Tony Gray and Robert Murray for NASA / Carleton Bailie for United Launch Alliance

RISING WITH THE DAWN... FINALLY! After more than two years worth of setbacks...ranging from a brief cancellation by NASA due to technical problems in March of 2006 to liftoff being delayed two months because of, well, LOTS of issues (for starters, weather preventing fueling of one of its upper stage boosters days before it was suppose to launch in early July, and priority being given to send off a Mars-bound explorer last month), Dawn finally rocketed away from Florida around 4:34 AM, Pacific Daylight Time, today. The launch was actually delayed 14 minutes when a ship strolled into the restricted launch zone off the shores of Cape Canaveral. For the next couple of days (or weeks?), Dawn will be visible to residents living in Alaska and Hawaii who have decent telescopes and know where to look in the night sky. You can pinpoint the spacecraft’s location by going to this website, and change the TARGET BODY to "Dawn". Of course, as a catch, you also need to be a huge, huge nerd and know what the hell phrases such as "center geodetic" and "center radii" mean (I don’t...except for the radii part). So essentially, if you can’t figure out how to locate Dawn in space, tough luck. Actually, a NASA scientist working on this mission goes into nice detail in this article about where the probe will be right after launch. Check the last 6 paragraphs of his entry.


NASA JPL / George Shelton / UCLA

So those of you who actually read my Blogs are probably asking, "Why the hell are you talking about this, anyway (you geek)?" Well... As I stated lots of times before (I wrote far TOO MANY journal entries regarding this to link to here), Dawn is carrying a piece of hardware that contains an imprint showing that I’m onboard for the ride. Actually, it contains the imprints of 365,000 people who got to submit their names via the Internet from March of 2006 (right after NASA brought the mission back from cancellation) to November 4 of that same year. They are printed onto a silicon microchip, which is the size of an American 5-cent coin, shown below. I took the photo on the upper left-hand corner of this montage, during an "open house" that took place at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on May 19 of this year. The list of names next to that microchip were actually submitted for Dawn. That microchip is one of about three copies that were made, while the actual chip was installed onto the spacecraft in Florida two days earlier on May 17.




Granted, much of the info in this paragraph was mentioned in the NASA press release that I posted in this previous Blog, but that's okay. The image below shows the flight path Dawn will take on its 8-year, 3-billion-mile journey through the Asteroid Belt. Dawn’s first destination will be Mars in February of 2009...for a brief flyby that will allow the spacecraft to gain additional speed on its voyage to the asteroid Vesta. Dawn will arrive at Vesta in August of 2011 for a 6-month study. It will then head to the dwarf planet Ceres and reach it in February of 2015...for another half-year study. Then, assuming NASA doesn’t decide to send it to another asteroid to explore, Dawn will be left in orbit around Ceres...where it will remain for about 50 years. Will Dawn eventually enter and burn up in Ceres’ atmosphere? I don’t know. And I HOPE NOT. Of course, I won’t mind if NASA had another public outreach effort for a mission like New Horizons by then. The New Horizons spacecraft is currently headed for Pluto, with a compact disc bearing the names of more than 430,000 people onboard. New Horizons will eventually leave our Solar System...and head deep into the Milky Way Galaxy. Horizons, and those 430,000 names, will literally fly across the stars for the next millions or billions of years (unless it flies INTO a star or something). I know, I know... That was geeky AND sentimental.


Courtesy of The Planetary Society

NASA TV

TOMORROW, BEFORE DAWN... Below is an official press release talking about tomorrow's hopeful launch of the Dawn spacecraft to the Asteroid Belt. The weather forecast calls for a 60% chance of acceptable launch conditions come Thursday morning. Hopefully it'll improve to, like, 100 PERCENT by then. Godspeed Dawn. Anyways, here's the release:

****

NASA Spacecraft is a 'Go' for Asteroid Belt

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Launch and flight teams are in final preparations for the planned Sept. 27 liftoff from Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., of NASA's Dawn mission. The Dawn spacecraft will venture into the heart of the asteroid belt, where it will document in exceptional detail the mammoth rocky asteroid Vesta, and then, the even bigger icy dwarf planet Ceres.

"If you live in the Bahamas this is one time you can tell your neighbor, with a straight face, that Dawn will rise in the west," said Dawn Project Manager Keyur Patel of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Weather permitting, we are go for launch Thursday morning "a little after dawn."

