MetaFilter posts tagged with astronaut

Falta unas cuantas horas para el despegue! Que bonito se siente!!!

desjardins — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:11:44 -0800

José Hernández was a migrant worker when he first started to dream about becoming an astronaut. He is the first astronaut to Twitter in Spanish from space on shuttle mission STS-128. NASA wasn't happy about the controversy he caused when he advocated for the legalization of undocumented immigrants. He is not the first Hispanic-American to fly on the space shuttle. Hernández is a national hero in Mexico and has been invited to dine with President Calderon.

Circling the lonely moon by yourself, the loneliest person in the universe, weren't you lonely?

miss lynnster — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:10:44 -0800

Astronaut Michael Collins – "I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of 100,000 miles their outlook could be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions, presenting a unified façade that would cry out for unified understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not capitalist or Communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied."

Twits in space

Catfry — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:01:02 -0800

Astronaut Mike Massimino is twittering his experiences today, as he undergoes preparations for launch to the Hubble Space Telescope. He is supposed to keep up the updates during the entire mission.

Vampire Lincoln meets Zombie Platypus

BuddhaInABucket — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:41:55 -0800

The Official Creebobby Comics Archetype Times Table

"Gravity pretty much is irrelevant"

homunculus — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:57:22 -0800

Does a boomerang thrown in space return to its pitcher? It does indeed. [Via]

Space, to lick the very fuzzy navel of the heavens

oxford blue — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:59:43 -0800

Ever wondered what life is like on the International Space Station? Wonder no more. Excitement!

Yuri getting ready for velo and Sergei warming up TVIS. Got a master alarm and the red light for "other" (warning) on the caution and warning panel

Drama!

End of the workday. Disc 2 of Apocalypse Now. Found "Kurtz" .

International Intrigue!

Shep is in the habit of reading the form 24 to the last "bykvia" and this slows things way down. For instance, misinterpreted the English letters "st"on the form 24--thinking this meant the Russian word "stranitsa" (page) when it really stood for "step". (Too early in the a.m.)

High-tech thriller!

Attempted backup of SSC file server (20 minute procedure) Hardware configuration requires saving files and shutting down SSC2 to get at the PC extender. Extender won't go on File Server until hardware is removed, which requires shutting down FS, and removing PC card bracket and ethernet card. More restarts required to get things going. Backup procedure unexpectedly shuts down FS. When restarted, FS comes up but network is down. FS is down again. Sergei helping with the troubleshooting--already spent 2 hours on this and still not working. Something wrong with the power supply? We swap supplies with the router--FS is working. Then the suspect power supply starts working again. We're stumped. The good news is that the network is up. The bad news--we will probably see this again.

Even the quotidian, in space, takes on a different feel!

Dinner in the wardroom as usual. Decided not to go for the ham and smoked turkey--saving this for tomorrow.

And that's just for the first month... Of course, if being an astronaut doesn't tickle your fancy, there's always astronaut-herding opportunities.

Video and photos of spacewalks

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:31:40 -0800

The environment does terrible things to the human body and it smells. Many people go for that walk anyway. Found these while looking for video of the spacewalks from Gemini 10, 11 or 12 or any of the Apollo spacewalks (not the moonwalks), but nothing much exists, not even photos.

Fly me to the moon!

banshee — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:11:17 -0800

Astronaut Candidate Program. "The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announces the opportunity to apply for the position of Astronaut Candidate to support the International Space Station (ISS) Program." "MAJOR DUTIES: Astronauts are involved in all aspects of assembly and on-orbit operations of the ISS. This includes extravehicular activities (EVA), robotics operations using the remote manipulator system, experiment operations, and onboard maintenance tasks."

Yes, their job is cooler than yours.

blue_beetle — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:13:43 -0800

Astronauts in Space, the music video.

One small step for Man, One Giant Leap For WomanKind.

hadjiboy — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:37:01 -0800

Astronaut Sunita Williams (more links to pictures on the bottom right hand corner) returns to her ancestral hometown of Ahmedabad, India, after breaking multiple records in Space, where she stayed for a duration of 194 days, ran the Boston Marathon, and Space Walked for 22 hours and 27 minutes.

