Its was like watching someone turn off the life-support machines of an old friend. June 30th, 2008, was the last day of mission operations for the Ulysses spacecraft, after nearly 18 years of service. It also brings to an end the exploration of a region of our solar system that’s not likely to be visited again in our lifetimes.
The Ulysses Mission was originally conceived as the International Solar Polar Mission, a tandem mission with one spacecraft being built by NASA and the other by ESA. Budget cuts reduced the mission to a single spacecraft jointly engineered by the two agencies. Ulysses was originally to be launched in 1983, but was delayed to the Spring of 1986 and set to deploy from the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Challenger. As a result of the Challenger accident, its launch was delayed even more. These delays would come back to haunt the mission as the radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) used to power the mission have a fixed lifetime and were constructed and tested in the early 80s. Ulysses was finally launched and deployed from the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Discovery on October 6th, 1990 and began is trek out to Jupiter and to the Sun’s polar regions.
The primary 6-year mission called for a single solar orbit giving coverage of both the Sun’s southern and northern polar regions at solar minimum and covering radial distances from its perihelion of 1.3 AU to its aphelion of 5.4 AU. Ulysses performed so well that its mission would be extended multiple times allowing it to complete three full orbits. The additional orbits allowed Ulysses to investigate the polar regions during solar maximum, and during our current rise to maximum.
Eventually, the old RTGs became a terminal factor for the spacecraft. With power from the RTGs dwindling, power sharing techniques had to be employed. Various power sharing schemes were developed, but the one that was used allowed all of the science missions to remain active, however it required that the high-bandwidth X-band transmitter be shut down during data collection. Data was to be stored on board for later download. To retrieve data, the science instruments would be shut down and the transmitter restarted. However, the X-band transmitter never came back to life. This was not a stopper for the recovery of science data. The S-band transmitter used for command and telemetry could be used to stream the science data if at a slower rate, but the heat generated by the X-band transmitter was used to help keep the hydrazine fuel lines from freezing. With its power ebbing, its heaters off, and the X-band transmitter broken, Ulysses was destined to freeze and begin to tumble. Once it tumbles and loses lock on the Earth, recovery is impossible. It was determined that July 1st, 2008 would be the day that Ulysses was put to rest.
Since 1999, I’ve been working with the energetic particle data from the MF Spectrum Analyzer (MFSA) of the Heliosphere Instrument for Spectra, Composition and Anisotropies at Low Energy (HISCALE). Here the term “low energy” is relative. The HISCALE instrument measured protons and ions with energies from around 50 keV/nuc to upwards of 20 MeV/nuc and electrons from about 40 to 400 keV. The MFSA worked within the energy range of 50 to 5000 keV/nuc for protons, but provided a higher degree of energy resolution than anything else out there. Even though the spacecraft is now silent and adrift, we still have one and a half solar cycles worth of high-quality data that can yield a LOT of science.
Our immediate project at Fundamental Technologies is to organize and describe the data we have in such a way that it can be easily shared through the Virtual Heliospheric Observatory. If you’d like to use the HISCALE data or are just curious as to what we do at FunTech, browse over to http://ulysses.ftecs.com/ where I keep a blog on the current state of a few of our projects.
H.R. 5767 is designed to block the implementation of the poorly worded, poorly crafted, and ill-conceived UIGEA law that passed under the cover of darkness in September 2006 as an amendment of the SAFE Ports Act. The banking industry is very much against this bill, as of course we poker players are, because the lion’s share of enforcement work is being dumped on them. This is an unfunded mandate from their perspective. Mr. Frank and Mr. Paul both realize that the bill not only is poorly constructed, but ill-intended as well. Be sure to call or write the committee to let them know our thoughts as poker players. The Poker Players’ Alliance has some great online tools that we can use to contact our representatives, and the Financial Services Committee specifically.
The Poker Players Alliance has a new website and man does it look great. Its a Wordpress-based page and its given me some ideas on how to update some of my other sites. (I expect this one will remain as it is for now.) If you’re already a member of the PPA, you’ll still need to register on the new site since they’re using a completely different format. No worries, though, they’ve saved all of the membership data and there’s a utility through which you can retrieve your membership number if you’ve forgotten it. If you’re not a current member of the PPA, I strongly encourage you to join. Registering on the website is free, and $20/year gets you a wealth of benefits in addition to helping out the strongest lobby organization representing us poker players.
My brother and I left at 0600hr Saturday morning and started driving our way down to Texas. Its kinda funny that we ended up driving about 1200 miles and spent about 17 hours in the car to watch a 342 mile race that took about two hours to complete.
We thought it would be neat to have a photo record of our journey which started in Missouri, and headed out to Kansas. Of course what are we greeted with when we get into Kansas?
Ok, so we pay our $5.25. What did we get for it? Well, we did get to see the Flint Hills. BTW, most people have the misconception that Kansas is flat, but that would be incorrect. It is hilly, there just aren’t any trees!
