Two cargo vessels arrive at ISS

In the past few days 2 different cargo vessels have arrived at the ISS with lots of supplies and equipment for the crew.


Friday HTV-II arrived from Japan, (http://www.flickr.com/photos/magisstra/5393134148/in/photostream/) and Sunday, the Russian Progress ship arrived (http://www.flickr.com/photos/magisstra/5401615469/in/photostream/). Lots of unpacking for the crew to do.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/magisstra/5395174039/in/photostream/

Seems that HTV-II brought the astronauts some goodies from home. It's hard to tell but I think that's a bag of chocolates in Cady's hand.

-steve

Experimenting with nasaimages.org web site

This should show a sequence of images of astronaut Ed Lu putting on his Sokol space suit. This should be useful for anyone doing the Sokol space suit demo at Chabot Space and Science Center.

HTV2 on the way to ISS

Friday afternoon California time the HTV2 or Kounotori2 was launched into space from Tanegashima Japan after a 2 day delay because of weather. This supply ship will arrive at the ISS on Jan 27. When it does, it will be grappled with the stations robot arm by NASA astronaut Cady Coleman, where it will be attached to one of the docking ports.

The arrival of the HTV2 at the ISS will be on NASA TV early Friday morning California time. Might be worth programming the Tivo for?

The HTV2 has both pressurized cargo area, which can be accessed from inside the ISS by the astronauts, and unpressurized cargo area which must be accessed by either the robotic arm, or by space walking astronauts.

More on Kounotori2 at http://www.jaxa.jp/countdown/h2bf2/index_e.html
There are several other cargo vehicles arriving at the ISS in the first part of this year. Lots more info at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition26/resupply_feature.html

Paolo gets a haircut

High above earth on the ISS, ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli gets a haircut from his crewmate, NASA astrpnaut Cady Coleman. Notice how the lack of gravity allows the barber to just float over the top of the head to get a better angle of attack. Also notice the lack of a barber chair.

Paolo appears to have a second razor/clipper in his hand along with a mirror, no doubt to keep an eye on Cady's work.

Why are they both wearing 2 watches? Isn't there an old saying along the lines of "a person with 2 watches is never sure what time it is"?

Soyuz Launch Video

Some of you know that I went to Baikonur Kazakhstan to see the launch of Soyuz TMA-20 with NASA astronaut, and friend of a friend Cady Coleman aboard. You've really got to be there in person to appreciate one of these big rockets taking off. The feeling of how the air and the ground vibrate around you just cannot be captured.

Here's a video, better than the one I took of the launch.

Global Temperature Trend Measurements

Today's post is a bit more down to earth than my usual space based links. In case you ever wondered about those rankings you see in the headlines like "2010 ties 2005 as the warmest year ever", here's an article about how they figure this out, and what it really means.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2010-climate-records.html

This might help answer some questions that could come up in the BNCL. The key point I think is that it is not the individual years rankings that matter, but the decade by decade rankings that really count. There is a lot of variation and noise in the data for each year, but if you start looking at the decade time scale, the trend becomes very clear.

Flickr page for CSSC Volunteers

I've started putting together a flickr photo set for pictures that might be useful for CSSC volunteers, especially exhibit guides.

Check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveberl/sets/72157625677946769/