Sometimes I think back on how LUCKY I have been! As an Air Force officer I was selected to work as a Space Shuttle flight controller, this is in April 1985 when we thought that the Shuttle would fly for the next 50 years.

Now that trump has endorsed ken paxton for Texas Senator, snubbing john cornyn, James Talarico's chances have just improved enormously.

For the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf - establish a regional/European force to control them and set up a "No Fly" zone where everyone else must get permission to enter. US Navy ships and US aircraft would apply for permission to enter and could be monitored. Also Israel

Georgia is a country that belongs in the heart of Europe.

Today is Opening Day for the Astros, we are going to try to go see a few games this season. But not today unfortunately.

It seems that the Marines are likely to land on Kharg Island, that should be named Operation Little Big Horn because they are going to be surrounded by far more Iranians. And how are we going to resupply them - but running a long gauntlet along the Iranian coast?

Gary Kasparov knows the threat that we are facing and knows that @AstroTerry has the background and status to contribute to a solution.

Moderates have a LOT of momentum and Adam Kinsinger is on our team along with many moderate conservatives.

For people interested in space stuff, I have been tracking satellites with a DSLR using a 50mm (wide field of view) lens. After some experimentation I can now track with an 85mm lens (to try to get dimmer satellites). The streak in the upper right corner is the satellite.

Today ICE murdered another American. All of us need to fight back against this authoritarian violence from the Trump administration. And every elected Democrat needs to use the full force of their power, which is significant, to end this nightmare before it’s too late.

Today I went to a panel about the book "Challenger A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space" with the author, Adam Higginbotham, Michael Lopez-Alegria (astronaut), and Wayne Hale (Flight Director) but in the audience were MANY flight controllers, astronauts, etc

Today is the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, a dark day in U.S. history. Just last year, my Republican opponent, Lauren Boebert, paraded Jan. 6th offenders through our nation’s capitol. She applauded these pardoned rioters and cop killers. She had met with Jan. 6th organizers ahead of the insurrection. She tweeted the location of the speaker during the violence. Let’s make one thing clear: Lauren Boebert is a national disgrace who advocated for violence because she didn’t get her way. My name is Trisha Calvarese and I’m running for Congress in CO-4 to retire Lauren Boebert for good.

NEWS: Ahead of the 5th anniversary of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin and Judiciary Democrats released two new reports focused on the careers of the coup plotters, the rioters, and the democracy defenders, as well as the impact of the Trump pardons. democrats-judiciary.house.go…

On Jan. 6, 2021, bloody insurrectionary violence interrupted the peaceful transfer of power. Today, America is still caught in an epic struggle between selfish forces of rule-or-ruin autocracy & the unyielding defenders of constitutional democracy all over America. nytimes.com/2026/01/06/opini…

For MAGA, the 1,600 Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump are not white supremacist cop-beaters, violent criminals & seditious conspiracists: they are “patriots,” “political prisoners” & “hostages.” MAGA is rewriting history. Democrats will keep telling the truth, the foundation of democracy.

This is the anniversary of the worst riot and attack on our free elections that we have ever had. As Americans, we must remember this day.

Yesterday I donated some aircraft checklists to the Collings Foundation and in return they gave me a tour of the maintenance hangar. They have all kinds of neat aircraft in there, all in maintenance of course.

I went to a talk today by Brian Duffy, retired Shuttle commander. We briefly chatted about the Artemis program. He is easy to talk to.

One of my hobbies is tracking satellites, normally the ones with hidden orbital parameters. But I was out tonight tracking and the ISS happened to come by. This does show some of my challenges - tracking in spite of street lights, trees, etc.

Once in a while I post about some of the work that I am doing, one thing is to try to develop some techniques useful to orbital analysis. One is the "RAAN Test" which could help connect satellites to the launch that brought them into space. thespacereview.com/article/4…