Developments on the Door to the Universe

Yesterday, NASA announced the initial results of their advertisement for astronaut candidates. Apparently, they received 18,300 applications from what is reported to be between 8 and 14 spots.  This shatters the old record set at the height of the space shuttle program in 1978 when they received a bit over 8,000 applications for 19 spots in NASA Astronaut Group 9. However things shake out, I'm glad that I chose to add my hat to that ring, although I suppose I have to admit that I wish the number of other hats was just a bit more modest.

On the same day, Virgin Galactic, unveiled VSS Unity which replaces an earlier version, VSS Enterprise which broke up during a test flight in 2014.

It's been a newsworthy couple of days for manned spaceflight in the United States, and I'm looking forward to seeing developments unfold.  I'm a bit believer in the message related on the following photo.

The Task of the Middle Children

Be ready in the morning - we have work to do indeed.

Step 1 - Complete

Today, I let fly and arrow. It remains to be seen where it will land.

Astronaut Candidate Selection Program

There was quite a bit of writing and editing that went into an 18K character summary of my professional life. If you'd like to loose your own arrow, there is still about 24 hours left to throw your hat in the ring. Here's your chance to be and ASCAN.

Who knows, you might find yourself on the top of 300 tons of explosive rocket fuel headed for a swing around Luna. 

Three Things

There are only three things that made the cut for documentation today.  The first will be a familiar sight, since once again I captured the Anacostia sunrise with the ex-USS Barry "front and center."

Anacostia Sunrise with the ex-USS Barry as the Centerpiece

I discussed briefly yesterday that one of the reasons I take pictures of this view is because I routinely get pretty good results from my efforts. This reason was wearing a little thin, so today I invented a further justification. Sometime in the next several months the ex-USS Barry is going to depart the waterfront of the Washington Navy Yard permanently. Capturing relatively frequent photos of the ship in the lead up to the ship's departure for the scrappers may prove to be an interesting pictorial history of the ship's last days.  If printed, it would probably sell at least twelve copies.  In all seriousness, I suspect that I'm the only one doing this documentary of sorts, and it may prove to be of some interests to a very narrow group of Barry aficionados.  Since it's not out of the way that the pictures turn out pretty good, I'll continue this quest going forward and document the results here.  I'll probably leave out the commentary going forward because it is making my writing fall into an anti-creative rut so it's probably not as useful to me to continue to lean on this crutch.  Pictures only from now on with limited commentary unless something truly extraordinary catches my attention.

The second point is that today I learned that NASA is accepting applications through the USAJobs Federal hiring website for a position as an astronaut candidate (ASCAN).  I am going to apply. If anyone else reading this is interested, here is the link to the application. It's a crazy notion really and I'm on the old side of the age bell curve for this type of thing, but as soon as I learned the positions were being advertised and the timing lined up with another life event or two I knew it had to be done.

Space is one of those frontiers (not the final frontier I don't think, but one that beckons more urgently with every trip of the earth around the sun) that begs to be explored.  Manned spaceflight dovetails nicely with walking in my mind due to the exploratory and persistent nature that it takes to progress in such activities. The last time NASA picked an astronaut class was 2013, and they had over 6,000 applicants.  They made 8 selections. I suspect that given the heavy PR push that's accompanying this announcement that the number of candidates will be even higher this time around.  The odds of success are vanishingly small of actually being selected, but I know that I'll regret it if I don't throw my hat in the ring.

Finally, on my evening walk I noticed that the top tiers of the scaffolding on the Capitol Building had been removed.

Moon over the Capitol as the scaffolding surrounding the Statue Freedom being removed

I knew that the external portion of the restoration project to preserve and repair the iron dome of the Capitol Building was scheduled to complete sometime this winter, but the shrouded dome has become such a feature of my walks in Washington, DC that the realization of this progress caught me by surprise. I've looked forward to seeing this happen and now that the process has taken a visible step forward, my anticipation is growing to see the building without the gauzy accoutrements I've become familiar with.

All in all, another fantastic day.