Amelia Earhart found?

Air & Space had a great article a while back about the search for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra in the Pacific. She, the plane and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared about 75 years ago while trying to circumnavigate the world.

I probably don't have to explain that the disappearance is one of aviation's great mysteries. There was a massive search for them when they didn't arrive at their landing site, but nothing was turned up. Explanations ranged from the ridiculous--alien kidnappings and the like--to the imaginative, in which they were captured after spying on the Japanese.

In reality, they probably just crashed where no one could easily find them with the technology of the day. It's a big ocean, and the odds were always against solving the puzzle of where they ended up.

But now the search described in that Air & Space story may have come across something interesting. To my eyes, it looks like nothing:

 Coral? Airplane parts? (photo from Gizmodo)

But to the search team, there is reason to be excited. I guess the more definitive proof will be when they bring some of the possible artifacts to the surface to examine. And maybe a cliffhanger whose first chapter began in 1937 can finally have a satisfactory ending.

Missed it by that much

The U.S. Air Force tried to fly an air-breathing aircraft for about five minutes at Mach 5--roughly 3,600 miles per hour--yesterday. They failed.

It's the third time they have test-flown this one-of-a-kind system, called the X-51. The first test went relatively well; the novel propulsion system, a "scramjet," or supersonic-combustion ramjet, ran for more than two minutes before a seal blew somewhere and the whole thing stopped working:





In the second test, the scramjet never ignited.

In the most recent test, a control surface failed.

It's all very frustrating because there is a huge amount of promise in being able to propel an aircraft at those speeds, where normal jet engines won't work. The Air Force has shown that the scramjet concept does, indeed, work, but can't seem to get the whole X-51 to function the way it should. The test yesterday, for instance, is like failing to bake a cake because you tripped on the way to the kitchen: it has nothing to do with cake-baking but is necessary to get it done. The scramjet never got a chance to turn on because an unrelated system crapped out.

This, by the way, is roughly the same sort of failure that has kept DARPA's Falcon project from working properly.

I can't help but think that NASA has a much better record with experimental craft and high-risk missions. I don't think it's fair to say that scientists there are any smarter or more detail-oriented than those at military research agencies. I do, however, have a sneaking suspicion that when your budget is shrinking, you work extra hard to make sure you stick the incredibly challenging landing... and secure more funding for the next big step.

Landing on Mars: a first-person account

The coverage of Curiosity's landing yesterday was pretty awesome, right? I thought so too. But I had also thought that the lander was capturing video of its own descent, which was going to be streamed live. That didn't appear to be the case.

But it turns out I was half-right. The lander actually captured more than 1,500 high-resolution images during its descent; when sequenced, those will of course look a lot like a video.

Curiosity is still warming up on the surface of Mars, and there are many higher priorities for bandwidth than getting those images back to Earth. In the meantime, however, it has sent nearly 300 low-resolution images of the landing, which are good enough for security-camera-style video.



HOW COOL IS THAT? You see the heat shield fall away, you see the surface approaching, you even see the dust kicked up by the "sky crane's" engines as it hovers and lowers the lander. I can't wait to see what the full-length, full-resolution images show; someday, that will roughly be the view of astronauts as they hurtle toward another giant step for mankind.

NASA is landing on Mars!

Everyone agrees the Curiosity lander will arrive on Mars sometime in the next couple of hours. The suspense stems from a more difficult question: whether the attempt will results in a scientific triumph or a gently smoking crater.

This project is a big deal, as it gives NASA the ability to do more science on Mars' surface than ever before. Liquid water--and even small-scale life--could be among the discoveries Curiosity digs up. That's neat. What's also neat is that they will be streaming the landing live from more than 350 million miles away... a distance so great it takes light (and radio transmissions) about 15 minutes to traverse.

So by the time you watch Curiosity touch down here...

Live Video streaming by Ustream

... it will already have been on the surface of Mars long enough to listen to half a Weezer album.

No human boots will make footprints like Apollo 11 in 1969. But like that mission, people all over the world (OK, mostly space dorks like me) will be watching... and hoping this is a giant step.

