Ten Thousand Words?

The Russian Soyuz had a flawless launch to send the latest Progress supply mission to ISS. That’s great!

SpaceX tried twice to launch its first Falcon 9 to geosynchronous orbit out of Florida, each time running into some (hopefully) minor hardware issues. Since it’s better to be safe than sorry, they’ll troubleshoot it and try again on Thursday. (Maybe.) Why Thursday, which is Thanksgiving Day in the United States? Turns out the issue is with getting the necessary airspace closed off. The FAA won’t do it on the busy travel days before and after Thanksgiving. Makes sense, even if it does mean that the SpaceX folks are working the holiday.

For the record, if I got a chance to work for SpaceX (I can send another copy of my resume any time!), I would work any holidays they wanted me to if it meant getting to play with stuff that’s going to have the Earth in its rear-view mirror. I suspect everyone there feels the same.

Finally, if “a picture is worth a thousand words”, does this qualify as 10,000 words on my NaNoWriMo word count?

I’m sorry, you want me to stick what where?

This is the picture that had a security guard threatening to have me arrested for standing on a public sidewalk. An interesting story, and a sore point for me. Maybe I’ll tell that one some time.