slackerastro ([info]slackerastro) wrote,
@ 2005-05-06 23:58:00
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Slacker Extra: Jonathan's Space Chat
Aaron saw a Titan IV rocket sail over Boston recently.
So he asked Dr. Jonathan McDowell about it and ended
up with an interesting chat about satellite tracking, spy satellites,
Chandra and more.




Jupiter is on the left, the rocket is the moving speck on the right. Images are roughly 10 seconds apart. Pictures by Aaron.

Title: Slacker Extra Interview With Jonathan McDowell
Disembodied Voices: Jonathan McDowell and Aaron Price
Engineered: Aaron Price
Subjects: Space exploration, rockets, orbits,satellites, spy agencies, chandra, dark matter, amateurs

Our new mics and iRivers are here and we're testing how to use them best. Jonathan sounds great, Aaron is just a bit quiet. But he has nothing to say anyway!




A Note From Aaron: I have been a stutterer all my life. It is one reason you never hear me host the main shows with Travis and Pamela. As a child it was bad but 8 years of speech therapy did wonders. Now many people don't know I stutter the first time they meet me. However, today I had one of the worst episodes of stuttering in a long time. The way to combat these situations is for me to take a minute and relax and then focus on a technique called "prolonging" where you stretch out the first vowell sound in a word. As a kid I HATED it when adults kept reminding me to "slow down and PROLONG"! But now it is a life saver. However, when you are "live" how do you ask an interviewee to "please give me a minute to get ahold of myself". :)

Anyway, I just throw that out there so you know why I STUTTER LIKE A MAD BANSHEE today. Well, I guess banshee's don't stutter. But they should! A stuttering Siouxie Sue would rock my world. (If you don't like old school punk, you won't get that.)

Back to your regularly scheduled slack...


Here is a list of topics in order as they appear:

 Aaron explaining what he saw
 The Titan IV launch summary         
 Explanation of different orbits, launch tactics
 Scared canadian oil platforms
 Explanation of Titan IV launch and boosters in detail
 Spy agencies
 Importance of spy satellites through history
 What the Titan IV launched
 No secrets
 Importance of amateurs in satellite tracking
 More orbit talk
 Jonathan's Space Report
 Building an open international community of trackers
 Day job: Chandra X-Ray Observatory
 Virtual Observatories
 PhD's, population 3 stars that don't exist and Olber's Paradox

(Post a new comment)


(Anonymous)
2005-05-07 08:35 pm UTC (link)
Don't worry about the stutterer, it isn't so bad!
I myself speak way to fast...

anyhow it was a very interesting SA Extra. I enjoy it a lot.

(Reply to this)

Titan Launches
[info]switchtech
2005-05-08 07:21 pm UTC (link)
Keep these interviews coming! They are great.

As a side note: I worked at Vandenberg for a while and got to see several titan launches from relatively up close. Very cool. The most cool were launches just after sunset. The smoke and vapor trail it leaves rises from darkness through the layers of sunset and gets the colors of the sunset. Unfortunately, I didn't have a decent camera at the time so I don't have any photos.

(Reply to this)

Loved the interview Aaron
[info]ozastro
2005-05-09 02:24 am UTC (link)
Aaron, I hope to hear more of you on Slacker. Imagine how an Aussie would sound who has only read a little about astronomy. Another bonus of Slacker. I hear astronomy terminology being pronounced :)

I have a confession to make. I got hooked listening to to the podcast rather than doing my Maths assignment :)

A hopelessly devoted Slacker fan.

(Reply to this)

Awesome!
(Anonymous)
2005-05-09 03:51 am UTC (link)
That was a great interview! Where else can we hear about spy satelites, NSA, and all the other fun topics that came up 8-)

Thansks! Love the podcast!

Attila

(Reply to this)

mono
[info]suitti
2005-05-09 06:37 pm UTC (link)
What stutter? Who, exactly was stuttering?

I listen with headphones, and this show was primarily in the left channel. I used xmms to convert it to .wav, then sox to convert it to mono, then notlame to convert back to mp3. Apparently, I forgot that notlame can convert to mono.

For low bitrate/samplerate mp3's, I use xmms's Effects plugin - Echo. I give it a delay around 30 ms, with feedback around 20% and volume around 30%. It gives it a tiled room feel, but what I'm going for is to smooth over sampling artifact harshness. So even when the mp3 is lower than 32Kbits/sec with a sample rate of 16 KHz, it's generally OK with me.

Sometimes I forget to turn it off, and it's Mozart in the Bathroom.

I am human. I am listening. I am not a net bot.

Oh, that was last week.

(Reply to this)

Left Channel Only
(Anonymous)
2005-05-10 07:04 pm UTC (link)
I didn't realise that anyone was stuttering until I read the shownotes; maybe I wasn't paying enough attention :)

I listened to this show through headphones and I too got speech only through the left channel; absolutely nothing through the right except for a bit of static.

-Neil

(Reply to this)

Sound on one channel for me too
(Anonymous)
2005-05-14 02:01 am UTC (link)
I also got the sound only through the left channel, with a bit of static on the right. The levels also seemed low, but maybe that's because there's only one channel. I was listening on an iPod.

Even with the missing channel, it was still fascinating stuff. And I didn't notice a bit of stuttering.

Michael Portuesi

(Reply to this)

Good Interview
(Anonymous)
2005-05-17 06:09 pm UTC (link)
Great show on an interesting topic.

I was surprised to see that Aaron was worried about stuttering. I would never have known. As for the audio, I agree that something was funky with it, but nothing bad enough to interfere with the content.

If you're really interested in this stuff, here's a page of someone who has developed software to determine when the ISS crosses the moon, sun and planets. There are also some cool pictures of the ISS crossing the moon, sun and Saturn on this page:

http://iss-transit.sourceforge.net

(Reply to this)


[info]melvisbrevel
2005-05-23 01:27 pm UTC (link)
Like the others have said. Ace interview! very interesting! Im not an astronomer, or too scientificly minded but i really do dig your shows!! Keep them coming!
Also, again like the others. Dont worry about the stuttering, only found out from reading these show notes. Nothing to apologise about. ;o)

catch you later

Paul''

(Reply to this)


[info]astrotsarina
2006-06-16 03:34 am UTC (link)
I'm a bit delayed, having just gotten my first iPod, so I'm starting at the beginning of Slacker Astronomy and working forward to the present. I was glad to read that the show was in mono, now I don't have to worry that my new earbuds are busted. I, too, did not know Aaron stuttered until I read the comments (and I usually notice these things, since I grew up with my dad the speech pathologist). He actually helped invent a device called delayed auditory feedback. It's really weird...if you put a stutterer on the machine (you wear headphones and it delays the sound of your own voice coming into your ears), s/he stops stuttering...if you put a non-stutterer on it, they stutter (and usually rip the earphones off their head within a few seconds).

Anyway, I'm really enjoying SA...keep up the good work. I'm sure I'll work my way into 2006 soon.

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