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Old 02-16-2020, 07:27 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Default Antares launch "hot mic" moments...

Hello All,

Watching *this* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ApQ8k_Gt0 video of yesterday's Antares-Cygnus cargo launch to the International Space Station, the public was treated--as always with Antares launches--to "The 'Nominal' Drinking Game," but this time there was something extra:

During powered ascent, while the "Nominal guy" was reading off the events as they occurred and mentioning upcoming ones, someone's telephone line somehow got patched into his audio circuit, adding some confusion to the proceedings (with adults and children being heard talking and laughing). After this had gone on for a bit, a third voice cut in and said, "Hot mic on countdown one! Hot mic!" Then:

The extraneous audio immediately vanished, but moments later--just before separation of the Cygnus payload from the Antares vehicle's burned-out second stage motor--a telephone started ringing, after which an automated call-connection failure message from Verizon Wireless played! The last time I heard anything even vaguely resembling these audio faux pas was when Pete Conrad (standing up in the open hatch of Skylab 2's Command Module, struggling--without success--to get a long-handled cutting tool into position to snip through the straps holding Skylab's remaining but stuck large workshop solar panel) cursed--like the sailor he was--and was advised by Mission Control that his was also a hot mic... :-)
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Last edited by blackshire : 02-16-2020 at 09:19 AM.
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Old 02-16-2020, 09:10 AM
frognbuff frognbuff is offline
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Back when I was in the Air Force, I worked for the DoD Space Test Program and we had a Pegasus mission called TSX-5. TSX-5 launched from Vandenberg, and the 30th Space Wing Public Affairs office did what they so often do - they called in members of the press to observe the launch. Now, truth be told, a Pegasus launch is very dull to "watch" because the L-1011 takes off and flies away. The fun part isn't even visible, as it happens far out to sea.

On this particular day, the fools at Public Affairs didn't realize they put the media in a room with a hot mic! And, of course, they walked away and left the media alone. In this case, "media" was, I believe just two people. One of the two people was a woman who talked about, well, EVERYTHING. Her softball league, her boyfriend, you name it. After all, she was BORED! Despite countless calls of "hot mic!" on the net, this lady never really shut up. She was clearly paying no attention whatsoever to the launch itself. I sincerely hope somebody in Public Affairs got "chewed a new one" over this incident. And I wish I had that audio to share! It was funny and frustrating, all at the same time!
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Old 02-16-2020, 09:17 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blackshire
Hello All,

Watching *this* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ApQ8k_Gt0 video of yesterday's Antares-Cygnus cargo launch to the International Space Station, the public was treated--as always with Antares launches--to "The 'Nominal' Drinking Game," but this time there was something extra:

During powered ascent, while the "Nominal guy" was reading off the events as they occurred and mentioning upcoming ones, someone's telephone line somehow got patched into his audio circuit, adding some confusion to the proceedings (with adults and children being heard talking and laughing). After this had gone on for a bit, a third voice cut in and said, "Hot mic on countdown one! Hot mic!" Then:

The extraneous audio immediately vanished, but moments later--just before separation of the Cygnus payload from the Antares vehicle's burned-out second stage motor--a telephone started ringing, after which an automated call-connection failure message from Verizon Wireless played! The last time I heard anything even vaguely resembling these audio paux pas was when Pete Conrad (standing up in the open hatch of Skylab 2's Command Module, struggling--without success--to get a long-handled cutting tool into position to snip through the straps holding Skylab's remaining but stuck large workshop solar panel) cursed--like the sailor he was--and was advised by Mission Control that his was also a hot mic... :-)


I watched that video as well and heard the hot mic moment too.
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Old 02-16-2020, 09:35 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by frognbuff
Back when I was in the Air Force, I worked for the DoD Space Test Program and we had a Pegasus mission called TSX-5. TSX-5 launched from Vandenberg, and the 30th Space Wing Public Affairs office did what they so often do - they called in members of the press to observe the launch. Now, truth be told, a Pegasus launch is very dull to "watch" because the L-1011 takes off and flies away. The fun part isn't even visible, as it happens far out to sea.

