WTF NASA II

Watching the NASA live feed on Youtube invariably shows related Youtube videos that claim to interest me. 

I came across a very detailed study of the Apollo 13 mission.  The conversations between the crew and mission control is clear and, where required, are explained by a narrator.  Included is an ever changing diagram of how things fit together, which clearly details how the explosion of one of the two O2 tanks put the crew in jeopardy.  The conversations between people on the ground highlight the extremely clever, thoughful, and CALM, people on the ground who saved the lives of Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCObwsXbSeU 

Give it a look.  It's long (2 hours), but well worth the investment.

It includes the humour before the explosion (especially regading both Jim and Jack not filing their income tax in time).

I was 12 years old at the time and I only remember the crew being in some sort of jeopardy.  But listening to the details (as an adult) and seeing how the various parts fit together and how close, in spite of multiple reduncancies, the mission was almost fatal.

I became alarmed and emotional all over again.  Somehow differently, and perhaps more so, now that I'm aware of many more things as an adult.  

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Anyway, the (what sound like genuine) audio snippets from NASA included with the Youtube video above report the spacecrafts distance in NAUTICAL miles (just like ships at sea and planes in the air) and speed is in feet per second.

So not only is NASA not using the Metric system today, but have moved backwards after half a century in that they now use both NAUTICAL and STATUTE miles and speed in miles per hour (where the "type" of mile is not defined).

(Interestingly, the Artemis II recovery ship, the USS Murtha appears to use GMT rather that EST (you can see the time stamp in the upper left corner of the ship videos).  I wonder when that was standarized to match the rest of the civilized world?)

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During his opening monologue that included a discussion of the recent Artemis II mission, Stephen Colbert (the current host of The Late Show on CBS) reported an article from the New York Times giving the new furthest record distance from Earth of the space mission in Dachshund lengths.

Yes, the little dogs with short legs is now a standard of measurment.

728 million of them nose to tail.  Well, I can certainly relate to that (NOT!).

He summarized the New Yorks Times article with "...Americans will do anything to not use the Metric system...".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGkpa-lo1AQ&t=102s (at about a minute an a half) 

WTF NASA?

NASA Mission Control Houston reported on the morning of 9 April, "the Artemis II mission is 143,000 statute miles from earth and 133,000 statute miles from the moon and is travelling at 2800 miles per hour".  Presumably that is 2800 statute miles per hour.

They continued with "As Artemis II approaches reentry at 400,000 feet it will be travelling at approximatley 35,000 feet per second and will be downrange 1500 nautical miles".

What?  Now we're using nautical miles?  Is that why Artemis is now travelling at feet per second because you can't decide on statute or nautical miles?  Who or what else uses feet per second?  Not your typical American and not aircraft as they use knots and the really fast ones use Mach (Mach 32 in the case of Artemis II).

I realize sea vessels and aircraft use feet and nautical miles and knots, but for what reason is distance out of the ocean and atmosphere (i.e. space) using statute miles?  Why the change?  What's the excuse?

If you silly Americans insist on using the archaic Imperial system, why not embrace it?

How about "Artemis II is 50,000 leagues from Earth and the mission time is 0.62 fortnights?  It will enter the atmosphere at an altitute of about 600 furlongs and will travelling the length of 45 football pitches per second".

You can guess if the football pitich is English or NFL (it's similar to the difference as between statute vs nautical miles).

Artemis II

As a child of the 60's, the various space missions became very exiting as I became aware of the world.  I don't have any memory of the earlier adventures, but I do have vague memories of Apollo 7 and many more of Apollo 8 and subsequent missions.  As the manned Apollo missions continued I soon wanted to know about what the Soviets were up to and where all the unmanned missions were going.

I recall disappointment with the early pictures Mariner took of Mars (it looked just like the moon!)

What took so long to get back to Mercury?  What a shame that Venus is so hostile.

After the Apollo missions, then came the Grand Tour of the outer planets.  The Voyagers became the little craft that could.  With the Pioneers before them, these were examples of human ingenuity to thier finest.  Designed to operate for enough time to complete their missions (in the case of Voyager II the years to get to Neptune), they have outlasted their most pessimistic critic.

What an engineering feat to land a craft (ESA Huygens) on Saturn's moon Titan!

What a pleasure to know of such engineering prowness while here on earth it's always a race for the bottom.  "Higher call volume than usual" has become the norm.  Among the disappointments of the 21st century, that phrase sums it up and I would say has become the "mantra of our times".

Artemis II lifted off only a few minutes later than scheduled (well within the launch window) and within half an hour of the mission had already taken the crew beyond where anybody has been since 1972.  It was about three times the altitude of the ISS by this time. 

The United States has launched an international mission (there is a Canadian on board) and they can't bother to even list the metric measurements with the old imperial system (7.5 billion of us use the metric system at least partially).  It was annoying to me to have to translate BACK to the metric system to figure out what the temperature was at the cape and when the mission passed the ISS altitude.

I started using the metric system when I was still in high school and now I'm retired.  Honest to god, that country is both the most advanced and most backward at the same time.  Don't get me started about how an industrialized nation lacks a social safety net.

