Astronauts from Atlantis and onboard the International Space Station managed to get 4 of the 6 control computers back up and running. They are slowly giving them more tasks to take care of and from what I’ve heard they expect things to be back up to speed very soon. The other two computers are fried and will need to be replaced.
What caused all this woe? They still aren’t sure. MSNBC has more in a surprisingly complete article.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
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June 16th, 2007 at 7:42 am
that’ll teach them to install Vista on the space station.
June 16th, 2007 at 8:17 am
triac
June 16th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Just a quick note, has nothing to do with the post–but I do stop here every single day even if I don’t leave comments. and Prayer doesn’t work. This is so obvious I can’t believe people don’t see it. Just this comment here to show my support and I will be stopping by and reading everything every day. And—thanks!!!!
June 16th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Good news, for sure.
Strikes me as sad that it’s a surprise when the regular media outlets address a science issue and do a halfway decent job.
I don’t expect reporters to be scientists, but it’d be nice if they at least had a basic understanding of science. Or anything else they’re reporting on, for that matter.
June 16th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
[…] news about the spot of bother on the International Space Station this week got sidelined, what with Paris Hilton having a courtroom meltdown and A dozen Republican […]
June 16th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
A few years back, there was a lunar eclipse which the Denver Astronomical Society covered at the Chamberlain Observatory. I had my refractor set up out on the lawn with my digital camera on it to get a record. (I stiff have the pictures as lousy as they were) Well, all the news media showed up and this one field reported with a cameraman walked up to me and asked if I would mind answering some questions. You wanna know what he asked me? And I swear this is the honest truth.
He asked, “So what is the difference between astronomy and astrology?”
I was about to laugh when I realized he was serious. I answered in the simplest and most straight forward way I could think of. I sai, “Well sir, one is science, the other is fantasy.” Then I went on to explain what we were doing that night and gave him all kinds of cool techie talk. They ended up using the clip on the 10pm news and alot of the people I work with saw it. I work at Raytheon Co in support of some military contracts so most of the folks I hang with are pretty smart. My program manager came up to me the next work day, patted me on the back, and told me he saw the news. He thought I did a great job on the reporter and walked away chuckling. I guess I scored a point or two cause Im still there :o)
Point is, dont count on the news media to know squat. Their job is to look pretty on camera.
June 16th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I stiLL have the pics I mean…how embarrasing :o(
June 17th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
The MSNBC article is pretty good … but for all its talk of women in space, it sure leaves out a lot of the history. They make it seem like the idea of female astronauts only came along after the 1970s when women started playing a role in the military. What about the Mercury 13?
June 18th, 2007 at 8:26 am
I’m ashamed to admit that I was not aware of the Mercury 13 until recently. And I really should have been more informed.
I can’t remember where I heard about them, but it was either an online source or NPR.
It’s a fascinating story in its own right, but yeah, tends to be non-existent in space media coverage.