Today the news services are remembering Alan Shepard’s flight in the Freedom 7 capsule fifty years ago, on May 5, 1961. He was the first American to fly in space and a true American hero. This seems a fitting day to share my own small personal recollection of him.
When I was in sixth grade I was fitted with a large, uncomfortable back brace that I had to wear 24 hours a day. That was the current treatment for scoliosis in 1967. It was physically uncomfortable and limited my activities, but far more burdensome to a young middle school student were the unwelcome stares and notoriety at school. My mom and dad knew I was having a hard time, but what could they do? As a parent now I can imagine how they felt.
Dad worked at NASA, and one day he was telling some of his colleagues about his concern for his son. One of those colleagues was Alan Shepard, and when he heard the story he wanted to do more than just sympathize. “Would it help if I came to visit him at school?” Dad thought that was a great idea, so they picked a day and made the arrangements. The two of them took off work one morning, drove to my school (about an hour from the Center) and visited me in my sixth grade math class. All the kids were so eager to meet a famous astronaut they practically leaped out of their seats. He shook hands, signed autographs, and answered questions from the class for about fifteen minutes. Then they left and drove back to work. I was an instant celebrity.
I never met him again after that day, but I will always be grateful. Alan Shepard was not only an American hero, he was a good and decent human being.
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Remembering Apollo
I was raised on the space program. On my sixth birthday in 1962 my family moved from Fort Worth to Houston so my father could take a job at NASA. He was an aeronautical engineer at General Dynamics in Fort Worth when it was announced that NASA was building a new space center in Houston. He applied immediately, but it was some months before he landed a job there. At that time the Mercury program was in full swing, but Dad was hired to work on Apollo. President Kennedy had already committed the nation to go to the moon.
It took hundreds of thousands of people to make Apollo 11 possible. I am proud of my father’s role, but it is humbling to realize how many others were involved. He worked initially on the aerodynamic design of the launch escape system. That’s the small rocket that sits atop the capsule, ready to lift it quickly to safety if anything goes wrong with the booster. We still have a wind tunnel model which was used to test one of the early designs. Later he worked on the reentry aerodynamics. Coming back from the moon, the Apollo command module would reenter the Earth’s atmosphere at 25,000 mph, much faster than any previous spacecraft. This was an aerodynamic challenge of the first order. On top of that, Apollo was the first capsule designed to be a solid lifting body, so the astronauts could fly it down to the designated target area. With this ability the Apollo missions routinely landed within sight of the recovery ship.
I remember being a space junkie even before we left Fort Worth. At that time, every mission received full TV coverage from launch to splashdown. I was always glued to the tube. I watched the coverage of John Glenn’s first orbital flight, and I remember, even at five years old, the anxiety about whether his heat shield was loose during reentry. Later I followed every achievement of the Gemini program as NASA worked out the techniques that would be needed for Apollo: longer flights, larger crews, spacewalks, rendezvous and docking. Other boys collected baseball cards and memorized game stats. I became a walking encyclopedia of space trivia. I could tell you the height of the Saturn V rocket, the thrust of each stage, and every detail of the mission profile. I knew the names of most of the astronauts and could tell you which missions they had flown on. I had posters of rockets on my bedroom wall. A packet of publicity photos from NASA was one of my most treasured possessions.
The night of July 20, 1969 our whole family gathered around the TV to watch as the Eagle touched down on the moon. What an exciting time it was to be alive. Something like a quarter of the entire world population was watching with us at that same moment. The sense of wonder, pride and history was palpable. After the landing, it was to be several hours before the astronauts exited the vehicle. I remember we went outside and stood in the backyard, staring up at the moon. How strange to think that two men were there on the surface at that moment. I remember marveling at the thought that something could be in plain view, and yet so far away as to be invisible. It was hard to imagine just how far away they were.
