Category: Space

  • Frozen Sun musings 1

    This is what I have been trying to think while I am organising this event. So, all posts related to this can come under this category. (Creating categories on Roller is a pain).

    Anyways, I have been having a tough time at school with everyone going all serious on me. So, I decided that if I take the same dour attitude towards students whom we are trying to reach out to it won’t help. Just won’t!

    Imagine three scientists walking into the room at the same time when you’re supposed to be going out and playing! Except one sex-education talk( hey, I was 15 then!! ), I have never enjoyed any other talk and have come to hate some of the subjects discussed at the time – spirituality, craft etc.

    So, I thought instead of asking children to listen to intellectual stuff that go way over their head, let’s ask scientists how they live, what they do in their spare time, what part of the work they enjoy doing and then write a small description of their actual work. Although this is what I think the post should be about, I would have them write from their heart, which might turn out to be difficult for scientists.

    So, the IHY/IPY 2007 which I asked Kirk to hand over to me, has got this new dimensional push. Ha! and I have my exams on 24 and 26th so that makes it even worse for me to handle this!

    Now, my only problem is whom to contact in NASA/ESA. The trouble is that all of them are so open you don’t know whom to approach. In India, since the website has only one name, the decision is easier. Which reminds me I have written to the person in charge of IHY 2007 asking for help and also some help from IIAp ( Indian Institute of Astrophysics). I have yet to ask some one from ISRO about their plans. Well, let’s see what happens.

  • S Chandrashekhar

    This is the man you read about if you are into the field of black holes. He’s the man who found out the Chandrashekhar limit, beyond which the star’s mass causes it to collapse into a black hole.

    I found a really interesting snippet on Chandrashekhar‘s life at a place where I wouldn’t think of. Dilip D’Souza has a write-up on Chanrashekhar’s life. His work with Sir Eddington, his quarrels with him over the black hole, why he thought scientists were not productive beyond their 30s.

    But, the best part (and, I liked this especially because I finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence) was this wonderful quote:

    “Nature has shown over and over again that the kinds of truth which underlie nature transcend the most powerful minds.”

  • Space Weblog

    I’ve decided to not post my space posts here. Half of the reason is because I am lazy and the second reason is so as not  to confuse people.

    You can find all my space posts here.

  • March 26, 2007

    It’s been a long time sine I’ve been thinking about joining HBCSE library to get more books to refer for the SEDSAT 2 Project. I haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.

    I am thinking about starting the next big start up. No, not on the Internet, though it can have a website. I am just not getting around to thinking about it since I am doing some crazy thinking for SEDSAT 2.

    I want to make my team enjoy the stuff that they’re doing. Make them innovate a few things that would help in mass budgeting. The thing looks so un-do-able (is there a word like that?) that my resolve for doing it is just sky-rocketing (what a word to use!)

    I am thinking several things together but doing nothing, or so I feel.

    I used Google Co-op search to build my “Outer Space Search” engine.

  • GIS in India

    Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as https://blogs.seds.org/pradeep. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on February 20, 2007 as per the timestamp. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.

    The NSDI has been trying for a long time to implement GIS in India with the aims of “to ensure that departments open their trove of information maps and data on forests, minerals, town planning, rainfall, archaeology for being placed on a proposed Geospatial Information System (GIS) backbone”.Yesterday, they must have had the happiest day of their life (I’m just thinking here) when they read this half-page report.

    The Indian Government has finally decided to release data stored in files, cans and what not to the modern GIS. This comes as a surprise even for the NSDI. GIS will also provide imagery.

    As the report goes on: “The NSDI web-user interface will provide open access of the information processed by the project. But further access to its metadata, data about data or a cataloguing system, will be secure. The metadata server will be the brain of the system and guide access and use of the NSDI agency server which contains the spatial data.”

    There are also talks of releasing .8 m resolution satellite images available thanks to CartoSat 2. Let’s see how thinks go. The Defence establishment has already given the green signal.

  • Mirror Blog

    This blog will have a mirror blog setup by me on Blogger: http://paraspaces.blogspot.com. This is where I used to blog about a year or so ago. I’ve cleaned that up to put more space blog posts. I was considering removing this blog, but later decided to just mirror this blog in that one.

  • A Few Links…

    It’s really very funny experience if you want to blog about space. You love the subject. You can talk for hours, given the chance, but to write a good blog post will take you days and days.

    Well, all said and done, I have nothing useful to add today. Here are some links –

    1. India’s Chandrayaan-I project scheduled for departure on 30 March, 2008. Chandrayaan-II coming up in 2010.
    2. The recent testing of SRE and the launch of 3 sats together on the PSLV-C7.
    3.India’s best offering in terms of images of the Earth from  space – CARTOSAT-2.

  • Yuri’s Night

    Well, some sort of order has been done. All the things that I wanted sorted are sort of, sorted.

    We’d like to hold an event called Yuri’s Night in India. Any ideas? Any thoughts?

    Yuri’s Night is an event held across the globe  to commemorate the first man in space – Yuri Gagarin. Any ideas, anyone ready to give us a place to do the event, that would be great.

  • Interesting Stuff from ISRO

    India has today announced the launching of its own navigation satellite system. The date for the launch of Chandrayaan-I has also been announced as 30 March, 2008. Mark the date in your calendars.

    There has also been talks of having a lunar lander by 2020. Interesting stuff coming from ISRO.

  • Korolev’s Centenary Celebrations

    Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as https://blogs.seds.org/pradeep. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on February 08, 2007 as per the timestamp. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.

    I attended the Korolev centenary celebrations yesterday. Started of like all Indian events do – with the lighting of the lamp. There was a photo exhibition that we walked through. Lot of cool pics – the early control rooms that the Soviet’s useds, their rockets, their launch pads and ofcourse, Korolev himself.

    A couple of lectures later, we had some Indian twist in the form of screening the SRE mission. I didn’t post about the SRE here.

    It happened on 22nd January, 2007. India tested its indigenously developed re-entry technology along with the launch of 4 satellites on board the PSLV-C7. SRE stands for Space Vehicle Re-entry Experiment. You’ll find a good deal more in the ISRO website.

    Well, the Korolev evening ended with Cocktails. Since, I don’t drink, I settled for a Coke. Well, had a good time.