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On the road again
Nov. 29th, 2001 02:20 pmBut I had a really fun visit last night in Orlando with folks I know from alt.poly. And we walked around and talked about how they tore down and rebuilt their house. Pre-teen issues. Persnickety Episcopal priests. And tried some kind of Vietnamese sping roll, filled with shrimp and noodles and veggies, with peanut sauce (fond smile). Then it was off to Washington (Dulles airport was empty and deserted at 11pm... and my flight had only 20 people on it.
Work-wise, yesterday I was at Kennedy Space Center to try to brainstorm with them what future launch operations technologies would really need to be tested with a flying X-vehicle (instead of a ground testbed or computer simulation). And got caught up on their vehicle health management work. And a glimpse of the shuttle on its pad, with the countdown underway.
Speaking of which, a friend is part of the STS-108 crew and has sent me an invitation to come down and see that launch. (yay!) Pat's supportive, so I may actually do it this time... besides, I can get more work done at KSC then.
Up here in grey, overcast, foggy Washington, I checked in with program management in the human spaceflight advanced development office (bleak outlook, Space Station is eating all of the proverbial seed corn) and spent most of the day at a drilling robotics company in Manassas (overlooking the battlefield there) talking about the means of automating their Mars drill design. Right now they have only 4 sensors and control it with LabView. A ways to go...
Work-wise, yesterday I was at Kennedy Space Center to try to brainstorm with them what future launch operations technologies would really need to be tested with a flying X-vehicle (instead of a ground testbed or computer simulation). And got caught up on their vehicle health management work. And a glimpse of the shuttle on its pad, with the countdown underway.
Speaking of which, a friend is part of the STS-108 crew and has sent me an invitation to come down and see that launch. (yay!) Pat's supportive, so I may actually do it this time... besides, I can get more work done at KSC then.
Up here in grey, overcast, foggy Washington, I checked in with program management in the human spaceflight advanced development office (bleak outlook, Space Station is eating all of the proverbial seed corn) and spent most of the day at a drilling robotics company in Manassas (overlooking the battlefield there) talking about the means of automating their Mars drill design. Right now they have only 4 sensors and control it with LabView. A ways to go...
