Spacecraft

Bugs in Space

Hubble bags another beauty: The Bug Nebula. I wonder if there's a connection with The Mothman?

Dissertation Online

Matt Berry's dissertation is now online. Link at my Theses page.

Someone Left the Yellowcake Out In The Rain

nikita demosthenes in this post at The Command Post notes that Joe Wilson now says that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Nigeria.

Remember all the hoopla in the press when he claimed they weren't, which was translated as "Bush lied"? I don't suppose we'll see much about this reversal, and as ND@CP notes, "This bombshell is buried on page A-16 of today’s Washington Post." Read the entire thing. Write a letter to your local newspaper editor. Mention it on your blog. Don't just let it die.

Fun WIth Photoshop

Couple of weeks ago, I posted a picture of "Shoe" defending the tie-fighter. Another student, affectionately known as "Timberlake" has been tinkering with that picture, and here is the result. "Shoe" (aka "Ichi-Mike") is on the left and "Timberlake" is on the right.

To find out more about the lab where this battle took place, check out the Space Systems Simulation Lab website.

Hubble Follow-On Mission

I haven't been posting much on this topic lately, though I do have a copy of a report in front of me, titled "Follow-on Mission for the Hubble Space Telescope," co-authored by seven Aerospace Engineering seniors and one AE frosh in my design class. When it's complete, I'll post a link to it.

This interesting article by Dennis Wingo prompted me to mention the students' report: Rebuttal to Comments by the Houston Chronicle and Robert Zubrin Regarding NASA's Hubble Repair Options. Read entire.

BTW: Fred Kiesche mentioned this article yesterday, and also has a link to the article that Wingo is rebutting.

Independence of Rebellious Youth

Steven den Beste comments on the ways young people express and achieve their independence, and how the two (expression and achievement) are not the same. Got me to thinking about my own youth, and my other youths.

I was a long-haired hippie freak back in the 70s; my hair was halfway down my back when I began my two-year vagabond tour of the U.S. My mother and father never liked all that hair, and that's probably why I did like it (that and the fact that Ozzie Osbourne, Jon Anderson, Peter Gabriel, ... all had long hair). But when I was vagabonding, I found the hair to be more trouble than it was worth: difficult to wash in gas station restrooms and a turnoff to potential employers (even folks hiring a drifter to hammer a few nails and saw a few boards have appearance-based criteria). I cut it all off and kept it reasonably short by way of a small metal mirror and a pair of barber scissors. Not very professional, but easy to care for and more acceptable to the owners of small businesses looking for some low-cost labor. Eventually, of course, I enlisted in the USAF and they finished the job, removing all my hair in one swift action. My father had always liked wearing his hair short because it was easy to groom, and damn! he was right!

And now "my other youths." Actually, I have two: sons, 14 and 17. I had something to say about the 14-year-old a few days ago. Perhaps you missed it, and if so, I encourage you to read the anecdote there. I believe you'll find it amusing.

The older youth, the 17-year-old, has long hair, and likes to dye it. We recently fetched out my first driver's license, and if it weren't so mangled and the dates weren't so far in the past, he could use it as his own. He even likes to wear some of my left-over hippie clothes. But here's the difference: he's not rebelling. He and I get along far better than my father and I did. My #1 son is rebellious only in the sense that he's willing to dress and think and speak however he wishes. (As soon as I get around to scanning it, I'll post a manga self-portrait he drew.) Perhaps he just hasn't gotten round to rebelling yet, but I'm thinking that he is just on the right track to achieving real independence, rather than just expressing himself as different.

Spacecraft Engineer Saved by Boy Scouts

Well, just go read the story. (via Andrew)

1st Lt. Robert L. Nofsinger

Lt Nofsinger is with the USMC in Ramadi, Iraq, and he's asking for our support. He's not just talking about yellow ribbons and bumper stickers, but he's not talking about double-stuff oreos either. Read entire, and act accordingly.

Another Motorcyclist Killed

In Lakeland TN:

A man riding a motorcycle died from critical injuries this morning when a Shelby County School Bus pulled into his path ....

The driver of the Shelby County School bus, Yvonnda Eggerson, 41, was given a ticket for failing to yield a left turn.

Steely-Eyed Missile Men

Ted is carrying water for the new category.

Love and Bush

Courtney Love blames Bush for her problems:

"There's an arrest that happened the other night," she begins, referring to the mike-stand incident. "Did I bring it on myself? I had just gone on Letterman talking about how great the NYPD was. . . . The last thing I want to say is 'I'm a victim,' but I am. I believe it's a trickledown from Bush. . . . I should have done an audit. I should have done face time with people. That is true. But did I bring it on myself? I don't think so."

"I was in jail, do you know that?" she asks. "Some guy says he got hurt with a microphone stand. Yeah, though, my show was OK. I lost my voice, so it should have been better."

Erotesian Mechanics

Last week I mentioned that I had fleshed out a more or less complete theory of erotesian mechanics, and hinted that someday I might publish it. Without giving away too many of the details, I will say that it includes important analogues to the two-body problem, the three-body problem, periapsis passage, resonances in coupled systems, and coupled rigid-body motion.

This article, which prompted me to think about erotesian mechanics this morning, is in today's Independent, and includes the following claim by an otherwise unidentified "Dr. Armstrong:"

NASA is talking about the chemical sterilisation of astronauts on longer journeys.

UPDATE: More on the possible use of eunuchs for space exploration at Curmudgeon's Corner and Mars Blog.

BTW: There's an amusing SF short story about a crew of 50 or so astronaut/settlers, selected by lottery and sent to Mars. By chance, there was only one male, and within about nine months of arrival, all the females gave birth to "Martians." Can't remember title or author, but if someone leaves the info in the comments, I'll post it here.

The short story is "Expedition," by Fredric Brown (hat tip to Ed in the comments). As Ed notes, there were 29 women and one man, and the story is anthologized in Clifton Fadiman's Fantasia Mathematica: Being a Set of Stories, Together With a Group of Oddments and Diversions, All Drawn from the Universe of Mathematics.

Passwords

How do you keep up with all your passwords and other bits of information you want to keep confidential? I use Illium Software's eWallet. It allows me to keep all my crumpled bits of paper neatly stored (encrypted) on my desktop and my iPAQ. Looks like I might want to upgrade though; I'm using 2.0.4 and they're up to 3.1.

Fictionwise = ebooks

I don't do a whole lot of ebook reading, but I do have the reader on my desktop and on my iPAQ, and I have picked up a couple of items from Fictionwise: Excellence in eBooks. They're having a link-generation campaign so I get a special coupon for adding this link. In case you've forgotten already, it's ebooks!

Two Men Who Want To Be President

Two pictures = two thousand words? You decide.

Earth Day

All right, I'm a little late on this one, but check out how Moxie celebrated Earth Day.

Alternate Voice

Just found this blog, by Jesse, via another blog, Gut Rumbles, by Acidman. One interesting tidbit is that Jesse has a daughter at Virginia Tech. Another is his excerpts from a Frontpage interview with reformed leftist Christopher Hitchens. My favorite snippet: They [Islamists] wish to be martyrs - we should be willing to help.

Cheese

John of TexasBestGrok links to cheese.com. As I noted in the comments at his blog, my favorite is Wensleydale, though Y-Fenni is an excellent choice as well. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, "Cheese is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Most Unwired College Campuses

Intel publishes a "top 100" list of campuses with wireless computing access. Alas, Virginia Tech is not on the list. I can only interpret our absence to mean that these other universities have eliminated wiring altogether, since all our students are required to have wireless laptops (well, all the engineering students, anyhow).

Friends of Saddam

One stop shopping for the latest information on The UN Oil for Food Scandal (UNSCAM), Saddam, and his many Global Friends. (via Linda at Civilization Calls)

Alternatives To Getting Old

Loren at Civilization Calls links to an American Thinker essay, Forcing Doctors to Kill, describing involuntary euthanasia in The Netherlands, and considering the steps we're taking towards implementation in the U.S. of A. Read entire.

