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alexpgpSomehow, a "stealth" barbeque was staged by the Astrium folks last night right in the front yard of the Fili. I call it that because not much ado was made about anything of the kind going on; I guess it was intended to be a small gathering. I joined the festivities, and in truth, it seemed nothing more than your typical cookout, with barbequed meat and fixins and stuff. Beer, naturally.
The French were still going strong at 1:03 am, when someone must have cracked a particularly funny joke, because I was awakened by a raucous peal of laughter. However, it takes more than that to wake me completely from an otherwise sound sleep, and I fell back into the arms of Morpheus until 6 am.
Upon arising, there was just enough time to grab a cup of coffee before boarding the bus for the rollout of the Proton launch vehicle. In and of itself, the rollout is a fairly quiet affair: it starts out looking like a train pulling out of a station, and while there is some drama in the air as the launch vehicle emerges from under the shed of the upper stage propellant loading station, once the consist is under way, things are pretty tame.
Then again, it occurs to me that while almost everyone with a television has seen a launch, very few people have seen a rollout.
I videotaped the event, hoping to be able to post it, but in reviewing the tape later, I neglected to reposition the "start" point of subsequent recordings and thus recorded new material over the old.
Grrr.
My bad. I'll know better next time, whenever that will be.
At 9:30 am, everyone piled into the bus for the trip out to the pad, for what is called officially a "verticalization," and commonly as an "erection." It was, as usual, a breathtaking sight to see the Proton-M tilted into the sky, and while I have images, I still don't have reliable Internet access.
Upon returning to the hotel after this event, I had just enough time to eat lunch before returning to the pad to support the installation of satellite battery air conditioning ducts, which took our group to within a few minutes of a scripted clearance of the mobile service tower. (The environment around the pad is reminiscent, in a way, of some of the older James Bond films, where announcements are squawked over a loudspeaker, as in "Astronauts to dressing rooms!" from the James Bond classic, You Only Live Twice.)
Anyway, after dinner, I freelanced a trip over to the Polyot to speak with my old friend Sergey, with whom I've done quite a bit of video over these past campaigns, to get some insight into the quality of some rocket-side remarks made today by management after most folks returned to the hotel. The wind was really blowing hard, both during the shoot and later in the day, and despite having mounted a screen to suppress wind noise, the audio of management speaking was really noisy.
So, as it turns out, I am well and truly tuckered out. I am scheduled for a full day of work at the office tomorrow. (At least I hope it is at the office, as I think I need a day or so to recover from all of the excitement of working at the launch pad.)
Cheers...
The French were still going strong at 1:03 am, when someone must have cracked a particularly funny joke, because I was awakened by a raucous peal of laughter. However, it takes more than that to wake me completely from an otherwise sound sleep, and I fell back into the arms of Morpheus until 6 am.
Upon arising, there was just enough time to grab a cup of coffee before boarding the bus for the rollout of the Proton launch vehicle. In and of itself, the rollout is a fairly quiet affair: it starts out looking like a train pulling out of a station, and while there is some drama in the air as the launch vehicle emerges from under the shed of the upper stage propellant loading station, once the consist is under way, things are pretty tame.
Then again, it occurs to me that while almost everyone with a television has seen a launch, very few people have seen a rollout.
I videotaped the event, hoping to be able to post it, but in reviewing the tape later, I neglected to reposition the "start" point of subsequent recordings and thus recorded new material over the old.
Grrr.
My bad. I'll know better next time, whenever that will be.
At 9:30 am, everyone piled into the bus for the trip out to the pad, for what is called officially a "verticalization," and commonly as an "erection." It was, as usual, a breathtaking sight to see the Proton-M tilted into the sky, and while I have images, I still don't have reliable Internet access.
Upon returning to the hotel after this event, I had just enough time to eat lunch before returning to the pad to support the installation of satellite battery air conditioning ducts, which took our group to within a few minutes of a scripted clearance of the mobile service tower. (The environment around the pad is reminiscent, in a way, of some of the older James Bond films, where announcements are squawked over a loudspeaker, as in "Astronauts to dressing rooms!" from the James Bond classic, You Only Live Twice.)
Anyway, after dinner, I freelanced a trip over to the Polyot to speak with my old friend Sergey, with whom I've done quite a bit of video over these past campaigns, to get some insight into the quality of some rocket-side remarks made today by management after most folks returned to the hotel. The wind was really blowing hard, both during the shoot and later in the day, and despite having mounted a screen to suppress wind noise, the audio of management speaking was really noisy.
So, as it turns out, I am well and truly tuckered out. I am scheduled for a full day of work at the office tomorrow. (At least I hope it is at the office, as I think I need a day or so to recover from all of the excitement of working at the launch pad.)
Cheers...