A 10.0 from the Russian judge

Watching U.S. TV overseas is more complicated than you might expect. All of the major networks have IP blocks that prevent you from accessing whatever they put online if you're outside the country, and thus outside the scope of U.S. copyright laws. Many times, you can get around this by either [REDACTED] or simply [REDACTED], both of which are illegal in the U.S., but hey, you do what you have to if you want to stay current with Breaking Bad.

The sole 100 percent legal way of watching TV abroad that I'm aware of is buying episodes on iTunes if you're in a country in which iTunes sells things. (This only recently became the case in Hong Kong, for instance)

Sporting events by definition require a live feed, which can often be found on [REDACTED], [REDACTED] or [REDACTED]. For the NCAA Tournament, I used a [REDACTED], which is legal unless you're using it to pretend you're in the U.S., and therefore are allowed to view all the CBS live feeds of the games.

Of course, right now the biggest sporting event in the world is going on in London. Allegedly, there is an over-the-air channel in Hong Kong that carries coverage of the Olympics, but neither Mrs. Blog nor I have owned rabbit ears in the last decade. Our free cable service doesn't carry it. It streams free, and live, in China, but they have put an IP block on anyone outside the mainland... apparently being "part" of China doesn't apply to the People's sports programming. Thanks, guys.

NBC and the BBC have geographical limits on where you can access their online Olympic feeds.

That's where the Russians came in. After scouring the Internet last night for a working feed, I finally came across [REDACTED], Russian site that carried multiple feeds of all the events. So I got to see this...

 Durant doing what Durant does.

... in somewhat pixelated form, presented on our television via my laptop. The U.S. didn't look great in terms of picture quality OR basketball. But in the end, I guess we both won, even if only one of us played strictly by the rules.

Ground control to major exhibition

As I mentioned before, China's space program has landed in our little corner of Hong Kong. A display of rocket models, space paraphernalia ranging from a toilet (er...) to a space capsule and informational signs have been set up in CityPlaza for the last month.

Most of that time, I was in the United States of Awesome. But last week, as it was raining for the fifth (or sixth? I lost count) consecutive day, Mrs. Blog and I decided to do a little mallwalking in space. Or spacewalking in the mall. Whatever, we went to look at the exhibit.

Visitors are greeted by six giant models of China's launchers. Five of them are for unmanned projects; one of those five still has not been launched because it is awaiting a facility large enough to accommodate it. One was used for the Shenzhou manned program.

 What's white and red and flies all over?

A bit down the hall, there is a smattering of additional models, plus some real, live hardware. Here's what the Shenzhou capsule stack looks like, with service and docking modules on either end:

Big, but not as big as the real thing.

Next to it was a model of the Tiangong assembly, which was used to perform tests of in-orbit docking:

Like a mobile home in the stars.

It will be used as a basis for China's planned space station program. Next to it (and behind the model in the second photo) there was an escape tower for a Shenzhou capsule that actually flew. The tower is discarded after the rocket hits a certain speed and altitude. Before that, it can accelerate the manned portion of the rocket--the capsule--if there is an emergency.

Also on display were random items from everyday life in space: food pouches, the aforementioned toilet, a sleeping bag, canteens, and my personal favorite, the space tray:

You know it's a space tray because it's decorated with an astronaut!

And finally, the main event. I posted a picture of this before when they were setting up the exhibit, but now the real, only-been-used-once Shenzhou capsule is all prettified, with glittering rocks underfoot, a spacesuit standing guard and its parachute draped overhead:

 One small capsule for three people. One giant leap for the Chinese space program.

Overall, an impressive setup. China has come a long way in a short amount of time; of course, its space program also has benefited greatly from all the space exploration of the last 60 years, so the nation's scientists know what works and what doesn't, and how to do it right. The Chinese also have universities that can train rocket scientists and the resources to build those rockets. Theoretically, they have a high ceiling indeed.

But I remain optimistic the U.S. will win the race for a mall exhibit of Mars landings.

The Great Typhoon of Aught-12

Sunday evening, there was a tropical storm named Vicente plowing along more than 250 kilometers south of Hong Kong. It was headed almost due west, and its 100-kilometer-per hour (about 60 mph) winds were projected to make landfall somewhere in China.

