Xmas Ups, Xmas Downs

[major_clanger]

Christmas: a bit up and a bit down, really.

Up has been having my mum and brother to visit; neither had seen our new house before and bugshaw and I thought it would be nice to offer to host both of them to avoid the who-visits-who round. So we've had (subject to factors below) a nice family holiday all together. So far ways found to pass the time have included putting up curtains (still house-fitting chores to do), playing against brother on the Xbox and building Lego.

Yes, for the first time in 20 years I got Lego for Christmas! And not just any old kit: bugshaw got me the 7471 Mars Exploration Rover". It took bloody ages to put together (technical Lego is more fiddly than when I was young, or maybe my fingers are bigger now) but at the end of it you get a pretty darned accurate model at about 1:5 scale of yer actual Mars Rover, complete with working steering and scanning sensor boom and high-gain antenna. Let's just hope the real things - both of them - work as well.

Down has been my brother arriving with a nasty cough that got worse and worse and worse to the point that this morning I took him round to the nearest open surgery where a doctor diagnosed acute bronchitis. This might not be unrelated to his job as a livestock trading standards officer requiring him to spend much of the last week poking around in a freezing slurry pit. Brother is now in bed feeling really quite crap, with a course of nuclear-strength antibiotics and a prescription cough mixture that looks and smells like I could use any leftovers to creosote our garden shed. Here's hoping he recovers soon.

Other bad news was of course the UK effort at Mars. It's a bit awful to say this, but as an actual Rocket Scientist I was not entirely optimistic about Beagle 2's chances. It was a good basic idea and was built by people who knew what they were doing, but the whole design was very marginal in a range of areas and had - by space engineering standards - a QA and test programme that was minimal to say the least. I think if we'd launched half a dozen of them in a shotgun-mission then one or two would probably have worked, but that was never really an option. Oh well, at least we tried, and I;ll try to be optimistic and hope that something turns up soon.

See you all soon,

MC

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I guess B2 shows that the UK isn't quite ready for a full understanding of Better Faster Cheaper, and the implication that this also means more failures. Sadly the projects I'm working on also seem to be heading down the 'success oriented' route, with less testing than we'd like, and with any problems found in that testing leading to severe schedule problems if they're to be fixed.

I do still hope that B2 is contactable, but fear its lying in bits in a new crater, surrounded by deflated airbags.

Any news of laptops?

Hope your brother feels better soon!

[daveon.livejournal.com]

but fear its lying in bits in a new crater

That's my fear.

We'll see if its just a coms protocol glitch next week, but I must admit I'm not hopeful.

The other option is its landed but is sitting in a shadow unable to recharge.