All kinds of unexpected goings-on...
Things on STS-120 were going smoothly until the redeploy of the P6 solar arrays after their repositioning during the most recent spacewalk. One of the sets of arrays was at about 80% deployed when this was noticed:
That's ugly and bad. The brown honeycomb-like sheet across the bottom 1/2 of the picture is the array, which folds accordion-like (concertina-like for Aussie readers) to be retracted. The scaffolding across the top of the picture is indeed scaffolding which supports the array when it is extended. The tear and buckling is not good. I'm sure the arrays have been engineered with bypass circuitry to limit the effect of this sort of damage, but I doubt that they can trust the array to hold together under stress at full deployment.
Following the third spacewalk during cleanup activities onboard the orbiter/station complex Doug Wheelock found a hole in one of his spacesuit gloves. Pictures of that have been sent down for closer inspection by the experts, presumably the folks at Hamilton-Sundstrand - the makers of the spacesuits - if the damage looks severe enough.
Rewinding a little, the inspection work performed in the first spacewalk of the dicky array rotary joint found metal filings and excessive wear in the joint. Managers have decided to limit the motion of that particular array to prevent total failure while they try to find a fix.
Other than those three little problems, everything else is going off without a hitch.
*Update*
It turns out that even with the torn array at 80% of its total possible extension, it is still producing 95% of the power that it would be producing were it fully extended. So long as they can stabilise the tear and be reasonably sure that it won't propagate or cause long-term power problems, I'm thinking... she'll be right mate! The most pressing issue is definitely the filings/drag on the rotary joint. No words on what to do about that yet.
Skype and format notes...
Just a quick one 'cause it's late: anyone on Skype? For those of you unfamiliar with it, Skype is a way of voice calling over the internet for free (if you have a microphone for your computer). I just started using it a little because my brother is in Mexico and he uses it from there. Works a treat.
If you sign up or already use it, my Skype ID is my: first name.last name. Hope we can connect.
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I'm hopefully starting and seeing to completion a bit of an overhaul in the design of my blog. I know it's nothing special anyway, but it might be time for a bit of an update. It remains to be seen how far this update gets, but I've started by cleaning up the 'Blogs I Watch' section because most of the blogs haven't been updated for several months, verging on a year. I'll continue to check them once in a while for renewed life, but many of their owners have ported permanently to Facebook, so I'll only re-link to them if they do become active again.
If there are any suggestions that you'd like to see or things you'd like me to stop doing (besides writing about nothing at all, I'm getting rather good at that), please pass on a comment or e-mail.
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Also, I've thought of a few Jeff Foxworthy-like jokes about academics, here's the first couple:
If you use or have ever used the word 'constrained' in a sentence and in context, you might be an academic.
If you routinely use the phrase, or have the phrase applied to you, 'in the real world' and it doesn't mean your job, you might be an academic.
Mission Update
The first spacewalk is complete, Harmony has been attached to it's temporary location on the Unity node and the hatch has been opened! It's final position will be at the end of the US Destiny Laboratory, but Discovery is in the way at the moment, so the move will come after Discovery departs.
After attaching Harmony, the ventilation system was activated and the module opened for speeches and ceremony to commission the new 'space'. The press conference was interesting: Harmony looks surprisingly voluminous and the 7 members of the STS-120 crew arrayed themselves like wheel spokes around the entrance corridor. What a sweet way to talk to the press! Check it out at NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
Today's spacewalk (starring Dan Tani and Scott Parazynski) focuses on the repositioning of the P6 truss element, which supports one of the solar arrays; in fact it's the oldest of the solar array segments having been in space somewhere around 7 years. Both robotic arms will be used for the operation, which will take place over two space walks. The Station's CanadArm2, after the spacewalkers have completely removed the remaining connections to the P6 element, will remove the element from it's current position. Tomorrow, it will hand it off to the Shuttle's CanadArm, roll along the truss on it's little rail car system, then take the P6 back from the Shuttle arm and install it in its permanent position at the end of the P5 segment. Then, the spacewalkers get to do some inspection work.
There appears to be some damage to some handrails on the outside of the station which are thought to be the result of space debris. That needs to be looked at. The starboard (solar alpha) rotary joint or SARJ, which controls the major directional pointing capability of the S3/4 array section seems to be experiencing higher than expected friction, indicated by small current spikes in the motor during motion. That also needs to be checked. I'm not sure if it's in this coming spacewalk, but they are also extending the remaining 4 radiators on the Z1 truss segment as the addition of new modules over the next couple of months is going to increase the cooling needs of the Station quite a bit. There's a slew of other stuff to be done, but those are the major highlights.
