Conversations With Apollo

I'd like to promote a bit something I stumbled (can't recall how now) on last week, a weekley podcast dedicated to the Apollo program, called Conversations with Apollo. Most of the episodes (8 in total to this date) features an interview with a person having participated to the project, such as Flight Director Gerry Griffin. None of the missions crew have participated yet, I sure hope they will do, eventually ...

In the Shadow of the Moon

I finaly managed to watch last night, the recently released DVD of In the Shadow of the Moon, a documentary on the Apollo program which was released in (too few) theatre back in 2007. The film is based on remasterised footages of the missions (some I don't think I have ever seen) with comments from 10 of the 24 Apollo's astronauts, and I founded it quite enjoyable both for the spirit and for the eyes. I was somewhat a bit desapointed that Neil Armstrong declined to be part of it, since he's the iconic figure of the program, but overall I don't think the documentary suffered from not having him on the project.

Thanks to YouTube, here's the trailer:

Merry Newtonmas!

Well, it is that time of the year again? Oh yeah it is, so Merry Newtonmas folks! May your Apple tree be loaded with some good loots (e.g Space books, Rocket model kits, Space movies ...) :-)

While looking for some data on the Oxidizer and Fuel tank of S-IC (Saturn V 1st stage) I stumbled onto a rather interesting web site (mind you, it's a Work-In-Progress) by Eric Hartwell, the NOT the official Apollo 17 Flight Journal (yet) which follow the same concept than the well know Apollo Flight Journal. The last update to that site seems to have been made last April, let's hope Eric will continue his terrific work.

While I'm on the Apollo subject, I also found during my search two interesting videos (YouTubed) on the assembly of the Saturn V rocket. You will find both linked bellow (Part 1 then Part 2):

Archives gones wild! #6

The good folks over at the Project Apollo Archive, have once again updated their images gallery by adding some new scans of the Apollo 7 film magazines. There's some pretty neat shots of the Saturn's upper stage in orbit, worth checking them out :-) Another gallery to check-out once in a while is the one for the ISS, where they have uploaded a rather nice picture taken during the lastest EVA and which shows the Harmony module in it's definitive location:

On the Orbiter's addon front, I finaly completed Sunday my rework of our attachment handling and resumed working on the flow framework, which I'm hoping to wrap-up soon ...

Archives gones wild! #5

The problem with going away on vacation is that it does somehow disconnect you from your usual geek routine ... like for example checking for update on the Project Apollo Archive ... which got updated only 5 days after I left ... (20-something new or improved scans of Apollo 11). Truth be told, the past two weeks disconnected me a good deal ... I, as usual, carried around 2 space related books with me, but only got the chance to read 1.5 pages from one ... definitely not a very productive vacation I'll admit :P

Anyhow ... now that I'm back and mostly recovered from the jet lag, work on the Orbiter's addon should resume soon.

Archives gones wild! #4

Instead of impatiently hitting the reload button of your favorite web browser on the Expedition 14 and 15 galleries, deseperatly waiting for NASA to update them with some images from last week liftoff or yesterday docking ... here's a link that should relieve your thirst of Space imagery, courtesy of the Project Apollo Archive which just got updated (first time since last summer) with 28 newly scanned images of Apollo 9. I haven't browsed trough my Apollo collection for a while, since I have been focusing on Soviet space hardware, but I could swear that I never seen some of these images before! ... then again, I'm not known for my perfect memory .. 9_9

Red Moon #3

Well ... yeah, it was indeed bold and cocky, when exactly a year ago I started on the Orbiter's add-on making road (to perdition). A very long road, full of detours and diversions which should have brought me to Lunar Orbit but instead have me stuck on LEO for the past 12 months ... I definitely hope that one of these days, my add-on(s) will finally Fly me to the Moon ... :-\ In any case, this year have been overall fun. I have learn a lot on a wide variety of subjects ranging from spacecraft design to computer simulation (and of course the history of the Soviet Space program). I also enjoyed tremendously my on-going collaboration with Castorp, I most definitly couldn't have gone much further if it wasn't for his meshing talent and resistance to my (constant?) nitpicking. I'm still surprised I haven't worn him out yet (knocking on wood) ;-)

If you still think that I'm super geeky, wait till you see Eric Hartwell's page on The Blue Marble (that famous pictures of the Earth taken from Apollo XVII during Lunar transit)! That's some serious geeking there! 8-O