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When I was young I would stay up late or fall asleep on the couch in front of the TV during Gemini and Apollo missions. Of course all of us a certain age have clear memories of the first lunar landing. Tonight I stayed up late hoping I might from distance catch something of the launch of the Intuitive Machines-1 launch to the Moon via SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Cape Canaveral. Weather and clouds cooperated for the most part, though some clouds did obscure a little. Alas, all I had was my iPhone as a dashed from my desktop watching the live feed to see what I could see. I also discovered that there is a delay in the “live” feed. It is good I got out there when I did. Toward the end you see the Main Engine Cut Off and then the Backburn that brings the Falcon Heavy back to the ground to land.
Video NOT from the World’s Best Sacristan™.
The video of the launch and follow up is HERE.
This is all part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS). NASA has teamed up with commercial companies to put stuff on the Moon. This mission is to put a company called Intuitive Machines which built a lander called “Odysseus” with a bunch of instruments on it. On 22 Feb Odysseus will land on the southern part of the Moon, the South Pole. There are now 14 companies working with NASA and SpaceX. Pretty exciting. It’ll be these USA’s first lunar landing since the Apollo program in 1972, and the 1st commercial lander.
SpaceX… will you please take over the USPS? Thanks in advance. How about the DDF, too?
A screen grab of the separation of the IM-1 Lunar Lander – Nova C – separating from Falcon 9’s second stage. Now the Lander – going 10km/second – powers up, slows its spinning, looks at the stars and figures out where it is. It then communicates with mission control (BIG APPLAUSE). Like Superman Nova C gets some juice from the Sun and then heads off to the Moon. 6 days to get to the Moon. Then it has to land… softly.
Meanwhile, white to move and mate in 2.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
In chessy news. Semifinals at the German 960 Spa, the 2024 Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge. Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian had a war – SEVEN HOURS – SIX GAMES – all the way to Armageddon (very fast chess where you bid on time and the lowest gets black, but a draw is a win for black. Carlsen squished Nodirbek Abdusattorov. The Final will be Magnus and Fabi, back together again. I am rooting for Gukesh to defeat Alireza Puer Firouzja for 5th. I’m still sad about Ding Liren.
Meanwhile, on chess.com – did I mention I am now an affiliate? HERE – Hikaru Nakamura broke 3400 in Blitz with a high of 3408, 28 higher than Magnus. There are different formats of fast, speed chess. Rapid, is longer than 10 minutes per player, like 30/0 (minutes/no addition of seconds for a move) and 15/10 (15 minutes and 10 seconds added to your clock when you move – what FIDE uses for World Rapid Championship. There are custom formats too. Blitz are 3 or 5 minutes per player. On Chess.com there will be over 3.5 million blitz games a DAY. The most popular are 5|0, and 3|0, and FIDE uses 3|2. There is also Bullet, which is insane. Second most used time controls on chess.com, over a million games a day. The most popular time controls for bullet are 1|0 and 2|1. As I watch any of these really fast games I can’t believe how fast they use the mouse to move the pieces. Over the board… you wind up knocking things down in time scrambles.
I am now a chess.com affiliate. So, click and join! Maybe we can build a fun and active Catholic Chess Club within Chess.com. Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE
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Qb6, forces black to move R
If …, Rxd2+ or Rg5+
NxR#
If …, Rd7
Qb8#
If …, R any other move
N any move #
” Of course all of us a certain age have clear memories of the first lunar landing.” bittersweet memories. a distant relative hosted a very large watch party. she was the only person we knew who had a color tv at such an early date, and she loved having people over.
a great many of those in attendance were born in the 1890s, including Aunt Sophie (really a distant cousin of my mother and older sister to the hostess, but that’s how i was taught to address her). She was a frequent sitter for me and i thought the world of her. It was the last time i saw her alive and that was the first death that really registered with me. i still remember her every day and am grateful that she bequeathed me her favorite chair.
the amount of change in the world that occurred between 1890 and 1970 is stunning to consider. rural children of the 1890s grew up in material conditions closer to those of the Old Testament than to those in which they lived their later years.
Nice video Father! I hope to witness a rocket launch at some point in my life.
I have some memories of Gemini launches and splashdowns but more from the Apollo program. I was ten when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. My Dad’s uncle Ernie was visiting from England and watched along with us. Did a lot of praying during Apollo 13 and felt disappointment when Apollos 20, 19 and 18 were cancelled.
Thank you Fr Z for the video. When driving to my folks home near Sandusky Ohio , we would pass the Neil Armstrong Test Facility.
It’s part of the Glenn Research Center. The In-Space Propulsion Facility is the world’s only facility capable of testing full-scale upper stage launch vehicles and rocket engines under simulated high altitudes conditions. I believe it’s the largest vacuum chamber on the planet. Ohio has a rich aviation and space heritage. From the Wright Brothers shop in Dayton. Eddie Rickenbacher, the most decorated Ace of WWI. – Columbus native. Glenn, first American to orbit the Earth. Armstrong- first to step on the moon – Wapakoneta Ohio.
Eugene Kranz – Toledo native – Lead Flight Director during Apollo 13.
Jim Lovell – Cleveland native – Apollo 13 Commander.
My parents met working at Kennedy Space Center…even though they left right after Challenger (and a bit before my birth) I’ve seen quite a few shuttle launches (Shuttle program being what they worked on).
It was especially cool seeing the contrail curving as the earth turned (take that, flat earthers!).
When I was 8, my family, accompanied by my maternal grandparents, moved to Florida from El Paso because my dad had taken a job with an engineering firm that had a contract with Cape Canaveral. We were there when John Glenn went up. My mom let us stay home from school to watch the launch. We weren’t living very far away and got a great view!
We were only in Florida for 3 months before moving back to El Paso because my dad had a job on a tracking ship for the early flights and my mom wanted to return to where her friends were while my dad was out to sea.
He came back through the Cuban blockade before heading home to El Paso. Scary times!
Why not Q C6?
I came into the world a year too late to witness the moon landing. But I was fascinated by astronomy as a kid and wanted to be an astronaut — that was back before I realized (a) there is a ton of math involved, and (b) space travel means prolonged enclosure in tiny spaces. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, which was (is it still?) a center for the aerospace industry. Sometimes, from my house, you could hear them testing rocket engines at the Rocketdyne plant. You could also hear, albeit faintly, the double sonic boom from the space shuttle landing at Edwards Air Force Base.