Becoming a space beat writer worth his Europian moon salt is a constant struggle. For example you have to know about Europa, a Galilean moon orbiting Jupiter, and then weaponise the discovery of sodium-chloride on its surface to deliver a tasteful space joke. Every day is an uphill battle very much subject to gravity, unlike the astronauts. Yeah that’s right, this gig is harder than actual NASA stuff.
All of the training and rigorous study with none of the fame and glory. If astronauts are the athletes and rocket scientists are the rock stars then this column is Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone combined. What I’m trying to say is I do a lot of research, but it’s all worth it for a small but brilliant discovery every now and again. A juicy little nugget of weird space info unique to the space scene.
My latest discovery orbits around a recent thruster hiccup by way of a Russian module. While docked at the International Space Station Nauka, a Multipurpose Laboratory Module, began firing its thrusters, knocking the station out of its normal attitude. If you’re anything like me you may have read that twice. Attitude, not altitude. This point of difference sent me scrambling through multiple articles, as much like the thruster, I thought this word swap was a mistake. It was not.
Attitude helps describe how an object is placed in the space it occupies, but honestly fuck that.
I much prefer my initial surprise and internal chuckle at the thought of a satellite or spacecraft having an attitude problem in the more common use of the word. ‘Houston we have an attitude problem. The landing gear is grumpy’.
Imagine the moon landing if the thrusters just couldn’t be arsed giving it their all. ‘A new BBC report shows the latest rockets developed by NASA are too self-absorbed to work with astronauts. One scientist commented, “they’re just too soft compared to the older models”.’ I want to live in a world where even the seats back at mission control get sick of the nervous farts they tank during a launch.
