the first fly by. It seems that space makes us feel young and curious again. That's a good thing. Nice we can all rally around something since everyone seems to be quite adversarial lately. Space takes us back to our roots. Keep up your great work!

If anyone wants to see some hotter pictures - my co-worker Joan was at the same window with a serious rig. Check it here:
http://sportz-knechtion.smugmug.com/Airplanes/Space-Shuttle-Discoverys-Final/22507540_LN5Qx5#!i=1800380548&k=BMH8JnG

-SeanG

Thanks, Stef! Glad you enjoyed it. This was such a...

2012-04-18T08:11:04.548-07:00

Thanks, Stef! Glad you enjoyed it. This was such a fun one to research and making the graphics was a blast in terms of charting all the similarities and differences. It's quite amazing to watch the language progressions -- even into newly invented languages like Klingon for sci-fi shows. They mostly adopt the Latin roots! :) Interestingly, the planet that we LIVE upon seemed to be the most variable word...

Cool blog post, as usual! Please notice how eviden...

2012-04-18T05:19:52.078-07:00

Cool blog post, as usual! Please notice how evident the reference is with the names of the days in Neo-Latin languages like Italian, French & Spanish: Lunedì/Lundi/Lunes; Martedì/Mardi/Martes; Mercoledì/Mercredi/Miércoles; Giovedì/Jeudi/Jueves; Venerdì/Vendredi/Viernes; Sabato/Samedi/Sábado, that is: dies Lunae (the day of the Moon), Marti, Mercuri, Iovis, Veneri, Saturni...with the exception of Domenica/Dimanche/Domingo (not dies Solis, but dies Domini, the day of the Lord). Here their origin for Anglo-Saxon languages: http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/roman/daysweek.htm Mythical gods, planets...extremely fascinating!

But of course, Ms Naut! In fact... I think that m...

2012-04-14T23:39:22.421-07:00

But of course, Ms Naut!

In fact... I think that might even qualify you to be entered into the draw...

(This is where you send your email address to questions@idreamofspace.com so I can reward you with fractional space ticketing)

Reubs! Rebzors! I am awesome, thank you for noti...

2012-04-14T17:22:30.276-07:00

Reubs! Rebzors! I *am* awesome, thank you for noticing, LOL... and so it turns out, you're awesome too!! Can I do a blog post about your DREAMOFSPACE website?? :)

Hey! So it turns out, you're awesome. Someon...

2012-04-13T14:25:04.873-07:00

Hey!

So it turns out, you're awesome.

Someone'z blogz getting a tweeeeeeet...

- Reubs

Thanks, everyone! You're too kind! I wish I ...

2012-04-11T20:32:28.551-07:00

Thanks, everyone! You're too kind!

I wish I had been at the last Shuttle launch! But I did attend STS-133, and I made a Time.com video tribute to the program:

http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,1041054441001_2081723,00.html

And, if you'll indulge one more link... check out my new job:

http://blogs.plos.org/takeasdirected/2012/03/28/science-comedian-brian-malow-joins-nc-museum-of-natural-sciences/

Hopefully, you'll be seeing (and hearing) a lot more video and audio content from me in the near future!

Thanks again for the terrific article, Heather!

Brian