We rolled through Oklahoma City around noon, so I called up a good friend of mine who works in Norman and we were able to hook up for lunch. That worked out quite nicely, really, and it was good to see Michelle and Dave again. Finally that afternoon, we rolled into Texas! Woohoo!! …or should I say YeeHaw? Its not the best picture, I know, but we’d been in the car for about 8 hrs already, cut me some slack!
We stopped off in Denton and checked in to our high-class room at the Motel 6. Yes, they left the light on for us. Denton turned out to be a great place to stay. Its just north of the track, right on I-35, and the Motel 6 was clean, the people were nice, and it was cheap. There was a language issue, though.
Me: “Pardon me, could we get a couple of bath towels? There aren’t any in our room.”
Housekeeper: “¿Qué?”
We finally made it to the track around 4pm and wandered around the midway for a while. I went to the Downforce trailers (not tents) and got my 1500 fan points for attending the race (points toward my next free tickets! :D), and picked up our seats for the race. After wandering around for a while and not seeing any great swag, we went up to our seats. Boy were we surprised at the quality of the seats! These tickets were fantastic!! If you’re a fan of IndyCar racing at all, you should definitely consider signing up for the Downforce fan club! Our seats, although providing us a great vantage point for the race, didn’t give us a great view of Robbie Knievel’s jump, but the track had good jumbotron that were easily viewed from our location.
The start of the race was really cool. With the sun going down, the sparks from the bottom of the race cars and the picture flashes from the stands were magnificent! Check out the videos of the start of the race, and a restart after a round of yellow-flag pitstops. The look of the track at night was so cool. I’m officially a fan of night races now!
The racing action was really good, and there were multiple racing lines on the track which made for some great side-by-side racing. Not surprisingly, Scott Dixon crossed the finish line on the 228th and final lap ahead of everyone else. …again. Unfortunately, the race ended under caution because Marco Andretti. …again. This incident was remarkably similar to the incident at Milwaukee.
With the race over, we made our way out of the speedway and back up to Denton. The egress was remarkably easy. TMS really has their traffic situation handled very well. Anyway, we got back to our room, turned on the TV and watched the end of the race. …again. Apparently the race was tape-delayed so that ESPN could show the rest of the NASCAR Nationwide Series race. ARG! That meant that I didn’t get the ending recorded on TiVo! So the next morning we headed back and finally made it back home 36 hrs after we left on Saturday morning.
What a great race, and a fun road trip. Texas will definitely be on my short list of races to attend in 2009!
As usual, Saturday before the race, my bro-in-law Ryan and I went to Muncie and met up with my friend Steve. We enjoyed our traditional Greek’s breadsticks, and weird beer downtown at Herot. Herot is a pub devoted to all manner of beer from all over the world, and like its literary namesake, its dimly lit, and decorated with various standards, weapons, and dead animals. Its the only place I’ve ever been where I can say that I’ve never had the same beer twice, and I’ve been there many many times!
Well, Carb Day was a bummer because of the moisture, but Race Day was perfect weatherwise. The temps were perfect, the skies were slightly overcast but not gloomy or threatening, and the breeze was gentle. I think it was by far the best race day weather I’ve ever experienced! Everything just seemed right this year with the Race. The balloons looked beautiful, Jim Nabors was back, and the American open-wheel community was reunited with Andretties, Rahals, and Foyts all running together once again.
If you’ve never seen the start of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race live and in person, then you can’t understand how magical the moment really is. This year, we were in a different section. Typically we sit in Section J at the exit of Turn 4, but this year we were in the Northwest Vista near the apex of Turn 4. We got a better view of the North Chute, but we couldn’t see the pits or the front straight. Although I still prefer Section J, the NW Vista did provide a great view of the start of the race!
The race itself was a bit disjointed. Lots of yellows disrupting the flow of the race. As the race winner, Scott Dixon, said, “There was no rhythm to the race.” There were many things that happened that were expected, some that were surprising, and a couple that were downright tragic. In the expected category was Milka’s car on the hook after spinning resulting from contact with Buddy Lazier.
The most tragic event of the race was when Sarah Fisher collided with a spinning Tony Kannan in the North Chute between Turns 3 and 4.
Its a bummer anytime any racer tears up a racecar, but in Sarah’s case it was especially unfortunate. This year Sarah has put together her own team and is competing as a driver/owner of Sarah Fisher Racing. She and her team had worked very hard at putting together a sponsorship program with two main sponsors, ResQ Energy Drink and Gravity Entertainment, both of whom failed to live up to their contractual obligations and never sent a dime to the fledgling team. The most heartwarming story of the month was the outpouring of goodwill and hard cash donations from Sarah’s fans. Perhaps SFR should solicit Turbine for a sponsorship since they could share the same slogan, “Powered by our fans!” The collision with Kannan set SFR way back financially, and its questionable whether they’ll make the Kentucky race as they’d hoped. In a great gesture of sportsmanship, Andretti Green Racing has supplied Sarah Fisher Racing with some replacement part to help rebuild their racecar. I really hope they can recover from this setback.
