Daily Archives: December 13, 2012

Star Wars The Old Republic - Space Battle Cartel Listening Station
Name: Cartel Listening Post (Sith Assassin) Level: 20 Time Duration: 6 minutes, 38 seconds The Cartel has allowed the Republic to set up a hidden space station in Hutt Space to intercept dispatches from nearby Imperial operations. All available ships have been dispatched to destroy the station, but additional forces will be necessary to breach the Republic defenses. Primary Objectives: - Destroy 12 station turrets - Destroy 2 station shield generators - Destroy 3 station hangars - Destroy 3 station antennae Secondary Objectives: - Destroy 60 enemy fightersFrom:Chane LaforetViews:3 0ratingsTime:05:56More inGaming

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Star Wars The Old Republic - Space Battle Cartel Listening Station - Video

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield will make his third trip into space later this month, when he and his crew depart for a five-month journey to the International Space Station.

The retired military colonel has accomplished many feats during his decades-long career as an astronaut. He was the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm in space and the first to take a spacewalk. Hadfield will become the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station during his next mission, launching on Dec. 19.

Hadfield discussed with Yahoo! Canada News the challenges of command and his experiences in space during a telephone interview from Space City, Russia. This is a condensed version of that conversation.

Yahoo! Canada News: This will be your third trip to space. It's getting old hat for you, I'm sure. What do you go through leading up to a launch like you have on Dec. 19?

Chris Hadfield: There is nothing old hat about it. I have been an astronaut for 20 years and I have been in space for 20 days. It is an extremely rare human experience and an immensely rare and personal experience. It is huge.

For this particular flight I have been training for about four years and the initial few years are all theory. We train in Japan and Germany and the Ukraine, in various places in Europe, Canada and the U.S. We train on all the systems and experiments and we start to get focused in the year prior to the flight, getting into simulators, all to give you the background, depth and specific set of skills so we can climb into the Soyuz rocket ship and fly it and dock it and operate in space for six months.

Y! Canada: Space flight must be a remarkable experience, and you have set some milestones during your career. Can you talk about your past experiences? What moments stand out to you the most?

Hadfield: My first flight was on space shuttle Atlantis and we went and built part of the Russian space station MIR. The whole thing was a highlight. It was an amazing experience. I was on the flight deck of a space shuttle. I was the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm. I used it to build this big Russian docking module.

Y! Canada: And it was your second flight that you did a spacewalk outside the station, wasn't it?

Hadfield: Yeah, I was the first Canadian to do a spacewalk. The purpose was to connect Canadarm2 onto the International Space Station. It was just brand new. We unbolted it, unfolded it and brought it to life on the first spacewalk. We went out on the second spacewalk and got it working. We spent about 15 hours outside, 10 times around the world.

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Yahoo! exclusive: Astronaut Chris Hadfield calls space ‘an amazing place to be’

After years of leading his fellow astronauts in Christmas carols on the ground, Chris Hadfield will be playing holiday tunes this year on the International Space Station.

The Canadian astronaut will blast off toward the station Dec. 19 to join the Expedition 34 and 35 missions.

He will spend the next five months, including the festive season, in space, separated from his family. Hadfield will also be away from Max Q and Bandella, the two astronaut bands he belongs to that occasionally do gigs in Houston.

Luckily for Hadfield, he doesn't have to leave music on the ground completely. There is at least one musical souvenir from his country already onboard the orbiting laboratory: a Larrive Parlor acoustic guitar, which was shipped to NASA years ago from its company's headquarters in Vancouver, Canada. Hadfield, a veteran of two space shuttle flights, plans to play the guitar during his down time on the station. [Video: How to Play the Zero-G Guitar]

Christmas in orbit

At Christmastime, Hadfield and his crewmates will enjoy a festive dinner in space, likely with turkey and gravy for the main course and peach ambrosia for dessert.

"We will do the best to host a traditional Christmas kind of dinner," he said during a preflight press conference Tuesday (Dec. 11), telephoning from his quarantined room at Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, where a Russian Soyuz rocket is being prepared to launch Hadfield and two crewmates next week.

He added that the diversity of nations represented on the space station never guarantees a holiday will be celebrated by all, due to the workload that needs to be accomplished.

But Christmas is recognized by most of the space station residents this time around; the Russian cosmonauts, who celebrate Orthodox Christmas in January, have agreed to join in on Dec. 25 as well.

Music psychology

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Canadian Astronaut Will Strum Christmas Carols in Space