Dawn's Sept. 27 launch window is 7:20 to 7:49 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (4:20 to 4:49 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time). At the moment of liftoff, the Delta II's first-stage main engine along with six of its nine solid-fuel boosters will ignite. The remaining three solids are ignited in flight following the burnout of the first six. The first-stage main engine will burn for 4.4 minutes. The second stage will deposit Dawn in a 185-kilometer-high (100-nautical-mile) circular parking orbit in just under nine minutes. At about 56 minutes after launch, the rocket's third and final stage will ignite for approximately 87 seconds. When the third stage burns out, actuators and push-off springs on the launch vehicle will separate the spacecraft from the third stage.

"After separation, the spacecraft will go through an automatic activating sequence, including stabilizing the spacecraft, activating flight systems and deploying Dawn's two massive solar arrays," said Patel. "Then and only then will the spacecraft energize its transmitter and contact Earth. We expect acquisition of signal to occur anywhere from one-and-a-half hours to three-and-a-half hours after launch."

The Dawn mission will explore Vesta, and later Ceres, because these two asteroid belt behemoths have been witness to so much of our solar system's history.

"Visiting both Vesta and Ceres enables a study in extraterrestrial contrasts," said Dawn Principal Investigator Christopher Russell of the University of California, Los Angeles. "One is rocky and is representative of the building blocks that constructed the planets of the inner solar system. The other may very well be icy and represents the outer planets. Yet, these two very diverse bodies reside in essentially the same neighborhood. It is one of the mysteries Dawn hopes to solve."

Using the same spacecraft to reconnoiter two different celestial targets makes more than fiscal sense. It makes scientific sense. By utilizing the same set of instruments at two separate destinations, scientists can more accurately formulate comparisons and contrasts. Dawn's science instrument suite will measure mass, shape, surface topography and tectonic history, elemental and mineral composition, as well as seek out water-bearing minerals. In addition, the Dawn spacecraft itself and the way it orbits both Vesta and Ceres will be used to measure the celestial bodies' gravity fields.

"Understanding conditions that lead to the formation of planets is a goal of NASA's mission of exploration," said David Lindstrom, Dawn program scientist at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "The science returned from Vesta and Ceres could unlock many of the mysteries of the formation of the rocky planets including Earth."

Before all this celestial mystery unlocking can occur, Dawn has to reach the asteroid belt and its first target – Vesta. This is a four-year process that begins with launch and continues with the firing of three of the most efficient engines in NASA's space motor inventory - ion propulsion engines. Employing a complex commingling of solar-derived electric power and xenon gas, these frugal powerhouses must fire for months at a time to propel as well as steer Dawn. Over their eight-year, almost 4-billion-mile lifetime, these three ion propulsion engines will fire cumulatively for about 50,000 hours (over five years) - a record for spacecraft.

The Dawn mission to asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres is managed by JPL, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Other scientific partners include: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg, Germany; and Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, Rome. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., designed and built the Dawn spacecraft.

****


NASA / UCLA

TODAY... A MUCH BIGGER big-screen reincarnation of Transformers gets released in theaters, and so does Jessica "I’m-so-clumsy-I’m-FREAKIN’-HOT" Alba’s newest film Good Luck Chuck. Speaking of Ms. Alba, I could’ve friggin' met her at San Diego Comic-Con last July!! She showed up unexpectedly to promote Chuck. Son-of-a... French poodle. Ah, screw it—that was lame. BITCH. Anyways, where was I? Oh yea... You can’t accuse me of wasting cash on seeing Transformers in IMAX when I wasted so much money on seeing it multiple times at the regular cineplex throughout the summer. Hah! Can’t wait to see what those two extra minutes in the IMAX version consist of, haha. By the way, I was thinking about showing that poster where an ice cream cone is melting in one of Alba’s hands, but I decided to post this more modest pic instead. Very subtle, eh?

THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING CALLED "SWEET"... Just wanted to point out that if a girl ever calls you that, and you're not her boyfriend, chances are you're in trouble. Over the course of the years, ladies would call me sweet (I have lots of messages in my junior high and high school yearbooks to prove my point, haha), and while that compliment was obviously welcomed, it was also some sort of 'kiss of death'. Not to repeat that overused cliché, but girls don't look for "sweet" guys, but bad dudes or a-holes to get with. That's why you see million-dollar athletes, A-list and has-been Hollywood actors, rock stars and other dudes who'll most likely cheat later on in the relationship 'cause-they-could get with hot chicks. In my case, having a shaved head for the past 7 years, that's why I was able to talk to a lot of really attractive girls (and personality might have had SOME things to do with it). But if I had a flattop like I did in 11th grade, things would probably be different. Damn hard-core Asian looks, haha.

When a girl calls you 'sweet' (and you're not her boyfriend), chances are she genuinely means it, but if you ever try to make a move on her, she'll probably crush your heart like it was a Coke can ('tin can' is overused). Or maybe this situation only applies to me. Whatever.

