"we have lift-off, lift-off at 7:51 a.m. Eastern Standard Time." #2

As the only regular reader of this blog, you probably already know that 4 days ago was the 1st anniversary of this very (boring) blog! ... Me, myself and I, had a terrific party over the week-end to celebrate the event ... it was a lot of fun, wishing you were there :P I think this is a good time to have a look at the original goal of this blog:

So, what can you expect to see here? Well ... my goal is to use this blog to chronicle my progress in learning basic Astronomy and spaceflight mechanics (as my maths and physics skills need to be seriously brushed-up, it's going to take some time ...) and in learning and mastering the Apollo spacecraft (Crew and lunar module) as it is simulated within Orbiter. So don't expect to see a report on my own Apollo XI mission anytime soon ;-)

Not quiet what it turned out to be eh? :D Yeah ... What happened is that I got interested in the Russian space/lunar program, and that eventually lead me into joining forces with Castorp on an addon for Orbiter ...

In other (and more interesting) news, today was the relocation of Soyuz TMA-9 on the ISS. I watched part of it live on NASA TV and there was some really pretty neat views of the spacecraft performing the maneuver. If you missed it, I'm sure a recording will be available soon on the usual places (e.g: Space Multimedia). Another interesting bit is the latest update of the JSC Oral History Project which have added a couple more interviews, including one (95 pages long) of Bob Crippen, pilot of STS-1. I have to admit that I haven't read it yet, but I'm sure that it won't be 265kb of bandwidth wasted ;-)