Sunday March 8^th 2009. Launch -39 days.

A completely normal, quiet day at home. Some shopping first thing after putting on a washing machine, to put some things in the freezer and have something on hand for breakfast (some rather nice sausages did the trick), vacuum, clean the hamsters, water the plants scattered around the house (I am particularly partial to cactus and bonsais), plant some freesia bulbs and have a relaxed cup of tea. The next two weeks will give plenty of stress and a lot of long hours so I am happy to take it easy today.

Ideally I would like to have a really boring week. That would indicate that our software has been tamed and that the hardware is working just nicely thank you. In practice, I am not going to hold my breath on this one. If we were to get everything working fine we would probably be the first mission ever to manage it: inevitably, however much work you put in before launch, things are never ever perfect and you spend the first few months straightening out the kinks in the system.

Last night I was watching the film “The Dambusters” in bed. It is a wonderful film about a remarkable story, of which the film captures only a tiny part. At the time, the attack was a tremendous fillip to a country that had suffered badly from Nazi bombing and that had been just six weeks from starvation. In hindsight though it was, if not a military disaster, only a tiny victory, achieved at terrible cost, of which there are so many in any war. Within a few short months the dams had been rebuilt, with German industrial capacity barely being scratched. Only on one level was the raid a decisive success and that was in showing the Nazi leadership that they were no longer impugn, that retribution was coming and that nowhere was safe. The story of ingenuity in solving problems that the book and, later, the film told was remarkable. Maybe I picked the film having watched my Bulgarian teammate yesterday produce a quite remarkable shot that landed around the middle of one of the lakes and then bounced and skipped at least 30 metres, to the point that it looked like it might manage to reach the opposite bank, before finally sinking to agonised groans.

Later, I have two sets of minutes to write-up and send out, but for now I am going to enjoy the fine, sunny warm day. The windows are open and silence enters from outside apart from the occasional snatch of birdsong. Maybe later I will get out the bike and enjoy a ride in the late afternoon sun.

ESA v NASA: March 7th

“Hmmm, it looks like my ball. Why did it want to hit it there?” One of the ESA team ponders going paddling as the captain watches from the extreme right.

“I’ll settle for that!” sending the ball up the mountain on the last hole and even more or less in the right direction.

One of my best shots of the day. Pity that I left it right until the end!

“You have 14 putts to win from there. Let’s see how you handle some pressure!”

The magnificent eight and our referee/scorers show that there are no hard feelings afterwards.