Nothing has come up on the thermal protection system (TPS) picture analysis from launch or the rendezvous pitch manoeuver, so everything is good on that aspect of the mission.
Whew!
The Last Lecture.
Randy Pausch lectures at Carnegie-Mellon University in computer science and virtual reality. He also has a liver full of cancer and 4 months to live.
It's a long watch, but if you've got a while, I suggest giving this a watch. There are four parts to the lecture and they're all good.
The Last Lecture
WSC 2007
I almost forgot to tell you... my alma mater is racing again in the World Solar Challenge, 2007 edition.
Go here for their blog...
Calgary Solar TeamNot bad as they're in the top 10 currently!
Oh, and Discovery is up on the most complicated Shuttle mission ever, STS-120. In true NASA fashion, however, everyone has stepped up and the mission proceeds smoothly so far. Launch was good, and the chase to the ISS is on. They are expected to dock on Thursday morning at 0833 CDT.
Major objectives this mission are to install the Harmony node, which will complete the American backbone of components to the station. Harmony will be the linking module for the Italian- and Japanese-built research laboratories to come up later and will be the permanent location for the Pressurised Mating Adapter that the Orbiter uses to dock with the station. They also must relocate the P6 truss section which contains the first set of solar arrays to be installed when the station was just getting going. It will be permanently relocated to its rightful spot outboard of the P3/4/5 sections already installed. There is one more set of arrays yet to come up. Five spacewalks, yes five, are scheduled to wire and prepare the new and newly moved modules for permanent operation. More to come!
Wow, what a mission!
'Heralding' the entrance of roundabouts.
After another inexplicable pile of drivel extruded from the mouth of a roundabout skeptic, this time in Bragg Creek, I've been formally motivated to write a Letter to the Editor of the Calgary Herald.
Here's the full text I sent. It's more than 250 words and the Editor has rights to edit it to fit into the paper. You'll have to let me know if it turns up in print.
_____
Re: Roundabouts in Alberta
Two recent articles discussing the fears of implementation of roundabouts, one near Sylvan Lake and now one near Bragg Creek, have frankly befuddled me. As an expat student adjusted to life in Australia and the prolific usage of roundabouts here I can't comprehend the inflexibility of Albertan drivers, seemingly incapable of learning the mechanics of a new traffic control device. When did we leave our brains, organs so fantastically, indeed, so staggeringly capable of learning, behind? If you've become divorced of your ability to learn something new since Registries issued you the licence in your wallet, get off the roads and preserve us from your ineptitude. Or, pay attention because here's your lesson: Yield to the left and to cars already in the roundabout. Whew, I'm exhausted after that.
Swollen Ego...
Quick, somebody... I need an insult. I just had my IQ compared favourably with Einstein.
My head swelled so fast that my skull hurts.
***Update***
It turns out that he was referring to Alberto E. Steine, a drifter emigrant janitor from Ashgabat. Darn...
Thanks for the insults, though. Did I mention that I miss everyone?
Channel 9 Morning Show.
A bothersome comment was made by
Channel 9's morning show yesterday.
*rant*
As you may or not may not know, Australia suffered it's first combat death in Afghanistan on 8 October. According to Today host Lisa Wilkinson, the apparent lack of combat casualties for Australian troops is due to the superior training and preparation of Australian troops compared to nations such as Canada, who have suffered far greater losses in the same combat theatre.
If I'm to believe a morning show host, apparently we and the rest of the NATO coalition offer our troops substandard training and preparation for their jobs on deployment, which accounts for the 71 Canadian deaths in Afghanistan since the start of the mission in 2001.
What she didn't comment about is that fact that though it was an IED that did the damage, the convincing majority of the loses to all nations in Afghanistan is due to IEDs and the last time I checked
everyone was still trying to figure out how to mediate this threat. Also, set aside the fact that Canada was responsible for leading the operation for 18 months of the total deployment (so far), that we have 2.5 times the number of troops on deployment than Operation Slipper (the Aussie codename for the Afghan deployment), and that 6 of our deaths are due to friendly fire.
The news article read by Ms Wilkinson is demeaning to Australian, Canadian, and the rest of the NATO contingent of troops serving in Afghanistan. They are all doing a very dangerous, challenging, and in some cases disillusioning job. It does not do to invoke differences in the training regimes of the defence forces of Australia and Canada to account for the disparity in combat losses. Nor does it imply that any one country is doing a harder job than any other.
This sort of reporting drives me up the wall. Ignorant comments by uninformed newsreaders have to be one of my pet peeves. Stop with this buddy-buddy faux 'I'm your friend' newsreader rubbish and give me the news without the misinformed personal perspective.
Gahhh!