Dr. Moreau

Someone snuck onto the island and snapped a few pix. (via Rocket Jones)

"Are we not men?"
-- H. G. Wells

Star Banker =

... Intergalactic Capitalist. Interesting blog, though there does not appear to be any space-related content. Mostly political. Sample:

George Bush made many mistakes in office, in particular the attempt to bring about some bridgebuilding between the parties. That his administration thought that funding the Dems pet project of picking the pockets of the worthwhile for the gain of the worthless was stupid. There are many other things that I could point out, but they pale in comparison to one over-riding agreement. This nation is under attack and the Dems are trying to wish it away. Never I my lifetime have I ever witnessed such grotesque and appalling perfidy that characterizes the current crop of Democrats. It is obvious that these people want the power of government so badly that they are willing to take orders from various terrorists, tin-pot dictators and squealing euro-socialist cowards. Not only that, they are willing to sacrifice many more innocent Americans and betray those who so bravely volunteer to meet our enemies on their ground. There is only one man running for the office and only one office in these perilous times that I could support. That man is George Bush and the office he is running for is Commander in Chief of the United States. We are at war and we need a man who is sane enough to recognize that. A dolt like Kerry who still insists that this is a legal and police matter doesn't deserve anything but ridicule. To not take our enemies at their word that they are at war with the United States and seek the destruction of everything we stand for is quite frankly, insane.

My Erdos Number is 5

After the excitement regarding the Erdos Number auction on ebay last week, I thought I'd compute my Erdos number. My PhD advisor, Richard Rand, has an Erdos number of 4, so mine is 5. Here's the path: CDH -> RHR -> H.D.Block -> Peter Hilton -> Derek Holton -> Erdos.

Attitude Determination

Today we have the pleasure of hosting Dr. F. Landis Markley, attitude determination expert, gainfully employed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Here's the abstract for his seminar:

Spacecraft Attitude Determination Methods
This talk will provide an overview of spacecraft attitude determination methods, including a discussion of various mathematical representations of spacecraft attitude, attitude reference data, and algorithms for attitude determination. These topics will be illustrated using representative Goddard Space Flight Center missions.

Weekend Report

Saturday morning: seniors gave presentations to the department Advisory Board. The presented eleven different projects on the design of aircraft, spacecraft and ships. Very cool stuff.

Saturday afternoon: we had our annual cookout at my house for the space students. Good turnout, beautiful weather.

Sunday: the wife and I rode 280 miles, some on backroads, some on the Blue Ridge Parkway, some in downtown Roanoke, some on the divided four-lane US460. Breakfast at Famous Anthony's in Roanoke, visited Booker T. Washington National Monument and Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, and late lunch at Bedford Restaurant.

A New Eagle Scout

My #1 son had his Eagle Scout Board of Review last night. And even though he has shoulder-length red (unnaturally) hair and named David Bowie as one of his heroes, he made the grade. Another scout in our troop also had his Eagle Board, and he passed too (with 5 days 'til his 18th birthday!).

Two More Beers, Please, Please

If you're a new visitor, please go here and make a contribution.

UPDATE: Note that I am not asking for any money, nor even any beer. I'm just asking for the phrase "Two more beers, please" in different languages.

UPDATE: Just added Latvian, Mandarin Chinese, and Swedish, courtesy of Adam and Kert. Thanks!

Worst SF Book Ever

Visit SFSignal and add to the list.

Mumpsimus

Another Science Fiction Blog. Read this if you're curious about the origin of the title, "a learned joke." As an intro to the blog, I recommend his amusing note about the Nebula Awards (well, actually, his Evil Twin's amusing note). (via SFSignal)

Man in Black

Tim at SFSignal observes that we've got one, and wonders if he needs a partner.

VT Alums

Both of these guys were in the spacecraft design class sometime in the past. They both wore their VT polo shirts to work on the same day.

And evidently got a little ribbing. There's a poll going 'round NASA Goddard with the following choices:

Bo looks like Schwarzenegger ____
Rivers looks like Shwarzenegger ____

Bo looks like DeVito ____
Rivers looks like DeVito ____

Just One Letter

We all know how a comma can change the meaning of a sentence. Last night, while reading David Mindell's Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing Before Cybernetics, I missed an "s" and read the following:

Progressive thought engineers could apply their knowledge and objectivity to solving social problems and help make a more equitable society.

Progressives thought engineers could apply their knowledge and objectivity to solving social problems and help make a more equitable society.

Global Warming? Or Is It Cooling?

On Jupiter, by Jove. Evidently the rather extreme weather on the giant planet has a 70-year climate cycle, and some of the huge cyclones and anticyclones are disappearing. The UC Berkeley physicist they quote suggests this phenomenon is a consequence of the natural conditions on the planet; however, he offers no proof that the disappearance of the storms is not caused by the spread of Western civilization and its utter disregard for nature. In particular, he does not address the possibility that Halliburton is behind the environmental catastrophe. After all, Halliburton was founded a little more than 70 years ago. Coincidence?

Google Images II

Yesterday I linked to a google image page, with the challenge to figure out which picture is my wife. Turns out it was too easy (see comments at that post). Anyhow, I thought I'd offer this link, by way of explanation for the unusual attire she's wearing in the picture. By the way, note that the authorship of the article implies that whatever my Erdos number is, hers is N+1.

Murdoc On Peace

Just go read it.

Dinerman on Bekey on Future Space Technologies

Ivan Bekey is one of those senior statesmen of space technology who doesn't spend his time trying to convince the next generation that certain goals are unachievable (one distinguished colleague of mine devoted his entire presentation at a recent conference to explaining why human exploration of Mars would never be possible). In fact, Bekey does just the opposite, and his new book, looks to motivate folks to look a little farther than the next communications satellite or launch vehicle. Taylor Dinerman has an excellent review of the book over at The Space Review. Read the review, buy the book, read the book, take the next giant step.

Google Images

I just image-googled my wife's name and lo and behold there's a photo of her on the first page. See if you can figure out which one she is.

Space Warfare

There's some interesting discussion at Rand Simberg's Transterrestrial Musings on the subject of space battles, and the Air Force vs Navy models for military space. To get the full treatment, you'll also have to read Steven Den Beste's two-part 8000-word essay, on Space Navies. As a retired USAF officer, I'm well-familiar with the AF's conventional wisdom, that the USS Enterprise should have been commanded by Colonel Kirk, but I'm inclined to agree with Rand Simberg and several of his commentors, "that once we solve the earth-to-orbit problem, and the atmosphere becomes a temporary hindrance on the way to the rest of the universe, that the naval model will in fact prevail."

Nudity Levity and Gravity

Dwayne Day has a nice article on the history of Gravity Probe B, over at The Space Review. Robert Cannon's excellent dynamics book, Dynamics of Physical Systems, by the way, is now available from Dover.

Decrease Your Erdos Number

On ebay, a fellow is auctioning an Erdos number of 5. If you find the concept interesting, you owe it to yourself to read Paul Hoffman's biography of Paul Erdos: The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos & the Search for Mathematical Truth. It's a beautiful story, in which you will find the answer to the perfect trivia question: What professional athlete has an Erdos number of 1?

UPDATE: I neglected to mention that I found out about the ebay auction via this post by John Quiggin of Crooked Timber, who is offering (tongue-in-cheek) to provide suitable co-authors an Erdos number of 4, for no cost (well, I suppose he'd ask the co-author to pay any journal page charges). And he was responding to an earlier post, also at Crooked Timber, by Henry.

Team Encounter, Solar Sail Mission

Here's another commercial space exploration enterprise I hadn't known about before. This news article has some info, but the Team Encounter website is the place to go.

One of my students and I are just putting the finishing touches on a paper entitled "Optimal Control of Solar Sail Spacecraft for Interplanetary Missions," which we'll be submitting to the journal Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy. When we submit, I'll post the manuscript on my Publications page.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The previews looked interesting, the wife says it's supposed to be excellent, and now I learn that it's "largely inspired by the work of the great American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick." I avoid reading movie reviews for the most part, and only found this review by "noogling" PKD's name. (By "noogle" I mean Google News, not any of the various noogle.* sites out there.)

