Many folks would like to see us back on the Moon and developing its resources.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

FPV - Goodbye Blue Cube, Sunnyvale California

I found this YouTube about the now demolition of the Blue Cube taken from a quadcopter most interesting. 
First from the historical point of view of the continued down sizing of activities around Moffett Field and 
second from what a Radio Controlled Quadcopter can do.

Onizuka (Blue Cube) and Lockheed/Martin are adjacent to Moffett Field where I retired from the Navy back
in 1983 from VP-9 which was at Hanger 2

Over the years, working in support of NASA Ames, I had seen the closing of Naval Air activities and then the leaving of the Air Force and now the buildings continue to come down.  The big dish antennas were always noticeable from the highway 101 or  State Route 237 as you passed 
through Sunnyvale and Mountain View.

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FPV - Goodbye Blue Cube, Sunnyvale California

Published on Apr 20, 2014
Stills: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roadtrip...
Breaking my 'no flying in urban environment' rule for a last chance to capture flight stills of the 'Blue Cube', Onizuka Air Force Station, before it's completely torn down. Flown rough for stills using a QAV500 quadcopter. 4/20/2014 37.40474, -122.02858
http://www.panoramio.com/user/7897115
http://www.youtube.com/user/RoadTripF...
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More of the road trip with views of Onizuka.
A sad sight.  
- LRK -

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RoadTripFPV



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And as seen on a Flicker link.
- LRK -

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Hope you enjoyed the ride around the Blue Cube, soon to be no more.
Someone will have a lot of copper to recycle. :-(
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me. 
- LRK -

Exploring the tiny Gaviota State Beach using a QAV500 quadcopter. An interesting spot on the Pacific Ocean with a trestle, pier, and cool geologic formations. 2/13/2014 34.47077, -120.22762
http://www.flickr.com/photo...
http://www.youtube.com/user... 

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QAV500 FPV Quad
The QAV500 is a purpose built FPV Quadcopter Frame. It dramatically reduces vibrations to all of the craft's electronics including cameras and flight controller. The frame can be flown with 3 cameras simultaneously including one down cam. To learn more about the QAV500, go to qav500.com.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Tuesday, April 08, 2014

50 years ago, IBM created mainframe that helped bring men to the Moon

Tice passed me an email that has done some traveling so the topic may be known to you but let me pass some of the links for your consideration, and thanks Tice.

The subject is about the IBM 360 computers that were used to help send the Apollo astronauts to the Moon.  One of the comments from the IBM sources is about how the various iterations of the IBM 360 should allow for compatibility with older systems.

Along those lines, I was notified that Microsoft support for Windows XP ended as of April 8, 2014.
I don't think my old HP tower is up to Microsoft 8.1.
- LRK -

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50 years ago, IBM created mainframe that helped send men to the Moon
System/360 brought new era of compatibility, and its programs still run today.
by  - Apr 7 2014, 12:45pm PDT

50 years ago today, IBM unveiled the System/360 mainframe, a groundbreaking computer that allowed new levels of compatibility between systems and helped NASA send astronauts to the Moon.
While IBM had been making its 700 and 7000 Series mainframes for more than a decade, the System/360 "ushered in an era of computer compatibility—for the first time, allowing machines across a product line to work with each other," IBM says. "It was the first product family that allowed business data-processing operations to grow from the smallest machine to the largest without the enormous expense of rewriting vital programs... Code written for the smallest member of the family had to be upwardly compatible with each of the family’s larger processors. Peripherals such as printers, communications devices, storage, and input-output devices had to be compatible across the family."
Before the System/360, "businesses bought a computer, wrote programs for it, and then when it got too old or slow they threw it away and started again from scratch," IBM spokesperson Barry Heptonstall told the BBC.
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Half-century milestone for IBM mainframes
6 April 2014 Last updated at 19:39 ET
By Mark Ward 
Technology correspondent, BBC News

The IBM mainframe is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

The first System 360 mainframe was unveiled on 7 April 1964 and its arrival marked a break with all general purpose computers that came before.

The machines made it possible to upgrade the processors but still keep using the same code and peripherals from earlier models.

Later this year the British rival to IBM's machine, the ICL 1900, also celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Despite their age, mainframes are still in wide use now, said Barry Heptonstall, a spokesman for IBM.

"I don't think people realise how often during the day they interact with a mainframe," he said.

Mr Heptonstall said mainframes were behind many of the big information systems that keep the modern world humming and handled such things as airline reservations, cash machine withdrawals and credit card payments.

The machines were very good at doing small-scale transactions, such as adding or taking figures away from bank balances, over and over again, he said.
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Mainframe strength: Continuing compatibility
Mainframe customers tend to have a very large financial investment in their applications and data. Some applications have been developed and refined over decades. Some applications were written many years ago, while others may have been written "yesterday." The ability of an application to work in the system or its ability to work with other devices or programs is called compatibility.

