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Astronaut capture Hurricane Frances from space
Mike Rein
Kennedy Space Center, Fla. August 27, 2004 (Phone: 321/867-2468) James Hartsfield Johnson Space Center, Texas (Phone: 281/483-5111) PHOTO RELEASE: P12-04 ASTRONAUTS CAPTURE HURRICANE FRANCES FROM SPACE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - This photo of Hurricane Frances was taken by Astronaut Mike Fincke aboard the International Space Station as he flew 230 statute miles above the storm at about 10 a.m. EDT today, Aug. 27. At the time, Frances was located 820 miles east of the Lesser Antilles in the Atlantic Ocean, moving west-northwest at 10 miles per hour, with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles per hour. Fincke, the NASA ISS Science Officer and Flight Engineer, and Expedition 9 Commander Gennady Padalka are in the fifth month of a six-month flight aboard the Station. www.spaceflight.nasa.gov -end- -- -------------------------------------- Jacques :-) www.spacepatches.info |
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ASTRONAUTS CAPTURE HURRICANE FRANCES FROM SPACE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - This photo of Hurricane Frances was taken by Astronaut Mike Fincke aboard the International Space Station as he flew 230 statute miles above the storm at about 10 a.m. EDT today, Aug. 27. At the time, Frances was located 820 miles east of the Lesser Antilles in the Atlantic Ocean, moving west-northwest at 10 miles per hour, with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles per hour. Fincke, the NASA ISS Science Officer and Flight Engineer, and Expedition 9 Commander Gennady Padalka are in the fifth month of a six-month flight aboard the Station. www.spaceflight.nasa.gov -end- -- -------------------------------------- Jacques :-) www.spacepatches.info You dont need a astronaut to do something a unmanned weather satellite is perfectly capable of........... HAVE A GREAT DAY! |
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So astronauts shouldn't take pictures of hurricanes they happen to pass over? Geez, Bob, get that stick out of your butt. Brian No not a problem but honestly its being done atomatically anyway. HAVE A GREAT DAY! |
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On 2004-08-30, bob haller wrote:
So astronauts shouldn't take pictures of hurricanes they happen to pass over? Geez, Bob, get that stick out of your butt. No not a problem but honestly its being done atomatically anyway. HAVE A GREAT DAY! Although, one might surmise, not very well. ISS crew time is valuable, at least in the sense that the limited number of available man-hours are oversubscribed. Yet, if you look at the ISS status reports, every day they list photographic targets, often of developing situations (hurricanes, wildfires) or of specific obscure opportunities ("ah, an early-morning pass to the west of Bermuda, the phytoplankon guy wanted that") - and often interesting but unplanned targets of opportunity are found. Why do they do this? If these images are being taken elsewhere, surely the crew has better things to do? One of the important lessons from Skylab was that the science return with a person in the loop - the specific case being sun-observations - was immense; a trained observer could *tell* when something interesting was happening, and start paying attention. Analysts remarked that, almost without fail, when a flare began or a prominence started misbehaving, bang, every instrument hitting directly on it immediately. This sort of flexibility just doesn't happen with machinery - you don't need to put large amounts of effort and planning into arranging specific images can be taken, just find a time the station is nearby and let the crew do the work - trivial for a person, hard for a servo. It is also worth remembering that a human, with a reasonable field of view, is *far* more effective at off-track photography than a satellite is; simply by having a person holding the camera, able to track it around and lean to the side, &c &c, the amount of land you're able to cover is vastly increased on any one pass - and when imagery is time-dependent, this really does help. Basically, earth observation *can* be done remotely - and is, very well - but for non-routine work, looking for specific unusual targets, a human photographer works better every time. If they were doing routine mapping, it'd be a valid objection, but they're not... perhaps a suitable analogy would be comparing a CCTV network to a security guard. Your camera can see a lot, but they're not very flexible and there's limits to what they can do; a wandering guard can see things, think, investigate oddities as they arise without needing to compromise other usages. They work very well *together*, and this is the case here... -- -Andrew Gray |
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ISS crew time is valuable, at least in the sense that the limited number
of available man-hours are oversubscribed. Yet, if you look at the ISS status reports, every day they list photographic targets, often of developing situations (hurricanes, wildfires) Another argument to allow the crew to spend some time is that being stuck in a tin can for 6 months with limited opportunities to look outside, it is perhaps part of their daily "requirements" along with exercise food, hygiene and sleep. If you're going to stick a crew member next to a window for X minutes per day to maintain his sanity, you might as well have him hold a camera and do something useful while he enjoys the view. |
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On 2004-08-30, John Doe wrote:
ISS crew time is valuable, at least in the sense that the limited number of available man-hours are oversubscribed. Yet, if you look at the ISS status reports, every day they list photographic targets, often of developing situations (hurricanes, wildfires) Another argument to allow the crew to spend some time is that being stuck in a tin can for 6 months with limited opportunities to look outside, it is perhaps part of their daily "requirements" along with exercise food, hygiene and sleep. If you're going to stick a crew member next to a window for X minutes per day to maintain his sanity, you might as well have him hold a camera and do something useful while he enjoys the view. I kept reminding myself to add that point at the end, and forgot - thanks :-) Yeah, it's quite true; as we explained to Bob earlier, providing crewmembers with entertainment/relaxation is an important part of the human factors planning attendant on having a crew at all, and this allows us a method which combines an activity crews tend to enjoy (and often not consider "work" as such, which is itself valuable) with something that has undeniable science return. -- -Andrew Gray |
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It's correct that that a person can take a photograph with more art,
but it should be noted that weather satellite done things routinely and is capable of capturing a specific unusual anomaly during its routine, and it's also capable of focusing on the target if it had the capability to do that. Without the automatons working, a human might have easily missed that specific unusual anomaly, because humans are lousy doing routine stuff. The correct method is... the automatons done things routinely, then when the automatons sense something is unusual or the human that operate it sense something is unusual, then a real person can investigate that anomaly, either using the automatons or directly by himself. And that's what happen when an astronaut aboard the I.S.S. took a picture of a hurricane, he was notified by the weather satellite and then decided to take a picture of it. Though any weather satellite is capable of doing what Fincke did. Really, you don't need him. Keeping him up there would only torment him, unless of course one want to torment him. As for the CCTV analogy. Well, considering that by now CCTV basically covered pretty much of the public area (of course, they can put a camera in the bathroom without people knowing), you don't need to have a security guard wandering around that might alert a potential intruder, as matter in fact, a CCTV network can catch an intruder better because they're more capable of being stealthy than a security guard. The only thing a security guard does now is to routinely patrol to check if the CCTV network is working correctly, and to investigate any anomaly that the CCTV network catch. And even now there are robot security guards that regulary patrol to investigate things. As for on whether or not is right the astronaut took the picture of Earth. That depends.... Did the astronaut took it in his time off? Then if he did, it's none of one's business, unless of course that any picture taking of the Earth require a permission from the authority. Don't laugh, it's true that you need a license, we can't take a picture of Earth without the authority agreeing, and even more if the picture goes public (or else we would have seen more U.F.O. photos from space). If the astronaut took the picture during his duty, then we should ask if he did get the permission to took a break from his duty or was it his duty to take a picture? |
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Yeah, it's quite true; as we explained to Bob earlier, providing crewmembers with entertainment/relaxation is an important part of the human factors planning attendant on having a crew at all, and this allows us a method which combines an activity crews tend to enjoy (and often not consider "work" as such, which is itself valuable) with something that has undeniable science return. -- -Andrew Gray you have a good point and I agree. HAVE A GREAT DAY! |
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