Hoyle-Wickramasingh Hypothesis

Since you were sitting there wondering, I thought I'd help you out by letting you know that Alan Brain has been thinking about it too.

Preston on Bush

Over at JunkYardBlog:

Yet it is George W. Bush, not the mullahs and madmen he is fighting, who is and will be controversial. Whether he wins or loses in November, and whether America ultimately wins or loses its war with terrorism, George W. Bush will remain for many in the West the ultimate target of hatred, derision and suspicion. The terrorists who started this war will either be forgotten or given power depending on the war's outcome. But George W. Bush's place is secure....

Everybody's Doing It

I've seen this so many places, I'm not even going to link to one of them.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

"After reflection, suppose the body A comes to the place s, and the body B to the place k."

That's from Sir Isaac Newton's Principia. Vol. I. The Motion of Bodies, Motte's Translation, Revised by Cajori, Published by University of California Press, 1934 (the year my father was born).

I've always loved thinking about the various double entendres associated with the language of dynamics. I once spent a fair (and pleasurable) amount of time developing (fleshing out, you might say) a complete theory of erotesian mechanics. I still have most of the work in my notes around here somewhere. Perhaps someday I'll publish it as a monograph.

Camel Spiders

Holy Moly! Camel Spiders!

Gravity Now Being Probed

"1657:24 GMT (12:57:24 p.m. EDT)

LIFTOFF! Liftoff of NASA's Gravity Probe-B spacecraft -- a machine to test Albert Einstein's theories of space and time"

By-the-minute coverage here. (thanks, Reid)

Species Confusion

I've never had any gender confusion issues (well, there was that one time, but that was when I was in college. ed: you're still in college. oh, yeah, right).

Now, I (or rather the Truth Laid Bear) am having trouble deciding whether I'm an Adorable Rodent or a Marauding Marsupial. I'll let you know if I get it sorted out.

Meanwhile, I'm currently 849 in the Traffic Rankings. :{ sniff
I used to hang out between 390 and 467.

Spiderman in Space

This is the kind of biomimetics that's going to revolutionize space exploration, someday:

You could also imagine astronauts using spacesuits that help them stick to the walls of a spacecraft - just like a spider on a ceiling.

The Case of the Electric Martian Dust Devils

According to some Terran scientists, "dust devils on Earth have unexpectedly large electric fields, in excess of 4,000 volts per meter (yard), and can generate magnetic fields as well. " And Martian scientists note that "Martian dust devils dwarf the 5- to 10-meter terrestrial ones and can be greater than 500 meters in diameter and several thousand meters high." If voltage scales with volume, these Martian Devils could be pretty dangerous. Read all about it here.

GPB Launch Scrubbed

You'd think they with 45 years of planning, this kind of thing wouldn't happen: "The mission was postponed for nearly 24 hours because officials were unable to verify whether some last-minute data had been loaded aboard the rocket." But then you remember that this kind of thing can happen too.

Behind The Blog

Perhaps The World's First Blog Comment Ranking Blog!. Spice up your comments to make her job easier.

Little Dudes and Decision-Making

Da Goddess describes her experience with offering lunch to her own "Little Dude." And this, too, reminds me of a story.

My own "Little Dude," aka "Number Two Son," has a remarkable talent for parent infuriation, and he's always had it. He's not such a little dude these days, and will soon be taller than the Old Man (but I can still take him, I'm sure of it).

Way back, when he was three years old (almost four), I asked him some kind of decision-required question, probably something like, "You want to go get some ice cream?"

He replied, scratching his chin, "I'm not sure." I had had about enough of that, and I insisted: "You have to stop being so noncommittal."

Like many three-year-olds, he was unfamiliar with the term, so he asked me to clarify: "What does noncommittal mean?" I explained, and he, scratching his chin, rewarded me with a further clarification that I'll never forget:

"I'm not committal or noncommittal."

Blushing in Springtime

A motorcyclist friend included the following in his report of his Sunday ride with his new wife:

We even noticed a couple of cows engaged in a friendly spring game of leapfrog near Floyd.

Farm boy is sitting on a pasture fence with a pretty girl, watching a bull "playing leapfrog" with a cow. The boy looks at the girl and says, "I sure would like to do that." "Go ahead," she says, "it's your cow!"

Starsys Opens New Facility in Durham NC

Starsys Research Corporation builds a variety of spacecraft mechanisms. Our nanosatellite (called HokieSat) has a Starsys separation mechanism connecting it to the Multiple Satellite Deployment Structure. The separation mechanism uses a shape memory alloy fastener to hold the spacecraft to the MSDS. By passing a current through the SMA, its shape is changed and a spring pushes the spacecraft away from the MSDS. HokieSat also has another separation mechanism to connect the satellite to the DawgStar satellite built by Cornell and University of Washington. That separation mechanism, called LightBand, was designed and built by Planetary Systems Corporation.

Spacecraft mechanisms are challenging to design, test and manufacture, and fail more often than anyone would like. The Planetary Systems Corporation founder, Walter Holemans, likes to use the failure of Galileo's high-gain antenna as an example: "It's basically an umbrella. You can buy an umbrella for a couple of bucks and it will open every time you want it to. The Galileo HGT cost a million bucks and the one time it was supposed to open, it didn't." (that's a paraphrase, but you get the idea) Holemans' Lightband design was used for Starshine-3, was successful, and is manifested on several future missions.

I wish we had room in our curriculum for a junior-level course on spacecraft mechanisms, where students had to study existing mechanisms and design, build and test a mechanism to meet a specific objective. Perhaps if I could incorporate some additional topics, such as post-modern deconstructionist diversity-enhancement into the syllabus, I could squeeze it into the core curriculum. Nah.

GPB

Gravity Probe B should launch today. Weather looks nice for it:

This Afternoon
Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 70s. East winds 10 to 15 mph.

UPDATE: For some reason, I was thinking GPB'd be launching from Cape Canaveral, and that's what that weather link is for. In the real world, it's launching from Vandenburg AFB. Bygones.

And Then There Were Five

Expedition 9 On The Way To Space Station
For a few days, there will be five humans off the planet instead of the usual two.

Last night, my number one son and I were chatting about something other than motorcycles, role-playing games, and girls (the usual big three): space exploration. He brought it up, saying that he hoped space travel for normal people will be routine while he's still young enough to participate. He's 17 now. Between the time I was born and the time I reached his age, the United States launched its first satellite, its first human, its first lunar landing mission, its first interplanetary probes, and its first space station. Hopefully, when he's my age, he won't be reading stories about two more astronauts reaching orbit, but rather will be reading in the New Mojave Times about the latest batch of settlers arriving to be his neighbors on Mars.

He was pretty excited about Space Ship One.

The Weekend

I know next to nothing about any weekend news. I spent Friday afternoon at the AIAA student conference, Friday night out drinking beer (Blacksburg Oatmeal Stout) with the conferees, Saturday at the conference, Saturday night at the closing banquet, where one of my M.S. students, Matthew VanDyke, took 2nd place for his paper, "Decentralized Coordinated Attitude Control of a Formation of Spacecraft," and then drank a couple more beers. And then Sunday morning the fun began. I met four motorcycle pals for a brisk ride into the mountains off towards Mt Rogers (highest point in VA) and beyond. I think we rode about 300 miles, but I forgot to check the odometer. By lunchtime, perhaps I'll have some idea of what's going on in the world.

Dissertation Defense Today

A Variable-Step Double-Integration Multi-Step Integrator
Matt Berry
Ph.D. Defense

207 Randolph Hall
April 16
9:00 AM

A new method of numerical integration is presented, the variable-step Stormer-Cowell method. The method uses error control to regulate the step size, so larger step sizes can be taken when possible, and is double-integration, so only one evaluation per step is necessary. The method is not variable-order, because variable-order algorithms require a second evaluation.

