from my private journal, as me, Kerry Burgess, typed after being released from the USA Veterans Affairs psychiatric hospital enduring many months sitting in a grungy two-computer room in a homeless shelter on the waterfront in downtown Seattle:
by me, Kerry Burgess, excerpts from my private journal: 11/19/07 9:39 PM
I have been wondering if Comet Holmes is either photos from 1976 and you can't actually see it in the night sky as it is being reported, or it is a test mission where someone fired up my Orion ship and blew up another comet.
by me, Kerry Burgess, excerpts from my private journal: 10/19/2006 9:07 PM
But I don’t know. Hale-Bopp’s closest approach was something like 122 million miles from Earth, compared to Hyakutake’s closest approach of about 9 million miles. And from what I can tell from some diagrams I found a few minutes ago, Hale-Bopp seemed to be on the other side of the Sun when it was closest to Earth. It’s hard to say without any real data or any real knowledge, or forgotten knowledge, about astrophysics. I guess I would know something about all this, but I also apparently knew how to fly fighter jets very well too but I sure don’t remember any of it.
by me, Kerry Burgess, excerpts from my private journal: 10/19/2006 6:40 PM
Maybe Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake were part of the same comet that I went out to destroy.
by me, Kerry Burgess, excerpts from my private journal: 10/19/2006 12:43 PM
I feel as though there are more details trying to surface in my mind about the trip to Saturn. I think the basis of the event is based on some thoughts I was having a few months ago. It was when I was still thinking Mars was in my future instead of actually in my past. I was having thoughts of a problem with my spacecraft and I was not going to make it back to Earth because I was going to run out of oxygen sometime between the time I left Mars to return to Earth. I was thinking that the situation was so hopeless by the time I got to Mars that ground control and I weren’t even talking that much anymore.
by me, Kerry Burgess, excerpts from my private journal: 10/19/2006 12:43 PM
My thoughts suggest that some micro-meteroids hit my ship
while I was outbound to intercept the comet that threatened the inner planets.
I lost a lot of oxygen before I got it fixed. Ground control told me to turn around and they had an alternate plan to try again. I rejected that plan because I was already out there and with that comet getting closer every day, there was no guarantee that a second attempt would fare any better. I might have told them that I was lucky to even have any oxygen left at that point and what if on the second trip, something even worse happens.
They brought in my family, to say goodbye and even to try to talk me into returning but I wasn’t coming back. I have thoughts that I even disabled the electronics that would allow ground control to automatically control the ship. I made it to the comet, destroyed it
by me, Kerry Burgess, excerpts from my private journal: 10/19/2006 2:17 PM
It most probably had already made an orbit around the Sun at least once if that was the one I hit back in 1976. And as I was reading the article, I suddenly had a thought flash into my mind that the objective was to get out to it as fast as possible so that it was still far away. The farther away it was, the least effort would be needed to deflect.
by me, Kerry Burgess, excerpts from my private journal: 10/19/2006 2:51 PM
I may have hit it in 1976 just at a point, I can’t remember the proper term, that it was at equilibrium. That is the point I imagine where it slows down almost to a dead stop, if it was on that kind of trajectory and not an elongated orbit, before it turned around and started heading back into the inner solar system. The advantage of hitting that point is that it would be easy to catch up to for a landing. But just as I wrote that, I decided that wasn’t it. It is something else, although maybe part of this paragraph is correct. I think the part about it being at its furthest point in the outer solar system, probably because it was influenced by passing one of the outer planets and that set it up to return to the inner planets and hit one of them and I have started thinking more that it was on its way to Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia
Inertia
From Wikipedia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its velocity. This includes changes to the object's speed, or direction of motion. An aspect of this property is the tendency of objects to keep moving in a straight line at a constant speed when no forces act upon them.
