Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Woah. Third Moon Post In Three Days.

The lunatics (who, if you recall, have been on the grass since 1973) are on sale for three bucks.

***
Caught the Moon Launch on the web last night. It was hair-raising good. Upon lift-off, we stood up, applauded and then ate a chocolate truffle to celebrate. The original plan was to eat a chocolate truffle for each phase of separation but I was reminded that not all that goes up comes back down. At least not without spending an hour at the gym every morning for the rest of my life (and possibly the after-life too.)

The live audio feed from ISRO's Control Room was, to me, the best part of the evening. It was not your average unintelligible space-tech jargon. It was unintelligible space-tech jargon delivered in rich, coconut-flavored Mallu accent.

The second-best part of the event was learning that ISRO has a "Deep Space Tracking Station" in a village called Byalalu near Bangalore. I don't know about you, but just saying the words "Deep Space Tracking Station" makes me feel like donning a spacesuit (but the moment I say "Byalalu", I am thinking of garlanded cutouts of Dr. Rajkumar and haggling over autorickshaw fares from Majestic Bus Stand to the Deep Space Tracking Station.)

Now I can't wait for the emergence of India's own "moon-landing was a hoax" cult. Though G. Madhavan Nair seems too nice a man to actually punch one of those idiots.

13 comments:

Naveen Roy said...

Now I am thinking who these lunatics are!!

MockTurtle said...

"Byalalu, we have a boo-boo"

km said...

MT: Chicken 65 has landed?

Roy: you are not doing that stoned laughter like Rick Wright (?) did on the song, I hope? :)

MockTurtle said...

Chikka step for me, Dodda step for all mankind.

km said...

isn't that "A chikka step for me, a by-two kaapi for mankind"?

Anonymous said...

lol! now coffee on my keyboard.

I think the chandrayaan-2 moon-rover should be an autorickshaw that plants a garlanded cutout of Annavru on the moon. Flags are so last century.

don't mind me. please to continue the chikka-dodda discussion.

km said...

bm: just wait till Jayanagar gets an extension on the Moon.

Anonymous said...

km: oh, most definitely. And another outer(space) ring road that will make it just 25 mins from the new airport.

km said...

It would be entirely inappropriate to start the Uranus jokes now?

Anonymous said...

The outer space ring road should help.
I am trying to picture the ISRO guys trying to commute from new BEL Rd to Byalalu. Will they use wormholes?

km said...

lekhni: Wormholes? That's *so* 24th century.

Anonymous said...

I am thinking there is a network of wormholes that stretches from pothole to pothole. Or perhaps, manhole to manhole.

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