The variable-step Stormer-Cowell method is designed for space surveillance applications, which require numerical integration methods to accurately track orbiting objects. Because of the large number of objects being processed, methods that can integrate the equations of motion as fast as possible while maintaining accuracy requirements are desired. The force model used for earth-orbiting objects is quite complex and computationally expensive, so methods that minimize the force model evaluations are needed.

The new method is compared to the fixed-step Gauss-Jackson method, as well as a method of analytic step regulation (s-integration), and the variable-step variable-order Shampine-Gordon integrator. Speed and accuracy tests of these methods indicate that the new method is comparable to s-integration in most cases, though the variable-step Stormer-Cowell method has an advantage over s-integration when drag is a significant factor. The new method is faster than the Shampine-Gordon integrator, because the Shampine-Gordon integrator uses two evaluations per step and is biased toward keeping the step size constant. Tests indicate that both the variable-step Stormer-Cowell method and s-integration have an advantage over the fixed-step Gauss-Jackson method for orbits with eccentricities greater than 0.15.

UPDATE: Success. That's Doctor Berry to everyone now.

You Might Be Addicted to Blogging ...

... if more than a couple of these 11 warning signs look familiar to you.

Number 10: You're practicing using the "Publish On" feature so the next time you go on vacation, your blogs will keep posting without interruption

I'm off to Dubai for 10 days, back on the 11th of April. I'm off riding motorcycle in the desert, so that's gonna be fun.

If the server remains up, and the damn network and router keep working, as off the 1st of April, articles/blogs should appear automatically. I've written one for each day that I'm gone, and they should be "time released" (isn't technology great.... if it works).

Squirrel Fishing

The weather's getting nice, and Mr. Hinkley has some thoughts on squirrel capture and preparation.

That Far Out, They Freeze to Death

Sedna has no moon, and astronomers are puzzled. Reminds me of a Conchy comic where Conchy was explaining that Mercury had no moons because it was too close to the Sun and therefore too hot for moons to live. When asked why then Pluto had no moon (this was before James Christy discovered Charon), Conchy replied, "That far out, they freeze to death."

Thinking about this reminded me that I blogged a bit about Conchy a few months ago, after finding a nice site created by Bill Peschel. I noted that Peschel had a blog, but had evidently signed off blogging. Well, he has rebooted, and I'm pretty sure I'll be stopping in from time to time at the Blog on Planet Peschel.

Rooney Answered

I mentioned Rooney's anti-hero list of questions for U.S. soldiers here. Sgt. Hook, serving in Afghanistan, asked a few Soldiers to answer them, and shares the answers here. I don't think these were the answers Rooney was hoping for, but they are about what I expected. Thank you to Sgt. Hook, for serving, for blogging, and for helping Mr. Rooney get the spanking he has earned. (via murdoc online, who got the link from Blackfive)

Oh, That Media Bias

Bryan Preston and Chris Regan offer a Junkyardblog Special on the CBS appetite for big money from "the increasingly rabid anti-war and anti-Bush left:" The Checkbook System. Read entire.

Too Many Powder Milk Biscuits?

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura says he might consider a run for the White House in 2008. I expect this will give Garrison Keillor plenty of skit ideas.

Lethal Injection Is Just Too Nice For Some Creatures

Misanthropyst links to a murder story. These fellows should be sentenced to the apparatus.

Shoe Defends the Tie-Fighter

Just in case you thought Aerospace Engineering Education was all work and no play.

Synchronicity

Just a couple of days ago, I "discovered" the B612 Foundation, and posted an entry about their work here, including a brief explanation of the origin of the Foundation's interesting name.

Today's WSJ has a related commentary piece: From the Murky Depths: Fathoming the lasting appeal of Saint-Exupéry and "The Little Prince."

Go read this delightful piece. Then buy a copy of the book and read it aloud to your children or grandchildren or nephews and nieces, or just some kids at the library wanting a good story. You won't regret it.

Lileks Says:

"9/11 would make a hell of a movie."

(And I think Bruce Springsteen could make a hell of a soundtrack. He's already got a good start: Empty Sky, Into the Fire, My City in Ruins.)

Back to Lileks:

I wonder whether Hollywood execs shy from a 9/11 movie because they think it might send the wrong message.

It would anger people anew, and we’re supposed to be past that. It would remind us what was done to us instead of rubbing out noses in what we do to others – I mean, unless you have a character in the second tower watching the plane approaching and saying “My God, this is payback for supporting Israel!” it’s going to come across as simplistic nonsense that denies the reality in the West Bank, okay?

Read entire, and listen too.

You Think Verbal Kint Could Eat 50 Eggs?

Premiere magazine has compiled a list of "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time." It does not include Cool Hand Luke. I am deeply offended. (via Betsy Newmark, who warned that the list would "start some fights")

Reach Out and Touch An Insurgent

Misanthropyst has a cool take on responding to the rebel leaders' ultimatimum.

It's Been A Long Time Coming

My friend and colleague, Robert Farquhar, recently told me that when he was a graduate student at Stanford in the 60s, he was involved in the initial plans for what eventually became Gravity Probe B. It's scheduled to launch on Monday:

An effort to peer deep into the strangeness that is Albert Einstein's legacy has materialized as a van-size assemblage of plumbing, electronics and quartz atop a rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

And it's going to be a long time gone. (couldn't resist)

Janklow, Murderer?

Well, certainly manslaughterer, a crime for which he was sentenced to a whopping 100 days in jail, a sentence that he is appealing.

Yesterday my new issue of Motorcycle Consumer News arrived in the mail, and Fred Rau's always enjoyable column discussed Janklow, and included some information I had not seen before, but for which there appears to be substantial evidence.

The most appalling allegation has the following key elements:

• In January 1967, Janklow allegedly raped at gunpoint Jancita Eagle Dear, a high school student and babysitter of his children, presumably including the son who defended him in his recent case
• In October 1974, Janklow was disbarred based on her testimony
• In April 1975, Jancita Eagle Dear was found dead beside a Nebraska road

I expect The "Honorable" Mr. Janklow will win his appeal. Perhaps, as Fred Rau suggested in his column, his next highway victim will be an 18-wheeler, and justice will finally be served.

I Knew Her When

Elonka was my wife's roommate a long time ago when my wife was my girlfriend and we were all USAF electronics technicians stationed in England. Now she's famous, and has a blog: Elonka's Memestreams Page - Subcultures R Us.

This Just In

"NASA HAS SUCCESS WITH NEW PLANET HUNTING TOOL

On Thursday April 15, at 1 p.m. EDT, astronomers will explain how they used a new technique to find an extrasolar, orbiting another star, planet during a listen-and-log-on news briefing. Using this technique, amateur astronomers might help with follow-up observations of future discoveries, and help confirm planets, as small as Earth, beyond our solar system. Briefing participants:

-- Dr. Philippe Crane, Origins theme scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Dr. Ian Bond, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

The discovery was made during a research project partly funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation and several international institutions.

The virtual news briefing is only for reporters. To participate reporters must call any of the above listed contacts by noon EDT, April 15 to get the phone number and password.

Images and graphics supporting this news briefing will be posted at 1 p.m. EDT, April 15, on the Internet at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/media/041504"

I'll be interested to see what this is all about.

NC BBQ

If you're going to be in the vicinity of western NC in mid-June 2004, you should really consider taking in the 11th Annual Blue Ridge BBQ Festival.

Ewan McGregor, RTW Motorcyclist

He and his pal, off on big beemers from Calais to Siberia (not quite "Round The World", but still a pretty good ride).

If you're interested in round-the-world trips, check out Horizons Unlimited, where the adventure motorcycling blogs of numerous long-distance riders are gathered for your reading entertainment. Be forewarned, though, it's addictive.

Crud

I've tried to describe this variation on 8-ball to friends over the past few years, but Ted does a better job than I ever did. Go read the rules.

Winston on the Economy and the Election

Head over to Federal Review, and you'll find two excellent contributions from Winston: Talking Down the Economy, and Debut of Federal Review Composite Poll.

The former describes economic indicators that Kerry could have chosen to use and why they're "bad," because they don't show the economy in the tank, and the fabricated "Middle-Class Misery Index" that says what Kerry needs it to say. The latter is an objective analysis of various polling data in an attempt to predict the election based on what folks are saying today.

