28 October 2009

weather is, apparently, rocket science

I'm listening to the NASA live stream, waiting for the launch of Ares 1-X, a test flight for a new rocket and exploration program.

I gotta say, even the weather people for NASA are full of it. This chick is such a buzzkill, coming in every 5 minutes to say "well, we're not quite green (good for launch) yet, but we think it might be green in 5 minutes." The guy at NASA then asks "what's the prognosis? do you think it'll clear? and if so, when?" She goes away for 2 minutes and basically comes back with a paraphrased version of "I don't know."

So the launch gets delayed another 10 minutes. This has been going on all morning. Well, actually since yesterday morning when they first tried to launch.

What's worse than the damn weather dithering is that the White House is threatening to scrap this whole rocket program.

UPDATE: successful launch at 11:32 and a successful re-entry. Well, at least the rocket works. Let's see if they ever get to the next stage of the program. I'm watching all the NASA nerds shaking hands. The director just told his crew "You guys are frickin' fantastic." Yes, he said "frickin" on live tv. Awesome!

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