Sunday, May 18, 2014 at 8:33AM Or is it the spectacular April launch spectacular report... I can't say, but here it is. We may have lost the May launch due to the wheat crops, but to tide you over for a bit here's Roy's report on the April launch festivities, and boy, it was a doozy! dr
Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at 6:59PM OK, imagine that you're NASA, and every time you want to put a camera into space you have to get it custom made at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet today, off-the-shelf HD cameras are available that might do the job for just hundreds, or maybe thousands of dollars, orders of magnitude cheaper.
That's what the new HD Earth Viewing experiment, delivered to the ISS just a few weeks ago on the last Dragon supply mission, aims to test. Can a consumer off-the-shelf (COTS) camera survive and thrive against the harshness of the space environment. There's 4 cameras, from manufacturers like Panasonic, Sony, and Hitachi, enclosed in a box with a camera facing in all 4 directions. There's some more details on NASA's site HERE, a great info graphic HERE, and more info HERE on Universe Today.
You can watch it live, 24-7, on Ustream at this LINK.
It's also a great way to unwind by the way, and you really get a sense of just how fast traveling at 18,000 mph really is.
dr
Sunday, April 27, 2014 at 8:39PM What a weekend! We had one of the best weekends in a long while for rocketry, a camp-out, a night launch, a swap and shop (kind of, I hope that went as well as I think it did)... just, well, WOW. Let me be the first to say thanks to all the folks that pitched in and made it happen and also came out to enjoy it.
Doc R.
Saturday, April 26, 2014 at 11:07PM Hey folks... what a GREAT DAY we had on Saturday!! Absolutely beautiful flying conditions and a really good, albeit windy at about 1000', night launch.
Here's the bit you need to know... Sunday looks to be another georgeous day, and it may, if the wheat keeps shooting up like it is, be the last full-field day for a while. The wheat is about a foot to 18" tall through most of what we call the north fields, and it's already tough to find things in it, and I'm talking some fairly big rockets.
So come on out and FLY darn it!! Doc R.
Sunday, April 6, 2014 at 7:50PM It's science festival time around the country right now, and that includes the facilities of NASA. I caught something the other day that I thought was really cool, particularly if you love communications and technology.
There was a class taking the tours around JPL and one of the lecturers was the director of the NASA Deep Space Network, the folks that keep in contact with the various far-flung vehicles that have left the planet and, for Voyager, the solar system.
What caught my fancy was when they said that... "oh, yeah, all of this communications monitoring data is available in real time on the internet..."
Oh, so COOL!... here's the LINK
You can go and see the current state of the network, how fast the data is moving, who's on line... etc.
I think the topper was the bit with the Voyager spacecraft, that comunicates at the whopping speed of about 150 bits per second and a round-trip time of about a day and a half!
dr
Tuesday, March 25, 2014 at 7:09PM OK, we're not flying for a few weeks, so I'm posting Roy's extensive launch reports from March 15th and the 22nd make-up day. Remember, your penmanship counts! If he can't read it, don't blame us for spelling! Click the "Read More" link for the whole story... dr
Saturday, March 8, 2014 at 9:53AM The launch on April 26th & 27th will have lots of special things going on, but one that folks have been asking for a lot is a night launch.
We have secured a special waiver from the FAA and CLT allowing us to have night operations from 8 untill 9:30 PM on the 26th.
We've posted the rules over in the "Contest Info" section (in the right column) so you can get all the info there. We decided to go a bit larger with engine size due to the number of requests, but keep in mind that our hard ceiling is 1,500' AGL. We're capping motors to I-impulse, and you can do up to a 3-motor cluster as long as your total impulse doesn't exceed the I impulse class. No multi-staging or air starts and you need to make sure that the rocket is illuminated through the entire flight.
So go read the regs and get to building!
dr
Friday, March 7, 2014 at 8:12PM Roy's report on our split launch, from February 23rd and March 1st. Soggy as the 23rd was, the first of March was one of the finest flight days you could have asked for. Temps about perfect and no wind at all. Click the "Read More" link to see the whole thing.
Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 12:13PM BUUUURRRRRRR... it was cold!! (How cold was it?) It was so cold.... I can't feel my fingers to type the rest of this sentence! Luckily Roy has taken our flight cards and deciphered our shaky handwriting to deliver the latest flight report... you know what to do. Thanks Roy! dr
Friday, January 24, 2014 at 10:06PM This time of year, the 27th of January, brings me back to when I was 10 years old, and the nation stopped, stunned, as 3 american astronauts were lost in a horiffic moment in time.For those who might not know a lot about the event NASA's history page is HERE. After this event we didn't know if the Apollo program would go on.
What has struck me over the years is how, through weather related events, we've suffered 2 more events that have taken 2 shuttle crews from us. Cold weather and ice have directly contributed to both the Challenger and the Columbia accidents.
All 3 of these events fall in a fairly short span of time, just a week's time, from late January to early February. Take a moment out of your day and remember these fallen heros.
dr