When the moon walk started we were again glued to the television. We sat in the darkened living room of our home: my parents, my sister, my grandfather and me. I sat on the floor near the TV with my grandfather behind me on the couch. When the first ghostly images began to be transmitted we strained to make out what we were seeing. There was no doubt, though, about what was happening the moment Neil Armstrong stepped off the landing pad and onto the lunar surface. His words are burned in my memory. “I’m going to step off the LEM now. That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” The words seemed so appropriate.
However great the novelty and wonder of that moment was for me, I cannot fathom what it must have been like for my grandfather. Born in the Oklahoma Territory in 1892, he often told us stories of the first time he ever saw an automobile and the first time he heard about the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. In his lifetime mankind had gone from the first halting steps at heavier-than-air flying machines to massive rockets propelling three people to the moon, a quarter of a million miles away. As we watched the astronauts exploring the surface, every few minutes a title graphic would be displayed on the screen saying “Man on the Moon”. And every time it came on the screen my grandfather would read it out loud, in a tone of voice that spoke volumes. It was as if he couldn’t quite believe he wasn’t dreaming.
My grandfather died in 1979 and my father died in 1995. I have gazed up at the moon thousands of times in the past 40 years, and on none of those occasions was any human presence there to wonder at. Will there ever be again? Surely it will happen again someday, but my grandfather will not be here to see it, nor my father, nor perhaps will I. And now as I think back to that magical night 40 years ago it is as much with sadness as with wonder. The promise of that moment seems yet unfulfilled. I am still a space junkie. I still await eagerly each new development in the conquest of space, but I am chastened by the slow pace at which the future becomes the present. It is in this context that the accomplishments of my father’s generation seem even more extraordinary. Congratulations, Dad, to you and all your colleagues for a feat that only in hindsight, perhaps, we can fully appreciate.
It took hundreds of thousands of people to make Apollo 11 possible. I am proud of my father’s role, but it is humbling to realize how many others were involved. He worked initially on the aerodynamic design of the launch escape system. That’s the small rocket that sits atop the capsule, ready to lift it quickly to safety if anything goes wrong with the booster. We still have a wind tunnel model which was used to test one of the early designs. Later he worked on the reentry aerodynamics. Coming back from the moon, the Apollo command module would reenter the Earth’s atmosphere at 25,000 mph, much faster than any previous spacecraft. This was an aerodynamic challenge of the first order. On top of that, Apollo was the first capsule designed to be a solid lifting body, so the astronauts could fly it down to the designated target area. With this ability the Apollo missions routinely landed within sight of the recovery ship.
I remember being a space junkie even before we left Fort Worth. At that time, every mission received full TV coverage from launch to splashdown. I was always glued to the tube. I watched the coverage of John Glenn’s first orbital flight, and I remember, even at five years old, the anxiety about whether his heat shield was loose during reentry. Later I followed every achievement of the Gemini program as NASA worked out the techniques that would be needed for Apollo: longer flights, larger crews, spacewalks, rendezvous and docking. Other boys collected baseball cards and memorized game stats. I became a walking encyclopedia of space trivia. I could tell you the height of the Saturn V rocket, the thrust of each stage, and every detail of the mission profile. I knew the names of most of the astronauts and could tell you which missions they had flown on. I had posters of rockets on my bedroom wall. A packet of publicity photos from NASA was one of my most treasured possessions.
The night of July 20, 1969 our whole family gathered around the TV to watch as the Eagle touched down on the moon. What an exciting time it was to be alive. Something like a quarter of the entire world population was watching with us at that same moment. The sense of wonder, pride and history was palpable. After the landing, it was to be several hours before the astronauts exited the vehicle. I remember we went outside and stood in the backyard, staring up at the moon. How strange to think that two men were there on the surface at that moment. I remember marveling at the thought that something could be in plain view, and yet so far away as to be invisible. It was hard to imagine just how far away they were.
When the moon walk started we were again glued to the television. We sat in the darkened living room of our home: my parents, my sister, my grandfather and me. I sat on the floor near the TV with my grandfather behind me on the couch. When the first ghostly images began to be transmitted we strained to make out what we were seeing. There was no doubt, though, about what was happening the moment Neil Armstrong stepped off the landing pad and onto the lunar surface. His words are burned in my memory. “I’m going to step off the LEM now. That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” The words seemed so appropriate.
