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August 8, 2021 Archives
Sunday, August 8, 2021
CONTEXT: Perseid Meteor Seen from the International Space Station
A Perseid Below: https://t.co/hKijgwlG8S by @NASA ISS Expedition 28 Crew, Ron Garan pic.twitter.com/Ph3mzf7Jo4
— Astronomy Picture Of The Day (@apod) August 8, 2021
This picture dates from 2011, but it's time to start looking for meteors in this year's Perseid meteor shower, which is expected to put on a fine display, peaking on August 11 through 12 (and maybe extending into the 13th), with no interference from the Moon which, only four days since new, will have set before the prime hours for observing the shower (11 P.M. and later local time, or whenever astronomical twilight ends if you're at a high latitude).
Posted at
14:17
THE HAPPENING WORLD: SpaceX Starship Fully Stacked, Starliner, and Starlink Updates
Marcus House's weekly space update recounts the furious pace of developments at SpaceX's Starbase, as well as regress with Boeing's Starliner, and the upcoming filling-out of Starlink's polar orbit planes for high latitude coverage.
Posted at
12:59
CONTINUITY: Rocket Boots for Spacewalkers!
“As easy as riding a bicycle”—in six degrees of freedom—without gravity or friction.
Posted at
12:06
CONTINUITY: Paper Models of Vintage Computers
Love retro computing but just don't have the space for the collection of your dreams? These free paper models are STUNNING! I love the TRS-80 MODEL III 😍 ⌨️🖱️https://t.co/yygZr9NjxQ pic.twitter.com/pVV8cMMBia
— Alpenglow Industries (@AlpenglowInd) August 7, 2021
The IMSAI 8080 page says:
I know these systems were often used as CP/M machines but who beyond the well-to-do and die-hard enthusiasts would have found a use for one of these systems in these early days is unclear to me.
Nonsense: most of these machines were connected to ASCII terminals and used with CP/M for software development, word processing, and other minicomputer-type work at a fraction of the cost of alternatives. For developing 8080 software, the cost was far less than Intel's development system. I used an IMSAI chassis and peripheral boards to develop and test my Marinchip 9900 16-bit S-100 CPU board.
Posted at
11:26
TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPS: Arctic Fox Walks 3500 km from Norway to Canada—Tracked by Satellite
A young female Arctic Fox walked (!) from Norway to Canada in 2018. That's a marathon every day for 76 days. The journey was over 3500 kilometers. Source: https://t.co/QFUaejSayh pic.twitter.com/k2Qp78Me6k
— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) August 7, 2021
Posted at
10:55
CONTEXT: Touring Starbase with Elon Musk—Part 2
This segment includes a deep dive into the iterative development philosophy used by SpaceX, glimpses of the new radially gored nosecone design, views of Starship thermal protection tile application, and discussion of goals for the first orbital flight test (“Don't blow up and destroy Stage 0 [the launch site]).
Posted at
10:26