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Jason’s Alticle: Plagiarism

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Greetings, Matriculators!

I played a bunch of EDH last night with some casuals I used to work with and they said, "You should write an article about us!" because they don't know what "humor" is and also because they thought I wouldn't do it. Joke's on them--I know they won't read this so I will write about them because I think I can get away with it. Someone should have told them that nobody tells me what to write about and emerges unscathed. Let's look at a brief history.

Telling Jason What to Do

April 2012 - Site cofounder Kelly Reid tells me that my article will have to contain content from Reddit. I get my revenge by complying and posting Reddit content on the site, thereby lowering the average article quality of articles significantly. Insiders flee in droves.

May 2012 - Content Manager Tyler Tyssedal tells me that my article will have to contain a summary of recent event finishes. I respond by making thinly-veiled sarcastic comments about what a chore it is every week despite the fact that it's genuinely edifying for everyone and making me a better speculator. I also prank him by having a 50-pound bag of premium, unbleached flour delivered to him because I know he doesn't eat gluten. It was too expensive a gift to throw away so he has to put a 50 pound bag of flour on his mantelpiece every time I visit.

August 2012 - A reader insists I post more pictures of cupcakes with mana symbols on them because it's been two weeks since I last did that. I respond by dropping the Reddit content from the format. No one notices.

October 12th 2013 - I exit the time machine and turn in my article about the legal issues surrounding cancelling orders with three days to spare.

October 15th 2013 - Corbin claims his article about the legal issues surrounding cancelling orders is the best work he's ever done.

July 2020 - Corbin is honored with a "Urich"--an award given out for exceptional web journalism and named after fictional Marvel Comics journalist Ben Urich. Stan Less presents the award to Corbin.

August 2020 - Corbin drunkenly bets me I will never in a million years write anything as good as his article about order cancellation. We feud bitterly and our grudge continues for centuries.

December 2045 - I perfect time travel and go back to October 12th 2013 to preempt Corbin's article, thus preventing the ugliest blood feud of the 21st century.

With the use of the time machine, I also go back to April 23, 2013 to preempt my own article.

You Going to Talk About Magic at Some Point?

Do I ever? Anyway, I was going somewhere with this, don't interrupt me.

So anyway, we're playing EDH with modified house rules that state winning the three-way EDH game is worth 3 points and preventing me from winning or making sure I die first is worth 5 points. One of the players--I really shouldn't use real names, so I will call him "Ben" because that's his real name and I don't feel like inventing something--had a tendency to play removal spells on the first possible legal target.

It's tough to beat a Druids' Repository with a dozen counters on it because you used a Disenchant to destroy my Illusionist's Bracers at a time when they were my only non-land permanent. Similarly, a Mycoloth with ten counters on it is going to kill everyone if you wasted a Terminus to kill just my general and a Hellkite Tyrant and no other creatures.

Ben got 5 points in that game and the other player only got 3, let's put it that way. I hope after the game was over and we'd both gotten steamrolled by the player left relatively unmolested that I made a decent case for "just because you have a target for your removal spell doesn't mean you should play it right away".

When I woke up this morning and checked Reddit, someone had gone absolutely nuts in the finance subreddit, pointing out that someone had independently verified that the Japanese GR monstrosity deck from the Top 8 of the Pro Tour was, in fact, playable in an article on Channel Fireball. This means EVERY CARD IN THAT DECK IS A SPEC NOW!

In all fairness, he was one of four people who suggested Arbor Colossus as a spec, but the idea of the contents of this deck being potential speculation targets is not really new. The diversity of decks in the Standard format may make it tough for a card that doesn't get played across a lot of decks to go up too much, and with packs now being opened constantly and redemption looming, I don't know if Arbor Colossus has any chance of being the next Nightveil Specter or Tidebinder Mage if it hasn't already. Maybe Colossus can get there. I am not buying any, but you can do what you want.

Nice, Pick on a Redditor

See, that's not really where I was going. I think what's remarkable here is the enthusiasm.

It's certainly true that all the cards in a deck that has proven itself are potential spec targets, and it takes a lot of experience to be able to remember analogous cases to keep from getting an enthusiasm boner and spending money you're not getting back. It takes a calm head to say "Where do I see this peaking?" and "How cheaply can I get in?" and "How do I plan to get out of these?" and When?" Being calm in an exciting situation is pretty tough.

I got an enthusiasm boner last week when Liliana of the Dark Realms went up by 50% in 24 hours on MODO and saw play in a lot of dailies. I am really inexperienced at MODO finance, and I imagine I may have a tough time recouping my investment on Liliana. Just because I saw a price spike I didn't really understand didn't mean I should have spent actual money. I got swept up and should have done more research.

Not that it's going to be tough to get rid of planeswalkers I bought for under $5. I jam those in the case at the LGS for $5 and I bet they're gone in two weeks. Still, check your enthusiasm. I didn't.

So rather than dismiss the reddit posting because I was able to recognize that there was a high potential for hysteria and bad financial decisions, I sat down and checked every card he mentioned, checked their price trends and tried to verify how many decks besides that one were using them.

It's good to pay attention (I even said so last week) and I am glad that posting was made. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this situation and even people with experience speculating have a lot to learn from how this all pans out.

What Was All That About Plagiarizing Yourself?

Well, after the experience with someone playing removal spells like they were burning a hole in his deck and the experience with a sudden wave of enthusiasm surrounding a few specs that might not necessarily pan out, I had a theme for the article.

I was going to call it "Just because you can" and use that theme to unite the initial anecdote about removal spells and then write more broadly about how to watch yourself when you speculate. Maybe after I finished up the deck section at the end, I could pepper in one more "Just because you can" reference and then I could go to the store, buy a microphone, come home, plug it in and drop it on the floor.

I was doing a little research for the dates of my old articles for the beginning of this article and I found out that back in April, I literally wrote that exact article. It was even called "Just because you can" and it mentions a scenario where Regrowth was unbanned in Vintage and someone bought my revised copies on eBay. No wonder I liked the idea some much when I thought of it--it was my idea already.

You're Running out of Room to Make a Point

Well, if you're going to insist I make a point, fine, let's talk about the Reddit thread in question.

Check it out at this link.

If you are inclined to write something snarky in the comments, don't. That's my thing, and I don't appreciate being plagiarized by anyone but me.

OP identifies a few cards that are very cheap and therefore have the most room to move up if this deck becomes the new deck to beat in Standard, which I have to assume is what he assumes, which is an assumption chain that rivals the Human Centipede.