However great the novelty and wonder of that moment was for me, I cannot fathom what it must have been like for my grandfather. Born in the Oklahoma Territory in 1892, he often told us stories of the first time he ever saw an automobile and the first time he heard about the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. In his lifetime mankind had gone from the first halting steps at heavier-than-air flying machines to massive rockets propelling three people to the moon, a quarter of a million miles away. As we watched the astronauts exploring the surface, every few minutes a title graphic would be displayed on the screen saying “Man on the Moon”. And every time it came on the screen my grandfather would read it out loud, in a tone of voice that spoke volumes. It was as if he couldn’t quite believe he wasn’t dreaming.
My grandfather died in 1979 and my father died in 1995. I have gazed up at the moon thousands of times in the past 40 years, and on none of those occasions was any human presence there to wonder at. Will there ever be again? Surely it will happen again someday, but my grandfather will not be here to see it, nor my father, nor perhaps will I. And now as I think back to that magical night 40 years ago it is as much with sadness as with wonder. The promise of that moment seems yet unfulfilled. I am still a space junkie. I still await eagerly each new development in the conquest of space, but I am chastened by the slow pace at which the future becomes the present. It is in this context that the accomplishments of my father’s generation seem even more extraordinary. Congratulations, Dad, to you and all your colleagues for a feat that only in hindsight, perhaps, we can fully appreciate.
Friday, October 24, 2008
If Armadillos Could Fly
Well, they can!!
I would like to join with space enthusiasts everywhere to give my most enthusiastic congratulations to Armadillo Aerospace for winning Level 1 of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge today. To win Level 1, you have to launch a rocket from one pad, fly to 50 meters altitude, hover for 90 seconds, and land at another pad 100 meters away. Then you have to make a similar flight with the same vehicle back to the first pad. Sound simple? It's not! It's taken them several years to win, and no one else has even come close. Level 2 is harder still. You have to stay airborne for 180 seconds on each flight, and the second landing pad has boulders and craters just like the lunar surface. Armadillo will try to win Level 2 tomorrow.
Over the past few years I have often referred to Armadillo as the poster boys of amateur rocketry. I always meant that in the best possible way. Founded by John Carmack, creator of Doom and other famous video games, they started building rockets in a garage on the weekends eight years ago. Starting with ungainly little spider-like vehicles, look at what they have achieved! They have built engines for NASA and the Air Force. This year they won the contract to provide the rocket engines for the Rocket Racing League's airplane fleet. And not only did they win the NGLLC today, but Armadillo and Rocket Racing League announced they will form a joint venture with the state of New Mexico to build and fly passenger-carrying suborbital rocket vehicles over the next couple of years. Armadillo will be building the hardware.
So Armadillo Aerospace is all grown up now. They are poster boys no more. To John Carmack & co. I say: You guys are top flight professionals in my book from now on! Congratulations on your Rocket Racer contract, on your new joint venture announced today, and again on your level 1 win. Here’s hoping for a level 2 win tomorrow!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Falcon 1 in Orbit!
They finally did it! Falcon 1 is in orbit. As Elon Musk said to his employees, "The fourth time's a charm." Launch was at 4:16 pm PDT and second stage cut off occurred ten minutes later. The picture perfect launch and flight to orbit was webcast live. SpaceX has now become the first company to design, build and launch a privately funded space vehicle into orbit. According to Musk, in the past that's been a "country thing" and only a few countries in the world have achieved it. Now a private company has. Congratulations!
Saturday, August 9, 2008
SpaceX Blame Game
On August 6, Elon Musk released an explanation for last week's Falcon 1 launch failure. Evidently, the two stages did separate, but they reimpacted seconds later. When the second stage engine fired it damaged both stages, sending them tumbling to their destruction.