On this particular day, the fools at Public Affairs didn't realize they put the media in a room with a hot mic! And, of course, they walked away and left the media alone. In this case, "media" was, I believe just two people. One of the two people was a woman who talked about, well, EVERYTHING. Her softball league, her boyfriend, you name it. After all, she was BORED! Despite countless calls of "hot mic!" on the net, this lady never really shut up. She was clearly paying no attention whatsoever to the launch itself. I sincerely hope somebody in Public Affairs got "chewed a new one" over this incident. And I wish I had that audio to share! It was funny and frustrating, all at the same time!
We'll never know, but she may have heard those calls of "Hot mic!" and assumed that they didn't involve her or the other media person (or maybe two) who was in the room! (Having interacted with broadcast media people when I worked at the now-closed Miami Space Transit Planetarium, all of us there never ceased to be amazed at how oblivious, and downright ignorant, some [by no means all] of them--men and women alike--were). I wonder why no one quietly knocked on the door after a few minutes, then politely whispered to her that "your conversation in here isn't private, Ma'am--everyone on the net is hearing what you're saying." Maybe whoever would have given an order for such a thing found it entertaining (not the subject matter of her monologue, but the fact that she, a professional broadcast journalist, didn't know everyone else could hear it!), and decided to wait and see when--or IF--her un-professional broadcasting practice during that event would ever dawn upon her... :-)
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Old 02-16-2020, 10:06 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dwmzmm
I watched that video as well and heard the hot mic moment too.
I just looked on YouTube, and there is (considering the era and the ephemeral nature of the old, quickly-made-obsolete storage media) a surprising amount of material, from NASA and various national and local news outlets, about Skylab and the program-saving, crucial repair work that occurred during its first few days in orbit (see: https://www.youtube.com/results?sea...y=skylab+repair ).
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Old 02-16-2020, 01:08 PM
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I watched the launch live and chose the "Wallops clean feed" tab on the Spaceflight Now page....and was "treated" to this as well. I would expect some other way for the offending parties to monitor the countdown one loop will be provided next time Antares flies.....I hope. The Verizon "caller not available" thing just amazed me (and not in a good way).
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Old 02-16-2020, 01:45 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BEC
I watched the launch live and chose the "Wallops clean feed" tab on the Spaceflight Now page....and was "treated" to this as well. I would expect some other way for the offending parties to monitor the countdown one loop will be provided next time Antares flies.....I hope. The Verizon "caller not available" thing just amazed me (and not in a good way).
Such a thing is potentially dangerous and costly. Imagine if some anomaly, or *apparent* anomaly (a seemingly serious thing, like John Glenn's loose heat shield, which was erroneous, caused by a sensor anomaly) had occurred in the vehicle, and that the "chatter" had prevented the relevant personnel from quickly conferring and reaching a decision in real time? Then imagine these things occurring during a manned launch (may it never actually happen). Also:

Something sort of like that happened during a Pegasus launch out of Wallops (perhaps their first one; I can't recall). The combined Wallops and Orbital Sciences teams' personnel hadn't worked out definite call signs for each other (the Wallops sounding rocket folks, long used to working together seamlessly, just used their first names). In the confusion resulting from that, which was exacerbated by intermittent telemetry and communications drop-outs (which are perfectly normal with an air-launch platform as it turns in flight, but the combined teams hadn't practiced together for that either, and the Wallops folks were caught off guard by the drop-outs), the Pegasus vehicle was launched after an abort had been called. Luckily, the RSO didn't have an "itchy destruct button finger" (he, along with many others, was very surprised to see [on his monitor] the vehicle fall away from the B-52 and ignite its first stage motor), and the mission succeeded.
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Old 02-16-2020, 01:48 PM
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I thought of exactly that, especially as one of those "hot mic" incidents was right on top of the interchanges about safing the FTS system!
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Old 02-16-2020, 01:55 PM
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Originally Posted by BEC
I thought of exactly that, especially as one of those "hot mic" incidents was right on top of the interchanges about safing the FTS system!
Yes--that would definitely *not* be an event whose "GO/NO-GO status" anyone--especially the recipients, aboard the ISS--would want to be in any way ambiguous.
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