I think some of the logic is pretty solid, although I would caution people using the "it's dirt cheap, so why not?" logic as applied to untested cards. I will sometimes say "this seems low risk" if a card has spiked already and no one knows why yet, and I advocate buying bulk rares as specs because you can always out them again for bulk and sometimes you have a big stack of Nightveil Specters in your box of shame like I did.

However, I wouldn't apply that to cards that could potentially get played in a deck that may or may not remain popular--mana cost and color are not enough of an impetus on their own. I like his logic as applied to Arbor Colossus and Reverent Hunter. I like it less as applied to Pyxis of Pandemonium and Sylvan Primordial--the latter a card I am deep on but for other reasons.

It's a great exercise to notice a deck getting recognition and analyzing some of the cards that might be undercosted. It's quite another to speculate baselessly. I don't really know which of those two this post is, but I would watch a few of the dollar rares in this deck.

However, one important thing to point out is that we have to have realistic goals about how much money we need the card to increase before it's worth speculating. If the ceiling for Arbor Colossus is $2 and we buy in at $1, we might as well not bother. If we buy in at $0.15, I'm listening.

As always, you have to play to your outs. If you're eBaying, you're paying fees on every play set you sell. If you're buylisting, you're shipping a $2 for the same $1 you paid for it. If you're trading them out, the card will have to be a bit more popular than "$2 TCG Mid" to fly out of your binder.

Another card I've seen mentioned is Rubblebelt Raiders. It isn't seeing any discussion in the QS forum, but Reddit and other forums seem excited. Are these devotion decks a flash in the pan? Are they the new way we're going to build decks from now on? Could cards like Rubblebelt Raiders and Boros Reckoner be what enables two-color decks to trigger devotion in multiple colors?

I'd watch closely. My inclination is that Rubblebelt Raiders is not going to see the same $5 that Nightveil Specter is commanding, but I certainly wouldn't be shocked. I am not betting my own money on it, in other words. I suppose what I am doing is reserving the right to say, "Ha! Totally said this could happen!" if it hits later. That would be pretty funny if I did that.

It would be even funnier if someone said "Great, how much money did you make speculating on them" which is what I want to ask whenever someone says something like "called it" but I usually just bite my tongue instead.

After all, I made a lot of money on Nightveil Specter and I did so because I had a lot of copies that I bought on pretty poor logic and sat on because I was too embarrassed to sell them for bulk. So if you think Rubblebelt Raiders could be a thing, or Arbor Colossus or any other cheap card that is a component of these sorts of decks, they're cheap as heck right now and I'm not going to compete with you for copies.

Let's Do The Same Thing a Few More Times

It wasn't just the G/R monstrosity deck that is worth looking at. We had a bunch of toinaments over the weekend. Let's take a peek at some of the results.

If you wanted to see an exciting GP final between Shuhei Nakamura and Martin Juza, I hope you didn't make the mistake a lot of people did and go to GP Louisville. This showdown took place at a Limited GP in Hong Kong. Those of us in this hemisphere are probably a little more concerned with the financial implications of an evolving Standard format.

GP Louisville Top 16

I guess what I said about Standard being wide open may have been a bit ambitious. It looks like everyone wants to play mono-colored devotion.

If you want to find the next Nightveil Specter, I bet it's not the jolly green giant, but rather the best card in Return to Ravnica Limited. Pack Rat turns on your devotion to black in a big way, turns bad cards late in the game into more rats and powers up Gray Merchant of Asphodel to insane levels.

Still gettable at $2 and likely to always be worth something due to casual appeal, Pack Rats is a card that I never didn't like as a spec. Now is the time to get in cheap if you can.

Anything under $2 is probably good although I don't know where the ceiling is. I feel confident that its casual appeal will help this retain its value a bit longer--I generally like cards as specs if they have utility outside of just Standard.

Expect Nightveil Specter to stay where it is because of its utility in Mono-Black as well. Tidebinder Mage is beginning to fall in price a bit but Specter is in the two hottest decks. I wouldn't expect another bump but it should maintain its spike price for a while longer on this news.

Underworld Connections is sold out on SCG for $3, so you may want to try and wrangle some of those as well if you can. The card has always been good but didn't have a home. Those two black mana symbols that were a bit of a liability in Jund are now a big boost to the card. As long as the devotion craze keeps on keeping on, play cards that are good in those decks.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is on an overall downward trend, which is odd. I expect it to maintain its price for a bit longer due to everyone wanting to jam some manner of devotion.

Ray Perez, 11th place PT finisher, talked a lot about how his Esper control list had the gas to beat Mono-Blue and that seems reasonably borne-out by the results. Five decks in the Top 16 says a lot. The cards in that deck were already money due to their being staples in control decks--the only real price movement I see is the new Jace vs. Vraska duel deck putting a damper on the price of Architect of Thought.

I like Justin Herrel's R/W Beatdown deck and the best part is that it uses a lot of cards that have not gone up yet but will. I'd be looking hard at Precinct Captain and Imposing Sovereign.

The red-green decks made the Top 16 as well. I am not convinced that a ton of those cards are good specs, but if there should be hype, be prepared to sell into it.

The Polukranos duel deck goes for almost $10 on TCG Player (low). Can you find $10 in the other 59 cards, one of which is a foil Sun Titan? If Polukranos moves up any more it may be worth it, but I tend to see the deck putting a cap on the short term price of Polukranos rather than it being a good source of under-priced singles. I think more packs being opened and redemption will further curb the price.

I would hold off on speculating on any weapons. They are legendary after all and also widely-available. As good as [card "Whip of Erebos"]Whip[/card] and [card "Bident of Thassa"]Bident[/card] are proving and as strong as Hammer is and Bow could potentially prove to be, I see low financial potential here.

If Thoughtseize comes down any more with redemption, I think you buy in. Some people are saying to buy in now but I disagree. Wait until redemption happens and the dust settles from that. We're not at peak supply yet and roughly as many decks as we thought would run Thoughtseize are doing so.

Aetherling turned out a pretty bad spec. It may be near ubiquitous in the future, but most decks aren't running more than one so there isn't enough demand to move the price up much. I suspect there are a ton of these squirreled away in spec boxes as well, giving me even less confidence in holding mine.

Sam Black appears to be running a split of one Rapid Hybridization and two Rapid Hybridization, which I think is ballsy. Most people just run three Rapid Hybridization instead of a split like that.

Brian Bruan-Duin took the GP down with Mono-Black which should only fan the flames of hysteria surrounding the deck.

If you go beyond the Top 16, though, you see a different story. There were a lot more decks played than the results would indicate and those decks, once they figure out how to beat the devotion decks, will shine. Soldier of the Pantheon was all over coverage until we got to the end of Day 2--maybe people missed that so you might want to watch the price of that card. It's solid and it punishes those greedy cards like Nightveil Specter. It can't do diddly against a pile of Pack Rats, though, so be careful.

