April 2005

A bit of a rushed one today. I've been away in Canberra for a while, attending a Linux conference and rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mark Shuttleworth – it's my column and I'll name-drop if I want too. He's that South African guy who bought himself a ticket to the International Space Station; it turns out he's quite a philanthropist and a fair storyteller. He revealed how time was passed on the ISS by those up there for the long haul, and how the astronauts and cosmonauts manage to humanise their surroundings and routines despite the best efforts of the know-it-alls in mission control. There's a history of the ground staff making great lists of things to do, and astronauts having the best viewpoint on how they should really be done. This kind of thing is going to have too be sorted out as mankind starts to place outposts further from Earth.

So, I found out how the vodka gets up there anyway. Large bottles marked "spare fuel", which given that it is probably purchased somewhere in Kazakhstan is probably a pretty good description of it. On the old Mir space station, the ground crew apparently hid many small bottles behind the panelling. I can't help thinking of those artificial termite mounds in the zoo, stocked with small tasty treats for the monkeys so they can exhibit foraging behaviour and relieve some of the boredom!

Anyway, more of that next month. Audrey's deadline for the roundabout has expired and I am in danger of turning into a pumpkin.

The Hubble Space Telescope still refuses to die. Having celebrated its 15^th operational birthday this month, it has returned some superb pictures of the Whirlpool Galaxy and the Eagle Nebula. Unfortunately they don't look so hot in the printed edition, so get hold of a web browser and gaze upon this link:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2005/12/

The current US administration is cutting back its budget in non-defence areas, and despite Hubble taking up only just over 1.5% of NASA's annual budget it is in the firing line. The director of the Space Telescope Science Institute that runs Hubble, Dr. Beckwith, justifiably views cutting Hubble as a poor decision. There aren't even any concrete plans on the drawing board for anything with the capabilities that Hubble has, let alone an updated replacement. He's urging for the next servicing mission to go ahead, giving Hubble even better capabilities and pointing out that ditching the investment that has been made in Hubble now is not an effective use of resources.

Although NASA's new administrator, Dr Mike Griffin, promised to review the decision not to service the telescope, this was conditional on the Space Shuttle returning to space more or less on schedule. At the last count, this wasn't looking very likely. they've noticed that a lot of ice forms on the liquid oxygen pipes and want to add some heaters to ensure that dangerous amounts don't form. This has now put the official earliest launch date of the next flight by Columbia forward to the 13^th July at the very earliest. There is now talk of postponing it still further, to September. At this point some might start wondering which year.

Meanwhiles, the Chinese are building a new manned spaceflight centre in Shanghai to expand the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology. Their next flight, Shenzhou 6, is due to go up in their Autumn and stay up for a week.

Not to be outdone, the French Arianespace and and Russian Roskosmos agencies have signed an €121 Million deal to launch rockets from Kourou starting from 2008. These are initially envisaged to be heavy satellite launches, but with the increased payload and prospect of paying passengers, that might change.

We'll see if the Russians, Americans or Chinese get the next launch up – who knows, we could be on to a good, old-fashioned space-race again.

I can feel a tingling...... Audrey's magic pumpkin spell has >POOF!<

This edition is also on the web, just point your web browser to http://olliver.family.gen.nz.   vik@olliver.family.gen.nz

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.

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