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September 23, 2021 Archives
Thursday, September 23, 2021
CONTINUITY: Tour of the International Space Station Destiny Module
Continuing the tour of the International Space Station (ISS) conducted by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, we next come to the Destiny, or U.S. Laboratory, module, launched to the ISS as the first major U.S. science payload in February, 2001. It contains the operating station for the original robotic arm and is the core of the U.S./international segment of the station. The audio is in French, with English subtitles, which you may have to click on the icon at the bottom to enable.
Posted at
13:50
TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPS: International Space Station Transits the Moon in Daylight
“A Daytime Transit” is nominated for RMG’s “People’s choice award”! I’ve never won anything before for my photography, so this would be really cool. You can vote for me here if you want to help me! https://t.co/s1NNr5lJ7h #space #astrophotography #opteam pic.twitter.com/Mj04bPLhry
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) September 22, 2021
Posted at
13:04
CONTEXT: Origin of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)
No, your memory isn't playing tricks on you. The big box was originally called the “Vertical Assembly Building”, as opposed to the adjacent Operations and Checkout Building where Apollo spacecraft were integrated and checked out before being mated vertically to the Saturn V booster. It was renamed “Vehicle Assembly Building” on 1965-02-03, anticipating its future use with other launchers.
Posted at
11:31
CONTINUITY: HP 9825 Repair Part 12—Onward with the Keyboard, Display, and Printer Board
After replacement of all of its blown-out display chips, further diagnosis of the Keyboard/Display/Printer (KDP) module raises the disturbing possibility that its custom IC controller chip, which now might as well be made of a secret alloy of delirium and pandemonium, was destroyed by the power supply malfunction. Is it dead, or just compromised by further failures in the “glue” logic interfacing it to the rest of the board?
Posted at
10:41
THE HAPPENING WORLD: Progress on the n-Queens Problem
"This challenge is over 150 years old. It is the earliest version of a mathematical question called the n-queens problem whose solution Michael Simkin, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Center of Mathematical Sciences zeroed in on." via @QuantaMagazine https://t.co/jMXVaCSGT0
— Quantum Gravity Res. (@emergencetheory) September 21, 2021
These results set bounds on the number of mutually non-attacking queens on a n×n board, but do not provide an exact solution. Here are the two recent papers detailing the work.
Posted at
09:07