I was recently looking into buying a new gaming console (for my kids of course...). I gravitated towards the Playstation 5 but this machine was nowhere to buy other than with some shady people who had kept some stash from the first release of PS5. An XBOX Series X was a secondary option. But then I was looking into the prices for the games... In addition, I realized that if I wanted to have some good value in the gaming experience, I should also buy a new 4K television set to match the HDTV output. So, after watching this fascinating documentary series on the history of XBOX, I reconsidered and bought a 2nd hand XBOX 360 with all peripherals for just 50 euros. The 2nd hand market for XBOX 360 games is pretty solid so I quickly bought a game that I was already eyeing for a long time: Metal Gear Solid, HD Collection. For those not in the know, Metal Gear has been the start of a completely new genre in videogames that started back in 1987: Action Adventure Stealth. In addition, it set the tone for storytelling inside the game, creating almost like a movie that you watch, while you can actively participate in it.

And indeed, I have actually played Metal Gear since 1987. I had a Philips NMS 8250 MSX-2 computer with an internal memory extension all the way to 256 Kbytes(!), and endlessly played the Konami Cartridge. I actually never made it to the end, as the area to cover in the game was just to large for me to oversee back then. I still wonder how people concluded this game back in those days without being able to save status at some point and get some sleep?!? In 1990 I got my hands on an illegal copy from Japan with the most demanding game that could ever run on the limited MSX 2 hardware: Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. I actually never really played this game because all the storytelling was in Japanese and that never has been my strong forte.

I actually relived those 2 Metal Gear MSX games and their sequel that I didn't know of: the Playstation 1 Metal Gear Solid game from 1998, when I built a Retropie computer some 2 years ago. I explored the Retropie Universe which led to this Zapread post: Space Retro Gaming. I (finally) managed to play all three games (in English) all the way to the end and felt overwhelmed by the fascinating mix of action, stealth, story, in-game jokes but first and foremost the message that creator Hideo Kojima wanted to pass on to the players: war is never the solution.

Now on our XBOX 360, I have recently brought Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty to a good end. I managed to do so in about 28 hours of gameplay over the course of about 3 weeks. Of course with way better graphics, better sound and more demanding gameplay than its three precursors. One key thing remained in the captivating storytelling: from the fictional story, it puts some historical context to the world we live in. It brings about some fascinating future telling on the power of big Tech as we know it now. It is sometimes hard to realize, this game was released back in 2002, long before the days of Facebook, Twitter and the likes. Also on the current state of affairs, there are many observations to be made that are expressed in the game. In the final act, Solid Snake says to rookie fighter Raiden: "We've inherited freedom from all those who've fought for it, we all have the freedom to spread the word". This is so true this week given Putin's agression that showed its bloody teeth in Ukraine. I hope there will be many Solid Snakes around there, to push this wannabe Tsar back to where he belongs, with his face in the mud.

Now on to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)... I already found out I have to save and rescue one of the Russian scientists that worked on the A1-Vostok rocket that put Yuri Gagarin into orbit!

Astro Pi is a project initiated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Raspberry Pi foundation. They sent up 2 special raspberry pi computers, equipped with a camera and a sensehat, to the International Space Station (ISS) just before the dawn of 2022. These computers are now known as Astro Pi's!

As part of their outreach plan, I got hold of a copy of an Astro Pi. I involved the high school class of my 11 yo old daughter, and we went through 8 classes of python programming and getting to know the ins and outs of the Astro Pi. The goal is to create a python program that will be uploaded to the Astro-pi's on-board the ISS on february 24 (2022), and then execute!

The program we ended up with was for an Earth Observation experiment. Through machine learning, the Astro Pi on-board the ISS should be able to detect land, sea, clouds, twilight and so on. We created an imaging sequence that will last upto 3 hours long. During these 3 hours, we will also monitor the environment on-board ISS: temperature, pressure and humidity. But also, there is a PIR sensor to detect anything around the Astro Pi. Hopefully, we will detect an astronaut in the vicinity of the Astro Pi during our experiment! Wish us luck!

A follow-on project I could think of, is to run a Lightning Node on the Astro Pi. The Astro Pi on-board the ISS will only make sparse connections to the internet however. Anybody any thoughts on the feasibility and the use cases?

A nailbiting Entry Descent & Landing sequence again, but this time with photos from the skycrane as it deploys the Perseverance rover with 3 strings to the surface of Mars, just 11 lightminutes away from Earth. The photo shows the 1025 kg rover just 2 mtr above the surface. Apparently, this is a still from a video so more awesomeness in the making!

