Scary Soyuz

UH OH: The first news article I read this morning was about the failure of a manned Soyuz launch this morning. Fortunately, both astronauts are reportedly intact.

Per usual for Russian flights, the launch was from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. However, shortly after lift off, one of the rocket boosters failed during the ascent. That meant the launch was aborted, and the capsule had to return to Earth via a ballistic landing. On board were NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin.

Before the flight, the pair of would-be ISS residents were chilling in Star City, awaiting their assignment.

You can watch it go down (literally, unfortunately) in this video replay.  The video is edited for length, but includes the launch, the initial report of the issue, and the confirmation that the crew landed safely.

They had reached weightlessness when the booster failed, dooming their initial mission.  The time of the failure was 11:42:17 into the flight.


Sure hope the ISS is fully stocked for the three on board it right now. They're going to be short-handed help-wise for awhile, that's for sure.

I was relieved to see this photo of them safe, after their emergency landing.

Expedition 57 Crew Returns to Baikonur 

NASA caption: Expedition 57 Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, left, and Flight Engineer Nick Hague of NASA, right. embrace their families after landing at the Krayniy Airport, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Hague and Ovchinin arrived from Zhezkazgan after Russian Search and Rescue teams brought them from the Soyuz landing site. During the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft's climb to orbit, an anomaly occurred, resulting in an abort downrange. The crew was quickly recovered and is in good condition. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Below, Cosmonaut Ovchinin is welcomed back.

And here's astronaut Hague and his wife after some harrowing moments.

All photos: NASA

Lovely Ada

Watercolor portrait of Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, circa 1840, possibly by Alfred Edward Chalon

ADA DAY: We have fallen into a productive and comfortable routine of doing our algebra, science and grammar in the mornings, first thing. 

Tuesday, while perusing science topics on BrainPOP, we learned that the second Tuesday of every October 9 is Ada Lovelace day. The day was reportedly founded in 2009 by technologist Suw Charman-Anderson, to celebrate the achievements of women in STEM careers. Lovelace is considered by many to be the world's first computer programmer. 

Ada is no stranger to us. A couple years back, we attended a really fun birthday bash for Ada at the Living Computer Museum.

However, yesterday, we learned more about her, both from the BrainPOP video, Wikipedia, and a couple of other articles online. 

We knew that famed poet Lord Byron was Ada's father. We didn't know that he ditched Ada and her mother, when Ada was just a month old. (One report was that he was disappointed that his wife gave birth to a girl instead of the 'glorious boy' he was expecting. Ada never saw her father again. He died when she was eight years old.

Ada was a mother to three children (one son was named Byron, so I guess she didn't hold a grudge).

Ada was a sickly child, and contracted measles at one point, which left her bedridden for a year. Ada was home schooled, by a contingent of friends of the family, including Mary Somerville, who became a mentor. In 1833, Somerville introduced Lovelace to Charles Babbage, a British mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer. It was Babbage who originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.  We were fortunate to see his Difference Engine No. 1 when visiting the Science Museum in London a few years back.

photo: Science Museum collection, shared under Creative Commons license

Lovelace studied Babbage's The Analytical Engine at length. She provided extensive notes to Babbage about its potential. She realized that the machine "might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine...Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent." ^{(Citation: Lovelace, Ada; Menabrea, Luigi (1842). "Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by} 

^{Charles Babbage Esq". Scientific Memoirs. Richard Taylor: 694.}

So clearly, what Ada Lovelace saw was that numbers could represent entities other than quantity. It was a revolutionary notion.

Ada Lovelace (Augusta Ada Byron), in either 1843 or 1850. This daguerreotype by Antoine Claudet, and was likely taken in his studio in London. It's one of only two photos of Ada.

Unfortunately, Ada died in 1852, at young age of 36. One source said she had been ill for years, and died of uterine cancer.

BIG PANE: The home improvement campaign was in full swing this weekend. We recently replaced the big ol' window in our living room. This weekend, the master bedroom window was the major project.

