November 17th, 2010
What little faith I had in the German bureaucracy is now a little larger.
We just got back the paperwork for our landing and flight permissions for Dortmund Airport. The tentive flight plan tells us to come in over the North Sea, before moving into an official flight corridor from Copenhagen to Dortmund.
I think that is a good idea. Less change to disturb people on the ground.
November 20th, 2010
Looks like someone on the ground couldn't keep his or her mouth shut.
I just got a mail from a reporter of ‘Der Spiegel', he wants to interview us and write an article on Whistler Orbital Services.
Thankfully I consider the ‘Spiegel' to be one of the serious weekly papers. If they want to write an article about us and the fen, I won't say ‘no'. Can only get us more customers.
December 13th, 2010
Okay, now I'm surprised.
We, or rather the fen made the headline of ‘Der Spiegel'. And from what I can say, the article is mostly positive. Even through they did manage to get some info about the time we lifted off.
But then again they took a look at it from out perspective.
The others think that it was a good idea as well.
I wonder if that article will change something down there.
December 20th, 2010
The article did change a bit.
A couple of Rhodanites down there read the article from last week and now the Stardust gets an increase of population. So much that they asked us to dock a couple of ships while they expand.
And since we are nominally Rhodanites that is not that much of a problem.
Bit stuffed here through. And some of the guys wonder why we named out station KA Preiswert, because it certainly is not a large Paddler Platform.
We may also have one of the eldest Rhodan fen aboard. Ronald Teckener, a 55 year old Canadian who discovered Rhodan when he was stationed in Iserlohn back in 1964. Nice, bit of stuffy Brit type of guy, but okay. He's even a former Army Major and hitched a ride with Ben, only to be dropped of here.
Well, I think we'll see what happens to him.
January 7th, 2010
Its time to go back dirtside...
My niece and nephew are going to be baptized in two days and I for one want to make sure that no one freaks out when I walz in back home. They might have seen me on video, but in real life that is a tad different...
January 8th, 2010
My fabulous return went well. Mostly anyway.
When we landed at Dortmund Airport on a rented helicopter pad, we where all but sieged by local and national reporters.
Of course I can understand that. The ‘Spiegel' article made Whistler well known as ‘biggest German fen corporation' and now everyone wants to have a piece of us. We made sure to avoid the guys from the ‘Bild' however. We don't want to deal with rainbow press on the same level as the Sun or Fox News.
The meeting with the family went good, as well. There was some freaking out by the neighbours, but in the end it was nothing too bad.
I wonder what the pastor is going to say.
January 10th, 2010
At least nobody passed out or screamed ‘demon' or something. The pastor looked a tad uneasy when she saw me, but in the end my biomod did not prove to be a large problem. I wonder how it would hace gone had we been catholic?
Anyway, the following party on the twins made me think, when my brother-in-law asked me why I had really gone to fenspace.
I looked at the twins and told him that I did not really know.
Sure it seemed like a cool idea at the time and it is still the best I've ever done, but I think it had little to do with the actual reason, which I still don't really know.
Some soul searching is in order...
January 12th, 2010
Back to orbit, back to work.
I think I'll take some timeout to clean my head and think.
Strangely enough I can think best when I'm out and do an orbit or two by myself.
-----------------------------------------------
Slowly Earth passed below Naedial as she floated freely in space, her eyes closed and all limbs spread away from her.
Breathing lightly she let her thoughts wander, while she listened to Led Zeppelin blasting away in her ears, transmitted into her skull and from there into her inner ear through a pair of waved earplugs.
Why was she up here?
That question ran through her head for some time.
It was not just for the good time with friends and other fen.
It was not only for the thrill of doing a dangerous job or to be payed good money for the same.
It was not for the ability to float in space unprotected on her own.
She breathed in deep again and slowly opened her eyes and looked down at the passing of the world beneath her.
Exactly that was it.
She was here for this view down to this pale blue dot in the width of the wide inky blackness of space.
It was the view of the future. Not just her own, but that of everyone.
To see Earth like this, to give everyone the change to look down at Earth and say ‘I was born there' or ‘Our parents were born down there'.
To see that most of those petty problems down there didn't matter. Be it gender, ‘race', skin color, religion.
All the energy directed at those ‘problems' should be directed to other things. Like exploring the universe around them. Either through wavetech or hardtech. It didn't really matter.
All that mattered was that it was the future, and she wanted to help build that future.
That was why she was up here and not down there.
To build a better future.
- Fin -
----------------------------------
Comments on this are welcome. Gotta look over it again to correct anything that may be wrong.
