My last 10 days (posted after a recovery weekend), by the numbers:

Shuttle launches witnessed: 1
Shuttle launches since 1981: 129
Shuttle launches remaining: 5
“Shuttle Experience” rides experienced: 1

Cost of Space Shuttle Atlantis [dollars]: 1.7 billion
Total cost of the International Space Station [dollars]: 157 billion
Science publications resulting from research by the International Space Station: ~200
Total cost of the Hubble Space Telescope [dollars]: ~4-6 billion
Science publications resulting from Hubble Space Telescope data: >8500

Years between first trans-Atlantic air passenger and first man walking on Moon: 42
Years since last human walked on moon: 37
Moons of earth where water was found: 1

Cities visited, where snow was visible: 2
Cities visited, where it has never snowed: 2
Cities visited with a “Disney Land/World”: 2
Mickeys seen: 0
Alligators seen: 2
Geckos seen: 1
Astronauts met: 1
Space geeks met: ~ 40

Tweets sent at first “tweetup”: 24
Tweets sent in lifetime: 24
Number of distinct words heard starting with an extraneous “tw”: >15
Days after my first tweet that Palin decided to resume tweeting: 4
Books released by Sarah Palin: 1
Stewardesses I saw that were the spitting image of Sarah Palin: 1

Oceans swum in: 1
Oceans I was close enough to swim in: 2
Places visited that are the Holiest site of a religion: 1
People met that are writing a book about escaping that religion: 1
Points bowled: 67
Team place out of nine teams of bowling scientists: 1st

Flights taken: 7
Amount of carbon emitted by those flights [lbs]: 2240
Net amount of energy generated by my solar panels [kW/hrs]: ~100
Equivalent amount of carbon not emitted [lbs]: 100
Cost of offsetting that 2240 lbs of carbon [dollars]: 12.63

Talks given on completely different topics: 3
Talks listened to: 41
Talks listened to without my laptop open: 15
Non-astrophysics talks I heard that mentioned dark matter: 10

NSF proposals submitted (as Co-PI): 2
HST Multi-Cycle Treasury proposals submitted (as Co-I): 2
Total number of HST MCT proposals submitted by the community: 39
Total number of HST orbits requested by those 39 proposals: 26801
Interviews given: 3
Days with at least 3 nearly identical deadlines: 2

Emails received @ work address: 768
Emails sent: 253
Emails still in my inbox: 361

Average number of hours slept per night: 5
Brain cells lost by multi-tasking: Uncountable.

This is rather “inside baseball”, but back when Cycle 17 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) proposals were being written, I plotted up the number of proposals as a function of time until deadline. Right now, a signficant fraction of the astronomical community is involved in crafting “multicycle” proposals for the telescope. The idea is that there are probably useful projects that are sooooo time consuming that you couldn’t possibly do them through normal proposal channels.

Well, the race is on! Here’s the data on what I know of so far. We’re up to 8 proposals at 24 hours before the deadline. With the enormous sample of two, count ‘em, two data points, we’re on the same curve as we were for Cycle 17 (plotted in black), but scaled down by a factor of 27. The blue line is extrapolating an exponential to the current rate of proposal submission. Both tracks argue for about 30 proposals going in. The scaling factor of 27 suggests that there will be an average of 27 people on each proposal, if Steinn’s argument that the number of proposals is set solely by the size of the community holds. The late-time development of this curve could be way off, however, because there is no way to put one of these together at the last minute. (On the other hand, the proposed experiments are so immensely complicated, that maybe the only way you get them done is waiting until the last minute).

I’ll update the plot if people give data in the comments! (Updated! I cut the blue exponential fit in the revised plot, as it was a lousy match.)

Wow.

At 2:28 pm Eastern Standard Time, the space shuttle Atlantis left Earth. It was a flawless launch.

It is, of course, hard to describe the experience of watching it go up. I was surprised by just how bright it was. It’s like a mini-Sun, which is roughly right since it burns its liquid hydrogen/oxygen fuel at 3000 C, just a factor of two short of the temperature of the Sun. And, of course, it is loud. Not “hurt my ears” loud. More like “my whole body is vibrating” loud. Very intense.

The whole thing was over in a couple of minutes. I guess the shuttle was eager to get to space. It’s been all dressed up and waiting for days. All too soon the painfully bright light had disappeared. The overwhelming sound had subsided. And the only sign of the absolutely amazing event we’d just witnessed were the slowly dissipating clouds of smoke.

At the end of the day, it is an incredible accomplishment. We have just shot six people into space.

Wow.

Spending twenty four hours at Kennedy Space Center, one absorbs all sorts of trivia. Here are some tidbits:

- 5 astronauts have masters degrees. 3 were successful football players. 1 has a PhD (and an MD as well, just for good measure). I’m not sure what that says about the requirements to go into space.

- The astronauts go into quarantine for a week before the launch. They don’t want any swine flu in space.

- We are on hallowed ground. This is where humans left the Earth to touch the Moon.

- This is the 129th space shuttle launch. The first was in 1981, for an average of one launch every three months. The whole idea was to make space launch “routine”.