Boon Satyr is all over the place. SCG has them at $7 but TCG Player tells a different story. The card is the real deal and with cheap copies online, I think you might want to get them under $5 if you still can. These will trade very well.

This event was essentially Mono-Team SCG in the Top 16 so I don't really want to harp on it too much. There were basically three decks in the Top 16, Mono-Blue, Mono-Black and Esper. Boring. Let's check out the SCG Open and see if that is a little more diverse.

SCG Open Seattle Standard Top 16

Wow. I am as encouraged by the seven decks in the Top 8 as I am the only mono-colored devotion deck, a deck that did not win the event. Instead, U/W Control took it down using practically zero cards from Theros. "Sweet, we got a new counterspell," Jesse Hampton must have said, opening a single box of Theros to make sure he had enough Yoked Ox for his sideboard and then taking down the open. Nice work, Jesse. Control gets there.

A lot of cards I have been talking about figured heavily into the W/B deck. I like playing cheap dudes and removal then closing the game out with Whip and Obzedat. It's a solid strategy and I see it panning out long term.

The R/G deck showed up at the Open, too, and it's a deck that should be in your gauntlet.

You can add a little green to the mono-black deck and still have plenty of devotion to black but get the flexibility of cards like Reaper of the Wilds, Abrupt Decay and Scavenging Ooze. I didn't like Reaper much on paper but he adds value and is a cheap buy right now.

I think the Top 16 of this Open more accurately reflects the field you are likely to face than the GP. You can really build what you want. The framework can remain similar, but even in devotion-based decks, people are adding other colors and not suffering. I expect the Temples to go up soon once people start splashing a bit, and you can get them cheaply now. I would trade for these--I am not paying cash on them.

I expected to see more mono-red devotion, but Thoughtseize likely gives it a hard time and mono-colored decks make Burning Earth a bit worse, but not as much as you'd think. People are trading mana-fixing nonbasics for lands like Nykthos and Mutavault which work well in mono-colored decks. I think red is a force to be reckoned with, although Fanatic of Mogis is shaping up to be just a bad Gray Merchant.

Let's move on to Legacy.

SCG Open Seattle Legacy Top 16

Two copies of Rug Delver including the winning deck piloted by Jacob Wilson joined two copies of Elves in the Top 8. I didn't really expect there to be less diversity in Legacy, but that's how it goes sometimes. Deathrite Shaman has really made Elves a bit more appealing, and that's cool.

I am actually liking the URW Delver decks right now. You get a bit better removal than RUG Delver, you get Stoneforge Mystic which is huge in the Delver matches and you can crush people with Geist of Saint Traft. I like running a Basilisk Collar in the board if you're going to run Grim Lavamancer and Stoneforge in the same deck, however.

"Pet deck of the week" goes to Affinity. This is a deck that doesn't feel like it's Tier 1 but also feels like it always has the potential to Top 8. It's mediocre against the entire field, which is actually a good thing because it means you don't have 0% matchups and your sideboard can really help. The deck is dildos if people show up with a sideboard against you, but no one is doing that so it's not a bad metagame choice on occasion. It's potent, explosive, simple to pilot, consistent and finishes matches quickly, win or lose. Gotta love it.

Shardless BUG fans will be glad to hear that Baleful Strix is confirmed for reprint in the new Commander product. This should make Strix a little bit more affordable and we should see some price divergence from Shardless Agent.

Punishing Zoo? Now that's what I'm talking about! I wish Shawn Yu had won the event with this beast. I like the deck a ton and I think if people are adding Grim Lavamancer to deal with Deathrite Shaman, you want to play a card that deals with both. I don't like Jund, but I do like pitching Punishing Fire to Liliana. Still, this is my kind of deck, and I wish it had never stopped being Tier 1.

If you're confused, this is Punishing Maverick and Star City just sucks at naming decks. Adding Wild Nacatl to a Maverick list is hardly enough to make it not Maverick. Whatever you want to call this deck, it's always going to be a contender.

It's too bad none of the interesting decks made Top 8. This deck is my $%(*! I don't know if I could make myself not play black for Hibernation Sliver, but this looks fast and solves the problem of "fewer lords than Merfolk" by printing another lord in M14. This may be a better vial deck than Merfolk now because of cards like Harmonic Sliver and Galerider Sliver. Your mana base is a bit dodgy, but this is Legacy--just like rich white people problems, throw some money at it and it will become solved.

This Landstill variant is also potent and looks fun to play. You don't sacrifice much to splash a little red, and it makes your Engineered Explosives that much better. Lightning Bolt and Izzet Charm are both solid. I like how this is built very much.

The Past and/or Future

That really does it for me this week. I will try not to be inspired to write an article I already wrote six months ago. I already know I'm going to call it "Pro Activity" which will talk about following what the pros are doing and also relate it to being proactive and staying ahead of price spikes.

Actually, I can't call it that anymore, now I'm going to call it "I told you I was going to call it 'Pro Activity'" to relate it to the end of this article which I can't believe you're still reading.

That's really all I've got. Join me next week where it's possible I will be wishing I'd gotten Arbor Colossus before it spiked to $7.

45 thoughts on “Jason’s Alticle: Plagiarism

  1. Adding Wild Nacatl actually dramatically changes Maverick. Maverick isn’t an aggro deck, it’s a grindy creature deck that tries not to touch anything that only attacks and blocks. Putting in a one mana 3/3 definitely impacts the deck’s general strategy.

