Discovery Final Launch Poll Results

Discovery, STS-133.
Credit: NASA

Back in September, a little over a month before Space Shuttle Discovery was supposed to originally launch for the last time I published an informal, low-tech poll whose purpose was to get a feel for awareness and interest levels of people who are not space enthusiasts themselves but rather friends or family of ones.

Questions

I purposefully asked pretty rudimentary questions:

1. Which Space Shuttle is getting ready for launch?
2. When is the next launch?
3. How many Space Shuttle launches remain after this one?
4. What mission number is it going to be?

Discovery - Final Voyage

Space Shuttle Discovery made its final ascent to space earlier today.

As I watched it on the screen at home the experience and emotions of watching its young sister Atlantis about nine months ago resurfaced. This time, though, I had my family around me watching, as luck stroke and snow fell over the hills of Issaquah WA the night before, making working from home a more productive endeavor than taking on slippery roads.

For a few minutes today's launch was touch and go. Not because of cracks, leaks or anything structural but because of a computer glitch. A few seconds before the scrub, the countdown started again.

In case you missed it and even if you didn't, here is Discovery's last time lighting the Florida skies.

NSRC and Astroauts4Hire 2011

The Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference is upon us again. Last year I had the benefit of living right next to where the first one was in Boulder CO, and I got to taste the exhilaration of a beginning. This year we're at opposite ends of the country, as I am in Seattle Washington while NSRC is in Orlando, Florida.

Last year I met Veronica Zabala at the conference and soon thereafter, together with Brian Shiro, Joe Palaia and others founded what we later named Astronauts4Hire, a non-profit aimed at being a catalyst to the new industry of commercial manned spaceflight and a source for training programs, scholarships and, well, astronauts for hire.

Violinist and Basketball, Astronaut and Bicycle

An astronaut and a friend of mine shared a similar experience about twenty years apart...

When you're a budding violinist getting ready for an important recital you practice, then practice and then practice some more. To achieve the level of perfection that is needed to play the violin, knowing the notes by heart is not enough. Your muscles, ligaments, fingers and soul have to become one with the piece you play, so you invest a lot of time towards those crucial few minutes of performance. At some point, especially close to the big day, you may want to take a break from practicing and do something else to take the edge off the tension and jitters, for example play basketball. You think nothing of it. Just for an hour, you rationalize it to yourself; it's better to take a break than to fall prey to the concern you're not ready. Relaxing is just what you need. So you go out and play ball.

Being an astronaut is hard work. When you're an astronaut you train for years for a single mission. Like a violin player, dedication and repetition are necessary so that all possible mistakes happen on Earth - in the simulator, classroom and at the pool (Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory) rather than in space or on the way to and from. After all, when you're in space, there is very little room for error, which would cost time and money if not life. As a mission draws near (or gets delayed multiple times), you may need to clear your mind. Riding a bicycle fits the bill - exercise and nature combined, feeling the wind you won't feel in space, cutting through real air, not a crafted mixture coming out of compressed tanks. So you hop on.

Lunar Eclipse and Chuck E. Cheese's

Photograph by Doug Murray, Reuters (sans Chuck...)

The lunar eclipse on December 21st of last year was magnificent. If you missed it because it was too cloudy, too late, daytime or you're just not into that sort of thing you can find many photos online. I was out and about, next to the hotel we slept in on our last night in Colorado before launching into our new life in the Seattle WA area. I took some inadequate pictures due to lack of tripod lying on a bench, switching my thoughts between how beautiful it was and how to time my escapes into the hotel to avoid missing too much while maintaining the feel of my extremities.