Author Archives: Doug

About Doug

I grew up an Air Force brat and have visited every European country except those once behind the Iron Curtain (they wouldn't let my father in for some reason). Now I'm enrolled in the Aerospace Engineering program at NMSU in Las Cruces, NM.

A Different Kind of Pi

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Doug

In my last post I left my readers (Hi Mom!) with a teaser about a possible improvement to my pi-calculating code. Let’s see how it panned out.
My naïve arc-drawing code used two square-root calculations per point – pretty slow. … Continue reading →

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Playing with Pi

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Doug

My old college buddy Mark VandeWettering tweeted a challenge right before Pi Day: he was going to write code to calculate a value for pi in a novel way.  What were the rest of us slobs going to do?
I had … Continue reading →

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Too many keywords to ignore

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Doug

I just had to post this.
Way too many keywords to ignore:
- computer
- Apple
- astronomy
- Lego
- Antikythera Mechanism
I think they only missed Star Trek and Ratchet and Clank.

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Pictures and video of runway dedication

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Doug

I’m supposed to be studying, and I haven’t gotten to this part yet, but I thought I’d post some of this great video from the Spaceport runway dedication.
Official Virgin Galactic footage (contains amazing video from the air, you gotta watch … Continue reading →

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Day 1 of ISPCS 2010

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Doug

I blew off a week of school to attend the 2010 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight.  It was well worth it.  Thanks to the good people at the New Mexico Spacegrant Consortium, who not only put on the … Continue reading →

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Introducing Doug to NASA

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Doug

This term’s crop of NASA interns (me, Charles, and Elise) will be giving presentations to the NASA employees later today.  This is to introduce us to the staff.  (I don’t know why we’re being introduced after three weeks of gainful … Continue reading →

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Successful flight

Posted on May 30, 2010 by Doug

Sorry I’m late on this update, but the rocket with our payload flew on May 4.  It was a perfect flight, and I got the payload back the next day.  In perfect condition.
I had a great time parading around the … Continue reading →

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Fachaba Project presentation

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Doug

As previously mentioned, I did a presentation about the Fachaba Project at the Southwest Regional Technology Symposium.  Here’s the PowerPoint (and a PDF of same) for your enjoyment.
Note: you’ll probably have to right-click the links below to save them to … Continue reading →

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NASA is not Space, Space is not NASA

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Doug

(I just watched “Orphans of Apollo“, and it primed me for this rant.)
I keep seeing people make this mistake. Stephen Colbert and Neil DeGrasse Tyson made it, Florida politicians make it, and now a bunch of astronauts have signed … Continue reading →

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Launch delay

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Doug

Sadly, the May 1 launch has been postponed. I’ll post more information as it becomes available.

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