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  5. STORY WRITTEN FOR & USED WITH PERMISSIONPosted: June 29, 2004After a seven-year voyage from Earth, NASA’s $3.3 billion Cassini probe is racing toward a make-or-break rocket firing Wednesday, a 96-minute maneuver designed to put the craft in orbit around the ringed planet Saturn for a four-year scientific odyssey.Flight controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., sent final commands to Cassini over the weekend, setting the stage for main engine ignition at 10:35:42 p.m. Wednesday. Cassini fires its engine to enter orbit around Saturn as illustrated in this artist’s concept. Credit: NASA/JPLOperating more than 930 million miles from Earth – so far it takes radio signals an hour and 23 minutes to make a one-way trip – Cassini’s on-board computer system must carry out the all-important rocket firing on its own.At this point, flight controllers can only sit and wait. And chew their nails.”I think about the Cassini mission as having three primary segments and then two rather hair-graying events that connect those segments into one continuous mission,” said project manager Bob Mitchell. “The segments are designing and building the spacecraft, flying the spacecraft to Saturn and then conducting the science mission at Saturn.”And the hair graying events are launch and orbit insertion, which is coming up tomorrow. Now for the launch event, I think we’ve all recovered from that very nicely, primarily because it was just so outstandingly successful. … We’re about to go through our second hair-graying event.”At a news conference today, he told reporters “I think I can speak for all the team members when I say that while we’re all at least a little bit nervous, we’re also very excited. It’s an event we welcome very much and are pleased to have here.”The goal of the Cassini mission is to study Saturn’s windy atmosphere, its complex ring system, several of its icy moons and how the planet’s magnetic field interacts with the space environment. In what promises to be one of the most exciting phases of the mission, a European-built probe called Huygens will be released from Cassini on Christmas Eve for a parachute descent into the thick nitrogen atmosphere of Saturn’s moon, Titan, on Jan. 14.In all, Cassini is expected to complete 77 orbits of Saturn over the next four years, requiring 157 trajectory-nudging rocket firings. The gravity of Titan will be used for major course changes, with 45 planned flybys. Seven close flybys of smaller, icy moons also are planned.But first, Cassini must execute the Saturn Orbit Insertion maneuver, or SOI. This graphic shows the ring plane crossing and orbit insertion burn. Credit: NASA/JPLTo achieve orbit around Saturn, the 12,600-pound Cassini must reduce its velocity by about 1,400 mph using a rocket engine that only produces 100 pounds of push. As a result, the engine must fire for 96.4 minutes to put Cassini into the desired orbit.If the engine shuts down early, the computer will switch to a spare. But the end result must be roughly the same – 96 minutes of braking – or Cassini might not be able to achieve its long-awaited mission.”There are no problems, we have no indication of any problems with the spacecraft that would have any adverse effect on SOI,” Mitchell said. Added Julie Webster, lead spacecraft engineer: “This spacecraft, this whole mission has been an incredibly smooth one to fly.””This orbit insertion sequence is self contained on the spacecraft,” she said. “We loaded up the last command we’re going to send to it late Saturday night, Sunday morning, and we’ve just been clocking it out ever since and getting no indications of anything. We expect this to go very, very smoothly.”The propulsion system has worked flawlessly since Cassini’s launch aboard a Titan 4B rocket on Oct. 15, 1997. The only issue of any consequence was a leaking helium regulator that forced engineers to change the way they pressurize the system for major rocket firing.Helium is used to push propellants through Cassini’s plumbing and into the main engine’s combustion chamber at a constant pressure. The regulator controls that pressurization, which is needed for long firings like the upcoming Saturn Orbit Insertion burn.In this case, Cassini’s complexity and built-in redundancy came to the rescue. By delaying the opening of a downstream latch valve to just 70 seconds or so before main engine ignition, engineers were able to work around the regulator issue with no impact to mission operations. The procedure was used for a major 88-minute Deep Space Maneuver rocket firing back in 1998 and again in late May for a six-minute burn that set up a flyby of the moon Phoebe.”We’ve got a real nice propulsion system,” lead propulsion engineer Todd Barber said in an earlier interview. “It’s a plumber’s nightmare, there are so many valves and alternate paths and contingency paths available that basically, we’re able to handle a lot of anomalies. And the regulator leak we saw was right after launch and we’ve been able to accommodate that with the way we time the opening of valves, etc.”Even so, Barber will feel much better after Cassini successfully brakes into orbit. “It’s been a long time coming and the hopes and dreams of thousands of engineers are resting on that one evening. When we get the signal back is when we’ll all go take a deep breath. Hold your ears, because they might pop.” Cassini’s two engines are seen in this pre-launch photo. Credit: NASA/JPLCassini is equipped with two rocket engine assemblies, REA-A and REA-B. Rocket Engine Assembly B, however, is strictly a backup. It has never been fired.Mitchell said in an interview he had high confidence the SOI maneuver will work normally and that REA-B will not be needed “based on all of the testing, all the elaborate work that we have put into this, as well as our experience with the spacecraft to date. We’ve done 15 or 16 maneuvers using the main engine … and so we have every reason to believe this thing is going to work just fine.”But, he added, “the software the thing flies is all complex and I just worry about what bugs are still in there. I think it must be inevitable that there are still bugs in there for something this complex. We’ve tested it extensively, we have a test bed here in the basement of our building that is a quite high fidelity spacecraft simulator and the sequences have been run through there many, many times. We have injected faults, we’ve had various components break, where we simulated a break in the test bed and looked to see what response we got. And at the moment, everything works. All the tests that we’ve done, all the simulations indicate that everything is just fine.”The maneuver has little margin for error. Cassini first must avoid any crippling debris impacts when it crosses the ring plane between the F and G rings, moving from the lower side of the rings to the upper side as viewed from Earth.Pioneers 10 and 11, along with Voyager 2, flew through the gap with no problems but Cassini flight planners are taking no chances. Before traversing the ring plane, the spacecraft will be oriented with its high-gain dish antenna facing the direction of travel to act as a shield.Voyager 2 went through outer edge of the G ring and its instruments recorded “lots of evidence of micrometeoroid hits when going through, but nothing serious,” said Voyager veteran Torrence Johnson, a Cassini imaging team member and chief scientist for the Galileo mission.”So we have that maneuvering to do and then there’s the fact that the place is just a junky system,” he said in an interview. “We’re going in close, we’re skimming right over the rings, everybody thinks we’ve modeled all this right and we’re being reasonably cautious. But I told some of the guys early on, if they’re going to be scared of ring particles they ought to remember John Paul Jones’ letter to Congress, ‘give me a fast ship for I intend to sail in harm’s way.'”I don’t think anybody’s real complacent about this thing,” Johnson said. “I think we’ve done everything we can to make sure we don’t have any human or systems screw ups, but nature can still get you.”Jerry Jones, Cassini’s chief navigator, said flying through the ring plane relatively close to Saturn will save propellant and makes the rocket firing more efficient. “But the real clincher, given all that, is the science in that close. We’re going to be sitting there looking right down on those rings.””We’ve got one class-A camera on this spacecraft,” he said in an interview. “It’s a beautiful telescope, it has great resolution, very sharp edges and for optical navigation, I’m just pleased as punch. … The science opportunity going over the rings should be just fantastic, to say nothing of showing the public what they’ve paid for.” This graphic shows Cassini’s track as it enters orbit around Saturn. Credit: NASA/JPLOnce safely through the ring plane, Cassini will re-orient itself once again, swapping ends to put the main engine forward for the SOI burn. NASA originally planned to carry out the rocket firing “in the blind,” with Cassini focusing on science observations while the engine put on the brakes. But in the wake of back-to-back Mars mission failures in 1999, NASA management ordered engineers to figure out a way for Cassini to provide at least some information about the start of the burn, its progress and its termination.”So we went back and scrambled then,” Barber said. “We had a compromise solution. We could have pointed the high-gain antenna to Earth during the whole burn and have telemetry but there was a large delta V (fuel) penalty to do so. So the plan is to switch to a low gain antenna and that will allow us to maintain Doppler during the burn.”While no actual data will be transmitted to Earth, analysis of the Doppler shift of a carrier signal from the spacecraft will tell engineers when the burn started, the precise deceleration it produces and when it stops.”There were two key things we wanted to be sure we could differentiate between,” Mitchell said. “One was in the event we just lost it entirely and never saw it again, we wanted to be able to differentiate between whether we had a problem going through the ring plane or whether we did that successfully and had a problem during the course of the burn itself. So with the data we have, we will know that quite well.”After re-orienting itself for SOI, Cassini will begin transmitting a carrier signal. Six minutes later, the burn will begin, showing up on computer screens at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a change in the slope of the carrier frequency. Thirty minutes later, the signal is expected to fade out for 25 minutes or so as Cassini passes behind Saturn’s A ring as viewed from Earth.Engineers then expect six