Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Redstone — 70 Years of History, Much of it in Space

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Seventy years ago today — October 6, 1941 — the U.S. Army activated the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.


(Redstone Arsenal building 7101, with Redstone missile in front. U.S. Army image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Redstone Arsenal was originally built to produce chemical ammunition for use in World War II, which it did very well. Then, in the postwar years, that experience with handling dangerous chemicals made Redstone a natural place to experiment with rockets and rocket propellants and eventually to be the home for the Army’s Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center; Army Space and Missile Defense Command; and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Of course, I can’t mention Redstone Arsenal without mentioning the online magazine Redstone Science Fiction, the third issue of which included my story “Memorial at Copernicus.”

Also on this date, 30 years ago in 1981, the Solar Mesosphere Explorer launched from Vandenberg AFB, California, on a Delta rocket. SME was built to “investigate the processes that create and destroy ozone in the Earth’s mesosphere and upper stratosphere,” and operated until December 1988. The small experimental UoSAT (Oscar 9) satellite, built by the University of Surrey, launched as a dual payload on the same Delta rocket.

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First Orbital Launch From Kodiak

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Ten years ago yesterday — sorry, I haven’t been feeling well — on September 30, 2001, an Athena-1 launch vehicle lifted off from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska.


(Starshine-3 undergoing inspection at the US Naval Research Laboratory. NASA image.)

The rocket carried the Starshine-3 microsatellite (pictured above) along with three other small satellites.

Starshine-3 was an updated version of the “Student Tracked Atmospheric Research Satellite Heuristic International Networking Experiment,” which I first covered in this space history blog entry.

The other payloads on this launch were:

  • Picosat-9, a British-built US DoD space test satellite
  • PCSat, the “Prototype Communications SATellite,” an amateur radio relay spacecraft built by US Naval Academy midshipmen
  • Sapphire, the “Stanford Audiophonic Photographic Infrared Experiment,” a US DoD microsatellite built by Stanford University students and faculty
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Having Failed to Be Raptured, I Wrote This Stupid Song

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Yes, that’s really the title of my latest musical nonsense … or maybe, in this case, semi-sense … to hit the web.

Filmed in the Baen Barfly suite at Dragon*Con, you can click to watch it here:

Having Failed to Be Raptured, I Wrote this Stupid Song


(“Guitar Player” by Mister Wilson. From Flickr, under Creative Commons.)

I explain the genesis of the song in the video — I wrote it a while back, but it took months to add a chorus — so I won’t repeat those details here. But here’s one verse for consideration:

It seems to me when folks like that pick up the Bible
They only read the passages they like
They pick and choose what to believe for their agendas
And if you ask me, well, I’ll tell you that ain’t right

As always, tremendous thanks to Tedd Roberts for his video magic.

And, of course, I hope you get a chuckle out of it! And if you like it, feel free to share it with someone else who might appreciate it.

Finally, if you’re so inclined, now that I have four songs available, I started my own YouTube Playlist.

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Think I'll Run for Congress, 'Cause I've Got Some Bills to Pay

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More of my musical nonsense …


(Write me in for any office, anywhere, anytime.)

Filmed in the Baen Barfly suite at Dragon*Con, a little ditty about “the only sport for adults.”* Here’s the chorus:

Politics, that’s the life for me
It fits my arrogant, megalo-maniacal personality
I’ll get my name in the papers and my face on your T.V.
And take good care of myself, my friends and my family — yes, that’s the life for me

You won’t find honesty like that in any standard campaign commercial, will you? So I think of this as the theme song for the Anti-Campaign.

Watch it here: Playing Politics.

Many thanks to Tedd Roberts for both the videography and all the YouTube magic.

Hope you get a chuckle out of it — the melody is a little monotonous (sorry), but consider the subject matter. And remember, if you don’t want to vote for any of the folks on the ballot, you can always write my name in!

I’m the Anti-Candidate, and I approved this message.