I've been looking for weeks/months for a perfect (translation: CHEAP but brand new or barely used) replacement for the 55+ year old single pane, aluminum-framed windows that has been in place since 1962.

Finally, late at night last week, I spied a window on Facebook marketplace that would potentially work. We had to drive all the way to rural Bonney Lake, southeast of Auburn, about an hour away from home (with no traffic) to pick it up, but it was less than half of the retail price, so it was well worth the trip. 

In the photo below, the old window is out, and we've expanded the opening to accommodate the slightly-taller new window. 

Happily, the installation went really well (despite having to cut through stone to do it [the siding on our house is all rock]). The new window is in, and today I painted its new trim and caulked around it. I will give it another coat tomorrow, seal it up some more, and then the scaffolding comes down. What a great project to have in the rear view mirror!

INKTOBER: Annabelle is participating in a drawing 'challenge' this month. Called "Inktober," the month-long challenge where artists post one ink-drawn work for each day of October.

She's on day 8 and has done a drawing a day so far. She's using drawing prompts from this list.

Below is her drawing from Day 3, where the topic was "scarf."

You can find her on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/spooked.unicorn/

HUBBLE TROUBLE: Headlines have started to pop up over the past couple of days, pointing toward Big Trouble with the Hubble Space Telescope. Some of them made it sound like the Hubble was about to go lights out. 

Hubble Trouble: A Crisis in Cosmology?

Hubble trouble: Gyro failure puts space telescope out of action

The Butterfly Nebula, NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble has had trouble before. Really Big Trouble. Right after it launched, back in 1990, it was clear there was a significant problem with its mirrors. But that was remedied by a successful space telescope rescue mission by NASA astronauts on spacewalks.

However, the Really Big Problem right now is that the U.S. doesn't have a way to service the telescope. For years now, there have been no manned space launches from our shores. We buy seats on a Russian Soyuz. Our space program's fate is literally not in the driver's seat.

While headlines make it sound like Hubble is darn near a goner, the NASA press release from today makes it sounds less critical. ... 

Hubble in Safe Mode as Gyro Issues are Diagnosed

NASA is working to resume science operations of the Hubble Space Telescope after the spacecraft entered safe mode on Friday, October 5, shortly after 6:00 p.m. EDT. Hubble’s instruments still are fully operational and are expected to produce excellent science for years to come.Hubble entered safe mode after one of the three gyroscopes (gyros) actively being used to point and steady the telescope failed. Safe mode puts the telescope into a stable configuration until ground control can correct the issue and return the mission to normal operation.Built with multiple redundancies, Hubble had six new gyros installed during Servicing Mission-4 in 2009. Hubble usually uses three gyros at a time for maximum efficiency, but can continue to make scientific observations with just one.The gyro that failed had been exhibiting end-of-life behavior for approximately a year, and its failure was not unexpected; two other gyros of the same type had already failed. The remaining three gyros available for use are technically enhanced and therefore expected to have significantly longer operational lives.
Two of those enhanced gyros are currently running. Upon powering on the third enhanced gyro that had been held in reserve, analysis of spacecraft telemetry indicated that it was not performing at the level required for operations. As a result, Hubble remains in safe mode. Staff at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the Space Telescope Science Institute are currently performing analyses and tests to determine what options are available  to recover the gyro to operational performance.
Science operations with Hubble have been suspended while NASA investigates the anomaly. An Anomaly Review Board, including experts from the Hubble team and industry familiar with the design and performance of this type of gyro, is being formed to investigate this issue and develop the recovery plan. If the outcome of this investigation results in recovery of the malfunctioning gyro, Hubble will resume science operations in its standard three-gyro configuration.   
If the outcome indicates that the gyro is not usable, Hubble will resume science operations in an already defined “reduced-gyro” mode that uses only one gyro. While reduced-gyro mode offers less sky coverage at any particular time, there is relatively limited impact on the overall scientific capabilities.

One of my favorite Hubble photos ever is below! 

