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Bob Widlar let me in. Nice guy.

A project log for Lets Solve Hackaday.com/Space!

I figured I would start a project to crack the mystery that is hackaday.com/space.

john-boydJohn Boyd 04/08/2014 at 20:124 Comments

Given the images of Bob Widlar and Hackadays post today about Bob Widlar, I decided to try his name as the login info for the Telnet server. Sure enough it worked!

Give it a try and dig deeper into the mystery:

Telnet 54.241.0.25

Login: bob

Password: widlar


Lots of interesting stuff on the server. Here is a screenshot of what I was able to see right off the bat:

Reading the license file shows the files in /AGC to be the "Apollo Guidance Computer". Hmmm, I wonder.


Also, the file "reminder.txt" has the lyrics to the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" by Leonard Lipton and Peret Yarrow. Not sure what this means yet...


So far several people, myself included, believe this is related to Hackaday's call for hackers and hams, since the countdown timer on the main page runs out shortly before the last opportunity to communicate with the ICE/ISEE3 satellite. This would make sense with the space theme, Apollo Guidance System and the "I'm floating in a most peculiar way" reference. Someone also mentioned the possibility of using a high altitude weather balloon to get a radio close to the satellite to receive its weak signal. But its not the time for speculation yet!

Discussions

ach wrote 04/10/2014 at 03:26 point
In the SpaceX Dragon wikipedia page i see this: "SpaceX's CEO, Elon Musk, named the spacecraft after the 1963 song "Puff, the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary, reportedly as a response to critics who considered his spaceflight projects impossible." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_(spacecraft)]. The SpaceX CRS-3 will be launch to ISS for either 14 April or 18 April 2014 (maybe in the same orbit data: Inclination 52.3, Altitude 439km.) and will have as secondary payload a KickSat cubesat (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zacinaction/kicksat-your-personal-spacecraft-in-space). Could be this the reference of the song?

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Viva Penguinos wrote 04/09/2014 at 21:38 point
I'm curious. What are the chances that the AGC correlates to the project that I'm currently working on that is related to the DSKY or the AGC that I posted on HaD project?

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Mike Szczys wrote 04/08/2014 at 20:57 point
How dare you publish answers to riddles ಠ_ಠ

Just joking, Hackaday Projects is a place for you to post what you want. Great work figuring this one out!

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Matt wrote 04/08/2014 at 20:43 point
He is a fab guy, but I was unsure about publishing the login details when I found them. Only when I found this project through your comment do I feel it's an encouraged activity.

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