[simpits-chat] How the 'ell do I...

[Brian Sikkema]

>...and how *is* your project going ;-)

>Sean <who watched "Apollo 13" again yesterday...can you tell>

As always, in a frantic search for information, space, and funding, but 
other than that, just peachy. I found a couple more books from World 
Spaceflight News on Amazon.com that look REALLY helpful, now I just gotta 
find the cash to get them. Which reminds me: Go to Amazon.com and do a 
search for World Spaceflight News and see what they have on Apollo, chances 
are, quite a bit. One of the books they have for Mercury is a complete 
specification book on the MA-9 capsule. I'm drooling over that one, cant 
wait until I get it.

So have you played around much with the Orbiter software yet? NASSP 3.0 (the 
primary Apollo add-on for Orbiter) was released a short while ago. I still 
havent tried it yet, but from what I hear its pretty good. I haven't even 
played the latest version of Orbiter much at all yet, I'm waiting for Rob 
Conley to come out with an updated Mercury for the new version. I've got 
some extremely hi-res Mercury 3d models in the works, though, for when he 
does. And of course with the new orbiter version the SDK got a few very nice 
upgrades. By the time I actually get started on getting the Merc sim coded, 
I cant imagine what I'll be able to do...

One recent setback, though, my grad student buddy who was helping out with 
the project is going to work for NASA for a year, so he's leaving in a week 
or two for Ohio, to go play with "lasers" - that bastard. It's bad enough 
he's leaving me without someone to play pool with and harass constantly, but 
he's leaving to go work for NASA. I hate him with a passion right about now. 
But luckily it'll only be a year. I'm gonna have to get a job in his lab, 
I'm down there so much already, suddenly I'm not gonna have a reason to go 
down there, it'll feel wierd. Oh well.

Brian

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