There is no “dark side” of the moon… but given tidal locking, there is a near side and a far side… with the near side always facing earth, and the far side forever pointed away from us. It gets plenty of light… we just can’t ever see it.

And if you happen to be orbiting the moon, when you’re flying over that far side… that’s when there’s the radio blackout. Apollo 11 famously began their LOI (Lunar Orbit Insertion) rocket burn while orbiting the far side, which made for a very nervous group of people in mission control.

Several minutes later, communications was re-established and telemetry data was received, and everything looked perfect, much to everyone’s relief.

Going into the weekend these days feels like that. We’re totally blind to data, so all we can do is wait 70 hours till we re-establish contact with the BCCDC spaceship, and Commander Dix and Pilot Henry. The data going into it is about what’s to be expected these days.

We’re headed to Whistler one last time; the last gasp of summer… and I’ve seen license plates from Alberta, Saskatchewan and California… and tons of traffic. There’s a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam 10km… which is where I’m posting this from. I’ll update the graphs and data later with the complete picture… but note… we won’t get the real complete picture until we come out from the far side on Monday at 3pm.

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