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Um, vertical...
Dec. 7th, 2008 04:49 pmThe day got off to a pretty early (and cold) start shortly after 6 am as I joined a group of hardy souls to see the launch vehicle "roll out." Literally. On a railroad track, mounted on a special transporter car and hooked to a thermal conditioning car and a diesel locomotive.
It was, of course, dark. As I walked from where the bus parked next to 92A-50 to the Breeze-M fueling area, I noticed Orion just high enough in the sky to seem to be balancing on his left knee atop a light pole.
It was dark, the temperature was bracing, the rocket was - as always - a sight to see, and being there was my morning's assignment.
As an aside, I tried to take photos with my HP's built-in video cam, with results that define the word "suboptimal."
Everyone then returned to the hotel. I had breakfast and went back for an hour's nap, radio close by in case I was called. It sure beat the previous drill that involved sitting in a cramped compartment on the thermal conditioning car, being periodically deafened by train workers passing through to and from the compressors and their ear-splitting clamor.
At 9 am, pretty much the entire campaign set off for the pad for the "verticalization" of the rocket. As has happened on pretty much every such gig, the rules had changed: there were new boundaries defining where we could and could not wander, and a ban on any and all photography (that turned out to be temporary). As before, I covered the videotaping of management interviews that will air during the webcast of the launch, and even did some impromptu interpretation for a video crew from Roskosmos.
The rest of the day is turning out to be a day off, at least for us campaigners and for our colleagues at Khrunichev, to let people rest up before hitting the bricks hard starting midnight tonight and lasting until about noon on Wednesday, when the pad will be cleared for propellant loading.
After lunch, I got down to some extracurricular stuff that I've let accumulate, including an edit of the translated obituary for the father of one of the Russian office staffers (I'm about 30% of the way through it). I've also got 730 words left for Tuesday morning, and an edit of about 2K words to be done by tomorrow night. I've also got to transcribe what the Russian manager said during the morning event and then lay down a track that can be used as a voiceover for the telecast.
Unless something well and truly unscheduled pops up, my free time will be more than sufficient to address all of this.
As I look out my window, I can see that the "Santa Maria Grill" out in front of the hotel has been fired up in preparation for tonight's barbeque. Over to the right a little, I see that one of the local homeless dogs that usually hangs out at the Polyot hotel has "crashed" the party venue, trailed by four absolutely adorable puppies that, from this range, look identical.
Someone has apparently come out of the hotel entrance beneath my window because the canine mother and her kids are trotting toward the entrance with that happy "hail and well met" tail wag that any dog owner can spot from a mile away. A second or two later, I see a couple of the campaigners bending over to pet the four-legged party crashers, which is a natural human reaction, but carries some risk if the petting inadvertently causes pain and a subsequent defensive nip that breaks skin.
Life is tough and short for these dogs. Of course, I can't help but think of Shiloh back home.
I need to get back to work.
Cheers...
It was, of course, dark. As I walked from where the bus parked next to 92A-50 to the Breeze-M fueling area, I noticed Orion just high enough in the sky to seem to be balancing on his left knee atop a light pole.
It was dark, the temperature was bracing, the rocket was - as always - a sight to see, and being there was my morning's assignment.
As an aside, I tried to take photos with my HP's built-in video cam, with results that define the word "suboptimal."
Everyone then returned to the hotel. I had breakfast and went back for an hour's nap, radio close by in case I was called. It sure beat the previous drill that involved sitting in a cramped compartment on the thermal conditioning car, being periodically deafened by train workers passing through to and from the compressors and their ear-splitting clamor.
At 9 am, pretty much the entire campaign set off for the pad for the "verticalization" of the rocket. As has happened on pretty much every such gig, the rules had changed: there were new boundaries defining where we could and could not wander, and a ban on any and all photography (that turned out to be temporary). As before, I covered the videotaping of management interviews that will air during the webcast of the launch, and even did some impromptu interpretation for a video crew from Roskosmos.
The rest of the day is turning out to be a day off, at least for us campaigners and for our colleagues at Khrunichev, to let people rest up before hitting the bricks hard starting midnight tonight and lasting until about noon on Wednesday, when the pad will be cleared for propellant loading.
After lunch, I got down to some extracurricular stuff that I've let accumulate, including an edit of the translated obituary for the father of one of the Russian office staffers (I'm about 30% of the way through it). I've also got 730 words left for Tuesday morning, and an edit of about 2K words to be done by tomorrow night. I've also got to transcribe what the Russian manager said during the morning event and then lay down a track that can be used as a voiceover for the telecast.
Unless something well and truly unscheduled pops up, my free time will be more than sufficient to address all of this.
As I look out my window, I can see that the "Santa Maria Grill" out in front of the hotel has been fired up in preparation for tonight's barbeque. Over to the right a little, I see that one of the local homeless dogs that usually hangs out at the Polyot hotel has "crashed" the party venue, trailed by four absolutely adorable puppies that, from this range, look identical.
Someone has apparently come out of the hotel entrance beneath my window because the canine mother and her kids are trotting toward the entrance with that happy "hail and well met" tail wag that any dog owner can spot from a mile away. A second or two later, I see a couple of the campaigners bending over to pet the four-legged party crashers, which is a natural human reaction, but carries some risk if the petting inadvertently causes pain and a subsequent defensive nip that breaks skin.
Life is tough and short for these dogs. Of course, I can't help but think of Shiloh back home.
I need to get back to work.
Cheers...