I'm not done yet... There's several other nations, and one in particular, who are for some completely, bewilderingly, unsensibly obtuse reason trying to assert that Canada doesn't, all of the sudden, have sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. Pardon me for noticing, but a strip of water far less than 200 nm wide, bordered on all sides by land and sea of unquestionably Canadian control, ownership, and heritage is still Canadian.
There is no question of sovereignty here. I implore our government to firmly and vigorously sever all the grubby, scrounging diplomatic tendrils dendritising their way across Canadian High Arctic sovereignty. Assert our ownership. The governance of the sea of this passage is Canada's and Canada's alone.
Picture this - climate change unexpectedly causes a massive change in rainfall patterns over central Australia and the Outback becomes one of the most fertile breadbaskets of the world. Then, given this new and proximal source of future wealth and prosperity, Indonesia and New Zealand crow loudly that they have territorial ownership of Outback Australia. Absurd. Just as is this issue of control of the Northwest Passage.
In thinking that international diplomacy is well thought and considered, I'm obviously mistaken. Even conceiving that there is a control question smacks of bare and incomprehensible farce. Get stuffed scroungers.
Gahhh!
*/rant*
A Briton in Resolute.
Combing the BBC this morning for my daily dose, I had to share an excerpt from a BBC journalist tracing the Northwest Passage. You'll already know (faithful reader) that the Northwest Passage is open for the first time in recorded history. Already, journalists are going there to write articles about the event and raise awareness of our changing climate.
Anyway 'Poms', as they are affectionately known by Aussies, have this to say about boots:
The Coast Guard requires us to wear a particularly macho kind of cold-weather boot, packed with insulation and fitted with hardened protection at the toe. Only the Canadians make this kind of thing. Or NASA.
 They keep your feet warm but they are not easy to walk in |
The Arctic pioneers would have loved them - or maybe not. Sir John Franklin famously survived by eating his boots, which in those days were made of barely digestible leather, while ours consist of heavy duty plastic.
And wearing these vast boots feels a little like having a sizeable wooden box strapped to each foot.
So, in addition to everything else we have to prepare for, we have a new task - learning to walk.
Excerpted from:
Taking the Northwest Passage - BBC, D. Shukman
Bent in Bendigo.
So an innocent trip to Bendigo started with a bang! Literally...
This weekend's adventure is taking third year students to a town called Bendigo to look at the
Central Deborah Gold Mine and some surface workings for another mine. Arriving early into town, we stopped at Macca's (Australian for McDonald's) for a refresher.
After leaving Macca's, we trundled in our two mini buses up High Street through town, but came upon a guy with his trailer sticking out into the lane. Naturally, we stopped. Perhaps just as naturally, somebody else didn't.
Well, one thing led to another and I felt one of those irritating thumps that car owners so little like to feel.
It turns out that the red Holden Commodore played pinball with the red Mitsubishi Lancer, which passed on the experience (in strict Newtonian fashion) to the red VW Beetle, which stuck with the preceding pattern and played bumps with my white 12 seater Toyota minibus.
My first 4 car pile up... in Bendigo! Not much damage to the minibus but a warped bumper guard, dented bumper and a bent rear door. The beetle needs a new radiator, the Lancer:
looks like a Hyundai Excel:
and the Commodore is sporting the crushed face popular with boxers and pugs.
Sweet! But only because I'm not at fault.
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Oh, and I read this today from the Advocate:
Green light for green planYes, LEDs are energy efficient, but I'm willing to bet that 75% or more of those intersections would be better served by roundabouts - yes, higher construction costs (maybe), but ZERO energy requirements once built. Except, of course, for all the tow trucks to clean up the confused Albertans in the first few months.
And just to nail home the case:
Traffic roundabout safer, experts sayMy sources say that people are resisting these little traffic delights because they are afraid of them. The phrase "we don't
do them in North America", or something to that effect, was bandied about. I have a word of advice for those tepid road battlers out there: you are human. Therefore (and this may be a leap of logic), you have ~10 lbs of the most awesomely malleable tissue ever devised by nature filling that cranium of yours. Stress it out a little and learn something new. It won't hurt. I promise. Sixty-five million Britans, Australians, and New Zealanders do it every day, I'm sure you can, too.
Better yet, I suggest a fact finding mission to England, Australia, or New Zealand. Rent a car and give them a go. Just remember to look right first.
That's ugly and bad. The brown honeycomb-like sheet across the bottom 1/2 of the picture is the array, which folds accordion-like (concertina-like for Aussie readers) to be retracted. The scaffolding across the top of the picture is indeed scaffolding which supports the array when it is extended. The tear and buckling is not good. I'm sure the arrays have been engineered with bypass circuitry to limit the effect of this sort of damage, but I doubt that they can trust the array to hold together under stress at full deployment.