minutes of carrier through a gap in the rings known as the Cassini division before another 28-minute communications blackout while the spacecraft passes behind the broad B ring. Closest approach to Saturn – 12,400 miles from the planet’s cloud tops – is expected at 12:03 a.m. July 1, nine minutes before the SOI burn comes to an end. The first images and other data from the orbit insertion maneuver are expected around 8:39 a.m.Here is an edited timeline of critical events in the SOI maneuver for the evening of June 30 through the morning of July 1 (all times in EDT): “We turn off of Earth line shortly prior to the ring plane crossing,” Mitchell explained. “We turn to point the high-gain antenna in the direction we need to be in to shield the rest of the spacecraft and then there’s a period of about an hour where we don’t have any contact.”Then when we turn back to go to the burn attitude, at about the time we get to that attitude, which is six minutes prior to the burn start, we will crank up a signal that comes from one of the low gain antennas. There’s no telemetry, it’s just a carrier.”But that carrier will allow us to get Doppler and that’ll tell us if the spacecraft is operating fine and has not had any safing events. And then during the course of the burn, that Doppler will let us see quite accurately what the acceleration levels are. So if the system is performing nominally or over performing or under performing, the Doppler will show that very well.”The day after orbit insertion, Cassini will pass within 205,000 miles of Titan, the first official Titan encounter of the mission. Between July 4 and 11, the spacecraft will be out of contact as Saturn passes behind the sun as viewed from Earth. The SOI sequence will end on July 30 as tour sequence No. 3 begins.Sometime around Aug. 23, Cassini’s main engine is scheduled to fire in what will be the last fully helium-regulated burn of the mission: a 51-minute maneuver that will change the spacecraft’s velocity by 877 mph. The Perigee Raise Maneuver, or PRM, will raise the low point of Cassini’s orbit and set up the first close flyby of Titan in October. After another flyby in December, the Huygens probe will be released for atmospheric entry during the mission’s third Titan encounter in January.The SOI maneuver is one of only three so-called “critical sequences” built into Cassini’s mission software. A critical sequence is one that simply must execute properly to ensure mission success. The launch to Venus was one such sequence and the only other one is the Huygens data relay sequence.SOI is “the only maneuver that we will do throughout the entire course of the mission where we just absolutely have to do this burn right now,” Mitchell said at a news briefing. “If this burn doesn’t work, then we would have a Saturn flyby and that’s not what we’re here about. So we have designed what we refer to as a critical sequence where no matter what fault might occur, the spacecraft will not let the burn halt. Now in some modes it will stop the burn, swap to the other engine and then continue on with the burn. But the burn will continue even in the presence of faults.”During normal operations, a problem with a spacecraft system would trigger fault-protection software that would shut down unnecessary activity, a condition known as safe mode. There are numerous variations, depending on the nature and timing of the fault and whether the spacecraft still knows its orientation in space. The end result, however, is the same: Cassini shuts down, finds the sun (Earth will never be more than six degrees away), switches to low-data-rate communications and awaits instructions from Earth.Because of Saturn’s great distance and the slow-speed radio link used in safe mode, engineers would need at least 48 hours to restore Cassini to normal operations. Such a fault during the SOI maneuver would shut the main engine down, interrupting the all-important rocket firing and possibly dooming the mission. But in critical sequence mode, that will not be allowed to happen.”In critical mode, if the spacecraft detects a fault – we get a glint in the eye of the star scanner or the thrusters don’t like what they’re doing or a piece of hardware doesn’t work right – the spacecraft will detect a fault,” Webster said. “The sequence will halt and the spacecraft is allowed through its autonomous fault protection to go off and fix the fault.”And then it will come back and say I’ve detected a fault, I’ve fixed the fault. And then it’ll come back and say OK, critical sequence, you can restart. And the critical sequence will say Oh, but I’ve gotta remember where I was. We have what we call a mark and rollback strategy. So it’ll roll back to the last good mark point and it will resend all the commands necessary to execute the next states that it needs to be in. It’ll recommend all of those and continue on. And so, if there’s a fault anytime during the critical sequence, it’ll stop, halt, detect the fault, correct the fault and then restart the sequence.”That’s where Cassini’s second main engine comes in. If a fault of any kind interrupts the SOI sequence, the computer will fire up rocket engine assembly B and continue the burn.”In the burn, we have already disabled any fault protection activity that’s not necessary to complete the burn,” Webster said. “So we’ve got fault monitors, say, on the CDS (command and data system) computer and on the radio. Well, the radio’s not necessary to complete a burn. Neither is the CDS, ironically, because the attitude and articulation control system also has its own computer and once the CDS has told it to go do a burn, it takes over and says I don’t need you anymore, I’ll complete this burn and I’ll let you know when I’m done. So only the fault protection that’s necessary to complete the burn is active.”It would detect a fault in where it’s pointing or the propulsion system wasn’t acting right, maybe under thrusting or over thrusting. If there’s a fault during the burn, then we terminate the burn. We try to fix the fault and then we mark and roll back, pick up where we did, restart but we’re going to restart on the second engine. It takes at least two hours to cool down one engine. So 10 minutes later, we can restart on engine B and minimize our overall cost.”But any safe mode that would necessitate firing REA-B also would terminate priceless SOI science operations, a small price to pay if survival of the mission is at stake. Cassini has a seven-hour window in which to complete the SOI maneuver and “as long as we got the correct amount of burn at any time in that seven-hour period, we would get into orbit,” Webster said. “We might not like the orbit, but we’d get into orbit.”Stargaze II DVDThe Stargaze II DVD has arrived! It features over 65 minutes of all new videos of the universe with newly-composed dolby digital and DTS 5.1 Channel surround sound music. Choose your store: – – – Solar system poster This new poster is popular for classrooms and children’s bedrooms. It includes interesting facts and figures about the planets and their moons. Choose your store: – – – Apollo 15 DVD Relive on DVD the journey of Apollo 15, one of the great explorations of our time. This unique six-disc DVD set contains all the available television and 16mm film footage from the mission.Choose your store: – – – Shuttle patchesCollect the official mission patches for the first ten space shuttle flights and save off the regular price. Introducing the Space Shuttle Patch Collection.Choose your store: – – – | | | | 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.Cassini observations show dynamic dance at Saturn UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO-BOULDER NEWS RELEASEPosted: November 8, 2004A University of Colorado at Boulder professor involved with the Cassini-Huygens mission is reporting an ever-changing vista at the frontiers of Saturn, featuring wayward moons, colliding meteoroids, rippling rings and flickering auroras.Larry Esposito of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and SpacePhysics said CU-Boulder’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer, or UVIS,riding on Cassini is revealing a dynamic dance in the Saturn system.”Instead of a quiet panorama, UVIS sees rapidly changing phenomena,including interactions between the rings, moons, radiation belt,solar wind and the planet Saturn,” said Esposito, the principalinvestigator for the $12.5 million UVIS instrument.The instrument has detected oxygen atoms in an immense cloudsurrounding Saturn, the result of moonlets in the ring systemcolliding, shattering and releasing ice particles. The ice grainsare bathed by Saturn’s radiation belt, liberating the oxygen atomsthat reflect sunlight and which makes them visible to the ultravioletspectrometer, said Esposito.A UVIS analysis of Phoebe — a tiny, dark moon aboutone-fifteenth the diameter of Earth’s moon — confirms the suspicionsof many space scientists that it was born elsewhere, likely in theKuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a region beyond Neptune believed topopulated with thousands of small, icy moons created during theformation of the solar system more than four billion years ago.”UVIS sees the absorption signature of water ice on itssurface, showing Phoebe was born in the outer solar system,” Espositosaid. Exhibiting an unusual retrograde, or backward, orbit, Phoebelikely was lassoed by Saturn’s powerful gravitational field duringthe planet’s formative years, he said.Esposito presented his findings at the 36th annual Divisionof Planetary Sciences Meeting held in Louisville, Ken. Nov. 8 to Nov 12.The UVIS research team also has noted significant brighteningof the auroras at Saturn’s poles as the solar wind periodically rampsup to speeds of 250 miles, or 400 kilometers, per second, Espositosaid. “Dense puffs of the charged particles from the sun excite thehydrogen molecules in Saturn’s upper atmosphere to glow morebrightly.”In addition, UVIS continues to zero in on the fabulous ringsystem. “At the time Cassini went into orbit around Saturn, UVISproduced the highest detail images of Saturn’s rings ever made in UVlight,” he said. “These images show the amount of water-ice variesin the ring particles’ surfaces.”The variation is caused by the contamination of the ringswith meteoric dust, and by the subsequent transfer of materialbetween the ring particles from collisions and meteoroid bombardment,Esposito said.”The fluctuations we see can be explained by the recentdestruction of small moons within the rings, and by wave action inthe rings that dredges fresh material onto the surfaces of the ringparticles,” Esposito said. “This indicates that the material in therings is continually recycled from rings to moons and back.”The UVIS instrument was used to obtain the