Right Back at It

Falcon 9 lifts off Moday night with 60 satellites on the Starlink 2 mission - photo by Ben Cooper

LIFT OFF: Monday evening, we tuned in just in time to watch SpaceX's third launch of Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Not only did we get to see the launch, but after stage separation, we watched Falcon 9’s first stage descend and land on "Of Course I Still Love You” SpaceX's droneship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Then, about 45 minutes after liftoff, SpaceX’s fairing recovery vessel, “Ms. Tree,” attempted to recover half of the rocket's nosecone, but apparently just missed. It's worth trying, as each piece of the faring is worth around $3 million. SpaceX would love to be able to save some money by reusing them on future flights. (Before Monday night's miss, Ms. Tree (the vessel formerly known as Mr. Steven),  has made two successful recoveries.  

You can watch a replay of launch coverage here below. The actual launch happens just after the 18-minute mark. The payload deployment, all 60 satellites, is at the very end of the video.


THE NAVIGATORS: CJ's history course this quarter covers 1500-1800 C.E. As part of his homework for this week, he is learning about the Columbian Exchange, European exploration and colonization.  

This morning we watched a documentary about the navigation skills of Polynesian Islanders. (I'm not certain how that fits into the subjects listed above, but, oh well.)  Anyway, the film, from 1983, focused on Grand Master Navigator Mau Piailug, of Satawal, a flat, one-square kilometer coral atoll just eight feet above sea level. When it was filmed, just 35 families lived there.

The film centered on Piailug's desire to teach the art of "wayfinding," navigation without tools or charts, to younger members of his community. Per Wikipedia Piailug "relied on navigational clues using the sun and stars, winds and clouds, seas and swells, and birds and fish, was acquired through rote learning passed down through teachings in the oral tradition."

Above, from Wikipedia, is a photograph of a recreation of the star compass of Mau Piailug depicted with shells on sand, The stars are labeled in Satawalese (one of the Trukic languages), as described by the Polynesian Voyaging Society. (The photo is shared via the the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

The documentary was definitely dated, but it was an interesting glimpse into a way of life so different from ours. It rather boggled my mind to think that while I was a high school senior, people on a tiny island in the Pacific were living a life so foreign to my own. I can't help but wonder what life is like on Satawal, nearly 40 years later from when the documentary was filmed. Piailug talked of his older children who had already left the island with his blessing, but that he was going to compel his two youngest children to stay. I wonder if they did.