Space Forum / Space History / September 2006

Unknown object seen flying below Atlantis
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4197753.html
By MARK CARREAU
Houston Chronicle

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Tuesday September 19, 2006
POLITICAL ESSAYS

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/int?guid=20060915/450a2540_3426_1335020060915
-1821174886
A brave woman, and a great journalist.  She never got around to paying
Pete Conrad's bet.  Perhaps she'll do it now.

This graphic was used by Chinese state TV to illustrate Shenzhou 6
during its flight.
Whatever this is, it ain't a Shenzhou:
http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/z/zsz6wd1.jpg

...And now we have Dick Tracy's Space Coupe:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4810+
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/get-attachment-big.asp?action=view&attac
hmentid=12679
...I mean, seriously? Did Lockmart hire Diet Smith to design this

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=20819
So it's far bigger than Jupiter, and far closer to its primary (type G)
than Mercury.
...and yet is incredibly low in density, although you would have thought

Earth is the only planet we've discovered so far with oxygen because as
far as we know, the only way Oxygen can appear in a planets atmosphere
is as a bi-product of life.
Now, we've discovered other planets around other stars, but our

Given that :
A.) Pluto crosses Neptune's orbit.
B.) Pluto's orbital plane is offset from the major planets.
C.) Neptune's moon Triton has a retrograde orbit, and is apparently a

Once Soyuz launches, the 12 people in space simo
will be one short of the record of 13 [extra credit -- when
how many times?], but I suspect it WILL be a
record for largest number of space travelers of

OK, suppose I have a choice of two IMAX films to see after a lecture:
  1. Roving Mars
  2. Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D
Which would you pick and why?

I have a small project with NASA to survey the ways that the volume or
quantity of liquid in the tanks of space vehicles has been determined (or
gauged) in the past. This is especially true for in-space or reduced gravity
conditons but I am also interested in ground applications ...

Are probes like the soviet Luna 9 & 13 considered soft landers or hard
landers? Years ago, all the sources that I came across insisted that
soft landers had to use braking rockets to cut velocity, and that the
Lunas (and, by extention, probes that use airbags, like MER) were

At least Gordo and Mr. Shaft eventually had good flights.  A few of them
were a little rough and I wonder what size motor they were using and why all
of them had such high spin rates.
I can't talk given the results of my P motor flight at LDRS in Texas.

Are there any web site you know of that have astronomy-related videos for
viewing (not necessarily downloading)?
I have found some videos at the NASA site, YouTube, and Google videos.
I link to them on my astronomy course web notes for my students to view if

Q: Are former Astronaut & spacewalker Jay Apt and famous test pilot
Mel Apt related in any way?
...New .sig fodder: "Posting a sensible question for rational topic
fodder helps keep the trolls at bay."