Doug Rickard
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Doug Rickard
Doug Rickard (26 May 1939 – 7 May 2002) was an Australian-born space engineer. He is known for his stories of engineering while at the Woomera Deep Space Station. He died in 2002 from myelofibrosis caused by contact with cobalt-60 while working at the Maralinga nuclear test facility. Some of his stories have been collected by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, whose logo he possibly inspired (although the logo was designed by Bill Kennard), under the title ''Memoirs of a space engineer''. Additional humorous engineering stories include hand-decoding images from Mariner 4 onto a sheet of graph paper since NASA JPL had only built a single display system, running a magnetic tape recorder 25 times over its rated speed to have enough bandwidth to record Ranger 9 video of its impact on the moon, and an impromptu excavation of Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Hercul ...
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Australians
Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizenship, citizens, nationality, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Australian. Australian law does not provide for any racial or ethnic component of nationality, instead relying on Australian nationality law, citizenship as a legal status, though the Constitutional framers considered the Commonwealth to be "a home for Australians and the British race alone", as well as a "Christian Commonwealth". Since the postwar period, Australia has pursued an official policy of multiculturalism and has the List of sovereign states and dependent territories by immigrant population, world's eighth-largest immigrant population, Immigration to Australia, with immigrants accounting for 30 percent of the population in 2019. Between European colo ...
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Woomera, South Australia
Woomera, unofficially Woomera village, is the domestic area of RAAF Base Woomera. Woomera village has always been a Defence-owned and operated facility. The village is located on the traditional lands of the Kokatha people in the Far North region of South Australia, but is on Commonwealth-owned land and within the area designated as the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA). The village is approximately north of Adelaide. In common usage, "Woomera" refers to the wider RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC), a large Australian Defence Force aerospace and systems testing range (the Woomera Test Range (WTR)) covering an area of approximately and is operated by the Royal Australian Air Force. Woomera "village" is part of RAAF Base Woomera which, along with the Woomera Test Range (WTR), forms the larger entity known as the Woomera Range Complex (WRC), promulgated by Chief of Air Force (CAF) in June 2014. As at the the Woomera Village had a population of 146, and its usual population varies ...
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Myelofibrosis
Primary myelofibrosis (PMF) is a rare bone marrow blood cancer. It is classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a type of myeloproliferative neoplasm, a group of cancers in which there is activation and growth of mutated cells in the bone marrow. This is most often associated with a somatic mutation in the '' JAK2'', '' CALR'', or '' MPL'' genes. In PMF, the bony aspects of bone marrow are remodeled in a process called osteosclerosis; in addition, fibroblasts secrete collagen and reticulin proteins that are collectively referred to as fibrosis. These two pathological processes compromise the normal function of bone marrow, resulting in decreased production of blood cells such as erythrocytes (red cells), granulocytes, and megakaryocytes. The latter are responsible for the production of platelets. Signs and symptoms include fever, night sweats, bone pain, fatigue, and abdominal pain. Increased infections, bleeding and an enlarged spleen ( splenomegaly) are ...
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Cobalt-60
Cobalt-60 (Co) is a synthetic radioactive isotope of cobalt with a half-life of 5.2714 years. It is produced artificially in nuclear reactors. Deliberate industrial production depends on neutron activation of bulk samples of the monoisotopic and mononuclidic cobalt isotope . (PDF also located aCanadian Nuclear FAQ Measurable quantities are also produced as a by-product of typical nuclear power plant operation and may be detected externally when leaks occur. In the latter case (in the absence of added cobalt) the incidentally produced is largely the result of multiple stages of neutron activation of iron isotopes in the reactor's steel structures via the creation of its precursor. The simplest case of the latter would result from the activation of . undergoes beta decay to an excited state of the stable isotope nickel-60 (), which then emits two gamma rays with energies of and . The overall equation of the nuclear reaction (activation and decay) is: + n → → + e ...
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Maralinga
Maralinga is a desert area around large located in the west of South Australia, within the Great Victoria Desert. The area is best known for being the location of several British nuclear tests in the 1950s. In January 1985, in recognition of their native title, freehold title was granted to the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal Australian people, over some land. Around the same time, the McClelland Royal Commission identified significant residual nuclear contamination at some sites. Under an agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia, efforts were made to clean up the site before the Maralinga people resettled on the land in 1995. The main community, which includes a school, is Oak Valley. There are still concerns that some of the ground is still contaminated, despite two attempts at cleanup. History Nuclear tests and cleanup Maralinga was the scene of UK nuclear testing and was contaminated with radioactive waste in ...
