John M Knight's Fort Knight Dispatch: July 2005

Brother Steve comes to visit

Intern at work

Doug has no blog...

Doug has no blog..., originally uploaded by johnmknight.

Thank You NASA

A few years ago a certain Purdue graduate opened a hinged metal door and climbed down a ladder. Before stepping off this ladder and leaving one of the most famous footprints ever, he said a few words and changed history. Of course, the story of the first landing on the moon is a much grander and exciting story than what I've summarized here. In fact, this company had a very special role in ensuring that Mr. Armstrong , Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins were able to make that trip... we made sure they ate well.

Venetian Festival 2005

Venetian Festival 2005, originally uploaded by johnmknight.

My First Computer Book

During a recent conversation with a coworker, I began telling tales of the old day, the dark times, before the mutlithreaded operating system. Well it turns out not only was I able to find a picture of the original computer I started on a Tandy Radio Shack, Model III [TRS-80 III] (still own btw) but actually a rarer photo of the first computer book I ever read. Come to think about it.. it may be the first and ONLY computer manual I ever read cover to cover! I spent countless hours working on this think and typed in every sample program in that book. I inherited the computer de fact from my father who never touched it. As far as the next generation is concerned, let it be known that on July 14, 2005, my son Thomas learned binary encoding and basic arithmatic and encoded his name into ASCII and then into binary. Ah, the circle of life...

Warp 9 Mr Sulu

I've been fortunate to have broadband on and off for nearly seven years. Tonight, with an upgraded DSL line thanks to Quantum Connections, LLC. I now have the fastest pipe to the Net I've ever had. The pictures tells the story. I'm not bragging about this. I had nothing to do with this accomplishement but for all those techies out there who understand the numbers. Read 'em and weap. For the unititiated.. what does it all mean? Well I can now play Halo2 on XBox live without all those nasty frequent latency issues. I can download anything just by thinking abou it and I can use Google just as I would the right hemisphere of my brain. Yeh, it's that fast.

There is no spoon, portrait of Thomas

There is no spoon, portrait of Thomas, originally uploaded by johnmknight.

Return to Flight. God Speed

I remember when the Space Shuttle Columbia took off all those years ago one cool and clear April morning (1981). I also remember being at home with the flu, listening at first to the radio and then the television, as the horrific news of the loss of Challenger and her crew slowly soaked in to my unaccepting mind. Years later, I watched the launch and assembly of the first pieces of the International Space Station via a web broadcast on my computer as my scrapbook of old news clippings from launches goneby, aged and yellowed. Only a few years ago I remember listening on my radio, once again, to the sad news about the loss of another brave and heroic crew and that pioneering ship, Columbia. My mother claims that she listened to some of the Apollo missions with the radio close enough the I might have heard it first hand... while in the womb. Needless to say I'm a supporter and advocate of the mannend space program. I have mixed emotions about tomorrow's launch as I'm sure many people do.
Tomorrow, Discovery, will launch and return the US manned space program to some semblance of what it was a few years ago. Gone, at least for a while, will be the spectacular night launches. Instead, we'll see, for the forseeable future, launches in the daytime, so that over a hundered newly installed cameras can click thousands of pictures to inspect the shuttle post launch. After Challenger I recall catching myself hold my breath after SRB seperation. I'm sure I'll be holding my breath until the tires on Discovery touch down on the runway. It would see that these accidents should remind us that this business of space travel is anything but routine. Go back to the point in time right before Challenger and read the small stories, buried on page 6 in local newspapers and read how "routine" the world thought space travel had become. I remember trying to watch the launch of Atlantis years ago, only to find ABC being the only network to carry it live. NBC wouldn't interrupt their programming to go live to the Cape. Weird to think with all the press and attention focussed on Discovery tomorrow that we seem to be the same public who started to believe that a trip to the moon in 1970 was "routine". Read, "From The Earth to the Moon" or watch Apollo 13 for a quick refresher on that episode.
Given all these events, I hope we remember and never forget and that in some ways, space travel has been forever changed in the hearts and minds of those at NASA and the average citizen. Space travel is not easy, cheap, routine, safe, routine nor unimportant. I will not begin the argument of why we should be in space, whether low Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars or anywhere else "up there". Suffice it to say that I believe we need to be there for many reasons. "We" being people of this planet and WE , being the people of this nation. I hope anyone who catches a glipse of this news story tomorrow hears and understands that these pioneers that risk there lives, do so for many reasons; that we remember that they do it gladly with full knowledge and support of their families, collegues, and willing, the citizens of this country.
They have my support and both my hopes and prayers go with them. God Speed Discovery.