Awesome Ares-1 photos and interactive panorama

One of my friends at NASA sent me this link to an interactive, 3D panorama of the Ares I-X rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center. It was shot from ERoof South (maybe that means something to NASA insiders). He reports that the rocket is 327 feet tall, and if you look around you can spot a sign that indicates the height of the shuttle (HINT: the Ares is much taller!)

Along the same lines, here are some images of the Ares on its maiden test flight. I believe they were taken by Todd Hoffman Photography, but I think they are public domain since they were taken under a NASA contract. Here's liftoff:

The photo below shows the early part of the flight. Notice the beautiful shockwave around the upper third of the rocket.

Steel Mills in the Snow: Part 1

Flying into Chicago just before Christmas 2008, I had the opportunity to capture some shots of heavy industry covered in snow. Our flight path took us along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, from Gary, Indiana up to Midway Airport. Although taking photos through an airplane window doesn't produce the best quality, I couldn't pass up the juxtaposition of Rust Belt factories and steel mills covered in beautiful, white snow.

Burns Harbor, Indiana

Burns Harbor is a relatively modern harbor situated in Northern Indiana. You can just make out two channels and a breakwater at the left side of the images. At this time of year, you can clearly see that the port is closed due to the ice on the Lake. Check it out on Google Satellite.

US Steel, Gary Works

Gary Works is US Steel's largest manufacturing plant. It covers over 3000 acres on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, and has an annual raw steelmaking capability of 7.5 million tons. Here's a closer view...too bad I couldn't get the airplane wing out of the shot!

More coming soon...

Astro-Bat Hitches a Ride on the Space Shuttle

As the space shuttle Discovery sat on the launch pad, counting down to launch on mission STS-119, engineers discovered an anomaly: a little brown bat was clinging to the rough foam on the exterior of the main tank! I received the following email from a NASA engineer on Sunday afternoon:

We are 1.5 hours from launch, and the problem we have right now is that there is a 0.03 lb. brown bat on the tank. Previous experience tells us that the bat will likely hang on during launch until after the ship clears the launch tower, but no damage on the orbiter is likely.

We are go for launch based on the fact that they are considering the bat a soft body.

No, I am not kidding.

Here is the proof in photos. Click to zoom in to full size, and look for the little dark spot on the orange tank.

Yes, definitely a bat!Ever wondered how a bat looks in infrared? Me neither, but here's a photo anyway.

Did the bat let go before launch? Apparently not!

Here is the conclusion of the story, according to another NASA engineer:

Although we remained hopeful he would wake up and fly away, the bat eventually became IPR 119V-0080 after the ICE team finished their walkdown. He did change the direction he was pointing from time to time throughout countdown but ultimately never flew away. IR imagery shows he was alive and not frozen like many would think. The surface of the ET foam is actually generally between 60-80 degrees F on a day like yesterday. SE&I performed a debris analysis on him and ultimately a LCC waiver to ICE-01 was written to accept the stowaway. Lift off imagery analysis confirmed that he held on until at least the vehicle cleared to tower before we lost sight of him.

And thus is the legend of the STS-119 Bat-ronaut….

Those NASA engineers are funny guys. All joking aside, launching into space is a dangerous business. I have several friends who work directly on the Orbiters, and they are some of the most careful, dedicated engineers I have ever met. No detail, even a 0.03 pound brown bat, is too small to ignore when the lives of astronauts are at risk.