apparently some people are stuck in a broken elevator at the top of the Green Bank Telescope
Up there.
For scale, the diameter of the telescope is almost precisely the length of a regulation football field.
And it moves.
Broken cable, possibly due to winds.
The elevator is apparently being cranked down manually.
Observations are suspended.
PS: apparently they got everybody down in 3 hours, faster than expected
operations are resuming, elevator still broken
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Heads up, peeps.
NSF Portfolio Review is out
Mayall, WIYN, 2.1m KPNO, GBT and VLBA are out in recommended scenarios.
Shit.
Portfolio Review - full text 170 pp (pdf)
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Yikes! That's pretty high up. I'm glad they got down safely.
Higher, I say. Go interstellar. Here's a new Science Fiction novel by an Astro professor, as recommended at locusmag.com
{see said site, page for March 2008 books, for hotlinks}
Brotherton, Mike : Spider Star
(Tor 978-0-7653-1125-2, $26.95, 448pp, hardcover, March 2008, jacket art David Dociu)
SF novel about archaeologists who unearth an alien weapon that will destroy the colony world Argo unless it can be deactivated.
� Tor's website has this description.
� The author's website has posts about the the science in the book (Brotherton is a professor of astronomy), this description with excerpts from reviews, and the prologue and first four chapters.
� Amazon has the mixed Publishers Weekly review, which notes "the story's strong and reliable pacing".
� Russell Letson reviews the book in the February issue of Locus Magazine, noting that "The book is a bit reminiscent of Jack McDevitt in the way the adventure is framed by both happy domesticity and bureaucratic and organizational tensions", while comparing the alien Argonauts to the Moties of Niven & Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye; "the handling of both the ancient Argonauts and the various inhabitants of the Spider Star are ingenious and engaging, and the suggestion of a universe that stretches beyond the boundaries of this particular tale and of stories-left-to-tell is one of the hallmarks of good science fiction."