On Dutch national TV, about lost flight Malaysian Airlines MH370 and satellites

My previous blog post "Satellites and Malaysian Airlines flight MH370" garnered some attention. I was called by an editor of 'Nieuwsuur' ("News Hour"), a major news show on Dutch national TV channel 2, if I was willing to explain something about it in an item on their news show (broadcast nationwide daily at 22:00 CET).

So yesterday afternoon I was visited by an interviewer and a cameraman, for an item broadcast yesterday evening. Below is a video of the item (it is in Dutch of course): I appear at 3:08 and again at 4:25 in the video.


In the item I briefly talk about the use of SBIRS to look for a mid-air explosion; and that I expect the US military to use their optical reconnaissance satellites to image every suitable landing strip within operational reach of the aircraft.

Other experts in the item are the Volkel Air Force base commander and fighter pilot Peter Tankink and TU University Aerospace researcher and pilot Alexander in 't Veld.

This is the second time I appear in Nieuwsuur: a year ago I was live in their broadcast in an item on the Chelyabinsk meteorite/asteroid impact (see my post here).

On national television about 2012 DA14 and the Russian super meteor

Yesterday was a crazy day, that started as soon as I woke up, opened my e-mail and saw the messages about the Russian super meteor event. Next, my telephone was red-hot from phone calls, and my e-mail and twitter flowed over from private messages by persons and news media seeking information.

I got two TV crews visiting me, plus a radio reporter, and I turned down a couple of other media requests.

At 22:00 (10 pm) Dutch time I was Live in the broadcast of 'Nieuwsuur', a prominent news program on Dutch national television channel Nederland 2. Through a satellite connection, I was interviewed by the news anchors in the studio, while I was standing next to my telescope in my courtyard. The topics were both the Russian event and the 2012 DA14 asteroid fly-by.

 TV van in the street

screenshots from the live Nieuwsuur broadcast

The video (in Dutch) can be seen here. It starts directly with my item.

I was also interviewed by a regional TV and radio station, TV West. The video of that TV appearance (again in Dutch of course) can be viewed here [link fixed: it initially erroneously linked to the Nieuwsuur item]: my item starts at 3:40 in the video.

TV West filming my explanation

Screenshots from the TV West broadcast

Radio reporter interviewing me

Yesterdays longer USA 193 related TV interview now on-line (expanded 11:00 GMT)

(expanded 22 Feb, 11:00 GMT)

The last two days were pretty hectic and tiring here. After my short appearance in Wednesday evening's 10 pm TV news, I had another TV-crew visiting me yesterday afternoon, for a longer item in NOVA, a well-watched program on Dutch national television providing in depth backgrounds to some news topics of the day.

It was a good interview, and a much longer item than Wednesday's short tv-news item, with several minutes of me being interviewed at my home. The questions asked were good, focussing on the "why?" of this whole thing and the extend as to what "we" (as active satellite observers) know about these classified satellites. The broadcast can be seen here:

Link (video): NOVA item on USA 193, 21 Feb 2008 (in Dutch)

There was a studio guest too: the resident space related Dutch TV expert Piet Smolders. Amongst others he raised the possibility of nuclear fuel being on board (something I had avoided), and mistakenly says this is the first time the US shoots down a satellite (they did it earlier in September 1985, targetting the Solwind satellite).

In the above screenshot (with thanks to Jacob Kuiper), note the book "comets" which was placed there on request of the camera-man for visual appeal. Also, the NASA "Certificate of Appreciation" (related to my participation in the 1998 Leonid multi-instrument airborne science mission) normally hangs on another part of my wall, but was placed there on a similar request... :-)

Earlier that day, at about 7:15 am in the morning, I was called out of my sleep by the Dutch NOS radio news for a comment to the news of the successful ASAT attack in the 8 am radio news. I was still quite groggy, as I had been up at 4 am to watch the lunar eclipse!

A local radio station called too that afternoon, but by that time I was so tired (and had an agreement with the people from NOVA not to comment elsewhere before the broadcast) that I declined.

All the media attention to the USA 193 story caused another prominent peak in my webstats for this site again the past days:

Among the more interesting visitors was for example this one:

Oh: and the total Lunar Eclipse? For a short while around the start of totality (4 am local time), the moon managed to show up through hazy cloud cover. I managed to shoot a few pictures under apalling conditions, the best of which is these:

But I have been lucky to have seen and photographed anything at all, most Dutch and Belgian observers missed it completely due to the weather.

USA 193 lost in clouds, and a visit from a TV crew

As I feared in my previous post, I lost this evenings USA 193 pass. It did seem to turn clear in the afternoon at first, and in early twilight I had real hope. But eventually, at the 18:42 UTC pass the sky had filled with thin clouds. Naked eye, I could barely make out Aldebaran. Tried to find the relevant star-field in the telescope but failed. Oh well....

Earlier this evening, and after several phone calls in the daytime, I got a visit by a reporter and camera-man of the NOS (the Dutch "BBC"). They shortly interviewed me and shot some pictures of me doing mock observations behind the telescope. It is going to be broadcast in the TV News on the Dutch channel 2 at 22:00 CET.

With the current weather conditions, I have little hope for tonight's total lunar eclipse.