What little faith I had in the German bureaucracy is now a little larger.
We just got back the paperwork for our landing and flight permissions for Dortmund Airport. The tentive flight plan tells us to come in over the North Sea, before moving into an official flight corridor from Copenhagen to Dortmund.
I think that is a good idea. Less change to disturb people on the ground.
November 20th, 2010
Looks like someone on the ground couldn't keep his or her mouth shut.
I just got a mail from a reporter of ‘Der Spiegel', he wants to interview us and write an article on Whistler Orbital Services.
Thankfully I consider the ‘Spiegel' to be one of the serious weekly papers. If they want to write an article about us and the fen, I won't say ‘no'. Can only get us more customers.
December 13th, 2010
Okay, now I'm surprised.
We, or rather the fen made the headline of ‘Der Spiegel'. And from what I can say, the article is mostly positive. Even through they did manage to get some info about the time we lifted off.
But then again they took a look at it from out perspective.
The others think that it was a good idea as well.
I wonder if that article will change something down there.
December 20th, 2010
The article did change a bit.
A couple of Rhodanites down there read the article from last week and now the Stardust gets an increase of population. So much that they asked us to dock a couple of ships while they expand.
And since we are nominally Rhodanites that is not that much of a problem.
Bit stuffed here through. And some of the guys wonder why we named out station KA Preiswert, because it certainly is not a large Paddler Platform.
We may also have one of the eldest Rhodan fen aboard. Ronald Teckener, a 55 year old Canadian who discovered Rhodan when he was stationed in Iserlohn back in 1964. Nice, bit of stuffy Brit type of guy, but okay. He's even a former Army Major and hitched a ride with Ben, only to be dropped of here.
Well, I think we'll see what happens to him.
January 7th, 2010
Its time to go back dirtside...
My niece and nephew are going to be baptized in two days and I for one want to make sure that no one freaks out when I walz in back home. They might have seen me on video, but in real life that is a tad different...
January 8th, 2010
My fabulous return went well. Mostly anyway.
When we landed at Dortmund Airport on a rented helicopter pad, we where all but sieged by local and national reporters.
Of course I can understand that. The ‘Spiegel' article made Whistler well known as ‘biggest German fen corporation' and now everyone wants to have a piece of us. We made sure to avoid the guys from the ‘Bild' however. We don't want to deal with rainbow press on the same level as the Sun or Fox News.
The meeting with the family went good, as well. There was some freaking out by the neighbours, but in the end it was nothing too bad.
I wonder what the pastor is going to say.
January 10th, 2010
At least nobody passed out or screamed ‘demon' or something. The pastor looked a tad uneasy when she saw me, but in the end my biomod did not prove to be a large problem. I wonder how it would hace gone had we been catholic?
Anyway, the following party on the twins made me think, when my brother-in-law asked me why I had really gone to fenspace.
I looked at the twins and told him that I did not really know.
Sure it seemed like a cool idea at the time and it is still the best I've ever done, but I think it had little to do with the actual reason, which I still don't really know.
Some soul searching is in order...
January 12th, 2010
Back to orbit, back to work.
I think I'll take some timeout to clean my head and think.
Strangely enough I can think best when I'm out and do an orbit or two by myself.
-----------------------------------------------
Slowly Earth passed below Naedial as she floated freely in space, her eyes closed and all limbs spread away from her.
Breathing lightly she let her thoughts wander, while she listened to Led Zeppelin blasting away in her ears, transmitted into her skull and from there into her inner ear through a pair of waved earplugs.
Why was she up here?
That question ran through her head for some time.
It was not just for the good time with friends and other fen.
It was not only for the thrill of doing a dangerous job or to be payed good money for the same.
It was not for the ability to float in space unprotected on her own.
She breathed in deep again and slowly opened her eyes and looked down at the passing of the world beneath her.
Exactly that was it.
She was here for this view down to this pale blue dot in the width of the wide inky blackness of space.
It was the view of the future. Not just her own, but that of everyone.
To see Earth like this, to give everyone the change to look down at Earth and say ‘I was born there' or ‘Our parents were born down there'.
To see that most of those petty problems down there didn't matter. Be it gender, ‘race', skin color, religion.
All the energy directed at those ‘problems' should be directed to other things. Like exploring the universe around them. Either through wavetech or hardtech. It didn't really matter.
All that mattered was that it was the future, and she wanted to help build that future.
That was why she was up here and not down there.
To build a better future.
- Fin -
----------------------------------
Comments on this are welcome. Gotta look over it again to correct anything that may be wrong.