GordonD

Stanislav Petrov died in May though his death has only just been made public. You may never have heard of him, but you have every reason to be grateful to him. In 1983 Petrov was on duty in a Soviet early warning centre when his systems reported a massive incoming nuclear attack by the USA. Petrov felt that an attack on such a huge scale made no military sense and decided it must be an error, so instead of declaring an attack he reported a system malfunction . Had he passed the information up the chain as per his orders, it's almost certain that Moscow would have retaliated on a similar scale. It turned out, of course, that Petrov was right - investigation showed that Soviet satellites had mistakenly identified sunlight reflecting on clouds as the engines of intercontinental ballistic missiles. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41314948

I'd actually forgotten I started this topic - I was going to do a new one (with the same title! ) but didn't get round to it. Footage here of Mission Control at the moment Cassini went silent, followed by a press announcement.

Man goes into Boot's and asks the assistant for some deodorant. The assistant asks, "The ball type?" "No," he says, "it's for under my arms." "Mummy, Mummy, I don't want to go to Ireland for my holidays!" "Shut up and keep swimming!" "I don't want to go to school - the kids all hate me and even the teachers laugh at me behind my back!" "But you have to go - you're the headmaster!"

Old news now (because I forgot to post this yesterday) but the ISS crew is back up to the optimal six. Soyuz MS-06 was launched in the late evening (UK time) on Tuesday 12 September and docked with the space station a few hours later. The new arrivals are Joseph Acaba and Mark Vande Hei from the USA and Aleksandr Misurkin of Russia. Vande Hei is on his first flight, while Misurkin and Acaba have both done one previous stint on the ISS (and Acaba has a Shuttle mission as well). The existing team of Nespoli, Bresnik and Ryazansky are due to return to Earth in mid-December, which will mark the beginning of Expedition 54.

Jack Fischer and Fyodor Yurchikhin landed safely in Soyuz MS-04 shortly after midnight BST, having been in orbit since April. With them was Peggy Whitson, who has been aboard the ISS since last November. She now holds all the US spaceflight records except one (longest single flight, still down to Scott Kelly). Whitson's total time in space is 665 days 22 hours 44 minutes, and this particular mission lasted 289 days 5 hours 2 minutes. Whitson's total time still leaves her only eighth overall: the record holder is Gennadi Padalka, with 878 days 11 hours 31 minutes.

So it was free.

A book I'd like to see filmed is 'A Fall of Moondust' by Arthur C. Clarke. Wouldn't need to be that expensive - much of the 'action' takes place aboard a tourist bus which has become buried beneath the dust on the Moon (you can see where the title comes from!!) so it wouldn't need huge sets.

If you like Voyage (great book) then you might find this interesting. Might give you a few ideas!

The latest cargo flight to the ISS has arrived safely. SpaceX Dragon CRS-12 was berthed yesterday (16 August) by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli. Here's a timelapse video of the launch, first stage recovery, capture by the manipulator arm and berthing to the ISS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2od5IRQW8D4

This article from the BBC News site implies that the Griffon-engined Spitfires aren't grounded but are unavailable "for other reasons". Whatever the problem is, nobody can blame them for taking no chances. These planes are irreplaceable.

The engines on the 1/144th Revell-Monogram S-II second stage are a disgrace. If you look closely at this picture you'll see that the nozzles don't extend up beyond the heat shield. This won't show if you're displaying the rocket as a stacked unit. Also the Service Module has the same problem as the original Airfix release - it's much too narrow, so looks totally wrong. For the 40th anniversary Airfix retooled their Service Module and SLA so theirs is now accurate... apart from the Command Module, though that doesn't show under the LES shroud.

I remember reading an SF story (though I have no idea who wrote it) about an alien species which collects space artifacts and puts them on display in their museum. Among the exhibits are the backpacks and other stuff that Armstrong and Aldrin left behind at Tranquillity Base. The story is told in a series of memos between various departments of the alien government. As the story progresses it becomes clear that Mankind is preparing to return to the Moon and due to a Star Trek-style Prime Directive there must be no evidence that the aliens have been there, so the order goes out to create exact duplicates of the backpacks to leave on the Moon in place of the originals. However the story ends with one memo saying that Mankind has revisited Tranquillity Base and all hell has broken out. It seems that there's been a breakdown in communication and the group which created the duplicates didn't realise that although Apollo 11 had a crew of three, only two of them went down to the lunar surface...

Something similar happened to me. Apparently all the water drained out before the customer got home.

Oh, I've been living in here for years!

Apologies to spookytooth, but surely this is more appropriate for this forum?