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"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." -Morrow
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2003-08-05
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
-Albert Einstein

8:48 p.m.

ADOPT DIXIE

Here is something that can be counted that counts: 1000 days of continued manned presence onboard the International Space Station. Okay, so it's really day 1007 today, but I'm just now getting around to comemorating it. To quote our daily bulletin from the Public Affairs Office:

"Today marks the 1,000th day of human occupancy of the International Space Station which began with the arrival of the Expedition 1 crew, Commander Bill Shepherd, Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev, on Nov. 2, 2000. The Station is now the size of a three-bedroom house and will grow even more in the years ahead in size and scientific research capability."

You can read more about it at: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/jscfeatures/. Now we are on Expedition 7, with Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Ed Lu. I remember watching the launch of Expedition 1; that was during my last co-op tour. 1000 days. Wow.

Space certainly seems an appropriate subject as tonight there was a special reception that previewed the program, "Failure is Not an Option", based on Gene Kranz's book of the same name. The show will air on the History Channel on August 25th at 9 PM, but we were privleged to see it early (and I was especially happy since I'll be in France when it airs; someone please tape it for me!!!) and Gene Kranz himself even showed up. After the movie, he walked up to the podium, amidst a standing ovation, and gave a little speech. What a down-to-Earth, direct, tell-it-like-it-is kind of man. We need more of them.

The show was very inspirational, and motivational, and made me realize just what a wonderful job I have, as well as reinforced the awesome responsibility that is put in our hands. I love NASA.

Oh, and here are some links that will take you to a page where you can look up the seating arrangements and a short description of the two Flight Control Rooms (FCR - prounounced "Ficker"): ISS, or Blue, FCR and Shuttle, or White, FCR. In the Shuttle FCR my front room position is called Payloads if it is not a Station flight, ACO if it is, although ACO now moves over the ISS FCR (just down the hall) while the Shuttle is docked to the Station. CIO, our front room position in the ISS control center, is then relegated to the back room.

Jason Mraz was here on Monday, and my friend, Ashley Milne, gave him a tour of JSC. Here is what he had to say about his vist. It's the Monday, August 4th entry.

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