NASA / Jim Grossmann

A WEEK FROM TODAY (HOPEFULLY)... I’d repost what I said the last time I made a 7-days-till-launch alert regarding Dawn, but by doing that I’m gonna mention outdated info about the spacecraft having to launch before the Phoenix Mars lander does (it lifted off last month), or else it runs the risk of being delayed till September (which would be this month!) if it doesn’t make its short launch window in July (which it didn’t!). So I’ll just say that Dawn’s launch window this time around extends to October 15, and doesn’t run the risk of being grounded by afternoon thunderstorms since it is now scheduled to launch at 7:25 AM, Eastern Daylight Time (or before dawn, pun intended, if you live on the West Coast of the U.S. like I do). However, Dawn could still be delayed if crappy weather thwarts the fueling of its second stage booster days before next Wednesday’s liftoff. I’m not jinxing it. That’s one of the factors that grounded Dawn two months ago.


UCLA / William K. Hartmann

Dawn will be the last of the three spacecraft this year (behind Phoenix and Japan's Kaguya lunar orbiter, which launched 6 days ago) carrying some sort of hardware that has the names of mine and thousands of other people on it. I’ll talk more about it next week...when hopefully, and finally, Dawn starts its long-anticipated sojourn into the deep vastness of the Asteroid Belt. I like using big words, and getting potentially repetitive, in my Blog. What’s an asteroid? Just kidding.


NASA KSC / Jim Grossmann

PRISON BREAK... Season 3 of the hit TV series premieres tonight (and NO, I wasn’t paid by FOX to write this entry. I wish it did). The premise for this season involves Michael Scofield trying to find a way to escape a Panama prison known as Sona after being wrongly incarcerated last season. His brother Lincoln Burrows, who Scofield sought to free from an American prison in Season 1 and was finally exonerated from death row last season, now has to rescue his brother as well as Lincoln’s son LJ and Scofield’s love interest, Sara Tancredi. And while the conspiracy involving U.S. President Caroline Reynolds and The Company is over, The Company had a little role in getting Scofield sent to Sona, as well as having him escape from it...along with a mysterious inmate known as Whistler.

Can't wait. Here lies the dilemma, though: Since I work during the evenings and don’t have TiVo, should I continue to make Mondays my unofficial day-off to watch primetime, um, FOX televsion (I was 'available' to work on Mondays during the weeks after the reality TV show Hell's Kitchen, which I also watch, ended), or should I risk missing an episode of Prison Break in case I get scheduled for Lunes (I actually had to do research on that one since I don’t speak Español, haha)? I could make up for this by working during the weekends (which I haven’t done for the past few weeks), but for reasons pertaining to the girl I talked about in this Blog, I prefer not to. Should I risk missing suspenseful episodes of Break by working on Lunes/Mondays/whatever? Or should I risk feeling, not to sound like a sensitive little prude or anything, heartache coming home after working a shift with Susie on the weekends (she has school and is only available to work on Saturdays and Sundays. And maybe Fridays)? Obviously, I can make up for missing episodes by buying Season 3 on DVD next summer, but that’s next summer! Heartache, summer, heartache, summer... Can’t decide.

...

Meh. I’ll take day-offs on Mondays. And the weekends. Money-wise, I’ll be so screwed come the holiday season, haha. That’s three months from now. Crap.

SO ACCORDING to various online news reports (who in turn got the news from Shia LaBeouf, who will play the archaeologist's sidekick in the upcoming film, at last Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards), that's the new title of the fourth Indy installment. When I first heard about it, I was thinking, "Um, isn't that title a little long?" But then I thought about Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and thought, "Nope, it's not". It's catchy...and obviously fits in with The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade. Now hopefully The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be just as good as these previous sequels (or at least The Last Crusade. I didn't really like Temple of Doom). We'll see... If Rocky Balboa and Live Free or Die Hard are any indication, there's a good chance Indy IV just might deliver. *Crosses fingers*

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

FLY ME TO THE MOON... And however the rest of the lyrics to that Frank Sinatra song go. At 6:31 PM, Pacific Daylight Time today (10:31 AM, Japan Time on September 14), an H-IIA rocket carrying the Kaguya spacecraft lifted off from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan after a one-day weather-related delay. Kaguya, formerly known as SELENE (or—Yes, I’m really nerdy enough to type this out—SELenological and ENgineering Explorer), will take 19 days to reach the Moon. 37 days after launch, Kaguya—which is such an ambitious project that it has been labeled "the largest lunar mission since the Apollo program" in the 1960’s—will settle into a 62 mile-high circular orbit...and will start its one yearlong mission.


