I used to spend time with a lass from Beijing.

(That sounds like the first line of a limerick, doesn't it?)

She discovered that I was born in the year of the Ox. That knowledge
made her much more interested in me, somehow. I found some Chinese
spam today and I thought of her for the first time in years. A
question came to mind: does the Chinese space program have astrologers
who choose the astronauts or the launch dates based on the Chinese
astrology?

On 1/6/2011 11:57 AM, wrote:
(That sounds like the first line of a limerick, doesn't it?)

She discovered that I was born in the year of the Ox. That knowledge
made her much more interested in me, somehow. I found some Chinese
spam today and I thought of her for the first time in years. A
question came to mind: does the Chinese space program have astrologers
who choose the astronauts or the launch dates based on the Chinese
astrology?

I can actually picture them doing that.
According to this, NASA uses astrologers to determine when it's best to
launch Shuttles:
http://astronlogia.com/2010/04/20/obama_astrology/
That's of course BS, but NASA does do some oddball and superstitious
things before Shuttle launches:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/sto...3764347&page=1
Moonwatcher may see the big black monolith, but there's still a lot of
scared monkey in him. ;-)

Pat

On Jan 7, 12:42*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

I can actually picture them doing that.

Honestly, I assume they do, based on what I saw from a trio of PRC-
born MBAs-in-progress. I was looking for confirmation.

According to this, NASA uses astrologers to determine when it's best to
launch Shuttles:http://astronlogia.com/2010/04/20/obama_astrology/

Uh, okay.

That's of course BS, but NASA does do some oddball and superstitious
things before Shuttle launches:http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/sto...3764347&page=1
Moonwatcher may see the big black monolith, but there's still a lot of
scared monkey in him. ;-)

I can't say I'm surprised.


Mike

Pat

On 1/8/2011 7:10 PM, wrote:
On Jan 7, 12:42 pm, Pat wrote:

I can actually picture them doing that.

Honestly, I assume they do, based on what I saw from a trio of PRC-
born MBAs-in-progress. I was looking for confirmation.

If you look at it right, all interplanetary spaceflight is determined by
astrology; if you want your spacecraft to show up at the right place at
the right time, you have to determine when to launch it so that the
planetary positions in the heavens will be right for it to get where
it's going; that particularly applies if you are doing some sort of
mission that uses gravitational slingshot maneuvers like Voyagers 1 and
2. ;-)

Pat

On Jan 9, 6:01*am, Pat Flannery wrote:

If you look at it right, all interplanetary spaceflight is determined by
astrology; if you want your spacecraft to show up at the right place at
the right time, you have to determine when to launch it so that the
planetary positions in the heavens will be right for it to get where
it's going; that particularly applies if you are doing some sort of
mission that uses gravitational slingshot maneuvers like Voyagers 1 and
2. ;-)

Damn. I should have thought of that.

Imagine expressing orbital dynamics as astrology: "When the Moon is in
the seventh house, and Mars aligned with Neptune; launch will be a
12:45:36 UTC."

I love science.


Mike

On 1/9/2011 11:03 AM, wrote:


Damn. I should have thought of that.

Imagine expressing orbital dynamics as astrology: "When the Moon is in
the seventh house, and Mars aligned with Neptune; launch will be a
12:45:36 UTC."

We used to have a guy around the newsgroup around a decade back that did
use to give involved astrological statements about space-related things
and astronaut's lives.
He once informed us that "Uranus is in The Dragon's mouth".
I was thinking to myself: "He's right! He knows about those peppers I
was eating last night!"

Pat

On Jan 9, 5:08 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 1/9/2011 11:03 AM, wrote:



Damn. I should have thought of that.

Imagine expressing orbital dynamics as astrology: "When the Moon is in
the seventh house, and Mars aligned with Neptune; launch will be a
12:45:36 UTC."

We used to have a guy around the newsgroup around a decade back that did
use to give involved astrological statements about space-related things
and astronaut's lives.
He once informed us that "Uranus is in The Dragon's mouth".
I was thinking to myself: "He's right! He knows about those peppers I
was eating last night!"
Pat

It looked to me that the Apollo landings made sure the Sun was to
their backs when landing the LM, for obvious reasons such as seeing
their own shadow.
That was important on 11 when the altimeter didn't work as planned.
Ken

On 1/10/2011 9:55 AM, Ken S. Tucker wrote:


It looked to me that the Apollo landings made sure the Sun was to
their backs when landing the LM, for obvious reasons such as seeing
their own shadow.
That was important on 11 when the altimeter didn't work as planned.

We had a discussion a while back regarding how the final directional
orientation of the LM after landing on the lunar surface was entered
into its guidance system before it ascended back into orbit to dock with
the CSM.

Pat