Sunday, May 2, 2021

3....2....1....Launch!

I interrupt the regular Pandemic madness to bring you this:

Last Monday we had another successful launch of a very important spacecraft from one of our launch pads here at Vandenberg AFB. 

It's taken many months of work by a LOT of people since the vehicle was delivered to the launch base preparing it for that moment. And none of that takes into account the years of work building it. And all the engineering involved to design it (from some seriously HOLY CRAP SMART PEOPLE!!). And funding, don't forget that...that was likely put into play a decade or more ago. Oh, and let's not forget the booster (rocket). This particular one was a ULA Delta IV Heavy (which is literally three Delta IV rockets connected together to create a heavy-lift rocket). There are only a few of them left in our inventory, after they are gone then a newer rocket (still being designed and having yet to fly) will do the heavy-lifting for our countries largest payloads. So yes, it's a REALLY BIG DEAL when one of these makes it way to it's new home on orbit. The entire team involved from start to finish is MASSIVE to say the least, all culminated by a successful launch.

Here are a few websites you can go to and view the rocket on launch-day (all provided by Spaceflightnow.com and ULA....United Launch Alliance).

This first link has various views of the rocket with the Mobile Service towers in various stages of being rolled away getting ready for launch. (note: the booster consists of the three enormous orange'ish tubes. Above that there is the 2nd stage, and above that there is a thin orange'ish ring, and then above that sits the payload fairing which is covering/protecting the spacecraft).

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/26/photos-delta-4-heavy-rocket-awaits-liftoff-from-historic-slc-6-launch-pad/

This second link is about the launch, with a few photos taken during the launch, and has a lot of background and such.

 https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/26/spy-satellite-successfully-launched-from-california-military-base/

And finally, here is a ULA provided video of the launch (pretty awesome!). here you get to watch a bunch of all of our tax-dollars flying away into orbit.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/26/delta-4-heavy-nrol-82-mission-status-center/

I watched it go from the roof of our building on Northbase (Vandenberg), I'd guess about 15-20 miles as the crow-flies from the pad where the launch went from. 

Just a mere 2 weeks ago our team fueled the spacecraft as it sat on top of the rocket, encased in it's protective fairing (the big white nosecone). There are special ports built into the fairing for the fueling lines to connect to the spacecraft. And the "fuel" is a seriously scary bunch of really bad stuff, so scary that the very few of our people that are required to be up there during the actual flowing of the stuff are wearing full on spacesuits (not actual spacesuits of course, these aren't for the vacuum of space but for keeping it's wearer safe if there is any kind of a leak). 

It's a crazy thing to "gas up" a ludicrously expensive and pretty much irreplaceable spacecraft. The procedures are intense and incredibly detailed, all designed to prevent anything from going wrong. They are years in the making, looked at, dissected, and verified by a lot of very smart people. It took the better part of a week and a ton of man-hours to complete this operation, rendering the vehicle pretty much ready to fly.

OK....I won't bore you with any further blah blah blah, all I can say at this point is HOORAY FOR US!! USA! USA!! USA!! (yea...I get a bit excited when we have a BIG WIN, which is what every successful Government launch is). Having been either in the Military or working FOR the Military pretty much my entire life since high-school, this is all very exciting to me. 

All right...I now return you to your regularly scheduled Pandemic madness. 

Sorry.



8 comments:

  1. Hey Matt, I've always been SO impressed & in awe of what you do! I wish I was more sci-tech/minded so I could understand more, but I'm super-impressed all teh same!

    Sorry that I've been absent once again for so long. The last 7 months of this pandemic have not been good for me mentally (being totally alone for over a year is NOT GREAT!). And now I have even more stress from various things. I'm FINALLY getting my 2nd shot this Sunday. I had to throw a fit over the phone with Kaiser a few weeks ago, demanding to know why *I* (a HIGH RISK person over 60) had not yet been vaccinated & once again they told me they were still just vaccinating "those over 80"! I said that was crap as the REST of this freakin country was vaccinating ANYONE over 18! They again said they didn't get enough of the vaccine from the state, blah, blah, blah. I told the woman I had rescheduled oral surgery 5 times over the past 14 months & could NOT reschedule again & she tells me to "call this number". I did & the guy said he could schedule me for that Sunday! I had to drive 28 miles roundtrip & of the 40 or so people there waiting for/getting the vaccine, MAYBE three were my age or older! The rest were ALL under 40! UMPFH!

    Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to the 2nd shot but also a bit worried. All but 2 of the people that I know had a negative reaction to the shot. And 10 days after the shot, I finally get my next tooth extraction. Which is also worrisome because of the pain. It will be my 4th extraction/implant in the last 7 years & half the time, I develop an infection in the hole & the pain is UNBEARABLE. You then have to go back to the oral surgeon every day for 9-10 days for them to clean/disinfect, all of which I could NOT see doing during the pandemic (at least until the vaccine came along).

    In addition, some water damage appeared on the ceiling of one of my 2nd floor rooms & I could NOT allow anyone in my house until after I'm fully vaccinated. I had 6 roofing contractors out to "look" at the roof & give me estimates but I "met" with them outside. All of the estimates are higher that what Home Advisors had sent me the last 5 years & that's not counting how much the room repair will cost. I'm having the insurance adjuster come next Friday (just 5 days after my shot but I can't wait anymore & he's fully vaccinated). And then sometime in the next 3-5 weeks, I'll have my roof replaced. I'd planned on doing this LAST year but with Covid, I just couldn't handle it.

    Another problem is that I have electrical issues & had been planning to have an electrician come to inspect/fix & am scared to have someone spend more than 10 minutes in my house. Still not sure what I'll do.

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    1. Hey Susie, glad you are still ok...was worried, hadn't heard from you in a while. Sorry to hear about how hard it was for you to get vaccinated...I think if I hadn't been a military retiree Jeannie would have just gotten her first shot (the base clinic started doing dependents of retirees a while back)...Jeannie passed her "two shots plus 2 weeks yesterday...so she's fully vaccinated.

      Also sad to hear about all your other things going on...teeth, house problems, gosh...just toss that all in there w/ the pandemic cuz you obviously haven't yet had enough misery. I honestly don't know how you do it (working at home with almost no human contact for over a year now)...I'd go psycho I'm afraid...it would almost be like being shipwrecked...alone on an island somewhere. I'd end up talking to a volleyball or something (WILSON!!!)

      And Rae, hope you are faring well in the madness...I really like hearing from you both...

      Anyway, I like to think the full (or as full as we are likely do anytime in the near future) return to whatever our new normal will be should be pretty much happening by summer. But a lot depends on enough people getting vaccinated...AND that includes the rest of the world (India isn't doing very well right now, in fact, they are doing terrible). It's the mutated versions I'm afraid of...any day now a new variant that is even worse than what we have now that the vaccines don't work on could show up, and then the world starts all over fighting it.

      Gaaa...hate to be so doom and gloom...I'm actually pretty afraid that we may never really get out of this...it circled the world so very quickly, and there is just SO MANY PEOPLE to get vaccinated...look how long WE have been taking...and we are only 330 million...and in 4 months we are up to what, around 30 to 40% of adults vaccinated? That's not even close to good enough...and that's US! Imagine how slow all the 3rd world countries are going...And we have no real idea how China is faring...they just keep it all secret and totally control the media...that's why it was so bad before the world really understood what was happening. Just did a wikipedia search...the world has almost 7.7 BILLION people right now...or at least we did a year ago. For the WORLD to have herd immunity we'd need roughly 6,160,000,000 vaccinated people! What DECADE do you think that will happen? Sheesh...I think we are really in trouble....guess it was just a matter of time tho.

      OK...there I was again w/ Mr. doom and gloom. I need to ride my bike...always makes me feel better. Have a good Friday and weekend!

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  2. Anyhoo, the ONE thing that has been progressing for me the past 4 months is my diet & exercise. I'm still losing at the slowest rate in my last 30 years (!) but it is progressing. Besides the slower weight loss, the other upsetting/frustrating thing with being so much older is that I have physical issues I didn't have back then. I've been increasing the walking part of my workout bit by bit & started having knee & upper back problems (along with the plantar fasciitis in my right foot that I can't seem to get rid of!) when I got up over an hour (so a little over 2.25 miles). A couple weeks ago, I decided to do some of the walking in the AM as breaks from working (which actually helps my LOWER back problem) so I don't have to walk over an hour at night. And that seems to helping.

    Enough about that. ;) I'm looking forward to the Tour & the Olympic Trials in June & of course, the Olympics! I am desperately worried about how much or even if the TDF will be broadcast on NBCSN (for what will be the last time). When I found out about the demise of that channel, I've been depressed & worried about the Tour ever since.

    I'm STILL working from home except for one day/week when I go into the office (where no one else works on my entire floor so I see noone all day) & except for the 4 bad weather days we had during winter, I hate it! I'm HOPING at the end of June to go in 2 days/week & then by the end of August - 3 days & by the end of Sept, full-time. Don't know if my company will allow that but I'm hoping. Some people "love" working from home but I just feel more & more adrift & disconnected.

