Nov 6, 2007 11:07am
A Nice Shade of Mauve Would Do….
EmailGina Sunseri reports that the computer printer on board the shuttle Discovery has run out of black ink. So Commander Pam Melroy asked mission control to please send up new messages in BLUE, since there is no place to pull over and pick up fresh ink cartridges in orbit. (NASA photo: International Space Station from the shuttle after undocking yesterday. The solar panel in the far lower left was the one that needed patching up over the weekend. Click HERE for a large version to see if you can pick out the torn area, about halfway down the panel.)
Space Station Flies Over Eastern U.S. at Night 
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HAHA! Thats funny. They should have put in the order when Discovery came up. They may not have had enough space for the weight though. Funny story any how.
Posted by: Lawrence | November 6, 2007, 12:00 pm 12:00 pm
Guess the easy button doesn’t work in space, does it?
Posted by: Amy | November 6, 2007, 12:07 pm 12:07 pm
Probably due to the fact they had to do a 7 hour space walk from scratch.
Posted by: Chris | November 6, 2007, 1:00 pm 1:00 pm
It seems that NASA has pushed the technological envelope again by manufacturing a printer that can continue printing with an empty cartridge. I wish they would pass that knowledge onto HP and Epson whose printers are turned into giant paperweights if one of their six cartridges is dry.
Posted by: Phlavor | November 6, 2007, 1:26 pm 1:26 pm
Phlavor, I can’t say what Epson printers do, but HP printers have an emulation mode that uses a mixture of other colors to approximate black when the black cartidge runs dry. Of course you can’t approximate other colors if a color cartridge runs dry, as it’s simply not possible. In that case, you’ll just have to settle for gray-scale or black and white.
Posted by: Bob | November 6, 2007, 1:48 pm 1:48 pm
that isnt new technology. its old style, just use carbon paper. what happens is it says black is out, cannot print, but another color, even though not printing on first page, will indent it like your check. what year is this? too bad nasa isnt earth-friendly. who uses paper anymore?
Posted by: no one | November 6, 2007, 3:15 pm 3:15 pm
no one, your’e wrong. carbon paper uses ribbon cartridges, only one color. while they do work if the ink is out, you cannot change the color of it, so then they must not be talking about carbon paper, but laserjet printer etc.
Posted by: some one | November 6, 2007, 3:25 pm 3:25 pm
Printer ink: About $6,000 per gallon.
Posted by: John C | November 6, 2007, 5:16 pm 5:16 pm
Paper: $25.00 per ream, Ink cartridges $35.00 each, having planned an extra one before launch: Priceless
Posted by: Funny1 | November 6, 2007, 8:18 pm 8:18 pm
Imagine the weight savings if they ditched the printers, cartridges and paper and went for an electronic, flat panel-based solution for consumption and use of documentation on-orbit.
When it costs on the order of $10,000 to loft one pound of cargo, no saving is too small.
Posted by: Carmi | November 7, 2007, 12:32 am 12:32 am
Too bad the old daisy wheel printer days are gone or they could use NCR carbonless paper. Then they would have one copy to mark up and the other to file. I’m sure there are a couple of filing cabinets on board, right? Maybe a dictaphone or two, or a IBM Selectric for emergencies? Too funny, all the millions it takes to launch a mission and they run out of ink cartridges……Oh great, carbonless and dictaphone are so antiquated they come up as misspelled. Now, THAT is funny.
Posted by: Connie | November 7, 2007, 5:48 am 5:48 am
It is a shame that so little if any, news coverage is given to the space missions. The space program is used in so many public schools for science and to give children inspiration and sadly the major news agencies do not give it live coverage unless there is a tradgedy. I have followed the space program since its inception and would like to see more coverage on tv and radio. Please pass this on to those that decide on what the public watches. Thank you.
Posted by: Lou Kiel | November 7, 2007, 6:49 pm 6:49 pm
I agree. Space anything isn’t really covered by news outlets, unless it’s really spectacular. Same goes for any science. I get all my space and science news from Space.com and Livescience.com. Not from news outlets, with the exception of this blog, which does a good job of it. Perhaps a word to the editors Ned?
Posted by: Lawrence | November 8, 2007, 8:38 am 8:38 am
Note from Ned–
Thanks to Lou and Lawrence for some good thoughts, and to many others for providing some pleasant humor.
Truth be known, we have frequent debates over how much we ought to be doing. I’d be most interested to hear more folks’ ideas.
Posted by: Ned Potter | November 9, 2007, 3:52 pm 3:52 pm