- I calculate that it takes roughly thirty times more energy to get to the space station than it does to get a jet aircraft to altitude. Radius of the Earth: 6,400 km. Altitude of a jet: 12 km. Altitude of the space station: 350 km. (Gravitational potential energy goes as one over the distance.) However, it is to be noted that you want to actually stay up there once you get there, which means you need to be moving pretty fast (specifically, 28,000 km/hour at the altitude of the space station). Kinetic energy goes as velocity squared. This is why you need a kiloton bomb (see my previous post) to get up there.

- As a mission control specialist described launch: “It’s like going over the top of a rollercoaster. Forever.” Actually, that sounds more like what it must be like in orbit: free-fall.

- They monitor everything that happens on the space station. Including light switches and toilet flushes. Think big brother.

- The countdown clock is not linear. There are a number of planned “holds”, where they STOP THE CLOCK and check various systems, and then resume.

- We are roughly 3 miles from the launchpad. This distance was selected by calculating, should the unthinkable happen, how far a 50 pound chunk of debris would fly. We are just beyond that distance, trying not to think about what 40 pounds might do to the media tent.

We are now 1:35:37 from launch.

Hatch is closed. We are currently at T-45 minutes, but I just learned that there are “holds” in the middle, so we are actually closer to an hour and 36 minutes from launch — launch is at 2:28 pm eastern.

Here’s the full schedule of events:

Monday November 16
EST EVENT
12:03 am Clear Launch Pad
12:53 am Fuel cell activation
2:03 am Countdown enters two-hour hold at the T-6 hour mark
2:18 am Clear “Launch Danger Area”
4:30 am Mission Management Team meets to give go for tanking
4:30 am Crew wake up
5:00 am NASA TV: External Tank fueling coverage begins
5:00 am Crew breakfast
5:03 am Countdown resumes at T-6 hour mark
· External Tank loading begins (transfer line “chilldown”)
5:30 am Crew undergoes final medical checks
5:48 am Liquid Hydrogen Low Level Cutoff (LLCO) sensors go “wet”
6:03 am Liquid Hydrogen “fast fill” begins
7:18 am LH2 “topping” begins (gaseous Hydrogen vent valve cycling)
8:03 am Countdown enters 2½ -hour hold (T-3 hour mark)
· ET in stable replenish
· Closeout Crew to White Room
· Final Inspection Team (FIT) “walkdown”
8:30 am Ascent Team on console in Mission Control
9:15 am Crew photo opportunity (taped for playback later)
9:30 am LAUNCH COVERAGE BEGINS on NASA TV
9:58 am Crew receives weather briefing from Ascent Team
10:08 am Crew suits up for launch
10:33 am Countdown resumes at the T-3 hour mark
10:38 am Crew departs Operations & Checkout Building for launch pad 39A
11:00 am Mission Management Team on console in Launch Control Center
11:08 am Crew begins to board Atlantis
11:28 am T-38 weather reconnaissance (Astronaut Steve Lindsey)
11:58 am Crew communications checks
12:23 pm Atlantis’ hatch is closed and latched for launch
12:43 pm Shuttle Training Aircraft weather recon (Lindsey)
12:28 pm “Video 1” Wolfe Air Aviation Cessna Skymaster 337 takeoff
12:53 pm White Room Closeout
1:13 pm Countdown enters a 10-minute hold at the T-20 minute mark
· Firing Room computer programs verified
· Landing convoy status check
· Abort landing sites checked
· Inertial Measurement Unit preflight alignment verified
· Preps for computer software transition to terminal count
1:23 pm Countdown resumes at the T-20 minute mark
1:34 pm Countdown enters ~45-min. hold at the T-9 minute mark
· MMT conducts final “Go-No Go” poll for launch

T Minus EST EVENT
- 9:00 2:29:11 pm Countdown resumes at the T-9 minute mark
- 7:30 2:20:41 pm Orbiter Access Arm (OAA) retract
- 6:00 2:22:11 pm Verify Auxiliary Power Units (APU) ready to start
- 5:01 2:23:10 pm Launch window opens
- 5:00 2:23:11 pm Auxiliary Power Unit start
- 4:55 2:53:16 pm Liquid Oxygen replenish terminated
- 4:00 2:24:11 pm Purge Sequence 4 hydraulic test
- 4:00 2:24:11 pm Inertial Measurement Units to inertial
- 3:55 2:24:16 pm Flight Control Surface profile test
- 3:30 2:24:41 pm Main Engine profile test
- 2:55 2:25:16 pm LO2 tank pressurization
- 2:50 2:25:21 pm Gaseous Oxygen Vent Hood retraction
- 2:35 2:25:36 pm Fuel Cells begin using internal reactants
- 2:30 2:25:41 pm Clear caution and warning memory
- 2:00 2:26:11 pm Crew closes visors & initiates oxygen flow
- 1:57 2:26:14 pm Liquid Hydrogen tank pressurization
- 1:40 2:06:31 pm Solid rocket booster joint heater deactivation
- :50 2:27:21 pm Atlantis to internal power
- :31 2:27:40 pm Onboard computers take control of countdown (T-31 sec)
- :21 2:27:50 pm Solid rocket booster steering test
- :06.6 2:28:04 pm Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds)
T-Zero 2:28:11 pm LAUNCH (Space station 225 miles above central South Pacific)

+ 5:00 2:33:11 pm Launch window closes
+ 8:22 2:36:33 pm Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) commanded
+ 8:28 2:36 39 pm Zero thrust – orbit is 136 x 36 statute miles
~2:30 pm 3:30 pm NASA TV: Post launch news conference

You can watch the whole thing on NASA TV if you like.