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Credits: NASA

These towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas sit at the heart of M16, or the Eagle Nebula. The aptly named Pillars of Creation, featured in this stunning Hubble image, are part of an active star-forming region within the nebula and hide newborn stars in their wispy columns.
Although this is not Hubble’s first image of this iconic feature of the Eagle Nebula, it is the most detailed. The blue colors in the image represent oxygen, red is sulfur, and green represents both nitrogen and hydrogen. The pillars are bathed in the scorching ultraviolet light from a cluster of young stars located just outside the frame. The winds from these stars are slowly eroding the towers of gas and dust.
Stretching roughly 4 to 5 light-years, the Pillars of Creation are a fascinating but relatively small feature of the entire Eagle Nebula, which spans 70 by 55 light-years. The nebula, discovered in 1745 by the Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux, is located 7,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens. With an apparent magnitude of 6, the Eagle Nebula can be spotted through a small telescope and is best viewed during July. A large telescope and optimal viewing conditions are necessary to resolve the Pillars of Creation.
Credits: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Last Updated: Feb. 22, 2018Editor: Brian Dunbar

Down to Earth

The landing under the Soyuz MS-08 fire as it lands with Expedition 56 Commander Drew Feustel , Flight Engineer Ricky Arnold of NASA, and Soyuz Commander Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos in Kazakhstan on Thursday, Oct. 4, 2018. The trio returned to Earth after 197 days in space aboard the International Space Station - Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

BUMPY LANDING: Yesterday, A Russian space capsule with three astronauts aboard safely returned to Earth. This landing was a little more exciting than most, as they had to employ a a last-minute emergency maneuver which resulted in a landing with the intensity of a "minor traffic accident," per a NASA press release.

In the photo above, you can see the capsule firing its jets, to try to slow it down, as it lands with a thud. (photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls ). The rockets slowing the touchdown is the aerospace equivalent of slamming on the brakes, NASA said.

That landing is just one of the many reasons I've always been a fan of the old Apollo-era splashdowns. 

Fortunately, Russia's Oleg Artemyev and NASA's Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold weren't any worse for the wear. The Americans inside had completed three space walks during their 197-day stay, performing maintenance on the orbiting laboratory. 

Their departure from the ISS was a bit different than normal, as Artemyev manually piloted the Soyuz through a partial loop around the station, allowing Feustel to carry out a photo survey of the ISS as the orbiting space laboratory nears the 20th anniversary of the first module’s launch (November 1998). 

BOW WOW, TO WASHINGTON: This morning, between algebra with Khan Academy and grammar via BrainPOP, I noticed that there was a live event on Facebook with the University of Washington Athletic department. The live video was an interview with the trainer of UW's new live mascot, Dubs II. 

Photo: UW Athletics (video screenshot)

The pup is a 9-month old malamute. (It turns out actual Huskies don't make the best mascots.) During the broadcast we learned his favorite chew toy is a duck (no kidding!). And a question we submitted during the broadcast was answered on the air. We asked, "Does Dubs have a middle name?" (That's one of CJ's favorite questions to ask dog owners when meeting canines during our travels.)

Dubs does have a formal (American Kennel Club) name: Akala’s Purple Reign. He also is sometimes called Dub Dub or Dubby for nicknames. 

You can watch the archived event here:

Striving to Catch Up

PICTURE THIS: Imagine our surprise a couple of days ago when we learned that CJ was featured in an email that went out to tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people.

The email was sent by our credit union, BECU (formerly Boeing Employees Credit Union), announcing their annual Day of Service on Oct. 8.

In the email was a big ol' photo of CJ with a BECU employee. The picture was taken this summer, when we attended a BECU-budget workshop for teens in the basement of Safeco Field. After the workshop, we got free tickets to a Mariners game. Both the budget activity and the game were big fun, and the price was right. ;)

Apparently when we signed up, we signed some waiver allowing the kids' photos to be used. 

A WRONG TURN: It was a lovely fall afternoon, so we put the harnesses on the pups and decided to walk to a 7-11 store not too far from our place. CJ has been eager to see if they have any of the Taco Bell hot sauce-inspired chips in stock (a 7-11 exclusive).