http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19510618,00.html
Time
Chou En-lai | June 18, 1951
From 7/4/1976 ( at extreme personal risk to himself my biological brother Thomas Reagan the civilian and privately financed astronaut in his privately financed atom-pulse propulsion spaceship successfully intercepts the Comet "Lucifer" - threatening extinction of all life on this planet Earth - in the outer solar system and diverts it away from the planet Earth ) To 10/24/2007 ( ) is 11434 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 2/21/1997 ( the landing of the US space shuttle Discovery orbiter vehicle mission STS-82 includes me Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps officer and United States STS-82 pilot astronaut and my 4th official United States of America National Aeronautics Space Administration orbital flight of 4 overall ) is 11434 days
From 6/18/1951 ( from Time magazine: Chou En-lai ) To 6/8/1993 ( commencement, Princeton University Class of 1993 ) is 15331 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 10/24/2007 ( ) is 15331 days
From 9/27/1905 ( "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy-Content?" by Albert Einstein ) To 9/18/1947 ( the United States of America Central Intelligence Agency begins active-duty ) is 15331 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 10/24/2007 ( ) is 15331 days
From 7/20/1969 ( my biological brother Thomas Reagan the United States Navy Commander circa 1969 was United States Apollo 11 Eagle spacecraft United States Navy astronaut landing and walking on the planet Earth's moon ) To 10/24/2007 ( ) is 13975 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 2/6/2004 ( as Kerry Burgess my final day full-time employment Microsoft Corporation in Seattle beginning 12/07/1998 as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and the deputy director of the United States Marshals Service and the United States Marine Corps brigadier general circa 2004 ) is 13975 days
From 5/13/1992 ( the Intelsat 6 successful rescue during US space shuttle Endeavour orbiter vehicle mission STS-49 includes me Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps officer and United States STS-49 pilot astronaut and my 1st official United States of America National Aeronautics and Space Administration orbital flight of 4 overall ) To 10/24/2007 ( ) is 5642 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 4/14/1981 ( my biological brother United States Navy Fleet Admiral Thomas Reagan was the commander aboard the United States STS-1 Columbia spacecraft ) is 5642 days
From 10/28/1994 ( premiere US film "Stargate" ) To 10/24/2007 ( ) is 4744 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 10/29/1978 ( premiere US TV series episode "Battlestar Galactica"::"Gun on Ice Planet Zero - Part 2" ) is 4744 days
From 6/14/1945 ( premiere US film "War Comes to America" ) To 6/5/1987 ( as me, Kerry Burgess, my official enlisted United States Navy documents includes: Earned NEC 1189 - Based on graduation from the Terrier Mk 152 Guided-missiles Fire Control Computer Complex course - Naval Guided Missiles School, Dam Neck, Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States Navy - leading to permanent assignment until 1990 to CF-division, Missile Plot - guided-missiles Fire Control Computer Complex (UNIVAC digital-computers Mk152 Terrier System for, primarily, SM2-ER {Extended Range} Standard Missiles ordnance), USS Wainwright CG-28, United States Navy, while enlisted paygrade E-5, designated Petty Officer Second Class Fire Controlman (FC2) ) is 15331 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 10/24/2007 ( ) is 15331 days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e_1
Chang'e 1
From Wikipedia
Chang'e 1 was an unmanned Chinese lunar-orbiting spacecraft, part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The spacecraft was named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang'e.
Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007 at 10:05:04 UTC from Xichang Satellite Launch Center. It left lunar transfer orbit on 31 October and entered lunar orbit on 5 November. The first picture of the Moon was relayed on 26 November 2007. On 12 November 2008, a map of the entire lunar surface was released, produced from data collected by Chang'e 1 between November 2007 and July 2008.
The mission was scheduled to continue for a year, but was later extended and the spacecraft operated until 1 March 2009, when it was taken out of orbit. It impacted the surface of the Moon at 08:13 UTC. Data gathered by Chang'e 1 was used to create an accurate and high resolution 3-D map of the lunar surface. Chang'e 1 was the first lunar probe to conduct passive, multi-channel, microwave remote sensing of the Moon by using a microwave radiometer.
Its sister orbital probe Chang'e 2 was launched on 1 October 2010.
https://archive.ph/20071027023929/http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/10775326.html
Sky & Telescope
Posted By The Editors Of Sky & Telescope, October 26, 2007
Bright Comet Holmes Continues to Amaze in the Evening Sky
Amateur astronomers the world over have been stunned and amazed by the weirdest new object to appear in the sky in memory. And it's one of the easiest to see, too.
