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I was supposed to go out to the launch pad again today, but since Vladimir was also scheduled for a job out there later in the day (and since I had already been there yesterday), I got a call from Viktor last night telling me he'd foisted the whole deal on Vladimir, so I could put away my warm clothes... at least temporarily.

While waiting for the bus to show up at the полтинник yesterday evening, I snapped this picture of the full moon rising over the facility guard shack. Obviously, it's a view looking eastward (thanks,

skipperja, for the correction!), in the general direction of the launch site (located just under 5 km away and not visible in the picture).

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Today was a short day on the schedule for me, anyway, made longer by my deciding to sit in on the daily status meeting. The older I get, the more I truly believe that business meetings are an art form that require discipline on the part of the participants if all sorts of side issues are not to derail them, and there lies the rub. At one point, after more attempts at digression than could humanly be borne, someone muttered (under his breath) "It's like nobody knows who's on first? "No," I thought to myself, entering the spirit of the classic comedy routine by Abbott and Costello, "it's more like nobody knows where first base is, or even what game we're playing."

Then again, that could be the frustration speaking.

The "lift" - which is when the assembled space rocket is transferred onto the transporter-erector railcar as if it were a huge tree trunk - is scheduled for tomorrow morning. As is the case after each step, a series of checks will be performed to make sure all is still copacetic with the vehicle and its valuable cargo. Then the railcar will be transported to a special area where the Breeze-M upper stage will spend two days being loaded with propellant.

During those days, French safety rules dictate that no Alcatel people be at the processing facility, so those will be fairly slow days, although one interpreter will nevertheless be assigned to the building for each day. I would not be surprised if I will be one of them (and it'll be no big deal if I am, either); between my day off a few days ago and having been reprieved from the launch tower assignment today, I'm "due" for an assignment like this.

Cheers...