___
*Attributed to Robert A. Heinlein.

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Happy Birthday, H.G. Wells … and Some Space History

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One hundred forty-five years ago today — September 21, 1866 — Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, England.


(H.G. Wells, sometime around 1890. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

H.G. Wells, of course, was one of the pioneers of science fiction. Almost everyone is familiar with something Wells wrote — War of the Worlds or The Time Machine or The Invisible Man or The Island of Doctor Moreau — or at least the movie versions of what he wrote.

As for the space history, 10 years ago tomorrow the Deep Space 1 probe flew by Comet Borrelly. Its closest approach was within 1400 miles (2200 kilometers) of the comet.


(Comet Borrelly, taken by Deep Space 1. NASA image.)

And 5 years ago tomorrow — September 22, 2006 — Japan launched the Hinode (“sunrise”) spacecraft to study the Sun’s magnetic field. Hinode, originally known as Solar-B, was a follow-on to their 1991 Solar-A, or “Yohkoh” mission.

___

Edited to correct date references.

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My Neighbor Pulled a Gun on Me This Morning

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Actually, it’s funnier than that.

Walking out to the main road to go for a jog, I saw water running down the street and heard it bubbling out of somewhere. I walked up this fellow’s driveway and confirmed my guess that it was coming out of his water meter. So I knocked on his door and rang the doorbell.

He didn’t come down, so I went for my little run.

When I was done, I decided to try again. I rang the doorbell, knocked “shave-and-a-haircut,” and stepped out into the yard because I was tired of his motion light turning on and off.

And when the door opened, there he stood … with revolvers in each hand.

I almost laughed. He’s an older fellow, lives alone, a little eccentric, and if he’d opened the door and had one weapon I might have taken him seriously — after all, he did move here from a much larger town, and in his defense, it was four-something in the morning. But two guns? I found it funny, because a) I doubt he’s got the “two-gun mojo,” and b) I pictured him working the doorknob while holding that revolver in his hand, and thought he was lucky he didn’t shoot himself in the foot.

So, I showed him that his water meter was leaking, advised him to call the town and have them come check it, and went on my way.

On my way home I realized I should’ve asked him if he thought the bad guys normally rang the doorbell and knocked. I tend to think of things like that long after the moment has passed.

But, hey, it was four-something in the morning.

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Space History Today: An Iranian-Born American's Flight to the Int'l Space Station

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Five years ago today — September 18, 2006 — Soyuz TMA-9 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome toward its rendezvous with the International Space Station.


(Spaceflight participant Anousheh Ansari in the Zvezda module of the ISS, holding a plant that was grown there. NASA image.)

Soyuz TMA-9 was piloted by Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, and carried U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria to his new post as the ISS mission commander. It also carried Anousheh Ansari, who had come to the U.S. from Iran as a teenager, earned engineering degrees from George Mason and George Washington universities, and with her husband made a fortune in the telecommunications industry.

Ms. Ansari paid her way on the Soyuz flight, becoming the world’s first female “space tourist” — though she preferred the term “spaceflight participant.” Two years before, she had contributed a sizable portion of her family fortune to sponsor the spaceflight X-Prize, which was re-named the Ansari X-Prize. The $10 million prize was won in October 2004 by Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites with their second suborbital SpaceShipOne flight.

Ms. Ansari spent a little more than a week aboard the ISS, and landed safely in Kazakhstan on September 29, 2006.

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Dragon*Con 2011 Pictures, Part 3: Fun

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For reference: Pictures, Part 1 were of me and my friends, and Pictures, Part 2 were of the filk track.

Conventions like Dragon*Con are a lot of fun, and at a convention the size of D*C a lot of the fun comes in seeing the costumes … or, in some cases, the lack of costumes!

Here, the family that cosplays together stays together:

As do the Stormtroopers and Sand People who play together:

The workmanship of some of the costumes is remarkable. It’s hard to see, but parts of this costume lit up:

And, of course, there’s always the danger that someone else will show up with the same costume:

Which, if you haven’t seen it, reminds me of the cosplay public service announcement starring Kaley Cuoco.