A Tribute to a Friend, and A Plea

paulsc — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 20:04:45 -0800

Even Astronauts Commit Suicide. Former Navy doctor, astronaut and Space Shuttle mission specialist, ham radio operator, and one time flight surgeon of The Blue Angels, Dr. Chuck Brady, was denied a hip replacement by the Navy shortly before he took his own life in July, 2006, and, according to his friend Dr. Ed Drum, this was a pivotal point in the depression that led Dr. Brady to apparently take his own life. Yet he was furious with friends who tried to intercede on his behalf, with appeals to Sen. John Edwards, and took personal vacation time and traveled to Guam to try to get flight time necessary to maintain his flight surgeon rating, when the Navy wanted to ground him for physical disability. We'll never know, for sure, what thoughts passed through his mind on Orcas Island on July 23, 2006, but to those who knew him, or who merely CQ'd his ham signals from time to time. Dr. Chuck Brady's life will remain both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

RIP Wally Schirra

brownpau — Thu, 03 May 2007 15:23:16 -0800

RIP Wally Schirra, 1923-2007. One of the original Mercury Seven "Right Stuff" astronauts (just two left now), Schirra flew on Sigma 7, Gemini 7, and Apollo 7. From there on, it's stationkeeping.

Astronaut Rock

Chinese Jet Pilot — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:11:23 -0800

Max Q, named after the aeronautical engineering term, is the only astronaut rock band (but not the only musical astronauts). Not to be confused with the barbershop quartet.

Astronaut charged with kidnap attempt

NortonDC — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:54:52 -0800

Astronaut charged with kidnap attempt. It's current, it's for real, and each paragraph is weirder than the last.

Letters....from SPACE!

muddgirl — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:09:49 -0800

Have you ever wondered what cosmonauts eat? What ISS astronauts do all day? What we can see from orbit? Ed Lu, The first American to launch and land on a Soyuz spacecraft, kept what is arguably the first space blog while spending an 184 days on the International Space Station with cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko in 2003.

The ups and downs of helium

pyramid termite — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 13:23:39 -0800

LBJ and the helium filled astronaut. In 1964, the Skylab project wanted to send a phone call to the president. They had a hard time convincing the operators to put the call through. (g2 real audio link from npr) But today, 2 college students in florida discovered that helium can be dangerous.

'The search for the perfect suit continues...'

anastasiav — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 07:30:15 -0800

Space Suits

NASA soundtracks

carter — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 10:07:39 -0800

Ignition sequence starts ... A spoken word documentary album of the flight of Apollo 11 to the moon. Dramatic - evocative - the right stuff. Provided by Hepcat Willy.

Godspeed, Dr. Kalpana Chawla.

jellybuzz — Mon, 03 Feb 2003 09:47:22 -0800

Godspeed, Dr. Kalpana Chawla. But how will India replace a girl like you? In Karnal, India, where this fallen Columbia astronaut was born, it is rarer -- and more dangerous -- to be a female fetus than a real live girl space shuttle jock. Statistics suggest that the state has taken the cruel art of sex selection, in which female fetuses are aborted, to new heights. Among children under 6, it has 820 girls for every 1,000 boys according to the 2001 census. (NY Times link)

Homepages of the insane and ridiculous

mathowie — Mon, 06 Jan 2003 10:58:25 -0800

Home page of Franz Stephan Strambach (translated to english) and his page about astronaut Resnik, also known as "the guy that threatened to slam a stolen plane into Frankfurt's tallest buildings" a few days back.

dhartung — Thu, 04 Apr 2002 18:08:49 -0800

Yuri's Night is more than 100 parties on the same night around the world, on every continent including Antarctica, April 12, 2002. What's to celebrate? The 41st anniversary of the suborbital flight of Yuri Gagarin, and the 21st anniversary of the first space shuttle flight, a fitting tribute to two great space milestones. Is there a party in your city? Set one up! I only read about last year's (initiated for the 40th/20th), but I'm going to try to go this year. There are, of course, even moe 40th anniversaries of significant space events to come. [tip o' the hat to Rand Simberg, who has even more provocative stuff in his FoxNews.com column -- like relocating Israel to the Moon. And he's serious.]

Geo — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 15:55:24 -0800

Who Wants to be a Cosmonaut? Contestants on Ancient Astronaut will battle to win a trip on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and a possible visit to the International Space Station (ISS). Where do I sign up? I don't care if Travel Makes you Stupid.

holgate — Wed, 11 Apr 2001 19:22:00 -0800

"Having flown around the earth in the first satellite I saw how beautiful our planet is, let us not destroy it!"

Remembering Yuri Gagarin, 40 years on.

grumblebee — Thu, 07 Dec 2000 13:23:34 -0800

Which would you rather be, a space shuttle astronaut or a technician on board the International Space Station? I know my answer.