June 15, 2020
by sjvn01
Comments Off on SpaceX Starlink internet prepares for beta users
Sick of being stuck with low internet speeds out in the sticks? Want to free yourself from your low-quality rural cable, DSL, or — you poor devil — modem charges and speeds? SpaceX is finally cracking open the door to its Starlink low-earth orbit … Continue reading
June 3, 2020
by sjvn01
Comments Off on From Earth to orbit with Linux and SpaceX
In a terrible year, it was a great moment. On May 30, SpaceX‘s Crew Dragon, the first private-manned spacecraft ever and the first US-manned spaceflight in nine years, successfully delivered NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley into orbit. Taking them was SpaceX’s … Continue reading
January 28, 2019
by sjvn01
Comments Off on The Challenger disaster: 33 years ago I was working at mission control
Thirty-three years ago I was at mission control at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for the launch of the Challenger. I was working data communications. My job was making sure all the telemetry links between the space shuttle and NASA’s ground communications system (NASCOM) were … Continue reading
September 2, 2014
by sjvn01
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If you think fixing computer problems on your PC is a pain, trying fixing them from 125 million miles away. That’s exactly what NASA’s JPL Mars Exploration Rover (MER) team will be doing soon. The Opportunity rover, which has been … Continue reading
September 22, 2013
by sjvn01
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When I was a kid in the 60s, books such as Miss Pickerell on the Moon, On the Trail of the Space Pirates, and Robert A. Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones had me dreaming of flying rockets to asteroids with my … Continue reading
May 6, 2013
by sjvn01
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Unlike my recent spoof story about a Linux-powered Iron Man suit you could build at home, this story isn’t science fiction. NASA really has decided to drop Windows from the laptops on the International Space Station (ISS) in favor of … Continue reading