Sushi For Breakfast

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.

Both active Space Shuttles can currently be seen via webcam/web-accessible TV right now (hurry!). Endeavour is now docked to the ISS and can be seen as part of regular mission coverage on NASA TV of STS-134. Atlantis is in the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC, being mated to the external tank & solid rocket boosters for STS-135.

Please take a look now, while you can. Note the header - when I say 'both' space shuttles that's what I mean, we're down to two, and in a couple of weeks' time we'll be down to one, then none by the end of the summer :'(

Thankfully I think all the royal wedding coverage is coming to an end. Endeavour launch coverage is quiet because they're in the middle of tanking, but I'm concerned about a rumour of a tanking reading anomaly and about the weather.

I just went downstairs to see what's on TV later tonight after the launch. Saw some of the wedding coverage cos Mum & Dad are watching. I mentioned that if it was only going to be a morning thing, we could've just had a half-day off from work, which Dad said was "stupid". I also said about how there's quite a few people at work who are actually working, because conferences and meetings and university induction days etc couldn't be rescheduled because this royal wedding bank holiday business was thrown upon us really quickly. I thought that meant they were getting married quickly because she's pregnant but Dad yelled at me for even suggesting it. If she is pregnant, she's not far gone because she's got a cinched waist dress, I saw the bit with everyone on the balcony. To sum up, the Queen was the best dressed person there and she was wearing one of her usual single colour coat-and-brimmed-hat outfits. The bride's dress was plain and her hair was a mess (but better I suppose than those ads for cable TV wedding shows with 25-stone women wearing strapless dresses), the groom's military outfit was so garish and hideous you need shades. Apparently it was a special outfit, not his dress uniform from the RAF or Coastguards or whoever he works for. And mother yelled at me because one of the little girl bridesmaids is Prince Edward's daughter, and I said I didn't know he had children and is he married as well.

There's been very little STS-134 launch news, a dramatic-looking weather front is apparently moving away from KSC, concerns are for crosswinds at the landing strip (in the case of a RTLS abort) and for weather at the TAL sites (in the case of an abort landing in Europe). Coverage is ongoing at http://www.ustream.tv/channel-popup/spacevidcast - just noticed they have a logo of MECO which is cool. I hope Tweeps start tweeting soon about Endeavour (very disappointed in many of them, who yesterday claimed they weren't interested in the royal wedding but have tweeted about it all day) - some of the crew have tweeted, they've had breakfast, and apparently there's a greasy spoon caff at KSC judging by Mike Fincke's breakfast. Saw some coverage of the Tweetup yesterday, some of Clay Anderson's speech/standup routine, he's the one who is fascinated by his own bodily functions and clearly should've been a Carry On film actor. Everyone was tweeting about a guy at the tweetup called Seth Green, who is apparently famous for himself, but I've never heard of him outside tweetups. I went to follow him cos I saw him asking Clay a question and he has a verified twitter account, he's an actor from those Mike Myers films in the 1990s but now does spaceflight twitter stuff. He hasn't followed me back yet.

Just remembered I should be keeping a day diary for Mass Observation. Haven't written a jot. Perhaps will copy stuff from here.

Tried to watch the STS-134 press conference twice, had to stop both times because some of the journalists there are such an embarassment. These things are usually reminiscent of Saturday morning kids TV with the phone-ins and live studio questions from kids to some pop star or actor or whoever, there's always some utterly lame question asked. But this time, despite having issued previous statements that he's not prepared to discuss his wife's, plenty of journalists think this means it's still OK to ask Mark Kelly about his wife. It does the journalists asking proper mission-related questions a disservice. From what I saw, Mark Kelly himself was being polite and diplomatic, but I hate that the rest of us have to put up with a bunch of lame-arse journos who can't think of a proper relevant question to ask.