But when I woke up on Monday, the storm had turned 90 degrees to the right, which put it on a due-north course... directly at the Special Administrative Region. The Hong Kong Observatory issued this warning, known as "hoisting the signal":

That meant: "Strong wind is expected or blowing generally in Hong Kong near sea level, with a sustained speed of 41-62 kilometres per hour (km/h), and gusts which may exceed 110 km/h, and the wind condition is expected to persist."


But as the day went on, it became evident that Vicente was not going to deviate from his course again. And the storm grew stronger, with sustained winds of up to 120 kph near its center. By midafternoon, the observatory announced it would be increasing the warning to this...

... before 6 p.m., meaning "gale or storm force wind is expected or blowing generally in Hong Kong near sea level, with a sustained wind speed of 63-117 km/h from the quarter indicated and gusts which may
exceed 180 km/h." And looking out my office window, I could see why. The rain was pretty much nonstop, and winds lashed the side of the building. When it was clear enough, I could see trees bending and whitecaps on the harbor. Once the Number 8 flag was raised, everyone in my office (and every office across Hong Kong) was obligated to go home. Taxis disappeared. Buses stopped running. And although my commute home entailed literally two minutes where I was not sheltered from the storm, I arrived at our front door looking as though I had taken a fully clothed shower. Umbrellas don't protect against horizontal rain, and even if they did, it wouldn't have mattered--mine turned inside out.

I took a picture of the storm as seen from the base of our building, and I don't know what to tell you--it was much more impressive in person.

If the wind had changed direction, I would have been soaked.

Anyway. Safely ensconced in our high-rise, I, Mrs. Blog and a friend turned what had been planned as a low-key taco night into an impromptu typhoon watch party. Tacos and gale-force winds... what's not to love?

Documenting the guts of the storm at night with my iPhone would have been difficult, I think. You saw the picture of what it was like outside. Inside our local department store, there were a few effects:

 Protected from the elements?

But it was a pretty intense experience. The high winds caused our ears to pop when they blew at our building from the right direction. Our poor air conditioner struggled as gale-force winds battered its exhaust vent. Rain pounded against the windows with a vicious insistence. And overnight, the storm intensified according to the observatory. First to a nine:

Which meant "gale or storm force wind is increasing or expected to increase significantly in strength," and then to a 10:

Ten is the second-highest warning they can issue here, and the most recent hoisting of the 10 signal was in 1999. Officially, it means "Hurricane force wind is expected or blowing with sustained speed reaching upwards from 118 km/h and gusts that may exceed 220 km/h," and practically, it means stay inside and keep your head down. There are a lot of glass-faced buildings in Hong Kong; all of the businesses I passed last night had taped their windows or fixed boards over them.

And I guess it all paid off. Supposedly only about 100 people were injured and no one was killed. This morning the storm was downgraded to an 8, then back to a 3. Now it's just windy. And on the streets, it's business as usual... almost.

 A relatively calm morning... but the PLAN is still parked outside my apartment.

Signs of the storm were everywhere. On the highway exit near our building (which you saw from street level in the first picture I posted), trees sprawled across the road.

Just another commuting obstacle.

On train stop where I get off for work, the crowds to get on the train were so thick they spilled from the platform back into the hallways leading to the platform. Only a few dozen passengers could make it onto each train.

 Fortunately I was going the other direction.

On the street, there was detritus everywhere. Remember how I told you my umbrella turned inside out? The sidewalks were a graveyard of umbrella devastation.

Not storm-proof.

Signs had blown down, leaves were strewn about and a lot of businesses were still closed, despite the crowds of commuters.

 Some umbrellas didn't even make it to the trash can.

Which direction was the wind blowing last night? Let's ask these trees (the air was calm when I took this picture):

The answer appears to be west.

And that's the story of Typhoon Vicente, as seen from about 100 kilometers from the storm's center. It has moved on now, passing almost directly over Macao and making landfall at Huangmaohai.

There is only one higher level of typhoon warning, the "10 signal plus black rain." That is not likely to happen while I'm here. But until it does, I can say Mrs. Blog and I made it through the biggest typhoon to hit Hong Kong in more than a decade... and toasted it with margaritas.