Twittering the International Space Station Close Encounter

As I'm sure many people will know by now, at 2009-03-12 16:39 UTC the International Space Station had a close encounter with some debris. I won't bother going into any serious detail about that, I'm sure that, by the time you read this, others will have gone into this in much more detail.

The thing that I find really interesting about it is that I even know anything about it, right now, right at this moment, as I type this. And the reason I know about it is I use Twitter and TweetDeck.

I'm not sure who posted about it first, whose "tweet" I saw first, but I first saw mention of the problem about 50 minutes before the closest approach of the debris (this is where TweetDeck comes in, I always have it running on a screen, very handy). From then on I was able to follow links, get more information (including checking what "11:39 CDT" was in real money), get a live audio feed from the station via NASA TV.

And then, as 16:39 UTC came about, and the feed from the ISS had gone quiet, the tweets from the people I follow pretty much went quiet too. There was a moment, a fascinating moment, where I really felt like I was doing the same thing as lots of other people who share my interests and concerns — we were all just watching and listening and wishing the crew of the ISS well.

And then the moment passed and we could hear the ISS talking again (first in Russian, then in English) and there was an obvious huge sigh of relief.

Two things really stand out for me:

1. It's amazing that I was able to follow it at all. That's some incredible transparency. The fact that I could listen to the conversations taking place, how amazing is that? (and that's leaving aside the technology involved in making that happen)
2. By the time the danger for the ISS had passed the BBC news site had just managed to get a "BREAKING NEWS" banner on the front page. It wasn't until after the danger had passed that a page for the story appeared. By then, for me, via twitter, it was "old news".

Here's the TwitScoop graph for mention of the ISS as of the time of writing:

50th Anniversary of NASA

Via this tweet by Will Gater: 50th Anniversary of NASA.

The music is good enough (I'm finding that I'm tending towards the 1970s, which is kind of funny given that I turned 12 in 1979 — Pink Floyd and Neil Young just work <g>) but the thing really worth watching is the Ares I animation you get when you click on the Ares rocket in the 2000s.

Go play with it. It's fun.

Mars Pheonix on Twitter

Via Stuart (of Astronomy Blog) who got it via Will Gater and Orbiting Frog: the Phoenix Mars Lander is on Twitter.

That's pretty cool.

And it takes me back almost 11 years. Back on 23^rd June 1997 I subscribed to the Majordomo mailing list for Mars Global Surveyor. It was a great service, with emails coming every so often with reports of what was happening and the status of the spacecraft. The last report I received was on 9^th April 1999:

Mars Global Surveyor initiated normal mapping operations on Sunday, April 4. The spacecraft is now in the nadir pointed configuration with the High Gain Antenna tracking the Earth. The spacecraft and instruments have been operating nominally, but the combination of a sequence error and DSN tracking problems have caused several small gaps in the returned data. As of Friday, April 9, these problems appear to have been completely resolved and all acquired data is being successfully returned.

I'm not sure if that was the last email ever sent out, or if I unsubscribed after that.

It's kind of interesting to note what's changed in that time. Back then it was done via email, so it was sort of slow and was always "in the past" (for significant values of "in the past"). These days it's happening via twitter so, thanks to my constantly open Psi window that is connected to Twitter, I can see things as they happen (well, as they're written about and sent out).

Add to that the fact that, these days, I can know what the Lovell telescope is up to at any point in time (not forgetting that that's true for all the other Jodrell Bank 'scopes) and it's pretty clear that getting information about what's happening in astronomy and space exploration is easier than ever.

To all those people who work hard to make it happen: thanks.

Careful With That Saturn V Picture, Eugene...

Via slashdot:

"Get ready to surrender your data sheets, study reports and blueprints of the Saturn V to stay in compliance with ITAR. Armed guards are reportedly taking down and shredding old Saturn V posters from KSC office walls that show rough internal layouts of the vehicle, and a Web site that is a source for various digitized blueprints has been put on notice it may well be next. No word yet if the assignment of a Karl Rove protege high up in NASA has any connection."

This has got to be a joke, right? Tell me it's a joke. The US can't be that stupid, can it?

Wikisky

Paul Sutherland, over at SkyMania, has written about Google's plans to link up with NASA on some interesting mapping sites. He goes on to comment on something he and I have spoken about before:

I am waiting for Google to act on a suggestion I emailed to them a while back - to produce a map of the sky that we could explore in a similar way to Google Earth. There is already plenty of data from observatories' sky surveys that could map the sky as a celestial sphere. Would anyone else like to see Google Universe?

Yes, I'd love to see something like that. And, funnily enough, yesterday, I stumbled on a site that appears to more or less fit the bill: Wikisky.

I've not explored it too much yet (I found it while in the middle of something else and posted it to my astronomy bookmarks list on del.icio.us with a view to having a proper look at some point later) but, on the surface, it does seem to have many of the features one would expect from a "Google¹ Universe". There's a map of the sky that can be dragged about, has zoom, has detailed images and has links elsewhere.

Have a look at the getting started article to learn more about it.

1) Note to Google legal types, that's not an attempt to infringe on any sort of trademark, that's just an attempt to talk about a mythical product that some people would like to see.

A future for Hubble?

The Bad Astronomer is reporting that the Hubble servicing mission is go.

Yes!