This will be my last year of attending the Race with Steve and his family. I’d like to take the opportunity to express my overwhelming gratitude for him and his family inviting and welcoming me to be part of their 50-year tradition of attending the 500. I’ve had a great time with them these past eight years. This doesn’t mean that I’ll not be attending the 500 next year! Now that Tab is also interested in IndyCar racing and the 500, we’re going to try to start our own family tradition of attending the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. With luck, we’ll be able to get seats close to Steve and his family in Section J. I’ve got my fingers crossed!
Rain, rain, and more rain. That was the theme for the day and it sucked. We did get to see about 15-minutes of practice before they threw the yellow for moisture in T4, so the day wasn’t completely without action on the track. The Freedom 100 was postponed, though, which sucks. I was really hoping to catch that race. The Indy Lights cars really put on a good show. We ended up sitting in the Paddock Penthouse Boxes just up track of the Bricks, which put us right across from Bruno Junqueira’s pit box.
Since the rain limited the on-track action, we took in much of the infield and got to roam the Indy Lights garage area. If I’d been more prepared, I’d have tried to scout out Andy Prendeville or Ana Beatriz. I found Ana’s garage, but I didn’t really have a good remembrance of what she looked like.
With no bronze badge, we couldn’t get into the pits or garage area for the big cars, but we did catch a glimpse through the fence of Foyt and Kannan at the pumps. …hope they remember to secure the fuel cover this time!
It was definitely the day for going to the Museum, and wow was it packed! They had a neat display of a variety of vintage and modern bikes, including the Indian similar to what Nicky Hayden rode around the track with recently.
Of course, they also had The Prize on display. Very cool. I like that there is no podium for the Indy 500. As the saying goes, “There can be only one!”
Dad was stoked to see Rick Mears’ 1988 winning car on display. He had the coolest experience ever at the track that year. He ended up schmoozing his way into the Mears garage after the race and was chatting and drinking champagne with Rick’s dad. That’s a story for another post, though.
Well, with the rain washing out all of the ontrack activities, we decided to head downtown to our fav Irish Pub, the Claddagh. Fish and chips and good beer was had by all. Now its time to get ready for Race Day! I’ll have more pics and movies for you on Monday.
I’ve been a long-time member of Audible.com, but I’ve let my membership lapse because I found something even better (and cheaper). Podcasts! I know, podcasts have been around for a long time, but at first there wasn’t a whole lot of variety. Now, however, there’s a plethora of sites and radio shows offering podcasts. I’ll still listen to the occasional audiobook, but those that I’m interested in I can get from the public library. Now that there are podcasts for all kinds of racing and poker, I’m totally hooked. Here are some of my regular shows that I listen to during my commute. Poker
The first couple of races, I had my doubts regarding “The Pit Boss’s” odds and picks. This week however, I have to say that he may be dead on. Tab and I were at the practice and qualification sessions today, and wow did Dixon and Wheldon have their collective stuff together! They were fast! Dominatingly fast! It will be a surprise if Dixon doesn’t lead the most laps in the Roadrunner Turbo Indy 300 at the Kansas Speedway. The big surprise of the day was that Marty Roth found some speed. Some REAL speed! By the end of all the chaos of qualification he ended up in P7. That puts him ahead of both Penske drivers, and 3/4 of all the Andretti-Green drivers! The only drivers to qualify faster were of course the Ganassi boys, but …and are you ready for this?… P3: Danica Patrick, P4: Tomas “put the hammer down” Schecker, P5: AJ Foyt IV, and P6: Ed Carpenter! Are you kidding me? Wow. Tomorrow will be a spectacular race. Now one thing that I will quibble about regarding the Pit Boss’s odds are those for Helio. I’d put Helio’s odds of winning at even longer than 7:1. I’d put him back at 10:1. He might work his way up to a podium, but I really don’t see him being about to outperform any of the top-three, and especially not Dixon. Like Homestead, this is Dixon’s race to lose.
She also has a pic of me in a hat that she thinks I need. Check it out! I’m kinda on the fence about it. Let her know what you think, and if y’all think it looks good, too, I’ll get it before the next poker game.
I’ve put together a page full of travel and entertainment information for those coming to the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at the Kansas Speedway. I’m quite sure that not everything in included, but hopefully I’ve put together something that will be useful as a beginning point for your plans.
The page is called Kansas Tips and you should see a link on the left-hand sidebar under Pages.
Greetings, I'm Doug Patterson: a gamer, poker player, scientist, and overall geek. :p Welcome to my blog where I write and comment on all things interesting to me. Please feel free to comment! We might not always agree, but what fun would it be if we did?
If only there were a way to TiVo webcasts. 