We made our way there and as we approached the store, I said to the kids, "School must have just got out," as there was a small crowd of kids about CJ and Annabelle's age outside the store.

As we got closer, it became obvious that the kids were standing outside the store, waiting to go in. We hung back for a bit to see what the deal was. 

The experience wound up with us coming home a little confused and upset, and CJ sharing an account via 7-11's website.

Here's what he submitted. ... 

At around 3:05 P.M, on 4 October 2018, we (a mother and children ages 13 and 15) visited Store #17486. At the time we arrived, we noticed 10-12 black youths waiting outside the store, facing the store, wanting to go in. (They were not just loitering.)

We wondered why they were waiting outside of the store, rather than going in. A couple kids in the group explained that they were only being let in two at a time. They encouraged us to go ahead of them and we declined, as they were there first. 

One of the students waiting had told us that after another youth had picked up an item in the store and was accused of stealing it. The student told us the other youth had put the item back, and pointed that out to the store worker.  As a result of this incident, apparently (per the students outside) the cashier said students could only come in the store two at a time. 

During our four or five minutes on the sidewalk with the students, they were all polite and well behaved, and encouraged us to go in ahead of them. We, however, were really not comfortable with that. Whether or not it was the case, by appearances it looked bad, frankly. The kids were all black, middle school or young high schoolers, and there was no way we (a white family with kids exactly their ages) were going to go traipsing into the store ahead of them. Honestly, even if they were all white, we still wouldn't have gone in ahead of them. It doesn't seem like fair treatment. It just seemed like the situation was potentially racism, ageism or some combination of the two, and we wanted no part of that.

Details that aren't in the account include the tone of the young man who told me why they were being forced to wait outside. I could tell he was upset - he seemed a mix of angry and confused. It certainly sounded like he thought they were being treated unfairly. When he told me his version of what happened, I wasn't sure what to say, so I simply replied, "I'm sorry that happened to you."

Multiple young women in the group urged us to go in. I pointed out to them that if only two students could be in the store at a time, my kids were their age, so that should apply to them, too, and they should wait in line. One girl said CJ and Annabelle would be OK since they had a parent with them. I quipped, "How about if I tell him you're all my kids?" :)

Anyway, we walked away from the store without our chips and feeling a little sad. I know we only heard one (well 10 or so, really) sides of the story, but it sure looked bad from the outside looking in.

Of course, as I sit here now, I'm wondering why I didn't go in the store and ask the manager what the hell was going on. That would have been the better thing to do. 

WAY BEHIND: I still have hundreds of photos from our trip in September to edit and share, and did I mention we went to Point Definace Zoo last week? They have a fabulous new aquarium there. These jellyfish were stunning!

They Are the Champions

KILLER QUEEN: Still playing catch up on our mid-September travelogue. One of the highlights of the trip was getting to see the Queen reisidency at the MGM Grand.

I was lucky enough to get to see Queen with the fabulous Freddie Mercury a couple of times. Freddie was gone way too soon, but I'm glad guitarist Dr. Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor are still making music. 

On the evening in question, CJ was representing, in an old Queen T and some ridiculous jeans we found at Value Village a month or so ago. 

We took an Uber from R&R's place to the Vegas Strip. It was a BUSY Saturday night there. At the T-Mobile arena was a huge, sold out boxing (re)match: Lineal Middleweight World Champion Canelo Alvarez and WBC/WBA/IBO Middleweight World Champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. We made our way through that crowd to the MGM, where our show was.

I'll have the kids tell you a bit more about the evening.

CJ is up first. ... 

From 1 September to 22 September of 2018, Queen + Adam Lambert (an act combining the classic British rock act Queen with modern-day pop singer Adam Lambert) performed several times at the Park Theater, a 5,200-seat theater located in MGM Resorts in Las Vegas, NV. We attended on the fifteenth of that month, which was their seventh concert at that residency, according to the residency's page on the MGM Resorts website.