These two photos show the aluminum sheets as well as the location on the spacecraft
where they will be installed (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)

So what makes Kaguya worth mentioning in my Blog, you ask? Simple... Aluminum sheets (shown above) bearing the names and messages of 412,627 people, including Yours Truly, are onboard the spacecraft. As part of the Wish Upon the Moon campaign carried out by The Planetary Society of Japan and The Planetary Society based in Pasadena, California, people got to submit their names and wishes online earlier this year. The name of this public outreach effort is based on the classic line "Wish Upon the Star" (in case you didn’t notice), though a consolation for your wishes not coming true is your name orbiting the Moon for at least a year before it crashes down onto the lunar surface. Unlike the Phoenix Mars lander, which has a DVD onboard that should last for at least 500 years on the Red Planet's surface, and Dawn, which is carrying a silicon microchip bearing the names of 365,000 people and should stay in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres for at least 50 years, Kaguya will eventually come to a fiery end at the end of its mission. Oh well. It will still last longer than my name did on Deep Impact. Anyways, that’s all. Two spacecraft launched, one more to go. Dawn launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida on September 26. Godspeed, Dawn.



Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency / The Planetary Society (Japan/USA)

KAGUYA Blog Entries Archive:

April 11, 2007
September 5, 2007

BACK AT THE PAD... Yesterday morning, the Dawn spacecraft was re-attached to its Delta II rocket at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, after spending more than a month in storage waiting for its next launch opportunity. Originally scheduled for launch on July 7, various factors—such as the launch of the Phoenix Mars Lander on August 4 to bad weather preventing fueling of its second stage booster only days before liftoff—prompted Dawn to be placed on stand-down as NASA looked for a new date to try sending the spacecraft on its long-awaited trip to the Asteroid Belt. That new date is September 26...when Dawn will hopefully lift off from its seaside pad at 4:25 AM, Pacific Daylight Time. Dawn will have till October 15 to launch on an eight-year voyage to the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. Hopefully it won’t go down to the wire like that... Won’t say anymore ‘cause, as usual, I don’t wanna jinx it!


NASA KSC / Jim Grossmann

3:10 TO YUMA... I saw the film this weekend, and all I have to say is...it was good! Russell Crowe as captured outlaw Ben Wade kicks ass!! The last time I rooted for Crowe in a movie was as Maximus in Gladiator. Not to spoil the film or anything, but how interesting that it was he who was the actual hero (or should I say, anti-hero) in the story. Not gonna tell you why that’s the case, since I would have to ruin the ending for ya'll to do so. Christian Bale did a great job, and Ben Foster was a bad-ass as Wade's second cowboy-in-command Charlie Prince. A great villain. Again, not to give anything away, but Charlie is so ruthless that you definitely root for Wade when he and Charlie clash in the climax. I have the sudden urge to watch other Western films now, haha. Still haven’t seen Unforgiven or Tombstone... One more thing: I could’ve SWORN that that was Luke Wilson who was part of the posse overseeing the construction of that railroad... I know it's him. Rhetorical comment.



I also watched Shoot ‘Em Up this weekend. WAAAY over-the-top...unless you think it's possible to easily punch a carrot stick through a guy's throat. The only thing I understood from the story was something about bone marrow and gun control. And I'd hate to be that toddler who was being "protected" by Clive Owen and Monica Bellucci. Is it just me, but Owen might be typecast as the typical anti-hero in an eccentric action film (RE: Sin City)? Paul Giamatti was definitely over the top in this film (obviously intentional... I should compare his performance in this movie to his role in Sideways, haha)...and Ms. (Mrs?) Bellucci, sadly, isn’t being treated that kindly by age. Not to sound like a punk or anything. Or it could possibly be that her role as a hooker was surprisingly not a turn-on in this movie? She was HOT in The Matrix sequels (one of the only reasons why those films are worth watching) and Brotherhood of the Wolf. But Shoot ‘Em Up? I like the constant depiction of breast-sucking throughout the film, though. I’ll end this Blog now.

TRANSFORMERS: THE DVD... Days after word got out that Steve Jablonsky’s original film score for Transformers will be sold in stores starting October 9, news has been released that the movie itself will be coming out on DVD a week later! Woohoo! Can’t wait... Transformers will be released on standard DVD and HD DVD versions. Those of you who want a Blu-Ray copy of the movie will be left hanging...as Paramount and Microsoft made a deal a few weeks ago to have Paramount movies released exclusively on High Definition for at least the next 18 months. This originally prompted director Michael Bay to get peeved at the "one format only" approach and threaten to walk out on helming Transformers 2, but had a change of heart after watching the movie 300 on HD DVD. Sigh... What a relief. For those of you who want Bay to come back for the sequel, haha.