This flight of the Falcon 1 was the first flight test of the new Merlin 1C engine. The previous version of the engine was ablatively cooled, meaning that the rocket nozzle is lined with a material that slowly burns away, thus protecting the metal nozzle. The new version is regeneratively cooled, which means that the kerosene fuel circulates through channels in the nozzle to cool it before it gets injected into the engine. With regenerative cooling, when the fuel flow is cut off there is more residual fuel in the engine, so it takes longer for the thrust to drop off to zero. Evidently, SpaceX engineers did not take this into account by lengthening the time between engine cutoff and stage separation. The small amount of remaining thrust enabled the first stage to catch up with the second stage again instead of being out of the way when it ignited. You can see the whole thing in the video posted by SpaceX.
I mentioned last week that the various newspace bloggers and industry pundits have been engaged in an orgy of speculation and criticism. The new information from Musk didn't really quiet the crowd. It just shifted the focus to a discussion of whether this problem could have been foreseen and avoided. At some level that's no doubt true. Before the release of the video, some commentators had leapt immediately to the correct explanation, knowing nothing more than that there had been a "stage separation failure" and that this was the first flight with a regeneratively cooled engine. Much has been made, as well, about the fact that SpaceX has experienced three consecutive failures.
Why did they fail? There has a lot of loose criticism of SpaceX implying they are are a bunch of amateurs. That's not consistent with what I've heard about their organization and I think it is very unfair. I don't mean to say that every mistake they have made is unavoidable. But I also think there's another reason why one would expect them to have more failures than the established aerospace companies. Their whole strategy is to find ways to simplify and automate the process of designing, building, testing and launching rockets. They are being innovative and taking risks by seeing which parts can be cheaper, which processes you can do without, which jobs you can automate, etc. If you're really going to find the floor on costs you have to go a little too low and then selectively restore some extra checks and redundancies as needed to get acceptable reliability. New, privately held, self funded companies can afford to take these kinds of risks more than established organizations.
Entrepeneurship drives progress in unique ways, and we are fortunate that we still have an entrepeneurial culture in this country. Most fail, but some succeed, and they do it by exceeding what earlier suppliers were able to achieve. If Musk is wrong, and there are no economies to be found in the way rockets are currently designed, built, tested and launched then he will fail. He might fail anyway if he makes too many mistakes. But I think his basic premise is sound and I suspect he will, in the end, succeed.
This flight of the Falcon 1 was the first flight test of the new Merlin 1C engine. The previous version of the engine was ablatively cooled, meaning that the rocket nozzle is lined with a material that slowly burns away, thus protecting the metal nozzle. The new version is regeneratively cooled, which means that the kerosene fuel circulates through channels in the nozzle to cool it before it gets injected into the engine. With regenerative cooling, when the fuel flow is cut off there is more residual fuel in the engine, so it takes longer for the thrust to drop off to zero. Evidently, SpaceX engineers did not take this into account by lengthening the time between engine cutoff and stage separation. The small amount of remaining thrust enabled the first stage to catch up with the second stage again instead of being out of the way when it ignited. You can see the whole thing in the video posted by SpaceX.
I mentioned last week that the various newspace bloggers and industry pundits have been engaged in an orgy of speculation and criticism. The new information from Musk didn't really quiet the crowd. It just shifted the focus to a discussion of whether this problem could have been foreseen and avoided. At some level that's no doubt true. Before the release of the video, some commentators had leapt immediately to the correct explanation, knowing nothing more than that there had been a "stage separation failure" and that this was the first flight with a regeneratively cooled engine. Much has been made, as well, about the fact that SpaceX has experienced three consecutive failures.
Why did they fail? There has a lot of loose criticism of SpaceX implying they are are a bunch of amateurs. That's not consistent with what I've heard about their organization and I think it is very unfair. I don't mean to say that every mistake they have made is unavoidable. But I also think there's another reason why one would expect them to have more failures than the established aerospace companies. Their whole strategy is to find ways to simplify and automate the process of designing, building, testing and launching rockets. They are being innovative and taking risks by seeing which parts can be cheaper, which processes you can do without, which jobs you can automate, etc. If you're really going to find the floor on costs you have to go a little too low and then selectively restore some extra checks and redundancies as needed to get acceptable reliability. New, privately held, self funded companies can afford to take these kinds of risks more than established organizations.