highest resolutionobservations of the ring particles ever by focusing on thefluctuations of light from a distant star as it passed behind therings, he said.The team also detected a density wave – a ripple-like featurein the rings caused by the influence of Saturn’s moons — – in theso-called Cassini Division. The Cassini Division is the gap betweenthe bright A and B rings of Saturn that are visible from Earth usingbackyard telescopes, he said. “Analysis of such waves determines thesize, mass and velocity of the ring particles,” said Esposito.The UVIS instrument also is showing a bright glow in theupper atmosphere of Titan, the most intriguing of Saturn’s 33 knownmoons and which will be targeted by the Cassini-Huygens probe slatedfor release by the spacecraft Christmas Eve. “Observations of Titanshow the glow of nitrogen atoms, molecules and ions energized byelectrons striking the upper atmosphere,” he said.Launched in 1997, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft achievedSaturn orbit June 30. During the spacecraft’s four-year tour of theSaturn system, the UVIS team will continue to track the dynamicinteractions of the planet’s rings, moons and radiation belts,Esposito said.The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA,the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The JetPropulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute ofTechnology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission forNASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.Cassini posterJust in time for the Cassini spacecraft’s arrival at Saturn, this new poster celebrates the mission to explore the ringed planet and its moons. 2005 CalendarThe 2005 edition of the Universe of the Hubble Space Telescope calendar is available from our U.S. store and will soon be available worldwide. This 12×12-inch calendar features spectacular images from the orbiting observatory.Moon panoramaTaken by Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, this panoramic poster shows lunar module pilot Edgar Mitchell as a brilliant Sun glare reflects off the lunar module Antares.Mars Rover mission patchA mission patch featuring NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover is now available from the Astronomy Now Store.Apollo patchesThe Apollo Patch Collection: Includes all 12 Apollo mission patches plus the Apollo Program Patch. Save over 20% off the Individual price.Choose your store: – – – | | | | 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.Cassini opens a cosmic time capsule with Phoebe flyby NASA NEWS RELEASEPosted: June 23, 2004Like a woolly mammoth trapped in Arctic ice, Saturn’s small moon Phoebe may be a frozen artifact of a bygone era, some four billion years ago. The finding is suggested by new data from the Cassini spacecraft. These set of images were created during the Phoebe flyby on June 11. The images show the location and distribution of water-ice, ferric iron, carbon dioxide and an unidentified material on the tiny moon of Saturn. The first image was taken with Cassini’s narrow angle camera and is shown for comparison purposes only. The other images were taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer onboard Cassini. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaDownload larger image version Cassini scientists reviewed data from the spacecraft’s June 11, 2004, flyby of the diminutive moon. They concluded Phoebe is likely a primordial mixture of ice, rock and carbon-containing compounds similar in many ways to material seen in Pluto and Neptune’s moon Triton. Scientists believe bodies like Phoebe were plentiful in the outer reaches of the solar system about four and a half billion years ago.These icy planetesimals (small bodies) formed the building blocks of the outer solar system and some were incorporated into the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. During this process, gravitational interactions ejected much of this material to distant orbits, joining a native population of similar bodies to form the Kuiper Belt.”Phoebe apparently stayed behind, trapped in orbit about the young Saturn, waiting eons for its secrets to be revealed during its rendezvous with the Cassini spacecraft,” said Dr. Torrence Johnson, Cassini imaging team member at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.”All our evidence leads us to conclude, Phoebe’s surface is made of water ice, water-bearing minerals, carbon dioxide, possible clays and primitive organic chemicals in patches at different locations on the surface,” said Dr. Roger N. Clark, team member for the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, U.S. Geological Survey in Denver. “We also see spectral signatures of materials we have not yet identified.” Cassini’s observations gave scientists the first detailed look at one of these primitive icy planetesimals.Phoebe’s mass was determined from precise tracking of the spacecraft and optical navigation, combined with an accurate volume estimate from images. The measurements yield a density of about 1.6 grams per cubic centimeter (100 pounds per cubic foot), much lighter than most rocks, but heavier than pure ice at approximately 0.93 grams per cubic centimeter (58 pounds per cubic foot). This suggests a composition of ice and rock similar to Pluto and Triton.Spectral measurements, light intensity as a function of color or wavelength, confirmed the presence of water ice previously detected by Earth-based telescopes. The measurements provided evidence for hydrated minerals on Phoebe’s surface, and detected carbon dioxide and solid hydrocarbons similar to those found in primitive meteorites.”One intriguing result is the discovery of possible chemical similarities between the materials on Phoebe and those seen on comets,” said Dr. Robert H. Brown, team leader for the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer, University of Arizona, Tucson. Evidence that Phoebe might be chemically kin to comets strengthens the case that it is similar to Kuiper Belt Objects.Measurements taken by the composite infrared spectrometer were used to generate temperature maps. The maps show the surface of Phoebe is very cold, only about 110 degrees above absolute zero (minus 163 degrees Celsius, or minus 261 degrees Fahrenheit). Even colder nighttime temperatures suggest a fluffy, porous surface layer.”One of the first results from this map is the surface of Phoebe has been badly chewed up, probably by meteorite impacts,” said Dr. John Pearl, a Cassini co-investigator for the composite infrared spectrometer, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “We are discovering Phoebe is a very complex object, with large variations in topography.” This graphic illustrates that despite Phoebe’s bumpy, irregular topography, the moon has a fairly round shape. A digitally rendered shape model of Phoebe was constructed using Cassini imaging data obtained before and after the spacecraft’s close flyby of the Saturnian moon on June 11. The average diameter of Phoebe is about 133 miles. The coloring of the models corresponds to the height of Phoebe’s surface, relative to the lowest point – a range of about 10 miles – going from blue (low) to red (high). Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science InstituteDownload larger image version Cassini also made radar observations of Phoebe’s enigmatic surface, making it the first spacecraft radar observations of an outer-planet moon. The results are consistent with the dirty, rocky, icy surface suggested by other observations.”We have conducted our first analysis of an outer solar system resident akin to Kuiper Belt Objects,” said Dr. Dennis Matson, project scientist of the Cassini-Huygens mission at JPL. “In two short weeks, we have added more to what we know about Phoebe than we had learned about it since it was discovered 100 years ago. We did this by having multiple instruments conducting investigations all at one time during our flyby.”The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the mission for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington.Additional coverage for subscribers:VIDEO:WATCH TODAY’S PHOEBE FLYBY SCIENCE RESULTS BRIEFING VIDEO:ANIMATION SHOWS CASSINI’S ENCOUNTER WITH PHOEBE Apollo CollageThis beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.Final Shuttle Mission PatchFree shipping to U.S. addresses!The crew emblem for the final space shuttle mission is now available in our store. Get this piece of history!STS-134 PatchFree shipping to U.S. addresses!The final planned flight of space shuttle Endeavour is symbolized in the official embroidered crew patch for STS-134. Available in our store!Ares 1-X PatchThe official embroidered patch for the Ares 1-X rocket test flight, is available for purchase.Apollo CollageThis beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.Project OrionThe Orion crew exploration vehicle is NASA’s first new human spacecraft developed since the space shuttle a quarter-century earlier. The capsule is one of the key elements of returning astronauts to the Moon.Fallen Heroes Patch CollectionThe official patches from Apollo 1, the shuttle Challenger and Columbia crews are available in the store.Apollo 12 tribute DVD setNew!Featuring the jovial crew of Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon and Alan Bean, the Apollo 12 mission was struck by lightning shortly after liftoff but proceeded on the second successful exploration voyage to the lunar surface. This three-disc DVD brings the mission to life with extraordinary detail.Choose your store: – – – Fallen Heroes special patchThis special 12-inch embroidered patch commemorates the U.S. astronauts who made the ultimate sacrifice, honoring the crews of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia.Choose your store: – – – Women in SpaceWomen of Space: Cool Careers on the Final Frontier is for girls, young women, and anyone else interested in learning about exciting careers in space exploration. Includes CD-ROM.Choose your store: – – – Mars rover posterThis new poster features some of the best pictures from NASA’s amazing Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.Choose your store:Ares 1-X PatchThe official embroidered patch for the Ares 1-X rocket test flight, is available for purchase.Apollo CollageThis beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.Expedition 21The official embroidered patch for the International Space Station Expedition 21 crew is now available from our stores.Hubble PatchThe official embroidered patch for mission STS-125, the space shuttle’s last planned service call to the Hubble Space Telescope, is available for purchase. | | | | 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.Cassini orbiter deploys Titan descent probe BY WILLIAM HARWOOD

