On the Bottom Half

Starry Night.

With the second space walk complete and the Mobile Transporter system now fully operational again, the ISS is ready for the next phases of construction. Astronauts Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum performed a ~6.8 hour space walk on Monday and everything went very smoothly. The big event was changing out a cable reel for the Mobile Transporter.

Yesterday was spent reloading the Leonardo Logistics Module for return to Earth. The module is scheduled to be reberthed in Discovery's payload bay on 14 Jul. Wednesday's event is the third space walk where they will be testing the functionality of tile repair compounds and procedures.

Other than that, not too much else is new. I'm gearing up to go to Japan soon for my first field work. A professor in Japan has been very helpful providing me with all kinds of geological and topographic maps, papers, and advice. I can't read Japanese, which is a shame because there is quite a lot of it on my maps and envelopes and even some of the papers. I still don't know exactly what I'm doing, but when have I ever anyway? I toured up to Bruce and Helen's on Sunday, then took Monday and Tuesday as work from home days. All I had were papers to read, so I figured I wold save the fuel and stay out in Tecoma. The cat thanks me, I'm sure.

I have more pictures and stories of past travels coming soon. In the meantime, I have only heard the stereo from next door during daylight hours ever since our little fight. In answer to a question I got about which song Toby Keith sang for me: the song was Honkytonk U, which seems fitting since everyone in the complex is a student.

Ed: It was funny watching all the bleary eyes during the Soccer World Cup because all the games were on at strange hours here. Then, of course, the Shuttle goes up and now I'm the one with bleary eyes... NERD!

posted by Kyle @ 20:47