TRANSFORMERS: ON IMAX... On September 21, the sci-fi blockbuster will be briefly released on 70mm theatrical projection...complete with two extra minutes of new footage! Either it’ll be a prolonged version of Sam and Mikaela making out on top of Bumblebee’s hood, or we’ll finally get to see what happened to Barricade (the Decepticon cop car) towards the end of the film. Like I said... Can’t wait!

A RANDOM, DISGRUNTLED POST (Typed early in the morning...like around 1:15 AM)... As has been the case since my family first got it in 2002, there have been various times each year where my DSL connection would be on the fritz during certain parts of the day, and I literally couldn’t go on the Internet for a couple of hours (recently it was EIGHT hours, from 11 AM to 7 PM). Which brings me to typing this post. I’ve already posted a past journal entry lambasting this company (don’t feel like finding that Blog in my archives), but Verizon REALLY pisses me off. I remember a few years back where some Verizon tech person I talked to on the phone said the sporadic loss of connection was possibly due to a deteriorating phone line underground. Unfortunately, nothing could be done about that line until it completely became inactive and enough people called in to get that phone line repaired or replaced. SAY WHAT??? SCREW YOU, VERIZON!! Granted, the response by you readers will be "Just get cable then, you idiot!" But I'm not the one paying for DSL, and Verizon is also our home/cell phone provider. It's all about saving money even if it's with a phone company whose corporate office I want to bom-- Nevermind. However, my family is paying ‘X’ amount of dollars monthly for DSL (gotta check to see how much cable costs), and we have to worry about not being able to get the Internet for several hours each day because some f***face from that phone company won’t repair a cable? Makes me want to put a bullet in your heads, you punkass-little douchebags. I TOLD YOU this post was gonna sound disgruntled... Just not disgruntled enough to say I want to bomb their corporate- Nevermind again.

Of course, it’s not only Verizon’s fault. There’s probably some rat bastard somewhere in my neighborhood who is downloading crap (bootleg movies? Pirated software?) that causes the phone line to become overloaded. I wanna put a bullet in your head too, f***er. I was hoping this problem would end once school began for jailbait runts living nearby, as I assumed that it’s some teenage dips*** living down the street who’s too busy browsing Youtube or posting lousy songs on their Myspace profile, but it’s 1:15 AM in the morning (I just couldn’t post this Blog during that time because, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, I couldn’t log onto Blogger.com), and I’m too busy watching as the "Ready" light on my DSL modem continues to blink. It’s supposed to be lit solid-green when there is Internet connection. So time to get off the computer, and wish that I had cable instead of DSL to help me get my daily dose of online crap. DAMN YOU, VERIZON!! DAMN YOU TO HEELLL!! There goes my insomnia. Time to sleep.

UPDATE: My internet connection is slow as I post this. Well son-of-a-bitch.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

A WEEK FROM TODAY (HOPEFULLY)... If things go according to plan, Japan will launch what has been billed as "the largest lunar mission since the Apollo program" from Tanegashima Space Center next Wednesday. I’ll write more about this right after it launches...since I don’t want to repeat myself in terms of details about the flight, and what Kaguya is carrying that makes it worth mentioning on my Blog. If you’ve read the last few space-related journal entries here, you’d know what I’m talking about. If not— Well... Like I said, I’ll write more about it after launch next week. Not to jinx it or anything. Later.


Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

KAGUYA Blog Entries Archive:

April 11, 2007

WHERE’S STEVE JABLONSKY?? Part III: In retail stores, that's where he'll be...or at least his film score. About a week ago, word broke out online that the Transformers music score will be released on October 9. FINALLY!! Details can be seen on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. Of course, if you want to ensure that Warner Bros. Records doesn't change its mind and delay the score's release (Is that possible? Don't wanna know), you can sign a petition here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/tfmjabcd/petition.html (5,478 signatures as of this Blog)

Can't wait till October 9!!



WHERE’S STEVE JABLONSKY?? Part I
WHERE’S STEVE JABLONSKY?? Part II

Track Listings:

1. Autobots
2. Decepticons
3. All Spark
4. Deciphering the Signal
5. Frenzy
6. Optimus
7. Bumblebee
8. Soccent Attack
9. Sam at the Lake
10. Skorpinok
11. Cybertron
12. Arrival to Earth
13. Whitwicky
14. Downtown Battle
15. Sector 7
16. Bumblebee Captured
17. You're a Soldier Now
18. Sam on the Roof
19. Optimus vs. Megatron
20. No Sacrifice, No Victory