    Ooh, gotta scoot. I'll try to chat again tomorrow. So glad that both you & Rae (&Jeannie!) are doing well!. Oh & I was so sorry to read that Germany has cancelled Octoberfest again as you were so looking forward to it. Later. :)

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  3. Oh crap...just read the entire paragraph...the world is at 7.9 BILLION now! That 7.7 was back in 2020.

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  4. Just had the disappearing post phenom again -- I will try again later!

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  5. I sure wish I knew what to do about the disappearing post phenom...maybe it boils down to "you get what you pay for" (and blogger is free). Hope you had (are having) a nice Mothers Day Rae! We're not going anywhere, just took the monsters out for a morning walk, now I"m doing house-stuff (laundry, various other tasks)...even tho we've both had our shots we are still leery of going out and about. Not sure when things will feel 'safe' again...if ever. Anyway, have a nice day...you too Susie (tho you won't see this till your day at work next week).

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  6. Hi Matt & SusieB
    Nothing special for Mother's Day here; my Ancestrydotcom subscription was ending last night, plus there was a free weekend to search on Newspapers.com, so I spent several hours trying to fill in some gaps in my family trees. I have a group photo from 1940 of people who attended a picnic for the "cousins club" that had been started around 1915 - my father's side of the family - over 250 people in that photo, and no one has a key to who is who! Another relative and I have been sporadically reaching out to descendants of the original core families, hoping that we can find those that can recognize their grandparents or parents, or if we get really lucky, someone who has a copy of the photo (I've found 3 so far who do) AND a list of the people (no luck there so far.) So my goal this weekend was to trace down to as many currently living descendants as I could. Next will be to try to find contact info. I feel like I am running out of time for this project - anyone still living from the photo will be in their 80s+! So far we've got 53 names, including a family cluster that we've no idea how or if they are related!
    Matt, as always I enjoy your insights into the processes of getting those satellites into orbit! I bet most of the public really has no comprehension of how much work and risk goes into this thing that seems almost ordinary to us now - I know that I did not!
    Susie, I am so sorry that you've been having such bad luck, hope that you got a contractor out - my homeowner's insurance paid for the interior water damage repair, hoping yours does as well.
    Good work on the exercise and weight loss - if you have any spare motivation, could you send some my way? With warmer weather I am outside mowing and such, and not craving sweets/carbs as much, so the winter weight does come off - but I have not be doing my weight and aerobic training (that was so important to prevent injury at work) and have noticeably lost strength (especially in my core, too much sitting!) and stamina. Not good!
    Hey, one thing that really helped with the plantar fasciitis was to get one of those gel heel pads and put it under the arch of my foot instead of under the heel. Now I have a version that has a sock-like sleeve to hold it in place - got it at CVS. Since I've been using that, no more pain on long walks - but I do have to wear one on both feet so that my gait is not uneven. Plus, using the tennis ball treatment, even though it hurts at first, really helped (that is, standing with the ball under the p.f. foot, and slowly putting all your weight onto that foot, then rolling the ball around a little.
    Matt, I am with you on still wearing a mask even though I am fully vaccinated - and I still wear a kN95 type as much as possible - but I do feel quite protected with a good, well fitting mask. Multiple decades of science support that.

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  7. I've missed the first 3 days, but I am going to try to watch a fair amount of the Giro - such a beautiful race, but hard to find a way to watch it. Something called Global Cycling Network is streaming it here but that is ANOTHER subscription fee - not too sure that I will pay for it. Oh, how I miss Versus! And all the non-geo restricted streams from the likes of Eurosport, Sporza and RAI! Where oh where have they all gone! Maybe it is time to try a VPN again.
    Anyhow stage 1 TT was won by the newest TT'ing wonderboy Fillipo Ganna; Stage 2 & 3 have seen our old friends Viviani and Sagan finishing 3rd & 4th but Ganna holding on to the leader's jersey (which is no longer pink for some reason). I need to look more at the start list to see who the overall contenders might be.
    Last tidbit - we are preparing for the onslaught of the 17 year cicada brood X. It wasn't too bad in my neighborhood last time (but if you saw or rather heard it during the Memorial Tournament TV broadcast last time, you wouldn't have forgotten it!) The weather has been colder than usual for May, so there hasn't been much activity yet - extra time for me to get Tanglefoot painted onto the trunks of my fruit trees in hopes of limiting their attack!
    Have a good week!
    Rae
    PS it was all about the cookies!! I couldn't post here for the past days, and I finally discovered that it was because I had disabled the "allow 3rd party cookies" on my laptop. Did that in the attempt to stop the inundation of spam and phishing emails that I'd been getting. So, I will turn it on to post, then back off!

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