10. If we don’t get the pizzas to orbit in the next 30 minutes they’re free!
9. Outta ozone, outta oil, outta HERE!
8. A red sky matches my hair.
7. Planet living is so 20th.
6. People living on the Earth 6 billion, people living in space 3, you do the math.
5. Zero Gee ________, fill in the blank.
4. So “to boldly go” will mean more than a TV show.
3. I want to be the alien.
2. Have you seen my neighbors?
1. I JUST WANT TO GO!
Add your reasons here.
Saturday was time for both a build session and the Sacramento L-5 Society Christmas party lunch. After a morning of Tandem work we trundled over to the Spaghetti Factory restaurant for the festivities. The L-5 Society bought lunch for the whole JPA crew. Thanks guys, it was wonderful!!!
After waddling back filled with pasta I didn’t think we would be very productive. The team surprised me with a hard push nearly till the next day.
Work continues on adding protective filter circuits on all the data lines on Tandem. Other work included making the container for the drogue parachute, mounting the motor sensor boards and adding a support cable behind the main parachute cannon.
Ed making a foam vent panel
Kevin showing off the new black hats. The hats were a mistake by the printer. They looked cool so we kept them anyway. There are three left if anyone wants one. Just add a note when you order at hat the rocket store that you want a black one.
A big “Hi” goes out to the Sacramento State ASME. I gave a talk last night at the University chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Pizza, airships, and edge of space music videos, a good time was had by all.
This was our biggest desert operation. In June of 1999 we flew a rockoon to 72,000 feet in Black Rock, Nevada. Between the team, family and reporters there was over 70 people on the roster. The care and feeding of such a big crew for five days was more challenging than the mission itself.
We run much small crews in the field now. A team of around ten seems just about right. Although those five days back in 1999 were amazing.
We’re slowly getting all of the vehicles drawn in Google Sketch. Both future vehicle and past one are going in. So far MicroTandem, Away 33, Tandem HL and Mach Glider Block 4 are done. I’m working on standard Tandem now.
We’re adding more filters and other protections circuits to the Tandems electronics. We fixed “noise in the lines” problem we found last week, however we want to prevent that entire class of problems. It may be a bit of overkill. It add over 80 electronic parts to solder, but it will make the system very resistant to radio interference problems.
I for one am pretty jazzed.
http://www.target.com/Floating-Space-Opportunities-Untapped-Apogee/dp/1894959736
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