A bit more Chertok. How often do you read a Soviet account of the Cuban missile crisis? In October 1962, Boris Chertok was, as very often, down at Baikonur site 1 frantically preparing spaceships. Very often, the spacecraft and the launcher would arrive at the vehicle integration facility (MIK) in a semifinished state and the…
Read More A bit more ChertokPerhaps I should apply for Chair of the Whittington NHS trust.
Read More opportunitiesSomething that struck me the other day, after this event. Usually I’m terrible for giving people computer advice that causes them to shout at me and burst into tears, but on this occasion I didn’t find this a problem. Why? This is a case of the so-called cross cockpit gradient. Putting people with radically different…
Read More The cross-cockpit gradientPhoto post. Just to say that I’ve been really impressed with the Canon EOS-M.
Read More Photo postSomething really interesting in here, a map of DISA’s European network by link utilisation. I choose to read this as showing everything that runs into Sigonella running red hot, therefore showing in the most literal possible way the swing of US political/military interest from the Middle East into North Africa. That said, they seem to…
Read More Fun with network utilisationSo, Boris Chertok‘s Rockets and People. This is a really amazing book, if you can find the time for it, as it weighs in at four volumes of 800 pages each and the NASA PDFs are a bit wank on the Kindle. Chertok started out as an electrician at basically the first ever Soviet aircraft…
Read More Billions for rockets, not one cent for ground-based checkoutI might start doing regular posts to roundup books. Here are a couple: In Search of Stupidity, Merrill R. Chapman, available here from the book company. This is a pleasantly vicious work that satirises business guru drivel like In Search of Excellence, Good to Great etc and argues cogently that success in the tech industry…
Read More BooksOK, so here’s your chance to be me for an evening. I have two tickets to the last-ever Belleruche gig, at XOYO on the 13th of November. Unfortunately, I will be in Dubai. I’m out fifty quid. The successful candidate, having passed the programming test, quiz set by the readers of Jamie Kenny’s blog, simulator…
Read More An opportunity that may never come again