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The BA says: “I never touched the hardware; I never even saw it. But still, a piece of me will go up on that rocket in June.”

I know the feeling. As I’ve mentioned here in the past, my first job out of school was flight support for a classified Air Force satellite. It launched out of Vandenberg and was controlled from the “Blue Cube” in Sunnyvale, CA. My whole job was actually a glorified keypunch operator, and I never got to see the hardware, either. Came close once.

Before one mission, though, we took a field trip down to VAFB (about 300 miles/500 Km from Sunnyvale) to see the vehicle on the pad. Wouldn’t you know, the booster was there, but the “payload” was delayed. Still, I got to take the elevator to the top of the Titan IIIB and look at the hole in the top where our vehicle would go. For a hardware freak like me that was beyond description, but the others in the office (all programmer types) just wanted to leave. They considered themselves abused having to stand around in the cold, foggy wind coming off the Pacific while this ultra-nerd kept chattering on with the captain in charge of the pad team. I was the only one to accept his invitation to take a walk out on the catwalk to look at the main engines (standing some 50 feet/15 meters in the air over the flame trench).

This, BTW, was the same pad that Clementine was launched from.

- Jack

I know the feeling. As I’ve mentioned here in the past, my first job out of school was flight support for a classified Air Force satellite. It launched out of Vandenberg and was controlled from the “Blue Cube” in Sunnyvale, CA. My whole job was actually a glorified keypunch operator, and I never got to see the hardware, either. Came close once.

Before one mission, though, we took a field trip down to VAFB (about 300 miles/500 Km from Sunnyvale) to see the vehicle on the pad. Wouldn’t you know, the booster was there, but the “payload” was delayed. Still, I got to take the elevator to the top of the Titan IIIB and look at the hole in the top where our vehicle would go. For a hardware freak like me that was beyond description, but the others in the office (all programmer types) just wanted to leave. They considered themselves abused having to stand around in the cold, foggy wind coming off the Pacific while this ultra-nerd kept chattering on with the captain in charge of the pad team. I was the only one to accept his invitation to take a walk out on the catwalk to look at the main engines (standing some 50 feet/15 meters in the air over the flame trench).

This, BTW, was the same pad that Clementine was launched from.

- Jack

This brings to mind a very funny and slightly macabre image.

I have my GLAST launch invitation sitting on the table, but will be at the AAS meeting in St. Louis and can’t make the launch unless it is delayed

It’s an exciting time to be alive.

I thought DM wasn’t supposed to interact through the Electromagnetic force…

Wouldn’t that rule out emissions of gamma rays as coming from DM? I only know that a trick for determining what force between particles is the lifetime of the particle (in particle physics) and also the components involved. The emmision or absorption of a photon always involves the Electromagnetic force.

It’s pretty neat, BA, that you’ve been able to work on all these super cool projects. And June 3rd is just around the corner. Hopefully it’ll get to go right on schedule.