Read them both, entire.

UPDATE: Gregg Easterbrook finds the phony index, well, phony: "Torture statistics long enough, and they will confess to anything."

My Favorite Ride

Just a little something I wrote for my motorcycle club's newsletter.

My Favorite Ride

Some of the motomagazines have a regular feature with readers describing their "favorite rides." I always enjoy these articles, but I confess that I'd find it tough to choose a "favorite ride." Usually I think my favorite ride is the most recent one. I've given it some thought though, and I think I can describe what my generic favorite ride might be like.

I like long rides, so it's about 600 miles, and I like to start early. The night before, I finish my route plan, using Streets & Trips, copying the directions to an Excel spreadsheet, editing and formatting for easy use in my tank bag's map case. I make sure the bike is ready to go, set the alarm and get a good night's sleep. The alarm is set for 3:30, but I wake up early, get ready, have a cup of coffee, make a pint of hot peach tea to enjoy later in the morning, and head out the driveway about 4 AM. It's dark, of course, and chilly: cool enough so that heated grips and electric vest are comfortable, but not so cold that the electrics are required for survival.

My ride begins on four-lane roads, and the light reflecting off deer eyes beside the road reminds me why I wanted to avoid backroads before dawn. I enjoy cruising along, occasionally seeing a farmer out starting his day or a paper "boy" delivering the morning editions (ever notice how they're all paper "men" and "women" these days?). And right about the time the sun peeks over the eastern ridge, my route turns onto a "two-lane highway, going my way, going fast." An hour more of brisk riding and I'm ready for breakfast. As if on cue, I ride into a small town, where I spy Martha's Village Diner on the main corner. I park and go in to sit at the counter. Martha's smart and can tell that I need coffee, so she brings a cup with the menu. I order eggs over easy, home fries, wheat toast, and crispy bacon. "Onions with the home fries?" Of course.

I make a few notes in my journal, read the 8-page local morning paper lying on the counter, devour the delicious breakfast with another cup of coffee, pay up, mount up, and follow the route that leads me over Biguno Mountain, with smooth pavement and banked switchbacks up one side and down the other. A longish run of sweepers along Biguno Creek eventually leads me up the next set of switches. There's a lookout at the top of the mountain. I stop and enjoy the view and some hot peach tea, and watch several hawks riding the thermals down the ridge before heading down the mountain. Swooping down the mountain switchbacks, I can almost imagine how the hawks feel.

Another hour or so of valley riding brings me to a National Park I hadn't visited before. In the Visitor Center I collect the passport stamp, and chat with the Park Service Ranger, learning that she's from Idaho, studied at Virginia Tech and wrote a Master's Thesis "On Several Species of Small Furry Animals Grooving in Southwest Virginia." Now she's a newt expert, and when I ask for a recommendation for a short hike, she shows me where to find the habitat of the celebrated Fire Newt. I follow her suggested path, but either the Fire Newts are sleeping late, or I just don't have the attention to detail to spot them. I do enjoy watching a flicker mining its lunch of pine bark beetles, though, and then head back to the bike.

Following a fairly rough county road, I spot a historical marker signpost. I can't resist, so stop, read it, take a photo, and make a note in my journal about the sign and its coordinates and an idea for a trivia question for the next TVRally. A few miles farther on, I see an old log church, and stop to discover just how old it is: built in the early 18th century. Amazing, but then I think about other old structures in our world: Angkor Wat, The Great Wall, The Sphinx. And I wonder if I'll ever get to ride in Cambodia, China, Egypt. I sure hope so.

In a small mountain village, I enjoy a burger "all the way" with a chocolate and raspberry milkshake, sitting outside at the cafe's picnic table next to a beautiful creek. Inside the cafe there's a 30" trout displayed on the wall, allegedly taken by a local girl from that very creek. I consider assembling the fly rod, tying on the local favorite, and trying to coax one of the trophy's kin out of the water, but then I remember that I'm not in Virginia any more, and my license will just get me in trouble here. Back on the bike.

Miles and miles of roads later, straight and curvy, smooth and rough, flat and hilly, I arrive in my destination, a medium-sized town just a few hours ride from an interesting museum I recently read about. I ride around town, identify a nice-looking Mexican restaurant and a motel within walking distance. I secure lodging, change into street clothes, and walk over to enjoy a margarita, some chips and a chile relleno, and finish with a cold negra modelo, before wandering back to the room by way of a walk around town. There's a monument in front of the courthouse, in remembrance of the men and women who gave their lives for their country. I take a photo, and make note of the town's hero who received the Medal of Honor for his heroic behavior on the other side of the world.

Back at the motel, I check the bike to make sure it's safe and ready to go, set the alarm and get a good night's sleep. After all, in the morning, I'm going out for My Favorite Ride.

Pave the Planet

Well, not really, but I do love a good road (paved or not). And, while looking for something, I made the serendipitous discovery of this fantastic website with detailed descriptions of dozens of roads throughout the world, though the lion's share are located in California (home of the keeper of the list, I believe). Anyhow, I wanted to record it for posterity: pashnit.com is the main site, and the roads page is here. Check it out and then start planning your trip.

Rooney Witlessness Continues

Rooney in the Buffalo News: Our soldiers in Iraq aren't heroes. "Most are victims, not heroes." He has some poll questions he'd like to ask our deployed military personnel, all loaded, of course. Perhaps another question is appropriate:

Do you think the ideas of commentators like Andy Rooney represent the thinking of the American people?

B612 Foundation

Several years ago, when I was professing at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), I co-authored a proposal with a colleague at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) for a project we called Clementine X. Our idea was to have a military-sponsored mission (a' la Clementine) that would visit an asteroid and then apply one or more techniques to alter the asteroid's orbit. Our interest in the concept began with a conference paper we wrote and I presented at the Astrodynamics Conference in 1997:

C. D. Hall and I. M. Ross, "Dynamics and Control Problems in the Deflection of Near-Earth Objects," AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Conference, Sun Valley, ID, Aug 1997

The B612 Foundation is an organization that is planning to make Clementine X a reality, though they don't call it by the same name:

"Our goal is to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015"

What Might Have Been

Several of these alternate histories have been written lately, but this one is my favorite: The Victims of George W. Bush, a review of The Bush Wars by Sidney Blumenthal and Conspiracy by Ann Coulter. Read entire. (via Alan Brain)

Ural Motorcycles For Sale in Iraq

Here's an interesting article about ~1500 Urals, with optional military hardware, for sale in Iraq. Purchased by the former government, "under the oil-for-food program* before the war," are "available in any color you want as long as it is camouflage grey."

* Hopefully Roger Simon is reading this and can use this information in his campaign to discover where the money went.

Easter Sunday

I had a very nice Sunday. Early breakfast with the family, then lounged around and finished reading Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure. Excellent 1988 re-telling of the story of three canoe expeditions in 1903 and 1905. I won't spoil it for you by giving you any details, but I will say that the tale includes adventure, intrigue, peril, death, hardship, romance, and blackflies. Get it and read it.

There's some good online supplement here, and in 2003 some bold folks retraced the route and tell about it here.

After finishing the book, I went for a short (150 miles) motorcycle ride, in the rain, up Little Walker Creek, over Big Walker Mountain, and down Big Walker Creek (actually up and down roads that followed these geographical features, of course). Highlight: seeing a mature bald eagle along Little Walker Creek.

Back home, we had a lovely Easter dinner, and in the evening watched Amistad. We had never seen it before and were pleasantly surprised at its Easter-relevant content.

(read the extended entry for the motorcycle ride report I sent to my club listserv)

I know it wasn't a nice day, but it was nicer than today at least. A bit after noon, I donned the rain gear (it wasn't raining at the time) and rolled the V-storm out into the damp, aiming to push the odo past 1000 (it was somewhere in the 800+ range). I've always wondered what the rest of Little Walker Creek looks like, so that was my destination.

