NASA tracking Santa
 

24 Dec 2007 1700GMT
Live from Mission Control in Houston:

For those of you space geeks/freaks who tune into The NASA Channel, Santa's ground track has been added to The World Map. At this writing he is over the South Pacific, having just completed a NW-to-SE pass across Eastern Africa.

Since Santa has chosen a 51.6 degree inclination trajectory this year, it is widely speculated that all the children in the far North of the planet have been very bad this year. Allegations include repeated cross-posting of the same message in more than one DVinfo forum, naughty words, personal attacks on fellow DVinfo members, and posting FUD. Whether or not Santa overlooks newbies who fail to use the Search function for commonly discussed topics is as yet unknown.

Unconfirmed reports quote Santa as saying that he is tranferring all the presents originally destined for far Northern latitudes to the Russian Progress 27P vehicle that will dock with ISS in the early hours of 26 December 2007. The ISS crew is especially looking forward to all the fresh fruits, vegetables, and other treats that will be arriving with the Progress vehicle and extend their appreciation for all those redirected treats.

A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good year in 2008!

I just fell out of my chair laughing. Thanks Pete! :D

Carl

Ho Ho Ho. Good job Pete, Happy Holidays to everyone!

HEE HAW...since I am in Oklahoma, I am not too far North, am I?

I sure hope I am eligible for video equipment from Santa.

You don't think someone will have too much to imbibe on tonight and shoot him out of the sky do you?

I hope not-well not me really but my grandkids...

Hey all you gun guys and gals--No shooting the jolly big guy out of the sky tonight or I'll send my grandkids over to YOUR house to explain!
Happy Holidays from the royally grumpy old man
OO
\_/
Don

No worries. Per CNN.com, NORAD had Santa over Ukraine while NASA TOPO confirmed him over equatorial West Africa. Of course, Santa doesn't reveal his secrets but we believe he is using some sort of radar echo spoofing technology to avoid any, uh, airspace disagreements...and NORAD's erroneous state vector (that's the mathematical description of where something is in space, how it is oriented, and its velocity) would tend to support that theory.

I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it is to have a bona fide Rocket Scientist on this site.

Thanks Pete!

I was just thinking...is Santa really real? :-)

Someone told me he didn't exist?!?

I'd suppose that when Santa checks DVinfo.net using whatever mobile device he carries (probably all of them?), he just might decide to skip OK, too!

Chris, aren't you originally from that neck of the woods? Gonna put in a good word with Santa for OK, or let 'em suffer the time-honored fate of all who doubt the magic of Christmas?

I don't think Santa really uses is "own" devices, he just uses the kid's devices that are made by the elves...poor Santa, he only gets cookies for Christmas, or should I say "Christmas Eve."

Gosh, Pete, I just don't know what we would do without you! I've stayed up nights worrying about the stuff I write--you know, the age-old question, "Would Santa approve?"

He's got to come to my house. I haven't been in a fight here for a long, long time.

Have I? :)

Merry Christmas to you, Pete, and to Chris, and to all the rest of you wonderful folks.

I wonder what camera santa shoots with, and if he uses avid or FCP