Sushi For Breakfast

I met another astronaut last night! There was an event at my old school, and my friend (whose sons currently attend the school) had emailed me about it. Michael Foale is a retired NASA astronaut who grew up in Britain with joint US/UK citizenship who defied his university friend Stephen Fry's assessment of his ambition as "potty" to move to the USA after his PhD and work for NASA, serving on six spaceflight missions with the astronaut corps, including long-duration stays on both Mir and the ISS and a repair & service mission to Hubble.

The evening began with the official photos, and I got my photo took with him:



I was a bit disappointed that no-one else there was wearing space clothing - there were Scouts, and I think Air Cadets, in uniform, and a mix of other people young and old. But the talk was very interesting, it focused on his Mir mission and how he saved the space station when a Progress cargo ship crashed into it. I knew the basics about the story but it was interesting to hear more background to it, and detail he told and showed to us from the event - I wasn't aware there was footage of the crash (from the computers) until he played some to us. There were lots of questions at the end, the first being from the smallest girl there who asked if he'd seen any aliens during his time in space.

It was my first time back at my old school since I was a student there (1984-1991) and I knew all about the building work that's been going on recently - basically the whole place is being rebuilt, as far as I understand. In order to keep a functional school operating they've built the new buildings on what was the vast playing fields and outdoor sports areas, while the old buildings are still in place but cordoned off awaiting demolition. The same service road is in place, just the end is different as it turns into a pedestrianised area in front of the new building. It's possibly the first time I've been there at night, and definitely the first time I've driven there. Walking round the service road from the car park, past the cordoned-off but very recognisable old buildings was quite bizarre and rather Doctor Who-like, as if I should've brought a sonic screwdriver with me. Also, the heating and ventilation system in the new school building worked as intended, which was a rare thing in my day.

Captain Mark Kelly announces his retirement from NASA and the US Navy

Oddly, I was thinking this morning about how we'd probably hear an announcement like this at some point before the year is out. A lot of astronauts are leaving or have left NASA because the end of the shuttle programme means their chances of another trip into space are very small (NASA has a group of Astronaut Candidates currently in training, plus there's a group of recently-qualified ESA Astronauts waiting for their first missions), and Kelly's retirement (effective 1st October) means he'll be around to spend time with his wife during her rehabilitation. Also, according to this article from Space.com, they're writing a joint memoir, which would be a fascinating read I'm sure. There can't be many astronauts who have visited the ISS on four separate occasions - I wouldn't be surprised if he's the only individual to have done so.

So, thank you Captain Kelly, for your years of service, and for sharing your awesome spaceflight missions with us. Wishing you and your family all the very best for the future.

Thought I ought to document my recent flurry of dreams about astronauts. I'll start with last night's dream and its all-star lineup: A group of us from work were sent on a training course, which took place in a big hall resembling a school hall or church hall (wooden floors, simple table-and-chair furnishings and an upright piano in the corner) - the training was to include some workshop-type group work with presentations to the other groups. MC for this training was Ron Garan, and Nicole Stott made a couple of appearances modelling spacesuits - firstly a less-bulky version of the orange launch-and-landing ACES suit, then in a full EVA suit - for which she was escorted into the room by Mike Good - although the training we were there for was nothing to do with spacesuits, or even any aspect of space studies, all I remember us talking about was yoga and pencil cases. We had to go to another building nearby for lunch (all these buildings apparently owned by NASA), this building had a curved entrance porch which was obviously built some years after the original building, and was surrounded by curved flowerbeds and large curved steps. The building was known as the Eclipse Viewing Area but there was no indication of when the eclipse was that was viewed from the area. Before going in to lunch my friend and I decided we needed to call into the nearby branch of Boots to buy a few things, and we walked past Ken Ham and I was trying to explain to my friend who he was, she didn't get it even though I was going "OMG it's Ken Ham! Ken Ham!" like a squeeing fangirl. He noticed us briefly but carried on talking to the people he was with. And Mark Kelly was carrying a really enormous empty grey plastic crate around for reasons unknown.

My other dream was a few nights back: I was in a pub, which was someone's house which hadn't really been redecorated to look like a pub. I arrived and the guy behind the bar said "Thanks for coming, the shower's here" - ie the shower unit was at the side of this big open fireplace (unlit) with a massive mantelpiece, and I had arrived to fix the shower head. There were two main groups of people in the room, around two dining tables, who were the two teams in the pub quiz which was underway - one team member was Garrett Reisman and he was being all life-and-soul-of-the-party and laughing a lot and also knowing most of the answers in the quiz. In between rounds he came over to me to see how I was getting on with mending the shower head, which I apparently managed fine even though I didn't know what was wrong with it, and had no knowledge of shower head maintenance.

LOL my brain is strange. But entertaining :D

More astronauts are Tweeting! AstroTwins Mark Kelly (ShuttleCDRKelly) and Scott Kelly (StationCDRKelly). I'm now following them both, have tweeted both, and today Scott Kelly tweeted back. His original tweet was:



So in a look-at-me-I'm-a-space-fangirl way, I asked him if this was a mathematical joke rather than a typing error. But he replied! First tweet from an astronaut.



But now I'm wondering if it is actually possible to be attacked by a locus? Can the more mathematically-minded people confirm this? IIRC a locus can take the form of a point, a line, or a plane, so it sounds like it could happen. Does a giant locust constitute a locus within space-time?

No reply yet from Mark Kelly, which was even more of a pathetic fangirl tweet. So I'm assuming he'll choose to ignore that one.