US 460 west was mostly dry, and I quickly reached the turnoff to Eggleston (730), and zipped through the curves to 100. If you know this road, then you know that the last half dozen or so right-handers before you reach 100 are usually full of gravel. Not yesterday! They were clean and fun.

Left on 100 took me over the mountain to Big Walker Creek Valley where 42 heads southwest to Bland and beyond. It was beginning to rain as I continued south on 100 to 601 (I believe that's the right #) aka Little Creek Road, which runs along the edge of Little Walker Creek. I've been down the first half several times, but have always turned, either left onto Alum Springs Rd or Robinson Tract Rd into Pulaski, or right on Robinson Tract Rd towards Mechanicsburg. Yesterday I continued on 601 to see what the rest of the road is like.

The first half is a good ride, lots of hilly curves, but unfortunately lots of residences, and in one particularly nice stretch, there's a fellow with a truck and heavy machinery collection. Always lots of gravel in the curves in that section.

The second half is much more rural, but the pavement is also rougher and doesn't have painted lines for much of the way. Only a few homes along here, though some of these are quite the production. There's one "log castle" on the creek that is really something.

My big payoff though was the siting of a bald eagle. He was sitting in a tree and I slowed down to make sure I wasn't seeing things. He took off and slowly flapped downstream. I didn't even consider trying to get the gloves off and the camera out for a photo. Still, very cool. First time I've seen one in Virginia. My friend Prof Jim Parkhurst in Fisheries & Wildlife at Tech says it's pretty unusual, but not unheard of.

601 continues on and goes under I77. Somewhere along there, it changes to 717, and gets pretty straight. But it goes through beautiful forest of tall pines and short rhododendron. There's a trailhead for a hike up to the top of Little Walker Mt, but needless to say I didn't make that hike yesterday.

The road dead-ended on US52, almost at the base on the south side, so a right turn put me almost immediately in the clean well-banked turns leading up to the lookout. Along the way up, I spotted a deer on the left (downhill) side of the road and slowed way down to see what she'd do. She was paying a lot of attention to something uphill, and I looked that way to see another 6 deer waiting for her to cross the road. I crept along warily and continued up the mountain. As I mentioned earlier this year, there's a new outpost under construction up there: BW Trading Post, supposed to open in May. As usual the north side was pretty gravelly.

I continued on 42, along Big Walker Creek, and took a detour to check out Old Mill Dam Road, where BW Creek makes a pretty little pond and spills over a 6-ft or so dam with some old concrete foundations nearby. It's a dead-end dirt road, so that was about all I got to see.

Back on 100, I skipped 730 (not wanting to backtrack too much) and took 622 over Mt View into Eggleston and then got back on 730 and 460 to home.

Didn't quite make it to 1000 miles, but the odo is now on 940, so I expect the next ride to take care of that little milestone.

Anyone else get out and ride in the rain?

McCain Schools Byrd & Kennedy

Excellent speech on the Senate floor Wednesday (I missed it earlier): Not Tet. Iraq is not Vietnam. Read entire.

War Eagle

Also noted at spacetoday.net, a student at Auburn University (my alma mater) wrote an error-filled anti-Bush column back in January: Earth's ruin complete, Mars next. If I weren't an Auburn graduate, I'd probably just ignore his ignorance, but I hate to see a fellow Tiger make such an ass of himself.

Rooney on Space Exploration

Okay, so I sometimes get Andy Rooney confused with one or another of the witless characters Mickey Rooney has played over the years, witless being the key characteristic. Over at spacetoday.net there's a post about his sounding off on the President's proposed new space program. He's actually even witlesser than I thought.

TexasBestGrok

John L has moved the whole gig from blogspot to munuviana. I have to say that I don't know where munuviana is, exactly, but I know it's not listed in Streets & Trips. Go check out the new digs, where you can find, for example, a recipe for Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

I had one once, and frankly, I prefer good beer. Tonight, for example, I'll have a couple of New River Pale Ales with my Buffalo Wing Pizza at PKs. Why PKs? Because it's Tijuana Toss night. You order your pizza, eat it, and the manager comes to your table and flips you for it. He gets to flip, and he flips his own quarter, but you get to check it to make sure it's genuine. I took a gaggle of students one night and I paid for the pizzas -- half were free. Last time I took the family, both pizzas were free. Great fun.

Great motorcycle quotes and wisdom...

Forwarded to me by a friend:

Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.

“There are only three sports: mountain climbing, bull fighting, and motor racing. All the rest are merely games.”
– Ernest Hemingway

. . .

There are many more. Read the rest.

Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.

“200mph, no hands. Damn that’d be cool right before the part where you die.”
– A. Duthie

“There are only three sports: mountain climbing, bull fighting, and motor racing. All the rest are merely games.”
– Ernest Hemingway

“Calling upon my years of experience, I froze at the controls.”
– Stirling Moss

“Most motorcycle problems are caused by the nut that connects the handlebars to the saddle.”

Seen on a motorcycle’s rearviews:
“Warning: objects seen in mirror are disappearing rapidly”

Got a $5 head? Get a $5 helmet.

“There’s the V-4 thing: there’s just something about it that inline 4s don’t have, and V-twins have too much of.”
– Murray Duncan

“Life may begin at 30, but it doesn’t get real interesting until about 150.”

If you’re going to lead, then lead. If you’re going to follow, get the hell out of my way!

“Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death...”
– Hunter Thompson

“Keep thy eye on the tach, thine ears on the engine, least thy whirlybits seek communion with the sun”
– John 4:50

“You start the game with a full pot o’ luck and an empty pot o’ experience... The object is to fill the pot of experience before you empty the pot of luck.”

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting GERONIMO!”

“Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don’t have the balls to live in the real world.”
– Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden

“I believe in treating everyone with respect, but, first you have to get their attention.”

“Never trade the thrills of living for the security of existence”.

Everyone knows Honda’s attitude in the GP Paddock! “ Who will be behind us this weekend? “

“A zest for living must include a willingness to die.”
– R.A. Heinlein

If you think you don’t need a helmet, you probably don’t.

“Racing is living, everything else is just waiting”

“If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.”
– Larry McMurty

“Why are motorcycle dealers closed on Sundays? Because Sunday is for worship... Catholics go to church, Motorcyclists go to the track.”
– Justin Skalka

I want to leave this world the same way I came into it: Screaming and covered in blood.

Kansas: home of the highway with 318 miles and 11 curves.

What does a Harley and hound dog have in common ? They both spend most of their time in the back of a pickup truck. What differentiates the two ? The hound dog can get in and out of the pickup under his own power.

“98% of all Harleys ever sold are still on the road. The other 2% made it home.”

Midnight bugs taste best.

Saddlebags can never hold everything you want, but they CAN hold everything you need.

NEVER argue with a woman holding a torque wrench.

Never try to race an old geezer, he may have one more gear than you.

Home is where your bike sits still long enough to leave a few drops of oil on the ground.

Routine maintenance should never be neglected.

It takes more love to share the saddle than it does to share the bed. The only good view of a thunderstorm is in your rearview mirror.

Never be afraid to slow down.

Bikes don’t leak oil, they mark their territory.

Don’t ride so late into the night that you sleep through the sunrise.

Pie and coffee are as important as petrol.

Sometimes it takes a whole tankful of fuel before you can think straight.

If you want to get a job, you may have to compromise your principals (you may even have to shave).

Riding faster than everyone else only guarantees you’ll ride alone.

Never hesitate to ride past the last street light at the edge of town.

Never mistake horsepower for staying power.

A good rider has balance, judgment, and good timing. So does a good lover.

A cold hamburger can be reheated quite nicely by strapping it to an exhaust pipe and riding forty miles.

Never do less than forty miles before breakfast.

If you don’t ride in the rain, you don’t ride.

A bike on the road is worth two in the shed.

Respect the person who has seen the dark side of motorcycling and lived.

Young riders pick a destination and go... Old riders pick a direction and go.

A good mechanic will let you watch without charging you for it.

Sometimes the fastest way to get there is to stop for the night.

Always back your bike into the curb, and sit where you can see it.

Work to ride & ride to work.

