COVID-19
Space center updates....
Today, 8/19, almost no one except management is wearing the mandatory face masks, especially with the CDC relaxing rules.
I checked my temp in the LCC fancy infrared reader and it said my temperature was 104 and flashed red at me to go home. I cold only laugh at 104. So they are not even keeping that calibrated anymore.
This morning we rolled the SLS Artemis 1 to the launch pad for the final time. (Launch is August 29---maybe)
At least 200,000 visitors expected to the space coast for this unmanned launch around the moon.
Sunrise at the launch pad this morning
I will shrink the photo tomorrow.
Back at the space center, and was just taken off the mandatory 20 hours overtime a week (after two years) But then the center is in a frenzy. Roll out to the launch pad of the fully stacked SLS rocket is next month & launch sometime in May? (not sure)
My photo taken just before the July 1st roll back to the VAB for final launch preps
Above photo:
The maiden roll out of the SLS rocket setting down at launch pad 39B, three hours before dawn & ocean fog floating in.
Photo credit: Mine! 03/18/22
I took this photo from the 16th floor of the VAB.
The person standing on the right test stand presents an indication of how large the rocket is.
Then for a second comparison, this is a mural on the wall of the space center of the SLS rocket. wow.
Just tossed in this SpaceX pad photo on launch pad 39A. I took the photo on the way to the other pad.
The white object is the tool used to stand the Falcon rockets upright. (as I type this, the night launch is in 14 minutes)
older notes:
SpaceX Falcon launch on KSC, NASA Causeway, rocket smoke trail and alligator ignoring the fireworks.
May 15 2022, all COVID restrictions lifted. What a run.
Previous update
Update 11 months working from home and the 'Company' stated my work was critical and I was to return to working at Kennedy Space Center in person.....
Said "yes" Returned to the SSPF building and within a month most of the third floor (including me) got COVID-19.
And I brought it home to my wife. Took about ten days of feeling poor and all is back to normal. However the company sent everyone home again.
So I am working from home again, for a little while. However the space center is getting ever busier with the SLS rocket being stacked in the VAB and the Space X and Boeing space crafts coming on line.
However I have been ordered back on Mandatory 20 hours a week overtime.
Update: Back on the Space Center again. Still on the mandatory 60 hour work week.
The pass is from the temperature tool in the Launch Control Center
This page is from last summer and working from home with turkeys. Feel free skip!
Last year the space center shut it's doors because of COVID-19.
They sent me home with a laptop to keep working.
I was sort of in shock.
Not because of the virus, or the laptop but because I had been working 'off and on' a mandatory 60 work week for almost two years straight.
When not explicit mandatory, the 60 hours was requested.
The new Artemis moon program reminds of the early years of the space shuttle and the unlimited hours until the Challenger accident.
Because of the virus....
Suddenly I had time to see the sunrise at home again and watch the turkeys fly down from their roost. "Florida Dawn"
Another Florida Sunrise
Anyway.
The virus pandemic swept the globe and all the sudden I was back home with the turkeys.
Practicing social distancing from people.
But placed squarely back into the realm of pet turkeys. Their mating, the turkey nests the poults, the Tom's ritual battles & the hens squawking to lay an egg.
A 40 hour work week is a culture shock.
I actually had a two day weekend! A bizarre concept.
Suddenly I have time again for the turkey website that I had to ignore for the past two years.
I have time for the back yard again. (I made time for the garden) but had to sacrifice some kayak and fishing days to plant the garden.
Coffee and a spectacular sunrise.
The hen waiting for just enough daylight to fly down safely
Suddenly I was working from home till COVID runs its course.
Florida Turkey Sunrise
Staying home, Social Distancing from humans
(Tom Turkeys fighting around the manure cart)
Enjoying the turkeys come off their night roost!
The Space Center.....
Two years of non stop overtime at the Space Center.
EM1, Artemis, Orion, SLS and Gateway.
Boeing and SpaceX are gearing up to launch humans from the cape again. Landing on the Moon again by 2024?
The space center is booming like the last days of the Space Shuttle Program.
Working from home for the duration of the pandemic.
Test fit of the Mobile Launch tower at Launch Pad 39A
I snapped this photo outside of the Space Station Processing Facility. SLS segment
But back home with the turkeys......
Cup of coffee in the yard to watch the sunrise at home and watch the birds come off their roost. To my surprise, two males began fighting long before the sunrise.
Not even sun up and this boy is showing off his bling
Chicks....
These to Bantam Chicks were 10 days late.
COVID-19 turkey poult. Two of the other eggs have pipped air holes.
Just in the last two days I have allowed the hens to keep their babies out all day and lock them up at night.
The proud father of some of the chicks.
A 'naked-neck' rooster that someone tossed in our yard
Our first turkeys of 2020 are due in a few days.
However we keep finding our chickens with hidden nests. The chicks in the above photo did not hatch out with the other chicks. We collected and placed the un hatched the eggs in the incubator. But surprisingly they did not hatch for TEN DAYS after the other chicks.
A problem of egg dropping by other hens.
And today I inspected the turkey hen who has the eggs due in seven days. I lifted her to find....more chicken eggs with the turkey eggs.
Back to coffee at dawn & turkey watching
Sunrise in Florida and a Black Spanish mix confronts a Bourbon Red mix.
Two mutts getting ready for daylight.
Staying home for COVID-19, I have a little time for the silly stuff again.
Or maybe I do have a fever.
"Turkey Planet" from my Turkey Space Alien Page
Time to do yard work again. And the fire is doing double duty.
I have flint and agate under the fire to "heat treat" the stone to make it easier to Flintknap
And a little time for carving and flintknapping some stone from under the fire pit.
(The stone is petrified Coral and handle is pine lighter-knot)
Time to sniff the flowers....
And another COVID-19 Dawn
And an orphan baby for May 2020
Invasion of wild Ibis
Guardian of the Flock. Tara the Wolfhound.
Although she soon jumped up and playfully chased them because she is still a puppy mentally.
And the turkeys make noise when chased......
Took in this rescue rooster. "Willard" He is tiny and tough!
Notice the "Kayakingksc" logo on some of the photos?
With the overtime canceled again, suddenly I had time again for my other web site Kayakingksc.com (Link navigates away from this site)
As park of that site I did a page on my family's Horse Boarding Stables in eastern Missouri. Stonebridge Stables
The other web site is a collection of:
Kayaking, Florida history, the Space Center past and future.
A dying lagoon, a lost people, lost treasures, retired space ships, remote beaches, wildlife and rocket viewing, the Eastern Test Range and return to the moon!
Manatees, alligators, surfing, endurance kayak racing, a pipeline leak and a ghost or two.
Update, still working from home.
Suspect the space center will re-open soon.
However back in January I was placed back on mandatory 20 hour a week overtime. (We are going back to the moon.) Or as one engineer tells me. "We are going for real this time."
Return HOME from the COVID-19 page
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Author Bruce Ryba at Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39B & Artemis 1. "We are going to the Moon!"
Author's discussion (that's me) on You Tube of a book review on Amazon
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For the video versions of information, please check out my YouTube Channel (Turkeys, KSC, Flintknapping, dive stories etc.)
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