Category Archives: Space

Hurry, They’re Getting Ahead Of Us

According to this story, the Chinese are going to launch a space station. They don’t have a date, though:

China will launch Shenzhou VII with three astronauts in September 2008, after the Beijing Olympic Games…

After the launch of Shenzhou VII, a space station with 20 tons will be built…

Why wait until after the Olympics? What does this have to do with anything? Unless, of course, the purpose of the program is primarily for national prestige, as opposed to actually accomplishing something that’s important.

And “after the launch of Shenzhou VII” could be anywhere from October, 2008 (unlikely) until…the end of time. But we’d better hurry–we’re in a race!

Boomtown

Mojave seems to be recovering from the construction of the Highway 58 bypass:

In four years, Mojave Airport has gone from an under-utilized airport and civilian flight test facility to a spaceport with a worldwide reputation as a “Silicon Valley” for the emerging commercial space industry.

New companies are arriving and established tenants are seeing their contracts and payrolls grow.

Companies such as Scaled Composites – which won international acclaim for SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded, manned space program – and XCOR Aerospace are among the cutting-edge aerospace firms outgrowing their existing facilities as they add employees and projects.

Try, Try Again

We’re going to head up north and see what we can see. Primary location criterion will be clear skies to the north-northeast, up the coast, as far north as we can get before launch time.

[Update about 4 PM]

Just got back. We watched it from Hutchinson Island, on the beach. There was one cloud that obscured part of the ascent, but we saw most of it until SRB burnout. Maybe a pic later, but I’ve got to go get ribs on the grill.

Stay Up To Date

Florida Today has a feature to give you launch status updates by cell phone, for those of you headed for the beaches or barbecues.

I’d bet that they’re going to launch today–no technical issues (no ice formed where the foam came off) and the forecast is about as good as it gets. Unfortunately, we can’t drive all the way up and back from Boca, and also have the people over for the planned barbecue and fireworks tonight (at least not easily, with high probability of success). We might head up north of Jupiter or Hobe Sound, though, where the coast turns to the northwest to give a view of the Cape from the south on a barrier island. That would only take an hour each way, and be relatively uncrowded. We wouldn’t hear or feel the launch, but we’d see it. Still making plans.

Third Time’s The Charm?

Looks like there may be a launch today:

It’s very cloudy out around the launch pad this morning, and there are showers out to sea drifting this way, but it’s more than 8 hours before launch. Weather forecasters say those clouds and other unacceptable weather forces should move out of the spaceport area before the 2:38 p.m. liftoff. The weather forecast is only 20 percent “no go” and it very rarely ever gets better than that for any launch here on the Space Coast.