  6. STORY WRITTEN FOR & USED WITH PERMISSIONPosted: April 4, 2010 On the eve of the shuttle Discovery’s launch on a space station resupply mission, aRussian Soyuz spacecraft completed a smooth docking with the international labcomplex early Sunday, boosting the station’s crew from three to six.With commander Alexander Skvortsov monitoring a problem-free, automated approach,the Soyuz TMA-18 docked to the International Space Station’s new Poisk module at1:25 a.m. EDT as the two spacecraft sailed 222 miles above Kazakhstan.”Target is in the middle,” said someone, presumably Skvortsov, as the Soyuz closedin. “Contact. Contact. OK, contact, hard mate.””Everybody’s clapping here,” a Russian flight controller radioed. “Everybody’sapplauding you guys.”After extensive leak checks, hatches were opened at 3:19 a.m. and Skvortsov, flightengineer Mikhail Kornienko and NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson were welcomedaboard by Expedition 23 commander Oleg Kotov, Soichi Noguchi and Timothy “T.J.”Creamer.All six then gathered in the Zvezda command module for a traditional call fromdignitaries and family members gathered in the Russian mission control center nearMoscow.”Congratulations on your successful launch and docking,” said Kirk Shireman, deputymanager of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center. “It’s great to seeyou on board the ISS. I wanted to wish you all a happy Easter. And for Soichi, T.J.and Oleg, it’s great to see all of you as a crew of six on board ISS and wish youall the best on this holiday.””Thank you very much,” Dyson replied.Dyson’s mother, Mary Ellen Caldwell, took the phone a few minutes after that, saying”Hi, Tracy, it’s Mom. Hi guys, you all look wonderful and you look like you had agood flight. Congratulations on your big success and happy Easter.””Thanks a lot, Mom,” the astronaut replied. “Love you.””Hello Tracy, it’s your husband,” George Dyson called. “I wanted to let you knowthat you look beautiful and with your grin from ear to ear, it looks like you’rehappy to be back in your home. Enjoy your time up there and I’ll be talking to yousoon. I love you.””Love you, too.”The Soyuz docking came on the eve of the shuttle Discovery’s launch Monday from theKennedy Space Center on a flight to deliver some 10 tons of supplies and equipment.Assuming an on-time liftoff, Discovery will dock with the space station’s forwardport around 3:44 a.m. Wednesday, boosting the combined crew to 13.”Today was a beautiful beginning to Expedition 23,” Shireman said at a post-dockingnews conference. “We’re very pleased to have a successful docking and a successfullaunch a couple of days ago. It’s great to have six people on board theInternational Space Station once again and we look forward to a lot of successfuland difficult work this crew will perform.”Early tomorrow in Florida, their colleagues will be launching from the KennedySpace Center and docking two days later. So Alexander, Mikhail and Tracy won’t havemuch time to rest before their new friends will arrive and it will be a busy time.”Additional coverage for subscribers:VIDEO:NEW STATION RESIDENTS WELCOMED ABOARD VIDEO:SOYUZ DOCKS TO THE SPACE STATION VIDEO:FULL EXPERIENCE FROM LIFTOFF TO ORBIT VIDEO:CREW DEPARTS SITE 254 FOR LAUNCH PAD VIDEO:VIPS MEET THE CREW ON LAUNCH MORNING VIDEO:CREW MEMBERS DON THEIR SOKOL SPACESUITS VIDEO:LAUNCH MORNING TRADITIONS AT CREW QUARTERS VIDEO:SOYUZ ROCKET ROLLED TO THE LAUNCH PAD VIDEO:ASSEMBLY OF SOYUZ COMPLETED IN THE HANGAR VIDEO:HIGHLIGHTS OF CREW’S ACTIVITIES AT BAIKONUR VIDEO:BIOS OF SKVORTSOV, KORNIENKO AND CALDWELL DYSON VIDEO:PREVIEW OF NEXT SIX MONTHS AT SPACE STATION VIDEO:BIOS OF KOTOV, CREAMER AND NOGUCHI John Glenn Mission PatchFree shipping to U.S. addresses!The historic first orbital flight by an American is marked by this commemorative patch for John Glenn and Friendship 7.Final Shuttle Mission PatchFree shipping to U.S. addresses!The crew emblem for the final space shuttle mission is available in our store. Get this piece of history!Celebrate the shuttle programFree shipping to U.S. addresses!This special commemorative patch marks the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program. Available in our store!Anniversary Shuttle PatchFree shipping to U.S. addresses!This embroidered patch commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Program. The design features the space shuttle Columbia’s historic maiden flight of April 12, 1981.Mercury anniversaryFree shipping to U.S. addresses!Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Alan Shephard’s historic Mercury mission with this collectors’ item, the official commemorative embroidered patch.Fallen Heroes Patch CollectionThe official patches from Apollo 1, the shuttle Challenger and Columbia crews are available in the store. | | | | 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.Soyuz crew transport capsule heads for space station BY WILLIAM HARWOOD