Just a few days ago, Periodic Comet Holmes (17P) was a tiny, roughly 17th-magnitude nonentity out between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. But on Wednesday, October 24th, skywatchers looked up to see a bright new star shining yellow-orange in Perseus. For no apparent reason the comet had brightened about a millionfold to shine at close to magnitude 2.5. That made it plain to see even in bright moonlight and through all but the worst light pollution. It looked truly starlike; even high telescopic magnification barely resolved it as anything larger at first. But within a day it had expanded into a perfectly round, bright little disk with a tiny nucleus as seen in binoculars and telescopes. It looked like no comet ever seen.
Its startling outburst, however, has a precedent. The comet was also in a major eruption 115 years ago, in November 1892, when English amateur Edwin Holmes was the first to spot it.
Discovery
The first person to notice something happening this time, according to IAU Circular 8886 (issued October 24th by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams) was A. Henriquez Santana at Tenerife, Canary Islands, shortly after midnight on the morning of the 24th local time. The comet was then about 8th magnitude, but within minutes Ramon Naves and colleagues in Barcelona, Spain, caught it at magnitude 7.3.
Internet discussion groups came alive with the news. "To my amazement, 17P had brightened to naked-eye visibility," exclaimed Bob King when he spotted Comet Holmes shortly before dawn in Duluth, Minnesota. "What a sight!" he posted to the Comets Mailing List. Alan Hale of Cloudcroft, New Mexico, concurred. To Hale (well-known codiscoverer of Comet Hale-Bopp) it appeared essentially starlike in a telescope until he switched to high power.
Then things only got better. As Earth continued to turn, nightfall arrived in Japan. "It is visible with naked eyes in a large city!" posted Seiichi Yoshida, who observed the comet from beside Tsurumi River in Yokohama. By 17:15 Universal Time he was describing Comet Holmes as magnitude 2.8.
In the next 36 hours the comet remained just as bright or even a little more so — shining as the third-brightest "star" in Perseus — while enlarging to become a round, sharp-edged disk with a bright core in binoculars and telescopes. Comet expert Gary Kronk expects Comet Holmes to remain bright and continue to enlarge in the next few nights
http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/08800/08886.pdf
Circular No. 8886
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
Mailstop 18, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone (for emergency use only)
COMET 17P/HOLMES
2007 October 24
https://vanderbei.princeton.edu/
Robert Vanderbei
Professor, Operations Research and Financial Engineering
Assoc. Faculty Member in Astro, Comp Sci, Math, MAE, PACM, SML, and BCF
Fellow of AMS, INFORMS, and SIAM. Member of IAS.
https://vanderbei.princeton.edu/images/NJP/17pHolmes.html
Comet 17P/Holmes
From the author of Sizing Up The Universe
In 1898, an English astronomer named Edwin Holmes discovered a comet in the constellation Andromeda. It was named Comet Holmes in honor of its discoverer. On October 24, 2007, this comet was a faint speck between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, visible only in the largest telescopes. Then, suddenly, in a matter of a few hours, it increased in brightness a million-fold, and became a naked eye object visible in heavily light-polluted cities. It is not clear what caused this eruption, since comets ordinarily do not increase in brightness until they are near perihelion (closest distance to the Sun) where solar radiation strips away and illuminates tons of dust and gas. Comet Holmes traverses a 7-year elliptical orbit around the Sun. At aphelion (farthest distance from the Sun) it is near the orbit of Jupiter. At the time of its eruption, Comet Holmes was near opposition, meaning that it was on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth. Since a comet's tail is caused by the Sun's radiation, it always points directly away from the Sun. In the case of Comet Holmes, this means that any tail would have been behind it from the perspective of planet Earth. The result was a circular, tail-less apparition. Comet Holmes has an estimated core diameter of two miles. However, at the time of its eruption, its apparent diameter expanded to more than 600,000 miles, or twice the mean distance of the Earth to the Moon, and nearly 80% of the diameter of the Sun.
- posted by me, Kerry Burgess 02:16 AM Pacific-time USA Monday 05/09/2022
