The FLIGHT DECK
The Official Newsletter of the Fleet Flagship
U.S.S. HALSEY
New Series Number 7--2 February 2011
FROM THE BRIDGE:
Greetings and welcome to chilly February. Boy, has this been a cold, wet winter or what? I am more than ready for spring. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long.
The meeting this month will be on February 26th, 6 p.m. at Roseann’s house. The theme is “warm” so bring a soup, a casserole, anything warm. We’ll have dinner and then talk about our away mission planned for April 2nd to Louisville to see the Star Trek exhibit. Janet Dailey will bring the details and will be getting tickets in advance. Way to go, Janet!
Our Chief Engineer and his gallant wife Gloria send their regards from sunny Florida. Hopefully they will send some sunny warm weather our way so that we will be defrosted soon.
LL&P,
Mary
Ed note: Thanks to MM Engineer, record high today 70+ jld
Important or Interesting Dates
March 8 – Mardi Gras
March 7 – Ash Wednesday
February 22nd – George Washington born, 1732
Jeri Ryan born
February 23rd – Majel Barrett born 1932 (and died Dec 18, 2008)
February 26 – Halsey Meeting Roseann’s 6 PM
March 12 – Olivia Weaver’s Birthday
March 13 – Daylight Savings time begins & Cathy/Janet Dailey’s Birthdays
March 20 – Spring begins
March 17 – St Patrick’s Day & Amanda Dailey Weaver’s birthday
March 21st – Maryann Simson’sbirthday
March 26 – Don Dailey’s birthday (died May 22, 2007)
March 26 – Halsey Meeting
March 28 – Sarah Sundstrom’s birthday
March 30 – Paul Sundstrom’s birthday (died Nov 8, 2003)
April 30 – Halsey Meeting (normal date would have been the 23rd but since
Easter is on the 24th, the 30th may work better for everyone)
January 23 - May 22, 2011
Tickets are now on sale for Star Trek: The Exhibition, locally presented by AT&T. The exhibition features sets, costumes, priceless museum pieces and props from all five Star Trek television series and 11 Star Trek feature films, including the newest blockbuster film. The exhibition opens January 23, 2011 to May 22, 2011.
Milky Way munched on galactic snack
The galaxy may have gobbled up a group of stars 700 million years ago, and may still have an appetite
By Ron Cowen
Web edition : Friday, February 11th, 2011
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LEFTOVERSA newly discovered stream of stars (pink), which may be remnants of the Milky Way’s most recent known galactic meal, is shown in this artist’s illustration.Arman Khalatyan/AIP
View the video
A new study has identified stellar crumbs from what may be the Milky Way’s most recent meal — a dwarf galaxy devoured about 700 million years ago. The discovery provides fresh evidence for the leading theory of galaxy formation, which holds that the Milky Way and other large, modern-day galaxies began small and continue to grow by consuming or merging with their neighbors.
The stream of 15 stars discovered by Mary Williams of the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam in Germany and her colleagues all have similar speeds and chemical compositions. It’s those shared properties that set the elongated grouping of stars, located in the constellation Aquarius, apart from the 250,000 other stars across the Milky Way surveyed by the Australian Astronomical Observatory in Siding Spring, Williams and colleagues report in the Feb. 20 Astrophysical Journal.
The Aquarius star stream is relatively compact, which is a strong clue that the stream hasn’t had time to disperse. Its shape suggests that the stars come from a galaxy that was captured relatively recently and, in the process, stretched like taffy by the Milky Way’s gravity, Williams says. Most of the dozen or so previously identified streams are made up of stars sprinkled throughout the Milky Way and are the remnants of galaxies swallowed billions of years ago.
Because Aquarius is one of the closest known streams, stretching between 1,500 and 30,000 light-years from Earth, astronomers will be able to study it in exceptional detail and accurately determine the mass and other properties of the galaxy it likely came from, Williams says.
She cautions, however, that the 700-million-year estimate for when the Milky Way may have snared the galaxy has an uncertainty of plus or minus 350 million years. “Once more detailed simulations of Aquarius are performed, we’ll have a better grasp of its age and evolution,” Williams says. It’s also possible, she says, that the stream was pulled from a dense packing of stars called a globular cluster rather than from a full-fledged galaxy.
“This is an interesting result in the emerging field of galactic archaeology — understanding the assembly of the Milky Way through the dissection of its stellar populations,” comments Stefan Keller of the Australian National University’s Mt. Stromlo Observatory near Canberra. Each stream, like the rings on a tree, marks another episode in the growth of the Milky Way, he says.
IM
ed note : go to the website and watch the video of the Milky Way eating its snack
Final Space Shuttle Flight June 28,2011
Intertank Door Closed; Astronauts Prep for Quarantine
Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:23:21 AM EST
Technicians preparing space shuttle Discovery for next week's launch closed the intertank door on the shuttle's external fuel tank overnight at NASA's KennedySpaceCenter in Florida. Teams are performing final inspections on the spacecraft's aft today and will fill up several orange bags with water at the flame trench at Launch Pad 39A. The sausage-shaped bags called water troughs are suspended beneath the nozzles of the solid rocket boosters. At ignition, they break open and the water helps dampen the sound waves generated by the boosters.
At NASA's JohnsonSpaceCenter, STS-133 crew members are enjoying a day off today before entering quarantine this evening in crew quarters in advance of next Thursday’s targeted launch.
During space shuttle Discovery's final spaceflight, the STS-133 crew members will take important spare parts to the International Space Station along with the Express Logistics Carrier-4.
Steve Bowen replaced Tim Kopra as Mission Specialist 2 following a bicycle injury on Jan. 15 that prohibited Kopra from supporting the launch window. Bowen last flew on Atlantis in May 2010 as part of the STS-132 crew. Flying on the STS-133 mission will make Bowen the first astronaut ever to fly on consecutive missions.
STS-134 Update:
NASA astronaut Mark Kelly will resume training as commander of the STS-134 space shuttle mission on Monday, Feb. 7. With the exception of some proficiency training, Kelly has been on personal leave since Jan. 8 to care for his wife, congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically wounded in a Tucson, Ariz. shooting.
"I am looking forward to rejoining my STS-134 crew members and finishing our training for the mission," Kelly said. "We have been preparing for more than 18 months, and we will be ready to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station and complete the other objectives of the flight. I appreciate the confidence that my NASA management has in me and the rest of my space shuttle crew."
›Audio Clips From the News Conference
"We are glad to have Mark back," said Peggy Whitson, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA's JohnsonSpaceCenter in Houston. "He is a veteran shuttle commander and knows well the demands of the job. We are confident in his ability to successfully lead this mission, and I know I speak for all of NASA in saying 'welcome back'.
STS-135 Update:
The Space Shuttle Program baselined the STS-135 mission for a target launch date of June 28 at 3:48 p.m. EDT. It is NASA’s intent to fly the mission with orbiter Atlantis carrying the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module to deliver supplies, logistics and spare parts to the International Space Station. The mission also will fly a system to investigate the potential for robotically refueling existing spacecraft and return a failed ammonia pump module to help NASA better understand the failure mechanism and improve pump designs for future systems.
In late December, the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate requested the shuttle and International Space Station programs take the necessary steps to maintain the capability to fly Atlantis on the STS-135 mission. The Authorization Act of 2010 directs NASA to conduct the mission, and baselining the flight enables the program to begin preparations for the mission with a target launch date of June 28. The mission would be the 135th and final space shuttle flight.
On that happy note: END OF TRANSMISSION. CDR JL Dailey
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