Really Rocket Science

German and American astronauts aboard the International Space Station stopped working to watch the U.S.A./Germany FIFA World Cup match today. Their Internet connection was probably uninterrupted, unlike for most people watching while at work.

WatchESPN (app and site) counted 1.4 million concurrent live viewers today and many more were probably denied viewing access due to congestion (or somebody in IT security woke up and shut that bandwidth mother down). After Germany scored the only goal, viewership rose to 1.7 million. Univision’s stream had no trouble (non-Spanish-speakers don’t know it exists; others know satellite is better).

Interestingly, Univision’s feed via DirecTV was more than 2 seconds ahead of ESPN’s — probably to allow for multiple satellite paths and processing in Bristol.

Not only are we expecting a space weather event…

After producing a pair of R3 (Strong) Radio Blackouts in quick succession yesterday morning (10/1142 and 10/1252 UTC), active Region 2087 produced yet another R3 event today at 11/0906 UTC. Impacts from this activity were short lived and affected HF communications for the daylit side of Earth at the time of the flare. Continuing chances for more events R3 or greater events exists. Unlike yesterday, a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) is not believed to be associated with this latest impulsive event. A CME assoicated with the activity yesterday morning has been observed moving at a flank from Earth and a glancing blow to Earth from this event is expected on June 13. An outside chance of at most G1 (Minor) Geomagnetic storms remains in the forecast.

…but we’ve got the Spain-Netherlands match, too! Group B is definitely this World Cup’s “group of death.”

Along with millions on earth, the ISS astronauts will be watching today’s opening match, too.

I like the soccer/football/futbol demo in zero gravity.