Satellite observing endangered by US Gov regulation!!!

While I've been a HAM for almost 30 years, I really don't use the license. I just checked the site, and they only list the HAM satellites. I'm interested in visible stuff, particularly ISS, and when it returns to flight, the Shuttle. MIR was an easy one to spot as well, before it was de-orbitted. I still remember seeing Atlantis docked with MIR while old friend Jay Apt was on board. And getting up the morning after they undocked and seeing them in formation, at what I estimated was about 30 miles apart.

I get my data in PDA database format from alain.it, who in turn gets them from Dr. Kelso, who gets them from NORAD but won't be able to redistribute them any more thanks to this stupid law.

The link to the law is on Dr. Kelso's site. Unless the AMSAT community us generating these TLEs from their own tracking data (not likely), they too are getting the data from NORAD and will not be able to redistribute it after 31-March.

Maybe Chicken Little was right: the sky *IS* falling!

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

Don't see anything there. Did they jsut archive it and put this weeks news in its place? Got a pointer to the previous article? I tried searching on various key words and got nothing.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

back up a few posts in the thread bob, I had reposted it.

or do you have me kill filed ?

True, but that's ALL governments and agencies there of.

Randy

Did you see the shuttle and MIR flying together a few years back? It was COOL!

Randy

Well, it certainly wasn't in the past few years, since MIR is no more and the Shuttle hasn't flown for 2 years :-(

Yes, it was during STS-79 While Jay Apt was on board. This was the flight that brought Shannon Lucid back from MIR. Several shots from that flight (including the training) in the Mission to MIR IMAX movie / DVD. IIRC Jay shows up about 4 times in the movie.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

Try the NASA SkyWatch site

Dave

One of the best memories I have is attending a Fourth of July fireworks display at St George Island, in the late 80's, I think. The Shuttle and Mir passed overhead during the middle of the display, in formation. Talk about a beautiful sight! The next year, someone in a passing car threw some firecrackers out the window. A women was burned, and sued the Franklin County Commision for allowing "a dangerous display and activity". She was there watching the display, none of the people involved had anything to do with the County, the display, or anything else. She got a big award, the county shut down all fireworks displays, and the public lost out on a fine tradition. The display was held near the bridge, and reflected off the water. That was a once-in-a-liftime sight, and cannot be seen again by my Grandchildren. How many inspiring experiences have been lost because of the reacting to stupid people and "BEING SAFE"?

Ed "Bob Kaplow" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@eisner.encompasserve.org...

The link from there to the TLE data is broken.

I found another page on this site that links to Dr Kelso's FTP site, one of the sites that will cease to exist on 31-Mar...

Another example of the government having one hand that doesn't know what the other hand is doing.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

Very shortly, all of them.

As long as we buy into the idea that every time one person is harmed/offended/made slightly unhappy we should protect EVERYONE from that "danger" - it's inevitable.

A better response would be to ban that person from fireworks displays.

How and when did this notion become established, anyway? It seems to have become a de facto cultural expectation while nobody was looking, yet if you think about it, it's got to be a relatively recent thing in historical terms that "everybody" thinks that way.

-dave w

Kinda sorta like this BS policy of carding everyone 'that appears' under the age of 40 when buying cigs. 'I can't sell you smokes with out an id because you appear to be under the age of 40'. And what is the LEGAL age for purchasing tobacco????? 18! Basically it's saying the cashier is a supreme idiot because they can't tell the age difference between 39 and 17. It's also a insult to the purchaser(if it's obvious the purchaser is *well* above the age of 17) just for the fact of being treated like child.

Beyond $&@*!^@ stupid....

Ted Novak TRA#5512 IEAS#75

Hmmm, I don't smoke so I might have the wrong perspective. BUT, given we want to tighten up restrictions on sales to minors, the only alternative is to require the ID for every single purchase. The "appears" phraseology is so clerks can get away with not proofing obviously older people. In fact, this is one of the few cases where the government allows people to use a bit of their own judgement.

Of course, some clerks are brighter (or were more recently chewed out by a manager) than others.