In recent news articles I’ve seen, there has been highlighting of the space shuttle’s new remote landing capability. The feature garners the thought of completely flying the space shuttle via ground station, start to finish. Both of these concepts are technically possible, but it was a long held political decision to keep the astronauts as the ones who land the space shuttle fleet. Maintaining the ability of human spaceflight is essential for obtaining funding for any of the projects done by NASA. The reality is that landing the space shuttle is easy. Seems complicated, but it is relatively dumbed down. Given, when I tried it on the real simulator that astronauts train with, I wasn’t subject to any G-forces or mental pressure that would occur if I was an astronaut, but they have the advantage of years of pilot training.

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday today! Without that, it would have felt like just any other day. I had a nice, relaxing night by getting pizza and a beer with Rachel. It was a pretty good 21st birthday!

I’ve been working a site redesign recently. It will be ready in the next week or two. In the meantime, the original style for this weblog is reset to default mode. When I change over, it’ll look completely different!