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is a publicly-owned statutory organisation that is politically independent and accountable; for example, through its production of annual reports, and is bound by provisions contained within the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 and the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, with its charter enshrined in legislation, the ''Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983''. ABC Commercial, a profit-making division of the corporation, also helps generate funding for content provision. The ABC was established as the Australian Broadcasting Commission on 1 July 1932 by an Act of Federal Parliament. It effectively replaced the Australian Broadcasting Company, a private company established in 1924 to provide programming for A ...
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Mariner 4
Mariner 4 (Mariner C-3, together with Mariner 3 known as Mariner-Mars 1964) was the Mariner program, fourth in a series of spacecraft intended for planetary exploration in a flyby mode. It was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations of Mars and to transmit these observations to Earth. Launched on November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 performed the first successful planetary flyby, flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first close-up pictures of the Martian surface. It captured the first images of another planet ever returned from outer space, deep space; their depiction of a cratered, dead planet largely changed the scientific community's view of life on Mars. Other mission objectives were to perform field and particle measurements in outer space#Interplanetary space, interplanetary space in the vicinity of Mars and to provide experience in and knowledge of the engineering capabilities for interplanetary flights of long duration. Initially expected to remain in space for eig ...
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NASA JPL
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researchers, the laboratory is now owned and sponsored by NASA and administered and managed by Caltech. The primary function of the laboratory is the construction and operation of planetary robotic spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN). Among the major active projects at the laboratory, some are the Mars 2020 mission, which includes the '' Perseverance'' rover; the Mars Science Laboratory mission, including the ''Curiosity'' rover; the ''Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter''; the '' Juno'' spacecraft orbiting Jupiter; the ''SMAP'' satellite for Earth surface soil moisture monitoring; the NuSTAR X-ray telescope; and the '' Psyche'' asteroid orbiter. It ...
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Ranger 9
Ranger 9 was a Lunar probe, launched in 1965 by NASA. It was designed to achieve a lunar impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras—two wide-angle (channel F, cameras A and B) and four narrow-angle (channel P)—to accomplish these objectives. The cameras were arranged in two separate chains, or channels, each self-contained with separate power supplies, timers, and transmitters so as to afford the greatest reliability and probability of obtaining high-quality television pictures. These images were broadcast live on television to millions of viewers across the United States. No other experiments were carried on the spacecraft. Spacecraft design Rangers 6, 7, 8, and 9 were the so-called Block 3 versions of the Ranger spacecraft. The spacecraft consisted of a hexagonal aluminium frame base 1.5 m across on which was mounted the propul ...
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Pompeii
Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Largely preserved under the ash, Pompeii offers a unique snapshot of Culture of ancient Rome, Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried, as well as insight into ancient urban planning. It was a wealthy town of 10,000 to 20,000 residents at the time it was destroyed. It hosted many fine public buildings and luxurious private houses with lavish decorations, furnishings and artworks, which were the main attractions for early excavators; subsequent excavations have found hundreds of private homes and businesses reflecting various architectural styles and social classes, as well as numerous public buildings. Organic remains, including wooden objects and human bodies, were interred in the as ...
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Footnotes
In publishing, a note is a brief text in which the author comments on the subject and themes of the book and names supporting citations. In the editorial production of books and documents, typographically, a note is usually several lines of text at the bottom of the page, at the end of a chapter, at the end of a volume, or a house-style typographic usage throughout the text. Notes are usually identified with superscript numbers or a symbol.''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) p. 709. Footnotes are informational notes located at the foot of the thematically relevant page, whilst endnotes are informational notes published at the end of a chapter, the end of a volume, or the conclusion of a multi-volume book. Unlike footnotes, which require manipulating the page design (text-block and page layouts) to accommodate the additional text, endnotes are advantageous to editorial production because the textual inclusion does not alter the design of the publication. H ...
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1939 Births
This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Coming into effect in Nazi Germany of: *** The Protection of Young Persons Act (Germany), Protection of Young Persons Act, passed on April 30, 1938, the Working Hours Regulations. *** The small businesses obligation to maintain adequate accounting. *** The Jews name change decree. ** With his traditional call to the New Year in Nazi Germany, Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler addresses the members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). ** The Hewlett-Packard technology and scientific instruments manufacturing company is founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard, in a garage in Palo Alto, California, considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley. ** Philipp Etter takes over as President of the Swiss Confederation. ** The Third Soviet Five Year P ...
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