Friday in Baikonur...

Yesterday's on-call duty passed without incident, though one of the campaigners took an unscheduled trip to Moscow for medical reasons with about 1/3 of the French team, whose work here was complete. With any luck, our colleague will return in a few days, as the trip was, to a certain extent, precautionary.

Coming on the heels of an email informing me that certain records pertaining to my stepfather had been lost in the war was another email telling me, in effect, that those records were no longer required, and though my curiosity about my stepfather remains piqued, a certain oppressive weight seems to have been lifted from my spirits (keeping Yogi Berra's insight into when things are "over" in the back of my mind). The phone line back to the US is still kaput, so I relayed the news by email to Galina.

Today's work gig starts at 1 pm and goes on from there. We are at "L minus 27 days," and on the verge of commencing joint operations to integrate the many individual pieces of this lashup into a machine that will lift several tons of electronics into a perpetual orbit around our planet to help bring people closer together.

It's easier to get motivated when you look at it that way, y'know?

Cheers...