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Astronaut Swap

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Fifteen years ago today — September 16, 1996 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center on a mission to the Mir space station.


(Space Shuttle Atlantis on its 2nd rollout to the launch pad for STS-79. NASA image.)

Astronauts William F. Readdy, Terrence W. Wilcutt, Jerome Apt, Thomas D. Akers, Carl E. Walz, and John E. Blaha flew up to Mir as part of mission STS-79. Atlantis dropped off John Blaha and picked up Shannon Lucid for her return to earth after a record-setting 188 days in space (179 aboard the Russian station).

STS-79 marked the first time a shuttle was rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building twice because of hurricane warnings: first because of Hurricane Bertha, and again because of Hurricane Fran. Thus, the rollout picture above.

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Dragon*Con 2011 Pictures, Part 2: Filk

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(In case you missed them: Dragon*Con Pictures, Part 1: My Friends.)

This year I’ve discovered that I really enjoy filk (genre-related folk music) and filking (playing and singing same). Part of that is the warm reception “The Monster Hunter Ballad” has received over the last few months, and part of it is an immense sense of joy at doing something I never thought I could: writing and performing original music.

How did I get into this filking thing? It was an overly long journey:

  • Way back in the mid-90s I penned Titan-rocket-program-related lyrics to a number of different Beatles tunes.* So far as I know they’ve all been lost, and probably just as well. But I didn’t play an instrument, so I never considered the possibility of writing an original Titan tune.
  • In 2000 I got stationed overseas, where during my off hours I wrote a novel** and learned a few chords on the guitar. For my farewell dinner at Thule Air Base I wrote “Home on the Tundra” (to the tune of “Home on the Range”). As proof, you can look at the last page of the September 2001 issue of the Thule Times.
  • In 2008 I wrote the first of what has become an annual series of songs for the Industrial Extension Service: “The I-E-S Song.” It hasn’t made it onto YouTube yet, but there’s still hope … though you can watch the video montage for the 2009 song, “The Economic Recovery Blues.”
  • At MarsCon this January I got the idea for a Dungeons-&-Dragons-based song, which eventually became “Saving Throws” (sung to the tune of “Edelweiss”). And somewhere along the line I got the idea for the Monster Hunter song, which I debuted at StellarCon in March.
  • And at ConCarolinas this June I actually took part in a “Filk Circle” for the first time, and had a great time — which naturally led me to look up the filk track at Dragon*Con.

I played a few songs on Friday night, and went back on Saturday night to listen even though I had a headache. Then I was back again to play on Sunday night — where I took pictures!

First, the director of the Filk Track, Robby Hilliard:


(Dragon*Con Filk Track head honcho, Robby Hilliard.)

That guitar he’s playing looks awfully familiar. (I actually loaned my guitar out a couple of times.) Robby did a great job organizing the track, and his whole staff was very friendly.

Here’s Alex Boyd, who on Sunday night set himself the challenge of playing only original filk that he had made up that day.


(Alex Boyd.)

One of the songs he did was, “Don’t Bring Your Guitar to Dragon*Con.” Given the difficulty of maneuvering through the crowds, he had a point. I bought one of his CDs.

And here’s Tally Deushane, singing “The Dragon*Con Song”:


(Tally Deushane.)

Tally got very tired of singing “The Dragon*Con Song” by Sunday night; she probably sang it a dozen times over the course of the weekend. After Dragon*Con she posted on her Facebook fan page that she had been named one of Glamour Magazine’s “Top 10 College Women of 2011.” If I’d known we had a celebrity in our midst, I would’ve asked her to autograph her CD when I bought it.

Finally, guitars and ukuleles were not the only instruments to be found in the filk circle:


(The anonymous accordion player who wowed us all on Sunday night.)

In summary, a splendid time was had by all.

And meanwhile I keep coming up with new song ideas, which is both a little scary and (to me, at least) a little cool.

___
*I included some of this history in a previous blog post.
**It was okay, not great. I think my second novel is better, though neither one has been published.

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