you must think in Russian

I ran across a great web site last night, a web essay on "Information Display Systems for Russian Spacecraft: An Overview", which has lots of photos of instrument panels of Soviet/Russian spacecraft, which I think are fun to look at.

Looking at Some of these panel diagrams led me down an interesting line of thought. I can't read the button labels, because they're in Russian. It occured to me that that might be a reason to learn to read Russian. Since from 2010 to 2014, the only viable person-rated spacecraft will be the Soviet Soyuz and whatever succeeds it. I would be able to read stuff in the original language. I've always wanted to learn a foreign language. I've thought that Japanese would be neat, and I took some in college, but I just haven't had any reason to pursue it. Maybe this could be a reason to get that second language.

Here's a Soyuz-T panel photo from Astronautix.com:


this photo is © Mark Wade and used according to their use terms.

I've always been facinated by the globe instrument in the panel. I presume it indicates current position in orbit and maybe where you'd land if you fired the retro-rockets right now. Is this an actual, active navigation device? Is it a clockwork globe that just turns? Is it controlled by computer, or something else?

everyone and their dog

Apparently, putting the charlesinspace.com URL on all the national news channels was too much for their server:

The multimedia version of CharlesinSpace.com is undergoing temporary maintenance due to the out-of-this-world traffic generated by the international news coverage. It will be back online shortly. In the meantime, you can read the latest blog and Ask Charles content here. -ed.

It's been fun catching on his blog as he went through training for the flight in Russia. I've heard in vague terms before about some of the training there, but it's fun to read about some of the exercises in detail.

in space, no one cares about vi vs emacs

Charles Simonyi is about to launch to the ISS from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. His web site has coverage. You need Flash 9.

[Update: As of the afternoon of April 7, www.charlesinspace.com appeared to have been replaced (maliciously?) with a page that just showed this:

pool::take a swim::
3547 5845 3956 3024
5680 9852 5743 9420
3889 7739 7255 1244
5528 8787 5599 6397
6659 6613 7948 4673
8971 9374 4294 7059
3878 6357 6196 2490
2398 5544 1143 4946
1060 0000 0000 fini

I hope it gets fixed soon; I'd hate to want to blog for orbit and have my site down.]

[7pm Eastern time: And now there's something back; not the full site, but a normal looking blog.]

luggage surcharge

I ran across some interesting numbers in Soyuz: A Universal Spacecraft (a recent birthday present). In its section on the Progress supply spacecraft (which is an uncrewed variant of the Soyuz) it mentions that it takes 15-30 kg to sustain a person in orbit for a day. I suppose that includes food, oxygen, air handling consumables and clothes. Elsewhere in the book, it says that a Progress costs $23 million to build and launch. The Progress has a dry cargo capacity of 2500 kg.

Using the lower limit of 15 kg per day per person, that works out to be about $140,000 per person per day in orbit. That's the sustained cost, which does not count the cost of getting the space station/vehicle in orbit or getting the person there in the first place.