Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera
by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from
August to October, 2011. All credit goes to them.

Consider your thoughts when downloading a ‘gadget’ for use with your computer. I see 200k and think to myself, “Huh! that can’t be capable of doing much.”

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I have just watched the the program via iPlayer. A tip – if you live anywhere other than the UK you cannot watch BBC iPlayer, access is blocked. Unless that is, you have access to a VPN (a Virtual Private Network) then you can log in to iPlayer and watch the content.

What an excellent presenter May is, he manages to engage his audience without insulting their intelligence or engaging in technical banter at a level that loses them. Quite a feat when describing the Apollo program which clearly absolutely absorbs him. I am with him there, the more I see and read the more the scope of those missions fire the imagination. They were bold, very bold and allegedly run with far less computer power than the average mobile phone today. I still keep shaking my head…

Houston Space Centre is well worth the visit and so must Kennedy be. When standing next to the Saturn 5 the sheer scale of the rocketry and audacity of the missions is mind blowing. Like James and a billion others I watched the Apollo missions on black and white TV. Like him I clearly didn’t absorb fully the gravity of what they were about. This is a tremendous piece of television and to cap it all, my favorite band Elbow provide some of the background music.

Further reading, perhaps one of the best stories from with the Apollo missions from a man uniquly positioned to give you the inside track – the Mission Controller of Apollo 13 and many more. If you get the chance, when wandering around the exhibits at the Houston centre, look up at the Gemini capsule suspended above the walkways and imagine what would have happened if they had been unable to stow and relock the egress hatches after their walk in space as they orbited the planet. Then take a close look at the construction of the capsules of the era. Balls of steel!

One reviewer whose reading experience matched mine.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An accessible account of a great period of exploration, 30 Jan 2002

By A Customer

This book is a joy for anyone remotely interested in the US space program. Kranz, a key member of mission control throughout the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs talks frankly about the people and technology directly involved in man’s journey to the moon. Never getting loaded with technical jargon, Kranz has blended his personality into this hi-tech story to create an accessible and heart-warming read. His account of the fire of Apollo 1 is searingly painful for it’s simplicity, the excitement of being Flight Director for the Apollo 11 moon landing like a beautiful scent wafting up from the pages of this book.

How wonderful also for him to acknowledge the invaluable role played by his wife, when so many other marriages in this stressful time were failing.

I agree wholeheartedly with the reviews on the back of this book – it is a very welcome addition the lore of manned spaceflight. A must for all those interested in this topic.

There is something amazing about high altitude flight, particularly when it takes you to the edge of space. James May of BBC’s Top Gear programme seems to be similarly interested and has managed to blag a ride aboard a U2. A really interesting insight but for the full picture watch BBC 2 this evening at 9pm.

These pictures from space taken by shuttle crews must be classed as an art form. They are so beautiful that I had to drop them here for you with a link so that you can visit the site yourself. I will just steal one to whet your appetite.

What is it about space exploration that is so gripping? Is it the incredible power of the launch or the sheer levels of technical achievement that grip us. I have never ceased to be carried away by it but blanche at the sums that are being spent up there.

The ISS is one such bottomless money pit, even those connected to the project doubt that it will show returns worth the investment, but maybe this is one stepping stone that just has to be made to achieve international co-operation in space. Either way it is a staggering achievement.

Thanks again Masterspy.

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Another one from a friend on the internet. I just couldn’t resist posting this story, when I compare Bill’s quiet day at the office with ours he leaves me full of admiration for the test pilots role. See what you think…

By Bill Weaver

Chief Test Pilot, Lockheed
Among professional aviators, there’s a well-worn saying: Flying is simply hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror. But I don’t recall too many periods of boredom during my 30-year career with Lockheed, most of which was spent as a test pilot. By far, the most memorable flight occurred on Jan. 25, 1966.

Jim Zwayer, a Lockheed flight-test specialist, and I were evaluating systems on an SR-71 Blackbird test from Edwards. We also were investigating procedures designed to reduce trim drag and improve high-Mach cruise performance The latter involved flying with the center-of-gravity (CG) located further aft than normal, reducing the Blackbird’s longitudinal stability.

We took off from Edwards at 11:20 a.m. and completed the mission’s first leg without incident. After refueling from a KC-135 tanker, we turned eastbound, accelerated to a Mach 3.2 cruise speed and climbed to 78,000 ft., our initial cruise-climb altitude.

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I try and learn something from everyone I fly with, that might sound a bit worthy but in reality I probably do it for selfish reasons, life is full of surprises and you never know what might come your way if you keep your eyes open and ears pinned back. Besides, it makes the bit in the middle go that much more quickly.
In the larger airline world, you are often flying with someone you have never met before and it is the familiarity of the company standard operating procedures that enables crews to produce a safe and seamless operation.  I don’t mean to sound melodramatic but I suspect all of us run through an almost subconscious routine where we asses our companion for the trip. You cannot hide anything from each other, with experience you know within a very short time where someone sits on the ability and capacity stakes and that intuitive energy runs in both directions across the flight deck. It’s good to know who you are sitting next to and working with, your career, or in extremis your life might depend on  your colleague’s qualities.

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A friend sent me these wonderful pictures of the last shuttle mission and I thought you might like to see them. Is that hurricane Dean in the sequence there? I have left them all in the original sizing so that you get the ‘big picture’.