The need to support applications of varying ages imposes a strict compatibility demand on mainframe hardware and software, which have been upgraded many times since the first System/360™ mainframe computer was shipped in 1964. Applications must continue to work properly. Thus, much of the design work for new hardware and system software revolves around this compatibility requirement.

The overriding need for compatibility is also the primary reason why many aspects of the system work as they do, for example, the syntax restrictions of the job control language (JCL) that is used to control batch jobs. Any new design enhancements made to JCL must preserve compatibility with older jobs so that they can continue to run without modification. The desire and need for continuing compatibility is one of the defining characteristics of mainframe computing.

Absolute compatibility across decades of changes and enhancements is not possible, of course, but the designers of mainframe hardware and software make it a top priority. When an incompatibility is unavoidable, the designers typically warn users at least a year in advance that software changes might be needed.


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System/360 Announcement

The following is the text of an IBM Data Processing Division press release distributed on April 7, 1964.

A new generation of electronic computing equipment was introduced today by International Business Machines Corporation.

IBM Board Chairman Thomas J. Watson Jr. called the event the most important product announcement in the company's history.

The new equipment is known as the IBM System/360.

It combines microelectronic technology, which makes possible operating speeds measured in billionths of a second, with significant advances in the concepts of computer organization.

At a press conference at the company's Poughkeepsie facilities, Mr. Watson said:

"System/360 represents a sharp departure from concepts of the past in designing and building computers. It is the product of an international effort in IBM's laboratories and plants and is the first time IBM has redesigned the basic internal architecture of its computers in a decade. The result will be more computer productivity at lower cost than ever before. This is the beginning of a new generation - - not only of computers - - but of their application in business, science and government."

More than 100,000 businessmen in 165 American cities today attended meetings at which System/360 was announced.
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The Apollo Missions

IBM was heavily involved in the Apollo missions, providing computers for multiple ground locations including Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Houston, Texas, Mission Control Center. Perhaps the most visible contribution, however, came in the form of the instrument unit or guidance system for the famed Saturn V rocket that propelled humans to the Moon.

Designed by NASA, and built and programmed by IBM at the Space Systems Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the Saturn instrument unit (IU) was the computer nerve center for the launch vehicle—controlling the Saturn rocket until Apollo was safely headed to the Moon. It determined when to fire the Saturn’s three rockets, when to jettison them and where to point them. Included in the IU’s equipment complex were devices to sense altitude, acceleration, velocity and position, as well as the computer to lay out the desired course and give control signals to the engines to steer the Saturn on that course.

Apollo flights had so much information to relay, that their computers had to report in an electronic form of shorthand. Even in shorthand, however, it took a circuit capable of transmitting a novel a minute to get the information to NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center—now the Johnson Space Center—in Houston, Texas. Receiving this enormous amount of data was a powerful IBM computer whose sole task was to translate the shorthand into meaningful information for Apollo flight controllers. The IBM System/360 computer absorbed, translated, calculated, evaluated and relayed this information for display. It was one of five System/360 machines used by NASA for the Apollo 11 mission. The same System/360 computer that processed the data for the first lunar landing from 240,000 miles away in Houston, also calculated the liftoff data needed by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin to rendezvous back with the command module piloted by Michael Collins for the flight back to Earth.
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And all of this before a smart phone.  :-)

I am sorry to say I never got to run on an IBM 360.  I did get to play some with a  card read only, IBM 1401, while stationed at Andrews Air Force base in the Naval Air Reserve way back in 1969.
Thanks for looking up with me. 
The IBM System/360 (S/360) was a mainframe computer system family announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978.[1] It was the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large, both commercial and scientific. The design made a clear distinction between architecture and implementation, allowing IBM to release a suite of compatible designs at different prices. All but the incompatible model 44 and the most expensive systems used microcode to implement the instruction set, which featured 8-bit byte addressing and binary, decimal and floating-point calculations.
The slowest System/360 models announced in 1964 ranged in speed from 0.0018 to 0.034 MIPS;[2] the fastest models were approximately 50 times as fast[3] with 8 KB and up to 8 MB of internal main memory,[3] though the latter was unusual, and up to 8 megabytes of slower Large Capacity Storage (LCS). A large system might have as little as 256 KB of main storage, but 512 KB, 768 KB or 1024 KB was more common.
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Drivers are small programs that enable the kernel to communicate and handle hardware or protocols (rules and standards). Without a driver, the kernel does not know how to communicate with the hardware or handle protocols (the kernel actually hands the commands to the BIOS and the BIOS passes them on the the hardware). The Linux Kernel source code contains many drivers (in the form of source code) in the drivers folder. Each folder within the drivers folder will be explained. When configuring and compiling the kernel, it helps to understand the drivers. Otherwise, a user may add drivers to the kernel that they do not need or leave out important drivers. The driver source code usually includes a commented line that states the purpose of the driver. For example, the source code for the tc driver has a single commented line that says the driver is for TURBOchannel buses. Because of the documentation, users should be able to look at the first few commented lines of future drivers to learn their purpose.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Friday, April 04, 2014

LADEE Skims the Moon Before Crash

My SKY & Telescope email notes that the LADEE mission is coming to an end and that they are going in for some really low orbits to get as much information as possible before the final impact on the far side of the moon on or about April 21st.  It will an interesting ride as there will be a total lunar eclipse on the night of April 14-15 and things are going to be cold.
- LRK -.