Whatever it is, it’s better in the wind.

Two-lane blacktop isn’t a highway – it’s an attitude.

When you look down the road, it seems to never end – but you better believe it does.

A rider can smell a party 5,000 miles away.

Winter is Nature’s way of telling you to polish.

A motorcycle can’t sing on the streets of a city.

Keep your bike in good repair: Motorcycle boots are NOT comfortable for walking.

People are like Motorcycles: each is customized a bit differently.

If the bike isn’t braking properly, you don’t start by rebuilding the engine.

Remember to pay as much attention to your partner as you do your carburetor.

Sometimes the best communication happens when you’re on separate bikes.

Well-trained reflexes are quicker than luck.

Good coffee should be indistinguishable from 50 weight motor oil.

The best alarm clock is sunshine on chrome.

Learn to do counter-intuitive things that may someday save your butt.

The twisties – not the superslabs –separate the riders from the squids.

When you’re riding lead, don’t spit.

If you really want to know what’s going on, watch what’s happening at least five cars ahead.

Don’t make a reputation you’ll have to live down or run away from later.

If the person in the next lane at the stoplight rolls up the window and locks the door, support their view of life by snarling at them.

A friend is someone who’ll get out of bed at 2 am to drive his pickup to the middle of nowhere to get you when you’re broken down.

If she changes her oil more than she changes her mind follow her.

Catching a yellow jacket in your shirt @ 70 mph can double your vocabulary.

If you want to get somewhere before sundown, you can’t stop at every tavern.

There’s something ugly about a NEW bike on a trailer.

Don’t lead the pack if you don’t know where you’re going.

Sleep with one arm through the spokes and keep your pants on.

Practice wrenching on your own bike.

Everyone crashes. Some get back on. Some don’t. Some can’t.

Beware the rider who says the bike never breaks down.

2 bikes is useful because at least one can be raided for parts at any given time.

Don’t argue with an 18-wheeler.

Never be ashamed to unlearn an old habit.

Maintenance is as much art as it is science.

A good long ride can clear your mind, restore your faith, and use up a lot of fuel.

If you can’t get it going with bungee cords and electrician’s tape, it’s serious.

If you ride like there’s no tomorrow, there won’t be.

Bikes parked out front mean good chicken-fried steak inside.

Gray-haired riders don’t get that way from pure luck.

There are drunk riders. There are old riders. There are NO old, drunk riders.

Thin leather looks good in the bar, but it won’t save your butt from “road rash” if you go down.

The best modifications cannot be seen from the outside.

Always replace the cheapest parts first.

You can forget what you do for a living when your knees are in the breeze.

No matter what marquee you ride, it’s all the same wind.

Patience is the ability to keep your motor idling.

Only a Biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.

Legacy of Terror

Steven Den Beste links to this report of Iraqi atrocities and comments on the futility of expecting that such reports might put an end to the bitter anti-war and anti-America rhetoric that emanates from so many on the left half of the political spectrum in the U.S.

I'm afraid he's right. Each morning I read the first two sections of the Roanoke Times, the closest thing to a newspaper we have here in southwest Virginia, and at the end of the second section Virginia, I find the op-ed page, with the editors' usual rant against all things Republican (occasionally justified rants), and various letters and commentaries attributed to residents of southwest Virginia, many of which serve only to perpetuate anti-Bush myths.

For example, in today's RT, there's a commentary by Allen Starbuck, charge nurse at a nursing home, titled Don't be misled by false premise. Here's an excerpt:

It doesn't hurt him [Osama bin Laden] that our president has already done a dandy job of isolating us by arrogantly refusing to listen to most of our military allies. We can call them wimps as much as we want; Europeans knew that Iraq wasn't a threat to either them or us, and refused to get dragged into an adventure that was going to cost a lot of money and lives.

The president decided to go into Iraq anyway. And now we're stuck there. If we pull out anytime soon, there will be little justification for our actions. Thousands of innocent Iraqis have died, their country's infrastructure has been severely damaged and U.S. soldiers and other personnel are in a handy place for any anti-American fanatics to strike out at them.

• Cowboy President buzzwords: dandy, arrogantly, isolating us, refusing to listen, wimps,
• Quagmire buzzwords: stuck there
• American imperialism buzzwords: Thousands of innocent Iraqis have died, their country's infrastructure has been severely damaged

Of course, he does observe, correctly, that pulling out now is the wrong thing to do, but that is a minor point in this nearly entirely anti-Bush essay, which goes on to lament that Bush joined the National Guard instead of the Army, and to make some nonsense suggestion that "toughness" and "stupidity" are somehow synonomous.

If only such commentaries were confined to the occasional almost-newspaper, but then we've all read the occasional Maureen Dowd column, haven't we?

Storms on Saturn

Cassini's on stormwatch duty: TWO STORMS CAUGHT IN THE ACT ON SATURN. This news release hasn't shown up on NASA's website yet. It tells how Cassini has observed two storms merging on the ringed planet, three months before its arrival there to begin its Galileo-like mission.

With diameters close to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), both
storms were seen moving west, relative to the rotation of
Saturn's interior, for about a month before they merged on
March 19-20, 2004.

The northern storm moved about twice as fast as the southern
storm, 11 meters versus 6 meters per second (25 vs. 13 mph)
respectively. They approached each other like two cars on a
highway and spun around each other in a counterclockwise
direction as they merged. This is the opposite of how
hurricanes spin in the southern hemisphere on Earth.

Just after the merger, on March 20, the new storm was
elongated in the north-south direction, with bright clouds on
either end. Two days later the storm settled into a more
circular shape and the bright clouds were spread around the
circumference to form a halo. Whether the bright clouds are
particles of a different composition or simply at a different
altitude is uncertain.

Although these storms moved slowly west, others at Saturn's
equator move east at speeds up to 450 meters per second
(1,000 miles per hour). That is about 10 times the speed of
Earth's jet streams and three times greater than the
equatorial winds on Jupiter.

Rice's Testimony

Winston at Federal Review posted a couple of entries regarding Dr. Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission today. What's particularly interesting is the real-time sarcasm-dripping anti-Bush administration blogging going on in the Comments sections of these two posts.

As I already mentioned earlier, I installed MT Blacklist, and it seems to be keeping most of my regular spammers at bay.

Even Crazier Adventure Motorcycling

I first saw this a few weeks ago, but I don't think I ever blogged anything about it. John Lanius included the link in a comment so I thought I should add it here in case anyone has missed it.

A seriously cute Russian woman motorcyclist named Elena has ridden her Kawasaki Ninja throughout the region surrounding Chernobyl, and has published some seriously eerie photographs and commentary on her website: Ghost Town. Enjoy.

Blacklist

Thanks to Rand Simberg's suggestion, I now have Jay Allen's MT Blacklist plugin installed and operational. I copied the public list of bad spammers and so have a good shot at killing off all the see-alice et cetera posts I've been getting in the comments. It took me a few days, as the plugin has to be installed in the cgi scripts directories, which around here are hidden from us lowly non-sysadmin types. So, thanks to my sysadmin too.

Flight 93

I'm President of a motorcycle club called the Twin Valley Riders, and I had this nice baseball cap with our logo on it. I don't have it any more, and here's the item I posted to our club listserv about the cap:

In Need of a New TVR Cap

Sorry to say, but I gave mine away, to folks who will never wear it, and will almost certainly leave it out in the inclement weather and pay it no attention at all. So, Dan, let me know how much it'll cost me to get a replacement. And now, for the rest of the story.

On my ride to Ithaca (full report later), I visited Shanksville PA, site of the crash of Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, possibly caused by a group of Americans deciding to be a pack and not a herd. You all know the story, so I won't belabor it. I felt the need to visit the site, and so shortly before 11 AM on Monday, after 300 miles of backroad riding, I found my way to Shanksville and followed the signs and eventually found Sky Line Road, and rode past the mountain of retired pepsi machines (I'm not kidding) to find the temporary Visitor's Center for our newest National Historic Site (no stamp yet).

