Phoenix Lander Nearly There!
FYI, the Phoenix lander is scheduled to land on Mars next week - Sunday, May 25th. The whole story is here and here - at NASA - where scientists usually get it right except when politics or Liberal stupidity are involved.
In news from Pravda (where the truth is wonderfully adjustable) giant jellyfish have been discovered for the 20th time and have - once again - eaten no divers. The whole sordid story is here.
Are jellyfish where jelly comes from? just asking…
Here is an ant:
And here is another ant. This one is the biggest one in the world, so they say. I’m dubious.
The whole story is here - at someplace or the other.
And here is some smut.
Tags: Boogie-woogie
May 17, 2008 at 4:44 am
I keep wondering why someone would swim up on a jellyfish of that size, specifically the underbelly of the thing, seeing as that is where all of the stingers are located? I understand that the person is pretty much completely coverd in a suit, but something that size has to have some pretty long barbs on it’s stingers.
May 17, 2008 at 7:45 am
Good old Phoenix. It’s survived the rigours of space travel. Good luck to it during its ‘7 minutes of terror’ during which time it has to scrub 92.8% of its 12,500 mph speed with atmospheric braking, then another 7.2% with its parachute and finally land softly with its rockets, as the engineers tear at their hair and experience their BP going through the roof.
And a few days later, we have the launch of STS-124, Space Shuttle Discovery, which has been sitting majestically on the launch pad for a few weeks now, and which will take the Japanese pressurised module, Kibo to the ISS for DEXTRE to manhandle.
May 17, 2008 at 10:27 am
Wow, Gibby! Not only are you au courant of things involving the Phoenix Lander, but you know DEXTRE’s reputation for manhandling, fondling, and generally making sexual advances at any module that comes within manipulator-length. The shameless pig! Those cute Japanese modules are especially vulnerable.
It was those cold, ronery Canadian nights of its youth that are to blame, I tell ya!
And Old iron - good point. The diver is obviously mentally ill for being anywhere near the thing. He’ll get himself killed shortly.
May 17, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Curse you, McGoo! You got me interested in the ant and before long I wiki’ed ants in general, and… and… and…
Dammit, I learned something!!!
EWWWW.
As in: Damn, he overexerted himself and tore out his ant-heads. We’ll have to ‘head’ him up again.
May 17, 2008 at 8:12 pm
It’s the Weasel Curse! Happens to me all the time.
Ya start out reading some triviality - some bon mot posted as a trifle … and before you know it you’re reading graduate dissertations on some subject that a week prior you had never even heard of.
I’d actually heard of that before! Saw a photo of an ‘ant suture’ many, many years ago.
May 17, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I saw a show on ants / termites awhile back. Those army ants are pretty bad-ass. Some villages periodically get over-run with them and they actually provide a benefit - they scrub the huts of all vermin in them and then leave. They showed someone getting stitched up with those ant heads too.
So, what do you think the Phoenix’s chances are of doing all that successfully McGoo?
May 17, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Oooh. Good question, Enas.
Those designers are really good. They’ve done a lot of it before.
What impresses the shit out of me is all the things that have to go absolutely right for the thing to even hit the ground - let alone survive.
And they probably will. I wouldn’t want to gamble on this, but if I had to I would put money on success.
Bet you’ll be able to cut the tension with a knife that evening. I’d love to see physiological data for the team that day. Heart-rates, and stress residues, etc. I bet it takes years off.
May 17, 2008 at 10:26 pm
As long as they didn’t get mixed up betwixt newtons and lbf, then they should get it there all right.
So yeah, braking is tough, and so is hitting the correct landing spot (read: not on a boulder) And you must be wrong McGoo. They’ll all be calm and half-asleep. Nothing to get excited about.
You can bet I’m going to be wound up like a rubber band when we start powering up the high voltage for certain instruments on MESSENGER. I just want to see some ions, dammit.
May 17, 2008 at 10:29 pm
One more thing I learned about insect stings…
Gentlemen (and chicks) I introduce to you, the Schmidt Sting Pain Index… it’s colorfully written.
* 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
* 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
* 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
* 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
* 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
* 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
* 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
* 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
* 4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
* 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.
Bullet ant pain is supposed to be intractable for a period of 24 hours, and I watched a guy let himself get stung by one and he did video pain logs, once every hour or something like that. It was fugly.
May 18, 2008 at 4:59 am
I like the food analogies used in the description of pain.
“…Light, ephemeral, almost fruity”
Try the scones, they are almost Bald-faced hornet-esque in their flavor.
C’est magnifique!
May 18, 2008 at 6:21 am
I was thinking scotch or wine comparisons.
So the Bullet ant would definitely be “south side of the hill” grapes (or whatever), and a “5″ on the scotch Richter scale.
May 19, 2008 at 12:46 am
A few summers ago, a yellow jacket stung my big toe. It throbbed for 3 days.
The first day being the least painful. The second day, my second toe swelled a bit, the stung toe felt like it wanted to pop. They say ice helps….er.. no it made it feel worse. Took a few more days until all swelling went away…then my toe peeled.
May 19, 2008 at 5:20 am
Bee venom is nasty stuff. I have a moderate allergy to bee venom. I swell up something fierce and itch for a week.