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Geekspiel: November 2008
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008. Back to the Hill Country. This past weekend my lovely bride and I enjoyed another getaway to the Texas Hill Country for a belated celebration of our 30th wedding anniversary. It was a great trip. We toured the only commercial olive grove in Texas. They do samplings of their olive oil just like a winery. We toured a couple of wineries, too, and had dinner at one in their excellent Italian restaurant. While we were there we stayed at a wonderful B&B in the Canyon Lake. Just acro...
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Geekspiel: March 2009
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Friday, March 13, 2009. The robot is rolling (literally). Last weekend Alan finished assembly of the self-balancing robot, Rev 1. This first version isn't supposed to balance on two wheels yet, just roll around on three wheels. It works! Well, sort of. We have some debugging to do, and some design changes are in the offing. I still have no pictures to post, for which I apologize. Alan has the camera and I haven't had a chance to upload them. So now I have several questions to investigate:. Saturday, Marc...
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Geekspiel: August 2008
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Saturday, August 9, 2008. On August 6, Elon Musk released an explanation. For last week's Falcon 1 launch failure. Evidently, the two stages did separate, but they reimpacted seconds later. When the second stage engine fired it damaged both stages, sending them tumbling to their destruction. Why did they fail? Sunday, August 3, 2008. SpaceX Falcon 1 Failure. Saturday, August 2, 2008. Of their new Falcon 9 booster. A video of the test firing. Is posted on their website. Hire the best and the brightest eng...
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Geekspiel: September 2008
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Sunday, September 28, 2008. Falcon 1 in Orbit! They finally did it! Falcon 1 is in orbit. As Elon Musk said to his employees, "The fourth time's a charm." Launch was at 4:16 pm PDT and second stage cut off occurred ten minutes later. The picture perfect launch and flight to orbit was webcast live. SpaceX. Sunday, September 21, 2008. Back in the 21st Century. Thursday, September 18, 2008. Two Bags of Ice. Friday, September 12, 2008. I was going to title this post "Preparation H" but I chickened out. RLV a...
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Geekspiel: Remembering Alan Shepard
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Thursday, May 5, 2011. Today the news services are remembering Alan Shepard’s flight in the Freedom 7 capsule fifty years ago, on May 5, 1961. He was the first American to fly in space and a true American hero. This seems a fitting day to share my own small personal recollection of him. As a parent now I can imagine how they felt. I never met him again after that day, but I will always be grateful. Alan Shepard was not only an American hero, he was a good and decent human being. Tales of the Electric Monk.
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Geekspiel: Remembering Apollo
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Saturday, July 18, 2009. My grandfather died in 1979 and my father died in 1995. I have gazed up at the moon thousands of times in the past 40 years, and on none of those occasions was any human presence there to wonder at. Will there ever be again? Daddy felt the romance of space, and he infected us with it. But we also witnessed first-hand the dedication and excellence and the hours and hours and hours of intense effort from one member of the vast team that produced such spectacular results in less...
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Geekspiel: June 2008
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Saturday, June 14, 2008. The space shuttle Discovery is home after a safe landing in Florida today. Congratulations to all involved. The big accomplishment on this mission (besides fixing the space toilet! I just love this video. All the astronauts work really hard when they are in space. I'm glad to see that nobody gave them a hard time about taking five minutes to enjoy the novelty of the new, empty laboratory. Looks like fun, doesn't it? Saturday, June 7, 2008. This view of Phoenix descending on its p...
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Geekspiel: April 2008
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008. Traveling to space and back is still a dangerous business. We tend to get inured to the dangers as mission follows mission and nothing happens. It barely makes the evening news. It takes a disaster like Challenger or Columbia to awaken public interest. But every time a space mission succeeds it is the result of lots of hard work and attention to detail. Also a little luck. Since they landed 260 miles short of their target, the first people to reach them were the astonished Kazakh...
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Geekspiel: December 2008
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Monday, December 22, 2008. Glow in the Dark Toys. Back when I was in college the only thing you were likely to find in a dorm room that glowed in the dark was a black light poster. Or a doobie. Now here's a guy named Andrew Seltzman. Who graduated this year from Georgia Tech and what's he got in his dorm room? Yes, that's right. He built a fusion reactor in his dorm room. Here's a picture of the deuterium ion injector parts all laid out on his bed:. And here's the assembled machine:. You've probably neve...