It was windy as hell there in the hilly field between Shanksville and Lambertsville. The volunteer docent on duty, Nevin Lambert, got out of his pickup truck when I rode up, praised my motorbike, and invited me into the little shed that constitutes the Visitor Center (donated by the good folks at the Assateague National Seashore). Inside there were brochures (I got a bunch to share with ya'll) and a photo album. By the time Nevin, an eyewitness to the murder of the thirty-three passengers and seven crew members by four psychopaths who thought they were going to wake up in heaven ("Imagine their surprise." -- George Will) finished showing me the photos, I was happy to return to the outside and let that strong wind dry my eyes.

At the site there is a large "wall" made of chain link fence, 40' long and maybe 10' high, where visitors have created a work of art in flags, flowers, patches, paintings, carvings, and baseball caps. Baseball caps from fire departments, police departments, guard units, bowling teams, high schools, and motorcycle clubs. I was wearing my nice new TVR cap, and I decided to leave it there, on the fence with so many others.

I invite you all to go have a look at it. Might make a nice really long day ride sometime later this spring or summer.

I've marked the location on two maps:

http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~cdhall/MyMaps/Flight93Detail.htm
http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~cdhall/MyMaps/Flight93Large.htm

I'll post some photos this weekend.

Ya'll take care,
Chrish

...............
And here are the photos I posted:
The Wall at the Flight 93 Site
Closeup of the TVR Cap on the Wall
Nevin Lambert, Eyewitness and Volunteer Docent

UPDATE: I decided to include the "wall" photo in this entry.

Blacksburg to Ithaca

Eric requested that I publish a map of the route I took from Blacksburg VA to Ithaca NY last Monday. Here it is. If you click on the "little" map, you get a big map. At the bottom of the big map page, there's a link to the Microsoft Streets & Trips file for the route. I'll put the Ithaca to Blacksburg map up later today.

The route is about 600 miles, and points 7 and 8 are at Shanksville PA, where I visited the Flight 93 site.

Kerrey on 9/11, Clarke, Bush, Iraq

In today's Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Clarke's views on Iraq notwithstanding, after 9/11 we could not afford either to run the risk that Saddam Hussein would be deterred by our military efforts to contain him or that these military deployments would become attractive targets for further acts of terrorism. I supported President Bush's efforts to persuade the United Nations Security Council to change a 10-year-old resolution that authorized force to contain Saddam Hussein to one that authorized force to replace his dictatorship. And I believe the president did the right thing to press ahead even without the Security Council's support.
. . .
It is my view that a political victory for terrorism in Iraq is a much greater danger to us than whether or not we succeed in capturing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Victory in Iraq will embolden radical Islamists as much as our failure to recognize the original danger of their declaration of war against us.

Read entire.

Wild and Crazy Dual-Sport Motorcycle Ride Idea

All right, so I'm reading this book called _Brave Heart_, about these three guys who, in 1903, went on a little canoe trip in northern Labrador. To make a long story (though an excellent story, which I recommend to all who love reading about such adventures) short, they couldn't find the big lake they were looking for, ran out of food, worked their a**es off on starvation rations, and only two of them made it back alive. Two years later, the two survivors were both involved in successful follow-on expeditions (I haven't read that far yet).

And what does this have to do with motorcycling, you ask.

Well, I find it impossible to read anything involving geography without a map in the other hand, and as I've been reading this book, I have been getting caught up with the idea of riding to Goose Bay Labrador. It's about 2000 miles, and
over half of those are in Canada. About 700 miles are on Quebec 389 and Labrador 500. Q389 begins as a paved road and deteriorates, but at about 128 miles, it becomes gravel, which is reportedly better than much of the paved section. There are some paved stretches farther along, and it passes through the abandoned town of Gagnon.

According to one description I've read, there's a sign somewhere along L500 that reads "Driver's Alert. Over the next 288 km (172 miles) of gravel road drivers will experience sharp curves, winding road, narrow bridges & steep grades. All motorists must drive with care, caution and control. No fuel next 288 km." Doesn't that just make you want to pack up and head there right now?

Anyhow, I have this wild & crazy idea of possibly taking a couple of weeks this summer to ride the KLR to Goose Bay and back. I know that it probably won't happen, but I figure if I just go 'head and say it out loud, it has a better chance.

So there. If you've ever made this trip, I'd like to hear from you.

UPDATE: Here's a ride report by a guy who did the ride on a BMW motorcycle (R1100RS).

MORE UPDATES: (I'll keep adding links to other adventurers as I find them)
Steve Anderson on a BMW F650: To Labrador & Back
Thane Silliker on a Kawasaki KLR 650: Labrador August 2003 -- How-To-Abuse-A-Motorcycle 101

A Lurking Duck?

This "In the Future..." post reminds me of the 1983 short story by Scott Baker: "The Lurking Duck." Read them both.

Behind the President: Half a Ton of Rock and Roll

Okay, well, maybe they're not really behind him, but the classic Bachman-Turner Overdrive tune used in this webad for President Bush works for me. (via Betsy Newmark)

Thank you

Thank you to the numerous correspondents who emailed me to ask if I was okay. I appreciate the thoughts.

Greetings

So, yes, I have most definitely been not blogging lately. I'm not really sure why. Some kind of funk, but it hasn't been keeping me from doing anything else I normally do. Since my last blog entry back in February or sometime, I've been backpacking, hiking, fishing, motorcycling, bicycling, reading, writing papers, editing theses and other report, reviewing articles submitted to journals, teaching, advising, fathering, husbanding, and probably a couple of other things besides. Just haven't been blogging.

For example, last Monday, I woke up early (3 AM or so), had a cup of coffee, fixed myself a thermos of peach tea to enjoy later, saddled up the motorcycle, and rode to Ithaca NY, approximately 600 miles, backroads pretty much the entire way. Along the way, I had breakast in Monterey VA, a small mountain town, and paid my respects at the Flight 93 Memorial between Shanksville and Lambertsville PA (more on that later). I enjoyed a long beautiful ride through beautiful forests along PA 144. I spent the day Tuesday visiting with various Cornell professors, then gave a lecture on Optimal Continuous-Thrust Orbit Transfers, had a wonderful dinner with one of my colleagues and his wife at a unique restaurant called Just a Taste, and prepared myself for the ride back to Blacksburg. On Wednesday, I departed early and rode an entirely different set of backroads to return home. Unfortunately, one of my planned roads in the vicinity of the MD/WV border turned to dirt, and it was raining and cold, so I bounced to the interstate and zoomed home.

I visited the office on Thursday, caught up on some e and v and s mail, picked up my motorpool Crown Victoria, rendezvoused with a few students, and drove to Hampton VA for the Virginia Space Grant Consortium Student Research Conference. All day Friday, listened to some excellent presentations from undergraduate and graduate students, then drove back to Blacksburg.

Saturday was a home defense hardware kind of day. Just got some garage and motorcycle stuff done, went for a short ride (100 miles). And Sunday was a serious veg day. Finished the book I'd been reading, Adrift by Steven Callahan: a fantastic first-person tale of 76 days in a life raft. Highly recommended. Began the next book, Great Heart, by a couple of guys whose names I don't recall right now, but it's the story of a disastrous canoe expedition to northern Labrador in 1903. So far, it's extremely well-written, and having canoed in the boundary waters wilderness in northern Minnesota, I can feel the protagonists' pain.

Yesterday, I enjoyed a visit from Dr. Robert Farquhar, one of the great space exploration mission directors of our time. He was the mission director for numerous "firsts," including ISEE-3/ICE that visited a comet before the various Halley visitors, and NEAR-Shoemaker that went into orbit about Eros on Valentine's Day 2000 and then landed on it about a year later. He gave a seminar on Chasing Asteroids and Comets. A good time was had by all.

Well, that's probably all I have to blog today. I'll try to do better.

ps. One thing I forgot to mention: Every time I have started to blog something, I've been distracted by beaucoup spam comments, which I've felt compelled to delete. Tedious, annoying, and by the time I'm done, I'm no longer in the mood. Any suggestions as to how to prevent such crapola, besides the obvious "turn off comments" ? TIA