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SpaceX launch of used Dragon to ISS scrubbed

2:39 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has scrubbed today’s launch of a previously used Dragon capsule to ISS due to bad weather.

They are going to try again on Saturday, June 3.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

9 comments

9 comments

  • wayne
    June 1, 2017 at 2:59 pm

    Never be in a hurry to be struck by lightning.

    (Didn’t one, or more, of the Apollo launches get struck by lightening?)

    fyi– the NASA Channel was covering this live today and will be doing so again on Saturday.
    (they don’t generally cover SpaceX, or at least I don’t see them, and… my TV set is bigger than my computer monitor.)

  • Robert Zimmerman
    June 1, 2017 at 3:31 pm

    Wayne: I prefer watching on SpaceX’s stream, mostly because they don’t have their announcers mouth preachy and badly scripted propaganda. They give it to me straight, which is what I want.

  • David Nudelman
    June 1, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    quote Bob Z “I prefer watching on SpaceX’s stream”

    Me too, the young blonde is very flirty

  • diane wilson
    June 1, 2017 at 7:06 pm

    Wayne, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning shortly after launch; it knocked out a bunch of electronics. Fortunately, someone on the ground knew the right switch to reset, and amazingly, one of the astronauts (Alan Bean, IIRC) actually knew where the switch was.

  • Edward
    June 1, 2017 at 7:31 pm

    wayne,
    It was dramatized here:
    http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/the-evening-pause/have-they-tried-sec-to-aux/

  • Dick Eagleson
    June 1, 2017 at 11:25 pm

    wayne,

    NASA only covers SpaceX launches when SpaceX is launching something for NASA. Thus far, that’s been Dragons and DSCOVR. Haven’t taken the time to check if the F9’s first test launch – with a mass that wasn’t Dragon – was covered by NASA or not.

    Second Mr. Zimmerman on the huge superiority of SpaceX’s own video feed.

    Second also Mr. Nudelman’s appeciation of the splendidly yummy Ms. Kate Tice.

  • wayne
    June 2, 2017 at 6:41 am

    Dick–
    Thank you for enlightening me.
    -I did not think NASA-TV covered 100% of the SpaceX launches, ‘cuz I generally check to see.
    (tangentially— whoever programs that channel, needs to be replaced.)

    Personally, I prefer the technical-broadcast myself. And for the hosted-broadcast I prefer the older gentleman’s color-commentary, if I’m going to suffer through over-talk.

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/katetice

    — a 5 year stint as “Diversity Intern” at Penn State. (I wonder who she voted for in 2008, 2012, and 2016? HAR!)

  • Dick Eagleson
    June 2, 2017 at 7:04 pm

    wayne,

    Agree the NASA launch webcasts are fairly awful. They’re also not very reliable. The webcast feed crashes a lot. I haven’t watched anything on a live NASA feed in maybe two years or more. SpaceX’s feed is a lot more solid and asymptotically close to infinitely more fun.

    Anent the SpaceX webcasts themselves, if there’s something I’m particularly curious about, I can always check the technical webcast via replay after the fact. For live viewing, I prefer the hosted webcast, particularly Ms. Tice and her black counterpart Ms. Tyson, along with their two male “backup dancers.” The cheers greeting each flight milestone from the crowd of SpaceX-ers clustered outside Mission Control in Hawthorne is always good too. Very infectious. Like being at a football game without having to – you know – actually watch football.

    Re: Ms. Tice’s politics – she’s a millennial. Kinda comes with the territory at that age. I see on her personal web site that she wants to meet Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I was a lefty in my salad days too. Oh, to be young and foolish – eh?

    I do wonder a bit, though, at how a blonde, Nordic, Valkyrie shieldmaiden-type like Ms. Tice ever got to be a “diversity intern.” Perhaps she was the token white girl?

  • Edward
    June 3, 2017 at 1:11 pm

    Dick Eagleson wrote: “I prefer the hosted webcast, particularly Ms. Tice and her black counterpart Ms. Tyson, along with their two male ‘backup dancers.’”

    It’s nice that women are shown working in their role as engineers. When I was in college, only 15% of the engineering students were women, and my understanding is that it is about the same today. The show “The Big Bang Theory” addressed this issue, and showed two possible solutions for getting women more interested in science careers:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7K8ydqGm2c (2 minutes, the problem)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypbRY14Fjjo (2 minutes, solutions)

    I prefer the hosted webcast, not (just) because of the eye candy engineers but because I often learn something new about how SpaceX does their engineering.

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