Risa and I are sitting right next to the countdown clock. The shuttle is waiting patiently about three miles away. It is fueled up, and ready to go. In the last 15 minutes the sky went from completely overcast to patchy sun to brilliant blue sky with a few puffy clouds. We are now 2:58:22 from launch.

To be honest, I’m surprised by how excited I am. Yesterday we toured the facilities at Kennedy Space Center, and got to see the shuttle up close. It is impressive. Of course, it’s huge. But it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around the simple essential fact: this object is going into space! However, there’s something more primal about all this. I think every kid growing up since the 60s (and presumably well before?) must have had an “obsession with rockets” phase. What could possibly be cooler? They are huge. They go really, really, really fast. They make loud noises. They go exotic places. They are the perfect vehicles for a child’s imagination. As we grow up, most of us lose our fixation. But, as I’ve found out in the last 24 hours, it hasn’t been lost, only misplaced. When you actually see a rocket about to head into space, it’s a completely overwhelming experience. All those emotions come roaring back, and you’re left mesmerized and excited and giddy, just like you were as a 10 year old.

We just took a little break and walked down to wave to the astronauts. They are in the astrovan, an (entirely appropriate, completely antiquated) airstream motorhome. They stopped briefly to say goodbye. Their next stop is the shuttle (and then 300 km up). You might think that this is just part of a media stunt, a final wave for the cameras. But, at the end of the day, these six individuals are about to strap themselves to the top of 1.2 million kg of liquid oxygen/hydrogen (by my calculations, the equivalent of 0.7 kilotons of TNT—a “small” nuclear bomb). This is not all just fun and games; it is a deadly serious enterprise.

We are now 1:53:33 from launch.

There are more photos/real-time updates at our twitter feed, and even more information at the NASA tweetup page.

So, a few weeks ago we all got an email here at cosmic variance inviting us to the first ever “NASA tweetup” for the next Shuttle Launch. Sean and Mark are in Australia and JoAnne is in Egypt, and Julianne is a launch veteran… but Daniel and I decided that it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. This is despite the fact that neither of us actually knew what a tweetup was, or had ever tweeted before…

So we rearranged our schedules, met yesterday in Denver, woke up at 6 am this morning, and are now at Kennedy Space Center with 100 space twitterers. They’ve got a full program here with astronauts and a tour today, and the launch of mission STS-129 to the space station at 2:29 pm tomorrow. The event just started… So stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted. We will be blogging as well as loosing our tweeting virginity @cosmicvariance. You can follow the rest of the gang by looking for #nasatweetup.

Galileo Galilei pointed a telescope at the heavens, and revolutionized our conception of Earth’s place in the Universe. Now you can do the same thing! In conjunction with the International Year of Astronomy, replicas of Galileo’s telescope are now available. For the low price of $20, you can marvel at the moons circling Jupiter, be astonished by our Moon’s rugged and beautiful landscape, and admire the profound beauty of Saturn’s rings. You can also be amazed at Galileo’s genius; tracking Jupiter’s moons with one of these things is no easy task. It is to be noted that these “Galileoscopes” are actually significantly better than what Galileo was working with (e.g., with a much larger field of view, and a higher magnification [50x] eyepiece). And, according to the website, these telescopes can be put together by children in minutes. And possess fairly sophisticated features (such as achromatic lenses). But note: a tripod (not included, but the mount is compatible with any standard camera tripod) is essential (the image in the Galileoscope logo, at right, notwithstanding). Otherwise, Jupiter will be jumping all over the place, and it’ll be impossible to share your revolutionary discoveries with others.

Playing with a telescope seems like the perfect way to wind down the Year of Astronomy. And they make very nice gifts (although December delivery is apparently not guaranteed). If you’ve never looked through a half-decent telescope, you will be absolutely astounded by what you see. One forgets that all these things we talk about and see pictures of really exist up there, and are just waiting to be admired!

Oddly addicting…a million views and rising!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc]

Some of you may have followed the threat to the historic Mt. Wilson observatory from the fires in Los Angeles earlier this month. Below is a fantastic time lapse video shot from one of the facilities on the mountain. You can see how close the fire came (though thankfully, the firefighters did a superb job in protecting observatory with targeted back burns to create firebreaks around the site).

As this video shows, astronomical observatories are frequently at risk from wildfires, since both tend to occupy dry remote mountaintops. Indeed, close to seven years ago, one of Australia’s major observatories on Mt. Stromlo was nearly obliterated by the fires that raced through the area:

Thankfully, Mt. Wilson survived this round.

PS. You can find a bit more about some of the ground breaking work that was done at Mt. Wilson along with some terrific old Life magazine photos here.