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Space Tourist Richard Garriott Launched on Space Station Vacation…
The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft (Expedition 18) launches Michael Fincke, Yury V. Lonchakov and Richard Garriott (AP Photo/NASA)
…but the station's toilet has broken down again.
For $30 million, you can get a ride into space for a 10-day trip on
board the International Space Station. To Richard Garriott, this is
money well-spent. He got to spend months training for the experience
and he will use the adventure to carry out experiments, educational
programs and to follow in his father's footsteps. 25-years earlier,
Owen Garriott flew on Space Shuttle Columbia, and before that he served
on Skylab. Having successfully launched on board the Soyuz launch
vehicle on Sunday, Garriott Jr. is keen to make space travel a family
affair, and make some history along the way; he is the first
second-generation American astronaut ever to be launched into space. It
sounds like an exciting few days await the 47 year old computer video
game entrepreneur…
But like any positive story, there's a flip-side. The International
Space Station, far from being The Ritz at the best of times, has been
inflicted with a rather annoying inconvenience… the main toilet is out
of order, requiring all on board to use the Soyuz en-suite. Although it is doubtful Garriott will get a room credit for the inconvenience, I'm sure the view of the Earth rotating below, the excitement of being involved in the biggest space
project ever conceived, and the joy of zero-G will more than make up
for the bathroom situation…
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www.spaceweather.com
A PIECE OF HISTORY: Veteran satellite observer Ralf
Vandebergh is on a personal quest--to photograph the oldest
spacecraft in Earth orbit. "I started in the spring of 2008,"
he says. "My interest quickly turned to the Tiros
satellites (Television Infrared Observation System) from the
early 1960s; they are legendary as the first successful weather
satellites in history. I spent a lot of time during the summer trying
to catch one, but failed for a variety of reasons: clouds, unfavorable
passes, the intrinsic faintness of the satellite itself. However,
I never gave up trying and finally succeeded on Sept. 29th when
I caught a rare good pass of Tiros 2."
He photographed the vintage satellite using a 10-inch telescope
and placed the photo beside a similar snapshot the International
Space Station. "We've come a long way in 48 years!"
"Tiros 2 was about as bright as a 3rd magnitude
star," says Vandebergh. "It was amazing to see something
launched in the same year as the famous Echo
1 satellite (1960), with the difference that Echo 1 burned up
in the atmosphere in 1968 while Tiros 2 is still in Earth orbit."
Tiros 2 stopped working in 1961, but the satellite itself is intact.
"If we could travel to Tiros 2, we would find there two old
video cameras (one low resolution/one high resolution), a magnetic
tape recorder, and some infrared sensors." Images from Tiros
2 looked like
this.
Readers, the Satellite Tracker is now monitoring Tiros 2. Check it out. You may be able to see
a piece of history flying over your own backyard tonight.
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P.S. Hope Michael brought some ziploc bags with him....