Anyway, it's amazing to see what the crew is seeing from the spacecraft as their orbit apogee take them out to where the geosynchronous satellites live.

A crescent earth.

As has been said by others (better than me); everyone alive is "there".  In a single picture.  All eighty one hundred million of us.

(Yes, all the flat earthers regard this as just another media circus to justify spending money for some hair brained scheme.  It's too bad so many of those knuckleheads have the levers of political power). 

Move your money out of the states

I'm no expert on investments, but I have money "squirreled away" like many of us.  

Everyone (who is not an American, and maybe them too) needs to move all their investments out of American securities.

The stock market goes down with the US Idiot in Chief's various decisions, but it goes back up again as investors "buy low".

As long as is goes up as well as down, Captain Chaos will not relent.

He is the school yard bully taking our economic lunch money.  But there are no teachers and no principal.  There are no parents to ground him.

Is he accountable to anyone or anything?

Yes.

He IS accontable to the US Dollar - so the US Dollar it has to TANK in order to stop him.  But that will take the entire world economy with it.  He has bankrupted his own companies, so I wouldn't put it past him bankrupting his own country.

So let's help him.

Those of us not American can ameliorate this somewhat by moving our investments to friendlier economies such as that EU, Japan, Austrilia, South Korea and even India.  I'd recommend Mexico but Mexico has the same issues as Canada does as we're so tied in with the American economy.

Not everyone lost money in the 1929 stock market crash.

If the other markets out perform the American market, that should put pressure on the American currency.  As this continues, investors "late to the party" will accelerate the rush from American securities.  American citizens will see their currency buy less and less as US inflation increases.

At some point, the US debt will be unsustainable and they will be in default in spite of DOGEs efforts.

The Dummy in Command will blame everyone but himself.  Eventually those of his own party who still have brains will have to put pressure on him.  Failing that, the same sort of goons that attacked congress in 2021 will be attacting the white house.

And hopefully this time one of them will be succesful (although seeing the Felon behind bars would be more appropriate).

After the dust settles, the rest of the world may need to assist the US with a modern version of the Marshall Plan.  But before we do that, the Americans will need to "plug the holes" in their constitution to reduce the chances that any one person can cause so much chaos ever again.

A century ago the world was at a similar point when the Weimar Republic faced hyper inflation and the Nazi Party took over Germany (I'm obviously simplifying).  This time the cart is before the horse, so to speak, as the the American Loony Party is already in control and are themselves causing the economic uncertainy.

The dangerous part of this plan is that history could repeat itself and the weakened USA may start invading it's neighbours.  Canada and Mexico (and perhaps others) need to be ready for that contingency.

I miss you mom and dad

Today is 19 December 2024.  My late father would have been 95 today.  It's been over six years since he passed 12 April 2018.

I missed noting my late mom's birthday a month ago when she would have turned 90.  She has been gone for more than a decade having passed on 6 February 2013.

Lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic

People now know the concept of walking in a single file. Bumping into other people is a thing of the past.

People make an effort to avoid walking directly toward strangers and instead give way and walk to one side or the other giving as wide a berth as practical. People no longer assert their imagined rights to walk where ever they want, ignoring other people that might exist.

People bow and smile or fist bump instead of shaking hands. Kissing non family members on the cheek is a thing of the past.

Birthday cakes no longer feature candles to blow out.

Everyone coughs and sneezes into their elbows.

People avoid touching their face if they have touched unknown items (such as door handles, walk signals, restaurant menus, gas pumps) until their hands have been cleaned.

No one licks their fingers to turn a page of a book or newspaper, open a plastic bag, or deal a deck of cards.

Yes, lessons NOT learned from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tipping on tax

Some people don’t tip on the total bill, but go through the gymnastics of removing the tax first (“I’m not tipping on the tax!”)

Let’s check the math.

Let’s assume the taxable item in question is $100 before taxes (this just makes the calculations easier for the cheapskates).

On $100;

GST at 5% is five dollars

PST at 7% is seven dollars

(total tax rate is 12% and amount is $12)

Therefore total tax for our item is $12 on $100 (which incidentally is the same as a 12% tip)

Calculation “A” – tip on pre-tax amount:

Item + tax + 15% tip on non tax amount

(in this example, 15% tip on $100 is $15)

$100 + $12 + $15 = $127

Net amount with tip is $127

Calculation “B” – tip on amount after taxes:

Item + tax

$100 + $12 = $112

15% tip on $112 is $16.80

Item + tax + 15% on net amount

$100 + $12 + $16.80 = $128.80

Net amount with tip is $128.80

(or the equivalent of (just less than) a 17% tip on $100 before taxes. One could just argue they are giving 17% instead of 15%).

Tip difference is $1.80, less than $2 per $100

 

Seriously, people bitch about less than 2%? Less than $2 per $100 or less than $1 per $50. How many years did you work in the retail and service industries? How did you like the “enormous” paycheque? A couple of bucks here and there can make quite a difference to lower income earners.

 

Years ago (before bills were easily separated out between parties) there were several times I went to group dinners and at the end of the meal people brought out calculators as quickly as their cash or payment card at a restaurant. I never went to dinner with those people again.