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Packing Up For The Journey Home
Friday, June 13th, 2008 10:28 pmDiscovery's crew is packing up to come home, and reports of a bit falling off the orbiter have turned out to be of no concern. The shuttle is due to land tomorrow in Florida, late morning local time, and the weather looks good for an on-schedule landing.
All this packing up includes the stowing of the KU transmitter, which means no more live video of the crew at work :( It's been so much fun watching them, and I love how Commander Mark Kelly's pose when other people are talking on a broadcast - arms folded, looking at his feet - is so similar to my Dad's usual pose :) But it means I still have lots of questions unanswered: What are pre-sleep and post-sleep activities? Why all the saliva testing? What does Garrett Reisman's recumbent seat look like? Why is Mike Fossum consuming Chicken Consommé as part of his fluid loading while everyone else is sticking to water with lemon & limeade or orangeade?
I shall be watching for the landing tomorrow, and any post-landing stuff that NASA TV care to broadcast. There's usually a press thing with the crew at some point, depending on how everyone is, any post-landing concerns etc.
I've mentioned the wake-up calls in a previous post - the music played along with the "Good Morning Discovery!" greeting from the CAPCOM each day. Most days the music is something specific for a particular crewmember, although there are some days where something is chosen for the whole crew, which is usually related to the tasks for that day. The music played for each crewmember can be chosen by the crewmember themselves or selected by their family. A lot is very obscure and/or personal (eg something sung by the church choir that the crewmember used to be a member of) but there's always something worth investigating further. You may have noticed that I seem to be including two particular pieces of music as my current listening on recent LJ posts: Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi and Your Wildest Dreams by The Moody Blues. Linus and Lucy was wake-up music on STS-123 in March, while Your Wildest Dreams was played for pilot Ken Ham on Day 2 of STS-124. I bought both on iTunes and listen to them a lot, they will always be the sound of the Space Shuttle to me.
( And so to the meme )
All this packing up includes the stowing of the KU transmitter, which means no more live video of the crew at work :( It's been so much fun watching them, and I love how Commander Mark Kelly's pose when other people are talking on a broadcast - arms folded, looking at his feet - is so similar to my Dad's usual pose :) But it means I still have lots of questions unanswered: What are pre-sleep and post-sleep activities? Why all the saliva testing? What does Garrett Reisman's recumbent seat look like? Why is Mike Fossum consuming Chicken Consommé as part of his fluid loading while everyone else is sticking to water with lemon & limeade or orangeade?
I shall be watching for the landing tomorrow, and any post-landing stuff that NASA TV care to broadcast. There's usually a press thing with the crew at some point, depending on how everyone is, any post-landing concerns etc.
I've mentioned the wake-up calls in a previous post - the music played along with the "Good Morning Discovery!" greeting from the CAPCOM each day. Most days the music is something specific for a particular crewmember, although there are some days where something is chosen for the whole crew, which is usually related to the tasks for that day. The music played for each crewmember can be chosen by the crewmember themselves or selected by their family. A lot is very obscure and/or personal (eg something sung by the church choir that the crewmember used to be a member of) but there's always something worth investigating further. You may have noticed that I seem to be including two particular pieces of music as my current listening on recent LJ posts: Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi and Your Wildest Dreams by The Moody Blues. Linus and Lucy was wake-up music on STS-123 in March, while Your Wildest Dreams was played for pilot Ken Ham on Day 2 of STS-124. I bought both on iTunes and listen to them a lot, they will always be the sound of the Space Shuttle to me.
( And so to the meme )