Today is the last scheduled full day in space for the STS-130 crew. Because of the extraordinary hours they've been keeping on the mission (similar to a time zone somewhere in the Pacific) I've hardly seen anything of the mission, which is why I haven't gone on about this mission like I have done in the past. I saw the launch, and I've seen many of the wake-up calls (mostly 9.15pm in the evening my time, recently shifted an hour earlier) and that's been about it. I think I've followed this mission on Twitter more than anywhere else. It would have been nice to be able to follow it more closely, given that I followed the establishment and delivery of the Tranquility Node and the Cupola from Europe and their delivery to NASA for Endeavour's mission. And the pictures are so cool - look up @Astro_Soichi's Twitterfeed for the fabulous photos he's taken.

I'll miss the landing too, as the plan is for the landing to take place between 3am and 5am my time on Monday morning. Haven't missed watching a landing live since STS-122, two years ago. Meh.

Day 23 My latest batch of mission patches has arrived! One for the upcoming Space Shuttle mission (below), plus a handful from early shuttle missions.



And you may have seen earlier this week that the ISS finally has real Internet - mostly so they can tweet direct from space, but also for other stuff like videoconferencing, or anything so long as it's worksafe.

At last, on the third launch attempt in four days, Space Shuttle Endeavour lifted off on mission STS-127. The clouds finally were kind enough to stay out of the way.

And I SAW ENDEAVOUR ORBIT OVER MY HOUSE!!!! About 20 minutes or so after launch, it came across the sky, with the external tank tumbling away directly beneath it. It was so awesome, I thought I should be able to see the shuttle as there was a later ISS pass (just watched it), but it didn't occur to me that I would see the ET too. The ET was very orange, a tiny pinprick hanging underneath the white pinhead of Endeavour. And I have been flailing since cos it was so unbelieveably amazing. Seriously WOW WOW WOW ZOMG. Awesomeness and awesomeness.

Lots has happened today. And it's the start of a Bank Holiday weekend, so more could happen.

( It started at work.... )

I am now a DJ at Blip.fm, thanks to Stephen Fry who tweeted about it this afternoon. You can see my blips here. I'd never heard of this site before the Pied Piper of Norfolk led me (and many others, I'm sure) towards it.

STS-126 is on its final full day in orbit. They're about to stow the Ku-band antenna, which means no more on-orbit movies :( Endeavour is due to land tomorrow afternoon, but there's a bit of doubt as to how the weather will be, there's talk of a landing at Edwards AFB. I know normal preference is to wait a day & try to land at Florida, but they've already extended the mission by a day so I don't think that's an option. Wherever they land, it will be good to see Greg Chamitoff home - in commemoration I've made an icon of Chammy The Space Duck, as you can see :)

I've been watching a few bits & pieces of STS-126, with us back on GMT there's less to see as I can't stay up too late because of work in the morning. The launch & ascent was excellent, although I think that was the final shuttle night launch :'( but there's more to see on the onboard cameras during daylight launches. Endeavour is now docked to the ISS, I was waiting up for them last night to open the hatch, which they eventually did although it felt like they were taking forever.

I'm not as familiar with this crew as I was with the last mission's crew. Trying to work out who's on CAPCOM duties - Alan Poindexter did launch & ascent, Shannon Lucid is waking the shuttle crew up in the morning again. Steve Robinson was on duty yesterday, the NASA TV commentator made a comment at the end of his shift that he has to go to band practice (astronauts have a band, Max Q, a bit like Band From TV only made up of astronauts). Earlier today there was a woman on CAPCOM with a high-pitched squeaky voice, and I'm still trying to figure out who she is.

Seen bits & pieces of the live coverage, including the spiders! (little ones) but without knowing who everyone is it's sometimes just a load of bottoms and socked feet floating past. Pre-docking, NASA TV was showing footage from the ISS, Michael Fincke was talking to Mission Control and having a good scratch of his arse, until they said "oh, you're on TV right now" and he immediately stopped. He was also chewing gum, I saw him take it out of his mouth, inspect it & then put it back in his mouth (or he could have false teeth & have been inspecting them).

First EVA tomorrow, EVAs on this mission appear to be the domain of Mission Specialist Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, who is otherwise a Navy Salvage Diver. Should be more exciting with some awesome shots of the Earth.