Note: a mistake on my part caused this post to go up early. I pulled it and stuck it back in the queue for later. Sorry if you are seeing this twice, or wondering why it disappeared!
NASA has delayed the Shuttle launch to service Hubble Space Telescope to October 10. The target launch time is around 12:30 a.m.
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I can’t hardly blame them: the hurricanes barraging Florida have been… interesting, and more are lined up like passengers in the aisle ready to whack Ted Striker the "panicky woman" character in "Airplane!"
Endeavour’s launch has been moved to November 12. That mission will send supplies to the space station and switch out an astronaut who will have been there for five months.
Those are the last two flights of 2008. Remember when the Shuttle was supposed to launch two dozen times a year, and be "routine"? Sigh. Like everyone else, I want my flying car too*. Oh well.
Also, the Jules Verne ATV will undock from the space station later today, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere on the 29th. Read all about it on the ESA page.
Also also, the 69th Carnival of Space is online at Irene Klotz’s blog.
*Actually, no I don’t. Would you trust your fellow drivers in a car that flies?
September 5th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Ooooooooh, good point. Maybe I’m not so eager for those things to come out after all, at least not unless they are automatically Ottopiloted.
~David D.G.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I don’t think that in the movie Airplane, it was Ted Striker that was having a panic attack and needed to be wacked. I think it was some other passenger. But then I haven’t seen that movie in 10 years at least. Still, it was a funny scene.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
No, it definitely wasn’t Ted Striker who was being struck, it was one of the woman passengers. Was Ted flying the plane at that point?
September 5th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Pierre @ 2, you’re right, it wasn’t Ted Striker, it was a woman passenger. Check this video, you can see it about 50 seconds in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdEmmXiB7ew&feature=related
September 5th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
My 10-year-old keeps asking me, “Why don’t they just let computers control all the cars?”
I never have a better answer than “People like having their freedom to drive however they want.”
September 5th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I think that reliable autopilots (and a whole lot of legal wrangling) are a hard prerequisite for flying cars, and that auto companies are going to be a long time about selling a car with an autopilot – for liability reasons.
We have experimental AI that can handle a car on the freeway, and somewhat more experimental AI that can handle cars in urban areas, but the tech isn’t quite there yet. It will be a very bold auto manufacturer that first sells a car with such a system, however good the tech. They ~will~ get in accidents (occasional accidents are inevitable), and the car makers ~will~ be sued for “causing” the accidents. The case may even be justified, depending on what they sell.
But oh, how I want a flying car (:
September 5th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I can’t remember her name, but it was the woman who pondered, “He never has a second cup of coffee at home,” that had the panic attack and was getting shaken, beaten, shot, etc.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
hale_bopp and Pierre speak truth – it was the woman who yelled “I’ve got to get out of here”.
OH, and there’s a DVD of Airplane! out now and the special features totally rocked.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I don’t know if you allow weblinks here, but here’s the clip
Sorry, I’m an Airplane! fan from way back.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Note: it’s not 12:30 p.m., it’s 12:30 a.m., so half an hour after midnight Eastern time. I fixed the post.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Well, nuts. I knew it was the woman, and not Ted Striker (obviously, I love that movie) but I forgot to edit the post before it went live. Thanks for reminding me. I fixed it.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
For anyone who is a fan of “Airplane,” you*must* rent the movie “Zero Hour.” “Zero Hour” is a totally serious movie from around 1961, and “Airplane” is a scene-by-scene parody of this movie. Even the scene of the woman being slapped.
J. D.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
You see, it is the coffee woman
September 5th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
_Airplane!_ is, beyond a doubt, the greatest movie ever made.
However, _Zero Hour_, the movie it’s based on, is hard as hell to find. I had to go to an obscure “rare videos” website to find someone who had a recording of one, and I think he taped it off his TV and then used my credit card information to buy stuff from Saks Fifth Avenue (though I of course have no proof that it was him).
Incidentally, on my website (listed above), you’ll find a link to a complete transcript of the movie _Zero Hour_, with the lines it shares in common with _Airplane_ printed in bold type.
September 5th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Video comparison of Zero Hour v.s. Airplane, including the “didn’t have fish for dinner” line that seems like it ought to have been an Airplane original but wasn’t:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1234064XeA6r98t
September 5th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Shuttle launches weren’t just supposed to be two dozen per year. According to this here article, NASA’s original numbers advertised 50-60 launches per year, at a cost of 5.5 million per.
Never trust a government agency’s cost estimates for a new program.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
>>*Actually, no I don’t. Would you trust your fellow drivers in a car that flies?
I have always thought that. No inertia and an extra dimension to cause accidents in? No thank you!
September 5th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Yes, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting MY flying car. I just don’t want anyone else to have one.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Oddly enough, I own a copy of the novel “Zero Hour” was based upon, _Flight Into Danger_. It’s a teaching copy from some ancient time, that I picked up in grade school as a thank you from the teacher for helping clear out the closets on the next-to-last day in school. When I finally watched “Airplane!”, I was one of the few in my gang who got the reference.
Back on-topic, though, here’s hoping the Hubble mission goes as planned; I love that ol’ light bucket.
— Steve