Isn't this what life on Earth is all about.? Exploring other planets to search for it. Putting human ingenuity to work, to inspire. Let's have peace with all here, and put rovers on Mars instead of petty wars.

NASA's rover Perseverance is hurling to Mars since its launch on July 30 2020 (see this Zapread post). It will land tonight at 21:44 CET, meaning 11 minutes later, we should receive signal from a safe rover on the surface of Mars. 

The Perseverance rover is very similar at first sight to the Curiosity rover that landed in August 2012. The design of the main body and driving system is the same, but a whole bunch of details are new, for example:

• The payload contains a system to test out In-Situ Resource Utilisation: if it works, this system will create oxygen filtered out of the minute concentration of oygen in the Martian atmosphere
• A 6 cm drill is on-board which can take samples and store them in a cache. When this cache is filled, it will be left in a place where in the 2030s, the Mars Sample Return mission will retrieve it and send it back to Earth for further research.
• A small helicopter called Ingenuity is on-board which can be deployed to scout the surroundings of the rover
• Some black & white 2 Megapixel cameras onboard have been upgraded to full-colour 20 Megapixel cameras, and many more cameras are added
• Because of the sharp Mars rocks, the wheels of Curiosity teared down faster than expected. So new, bigger kicks are on!

Watch the NASA livefeed tonight!

The latest status of Bitlinq as presented during The Things Network conference 2021.

I am in the process of getting some funding in place to deploy a number of Lacuna Space terminals to Blockstream Satellite users around the globe, and start running a decentralized version of the Bitlinq message handler.

Busy times in Space last week. Apart from launches by Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Astra, ULA & Roscosmos, two missions came back with samples from outer Space. The Chinese Chang'E5 mission brought back some Lunar samples (see below) after almost a month in Space, and the Japanese Hayabusa2 mission delivered grains of the Asteroid Ryugu (see above) after being out there for 6 years! Both missions will provide better insights in how the Solar System was created some 5 billions years ago. Very impressive efforts that were concluded successfully!

SpaceX Starship SN8 launch attempt is imminent. Expected at 22:00 CET on December 9. Check it out via the livefeed!

Two landmark events this week in the Solar System. First of all, an asteroid sample is on its way to planet Earth and it will hit the Earth's astmosphere with an incomprehensible speed of 14 km/s. This sample was snatched off asteroid Ryugu back in 2018. Secondly, the Chinese moonlander Chang'e 5, that will bring back a Lunar sample, is now in orbit around the Moon and landing can be any moment now!

Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by the Japanese space agency, JAXA. It follows on from the Hayabusa mission which returned asteroid samples in 2010. Hayabusa2 was launched on 3 December 2014 and rendezvoused with near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 27 June 2018. Capsule landing will be on December 5 around 18:45. See timeline below.

The Chang'e 5 spacecraft launched on Nov. 23 intent on becoming the first mission to bring lunar samples to Earth since 1976; the mission reached lunar orbit on Nov. 28. According to China's state-run news agency Xinhua, the mission's orbiter/return vehicle and its lander/ascender vehicle separated in lunar orbit  yesterday (Nov. 29) at 3:40 p.m. EST (2040 GMT; 4:40 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 30). That move sets the stage for a landing near the peak of Mons Rümker, a mountain in the Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") region of the moon.(space.com). When the landing will occur exactly is unknown yet, but it sure will be somewhere in the coming days.

In a few hours, a Chinese Long March 5 will launch to the Moon. On-board is the Chang'E 5 lander which will scoop up a sample from the Lunar surface and bring it back to Earth. The last time this happened was in 1976 when the Sovjet Union brought back 170 grams of Lunar Soil with the Luna-24 missions.

Below is the live channel that will show the launch at 21:15 CET. If you want to hang-out with Space people during the launch, check-in to the Eye On Orbit chillspace.

Mars rover Curiosity snapped a selfie on the Martian surface. Curiosity, which touched down inside a 160 km wide  Gale Crater in August 2012, snapped a selfie on October 25 at a locale mission team members named "Mary Anning.". The photo is stitched together from 59 images that Curiosity can make with its camera on the robotic arm. 

Look at all the dust! It is a good thing it is nuclear powered as Solar panels would have a hard time. Also dents on the wheels can be identified. The surface is probably a clay deposit from what was once a seabed.