Really Rocket Science

Transporting a missile/rocket booster by semi. As the driver of that tractor, you’d think you’d be very well trained. You can never have too much training, as we read North Dakota’s Bismarck Tribune:

Cost to recover rocket booster: $5.6 million

By JAMES MacPHERSON
Associated Press Writer

The military says it cost $5.6 million to recover an overturned truck carrying an unarmed missile booster rocket in northwestern North Dakota.

The Air Force blamed "driver and safety observer error" for the July 31 incident. The truck carrying the booster for the unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile tipped over on a gravel road while being transported from the Minot Air Force Base to a launch facility 70 miles southwest. Two airmen were in the truck, which was accompanied by a security convoy.

"There were no injuries and the accident posed no danger to the public," the Air Force said in a statement.

The rocket booster and truck remained at the side of the road until Aug. 10, while investigators assessed the crash site.

Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Laurie A. Arellano said the recovery cost of $5.6 million included damage to the truck and its cargo.

"Inadequate gravel road training programs and the inability of 91st Missile Wing engineering personnel to accurately determine the safe load-bearing width of gravel roads along designated routes also contributed to the accident," the Air Force statement said.

The Air Force said the booster rocket is 66 feet long and weighs 75,000 pounds while the vehicle, trailer and rocket booster weighed more than 70 tons.

"While preparing to make a left turn, the driver and safety observer maneuvered the loaded tractor-trailer beyond the right edge of the reinforced gravel roadway and shoulder," the Air Force statement said.

"Basically, the procedure for large trucks is that they’re supposed to drive in the middle of the gravel road," Arellano said.

Arellano did not know Thursday if any airmen had been sanctioned.

They should have hired one of the drivers who race up Pike’s Peak in trucks. Take a look at this video clip:

Chelyabinsk is one happy town. They’ve come a long way from being "the most contaminated spot on the planet."

Here’s an interesting story from Slashdot:

Citizens of the Russian town Chelyabinsk calculated when the satellite, QuickBird, which takes images for Google Earth and Google Maps, would cross above their city and used people to make a giant smiley face. A rock concert on the main square attracted many people and everyone got a yellow cape. It looks like someone at Google was quicker than usual to put up the new data. Maybe Google likes the idea of an entire town working hard to get its 15 minutes of fame. The article has a screenshot of Google Maps and images taken directly at the event."

They did pretty good:

This isn’t the first time that Google Earth or Google Maps has captured something interesting from space. Longtime readers of Really Rocket Science will recall the Ipod that fell to Earth, which we wrote about way back in March of 2006:

But there’s more to be seen than "Ipods" and smiley faces in the world of Google Earth. GoogleSightSeeing.com — whose tag line is "Why Bother Seeing the World for Real?" has a great series of blog posts on cool sights that you can see right from your computer desk. Be sure to check out this map of global points of interest.

Here’s a clip on Chelyabinsk:

About a week after Labor Day, ARINC introduced new Caribbean coverage for SKYLink, an in-flight broadband service for business jets:

The new Caribbean coverage area means users of the SKYLink network will be able to fly from Europe to North America, across the Caribbean, and on to Central and South America, without losing access to important e-mail or Internet applications. To encourage customers to take part in the coverage tests, ARINC Direct suspended roaming charges in the new region through July 21, 2008. Customer feedback was used to adjust satellite coverage and to map signal strength across the region.

The new coverage includes the Bahamas, Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the Lesser Antilles, Trinidad-Tobago; Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, northern Peru, northern Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana, and part of Surinam.

eXchange with service by SKYLink is the only communications system for business jets offering true broadband Internet speeds—as high as 3.5 Mbps to the aircraft. Customers have access to e-mail, corporate intranet (VPN), the Web, flat-rate Voice over IP (VoIP) global telephone service, and videoconferencing. eXchange also provides e-mail and data capability for personal Wi-Fi enabled smartphones in the cabin.

Really cool how Rockwell-Collins integrates it all:

Business travelers will experience real-time, two-way broadband connectivity with secure access to e-mail services, Internet browsing, access to Virtual Private Networks (VPN), and options for Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone service and videoconferencing. eXchange also enables data connectivity to select Wi-Fi enabled smartphones, such as RIM’s Blackberry models 8320 and 8820, providing travelers with access to e-mail and other smartphone data services.

Thanks to the AMC-21 satellite’s dedicated Caribbean Ku-band beam — and new mobile platform — local satcom Internet companies like Caribbetech and mobile services like KVH have new opportunities to pursue.