Queen was supposed to start at 8 P.M, but, if I recall correctly, they did not start until later. Unfortunately, Setlist.fm's page on Queen's concert on 15 September 2018 does not have an actual setlist, so I'll have to go from memory. This was not my first time seeing Queen + Adam Lambert — I previously saw them at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, BC in February 2017. Noticeably, the more recent concert was shorter than the previous one I went to, likely because they played at the Park Theater for several nights that month, and likely didn't change their setlist that much.

Nevertheless, the show was very entertaining, and quite fun. The set seemed to be near-exclusively made of the band's radio hits from 45-30 years ago (examples: Another One Bites the Dust, Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Gaga, We Are The Champions, We Will Rock You, etc.)

Adam Lambert, while no Freddie, had a wide and strong vocal range, certainly impressing the audience members (including myself.)

All in all, Queen + Adam Lambert's concert was worth going to.

OK, so I'm just gonna say, after reading CJ's review, that kid is hard to impress. He's seen waaaaaaaaaaay too many epic concerts in his 15 years (his first was David Bowie, as a one-year-old). 

The concert was phenomenal, IMHO.

Above, Adam Lambert wants to ride his bicycle. 

Below, Queen's laser game was strong.

Here's Annabelle's take on the event. ...

At the MGM Park Theater on the Las Vegas strip, Queen + Adam Lambert performed for a crowd of thousands, playing numerous hits and popular songs. Adam Lambert, though straight up saying he’s “No Freddie Mercury,” was an amazing singer and performer. He absolutely killed it on songs like "We Will Rock You," "Killer Queen," "We Are the Champions." and many more. The stage, compared to when we saw them at Rogers Arena for the first time, was stunning. It was a full production due to their extended residency, and it showed in the sheer amount of lights and screens. There was even room below the stage for a large model of the head of the robot from “News of the World,” also known as “Frank”.

The crowd was very excited and willing to participate, allowing for a lot of call and response or sing-along bits during the songs. This was especially apparent during Bohemian Rhapsody, for obvious reasons. The residency, now over, was quite the experience and much flashier compared to our previous concerts. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I sincerely hope I get to see Queen + Adam Lambert again. 

Back to the Canyon

MORE: We're still working through all of the photos from our Grand Canyon visit a couple of weeks ago.

There were so many remarkable vistas and features. We could spend weeks and weeks there checking it all out.

For instance, look at the structure in the photo below. 

 It would be so cool to stand in those voids in the rock - but so scary getting there and back! :)

There were a number of signs along the canyon - but not as many as you might expect.  In the photo below, we were in about the middle of the South Rim.

The Grand Canyon was actually more green than we were thinking it would be. There were lots of trees and shrubs and even flowers.

This bark-less beauty caught my attention.

 Here's what CJ had to say about our visit to the Grand Canyon. ...

In September 2018, during our trip to Nevada and Arizona, we visited the South and West Rims of the Grand Canyon, during the portion of our trip in Arizona. We went to the Grand Canyon on two separate days (in a row), and stayed for multiple hours each day. One was in the afternoon, and the other was in the morning. Here are some of my recollections involving the Canyon:

When I first saw the Grand Canyon in person, it was mind-blowing. I had never seen a canyon that deep up to that point. For several minutes, we walked to my left, stopping at various points to admire and smell the view. Using an empty water bottle we had bought from a rural gas station several hours ago, my father and I filled it up with tap water from a foul-smelling men's room. The water tasted "stale," for lack of a better word. We also skimmed through exhibits at "lodges" on the rims, such as the Hopi House, featuring hard rocks taken from the canyon. The lodges provided shelter from the at-times brutal heat outside.

On the second day, we took multiple buses across multiple different gazing points, near the Western part of the South Rim. In particular, my mother wanted to visit "The Abyss." However, it turned out that "The Abyss" was not nearly as deep as its name implied. One of our drivers, Rob. E, asked bus passengers to get off the bus at stops and gaze into the canyon, as for many tourists, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.