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LADEE Skims the Moon Before Crash

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer will soon end its mission — but not before swooping close to the lunar surface and enduring the frigid darkness of a total lunar eclipse.
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LADEE will fire its engine for the last time on April 11th, redirecting it onto a sure-fire, but gradual collision course somewhere on the farside — well away from any historical landing sites — at 1.6 km per second (5,000 miles per hour). While LADEE makes its final descent on the lunar farside, the science team will lose radio contact.
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Want to guess when  LADEE actually impacts the far side of the moon?
- LRK -

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Take the Plunge: LADEE Impact Challenge
NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft is gradually lowering its orbital altitude over the moon. LADEE will continue to make important science observations before its planned impact into the lunar surface later this month.

When will it impact the lunar surface? NASA wants to hear your best guess!

LADEE mission managers expect the spacecraft will impact the moon’s surface on or before April 21. On April 11, ground controllers at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., will command LADEE to perform its final orbital maintenance maneuver prior to a total lunar eclipse on April 15, when Earth’s shadow passes over the moon. This eclipse, which will last approximately four hours, exposes the spacecraft to conditions just on the edge of what it was designed to survive.

This final maneuver will ensure that LADEE's trajectory will impact the far side of the moon, which is not in view of Earth and away from any previous lunar mission landings. There are no plans to target a particular impact location on the lunar surface, and the exact date and time depends on several factors.

"The moon's gravity field is so lumpy, and the terrain is so highly variable with crater ridges and valleys that frequent maneuvers are required or the LADEE spacecraft will impact the moon’s surface," said Butler Hine, LADEE project manager at Ames. "Even if we perform all maneuvers perfectly, there's still a chance LADEE could impact the moon sometime before April 21, which is when we expect LADEE's orbit to naturally decay after using all the fuel onboard."

Anyone is eligible to enter the "Take the Plunge: LADEE Impact Challenge." Winners will be announced after impact and will be e-mailed a commemorative, personalized certificate from the LADEE program. The submissions deadline is 3 p.m. PDT Friday, April 11.

For more information about the challenge and to enter, visit: http://socialforms.nasa.gov/ladee

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HOme page for the LADEE mission.
- LRK -

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LADEE News and Features

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) - pronounced "laddie" - is a robotic mission that will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere, and determine whether dust is being lofted into the lunar sky. A thorough understanding of these characteristics of our nearest celestial neighbor will help researchers understand other bodies in the solar system, such as large asteroids, Mercury, and the moons of outer planets.

The LADEE spacecraft's modular common spacecraft bus, or body, is an innovative way of transitioning away from custom designs and toward multi-use designs and assembly-line production, which could drastically reduce the cost of spacecraft development, just as the Ford Model T did for automobiles. NASA's Ames Research Center designed, developed, built, and tested the spacecraft and manages mission operations.
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One bumpy moon, gravitationally, makes for an interesting ride.  So it will be for others that go as well.

Thanks for looking up with me. 
- LRK -

Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer

Phase: Development

Launch Date: September 2013

Program(s):Robotic Lunar Exploration

Goals:The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is designed to study the Moon's thin exosphere and the lunar dust environment. An “exosphere” is an atmosphere that is so thin and tenuous that molecules don’t collide with each other. Studying the Moon’s exosphere will help scientists understand other planetary bodies with exospheres too, like Mercury and some of Jupiter’s bigger moons. The orbiter will determine the density, composition and temporal and spatial variability of the Moon's exosphere to help us understand where the species in the exosphere come from and the role of the solar wind, lunar surface and interior, and meteoric infall as sources. The mission will also examine the density and temporal and spatial variability of dust particles that may get lofted into the atmosphere.

The mission will also test several new technologies, including a modular spacecraft bus that may reduce the cost of future deep space missions and demonstrate two-way high rate laser communication for the first time from the Moon.
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Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer
The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEEpronounced /ˈlæd./[4]) is a NASA lunar exploration mission led by Ames Research Center in collaboration with Goddard Space Flight Center. It was launched on a Minotaur V from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on September 7, 2013, at 03:27 UTC.[5]During its nominal 100-day scientific mission, LADEE will orbit around the Moon's equator, and use instruments aboard the spacecraft to study the lunar exosphere and dust in the Moon's vicinity. Instruments include a dust detector, a neutral mass spectrometer, and an ultraviolet-visible spectrometer, as well as a technology demonstration consisting of a laser communications terminal.[6] (see Free-space optical communication"lasercom")
The project was given a 28-day mission extension. The spacecraft will be disposed by impacting the far-side of the lunar surface on or around 21 April 2014, depending on the final trajectory.[7][8]
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Moon and Mars - Videos

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