  7. Julan menepuk-nepuk bantalnya. Dia baru saja berbaring, mahu tidur. ‘Hiego…’ Ah, lelaki itu sering menganggu fikirannya. Julan memejam mata, wajah Hiego datang menerpa di ruang ingatannya. Sungguh tidak tertahan rasa rindunya terhadap jejaka itu. Julan diburu rasa hairan dan curiga. Mengapa Hiego tidak membalas warkahnya? Dia yakin sepenuhnya, Hiego tidak mungkin tidak mengendahkan dirinya. Melainkan, surat-surat itu tidak sampai ke tangannya. Sudah bertukar alamatkah dia? Surat-surat itu diambil orang lainkah? Pelbagai persoalan timbul dalam benaknya. Lama-kelamaan, Julan tertidur keletihan.Novel : Agnes Julan 22

  8. An ABC News spokesman declined to comment on the story, but referred us to a comment that “GMA” senior executive producer gave to The New York Times in which he said Couric could substitute for a vacationing Stephanopoulos in the future.

  9. MR. GREGORY: I would argue that it’s closer to being a high tech terrorist than, than the Pentagon Papers . But look, this guy has, has done things that have damaged and, and put into jeopardy the lives and, and occupations of people in other parts of the world. He’s made it more difficult for us to conduct our, our business with our allies and our friends. For example, in my meetings, you know I meet with most of these world leaders , there is a desire now to meet with me alone rather than have staff in the room. It makes things more cumbersome. And so it is, it has done damage.

  10. Still, advising any mayor to slight Catholic concerns and sensibilities would be shortsighted, counterproductive and just plain wrong. While it has waned in New York City, the white Catholic vote waxes in the downstate suburbs every November, amounting to about half of the votes cast in Long Island, Westchester and Rockland.

  11. The BP Corporation will likely not ever be charged with any criminal malfeasance in the largest natural disaster in history. The oil leak in the gulf continues to flow and there are reports Corexit is still being used without any oversight by the U.S. – Many scientists claim the gulf loop current has been broken and the gulf sea floor has been permanently cracked. If you want evidence of the leak just talk to the residents and oil spill workers living along the gulf from Texas to Florida.

  12. MR. GREGORY:? What about the president’s leadership?? You’ve had some observations about him, one of them in, in an interview with GQ, a portion of which I’ll put up on the screen.? You said, “The president, I think, needs some better advisers.? He campaigns, `I’m going to do A,’

  13. Borel has won 5,012 races with purse earnings of $120,859,986 in a career that started in 1983. He’s the only jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times in a four-year span, accomplishing the feat with Street Sense (2007), Mine That Bird (2009) and Super Saver (2010). Only Hall of Famers Eddie Arcaro (five), Bill Hartack (five) and Willie Shoemaker (four) have won the Derby more.

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