Among my first memories as a little kid was being on Camp Atterbury to pick my dad up when he returned from Japan. Today, after a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant in Columbus, we worked a USO shift at the same base and then saw 275 troops off on their deployment to Afghanistan. We three old guys who were with the USO made somewhat of a representation for the fathers of these kids. Not a bad way to spend Fathers' Day. One elderly bald 6'6" NCO told me that this was his fourth deployment. Wow! Remember Winston Churchill's statement, "Never have so few done so much for so many."
After more than 30 years, it appears the venerable Pioneer 10 spacecraft has sent its last signal to Earth. Pioneer's last, very weak signal was received on 23 January 2003. NASA engineers report that Pioneer 10's radioisotope power source has decayed, and it may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) did not detect a signal during the last contact attempt on 7 February 2003. The previous three contacts, including the 23 January signal, were very faint, with no telemetry received. The last time a Pioneer 10 contact returned telemetry data was 27 April 2002. NASA has no additional contact attempts planned for Pioneer 10.
Rolls was also a pioneer aviator and initially, balloonist,[5] making over 170 balloon ascents. He was a founding member of the Royal Aero Club in 1903 and was the second person in Britain to be licensed to fly by it.[6] In 1903 he also won the Gordon Bennett Gold Medal for the longest single flight time.
By 1907 Rolls' interest turned increasingly to flying, and he tried unsuccessfully to persuade Royce to design an aero engine. In 1909 he bought one of six Wright Flyer aircraft built by Short Brothers under licence from the Wright Brothers, and made more than 200 flights. On 2 June 1910, he became the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane,[5] taking 95 minutes – faster than Blériot. For this feat, which included the first East-bound crossing of the English Channel, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Aero Club.[7] There is a statue to commemorate the flight in the town square at Monmouth and at Dover.