Entrepeneurship drives progress in unique ways, and we are fortunate that we still have an entrepeneurial culture in this country. Most fail, but some succeed, and they do it by exceeding what earlier suppliers were able to achieve. If Musk is wrong, and there are no economies to be found in the way rockets are currently designed, built, tested and launched then he will fail. He might fail anyway if he makes too many mistakes. But I think his basic premise is sound and I suspect he will, in the end, succeed.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
SpaceX Falcon 1 Failure
Alas! Flight 3 of the SpaceX Falcon 1 vehicle ended with the loss of the vehicle. The flight seemed to be going well until shortly before stage separation. This is the moment when the first stage shuts down and is jettisoned, then the second stage begins firing. The live video stream from the rocket was cut off about 2:11 into the flight. A few seconds later the SpaceX announcer said there had been an anomaly. In a statement to his employees and the general public a short while later, Elon Musk said there had been a stage separation failure. We have no other information at this time, although speculation has been rampant in the blogosphere.
When something like this happens the blogosphere is always full of naysayers. I can't resist a few comments of my own. First, it is true this is a serious failure for the company. This flight didn't get as far as the last one, which doesn't look good. We have yet to learn how their customers will react to the failure. It is definitely a significant setback. Musk says he has brought in new investors and his cash position is very strong. He thinks he can weather the crisis. I still wouldn't bet against him.
Many of the naysayers appear to be part of the traditional aerospace industry and it seems almost as if they are hoping SpaceX will fail. They seem to be motivated by a desire to prove that no one can improve on their own track record. They would like to think that it is always going to take billions of dollars and an army of thousands to develop new spacecraft. But look at what SpaceX has already accomplished. With a total workforce of 525 people and no more than about $250 million expended so far, they have developed one small launch vehicle (Falcon 1), are well along in development of a medium lift vehicle (Falcon 9) and are working on a spacecraft that will dock with the International Space Station (Dragon). All that would have cost the Europeans about $5 billion!! Even Lockheed-Martin or Boeing would have spent far more. SpaceX can afford to lose several more Falcon 1 vehicles as they perfect their systems and still be way ahead of what anyone else has done in terms of cost efficiency. I really think the big boys better be looking in their rearview mirrors!
When something like this happens the blogosphere is always full of naysayers. I can't resist a few comments of my own. First, it is true this is a serious failure for the company. This flight didn't get as far as the last one, which doesn't look good. We have yet to learn how their customers will react to the failure. It is definitely a significant setback. Musk says he has brought in new investors and his cash position is very strong. He thinks he can weather the crisis. I still wouldn't bet against him.
Many of the naysayers appear to be part of the traditional aerospace industry and it seems almost as if they are hoping SpaceX will fail. They seem to be motivated by a desire to prove that no one can improve on their own track record. They would like to think that it is always going to take billions of dollars and an army of thousands to develop new spacecraft. But look at what SpaceX has already accomplished. With a total workforce of 525 people and no more than about $250 million expended so far, they have developed one small launch vehicle (Falcon 1), are well along in development of a medium lift vehicle (Falcon 9) and are working on a spacecraft that will dock with the International Space Station (Dragon). All that would have cost the Europeans about $5 billion!! Even Lockheed-Martin or Boeing would have spent far more. SpaceX can afford to lose several more Falcon 1 vehicles as they perfect their systems and still be way ahead of what anyone else has done in terms of cost efficiency. I really think the big boys better be looking in their rearview mirrors!
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Go SpaceX!
This is a big week for the newspace company SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies). Today they announced the first nine-engine test firing of their new Falcon 9 booster. A video of the test firing is posted on their website.
Even more significant, perhaps, is the opening of the launch window for Flight 3 of their smaller Falcon 1 rocket. (The launch of Flight 2 is pictured at right.) Sometime between now and August 5 I'm hoping to watch a live webcast of their first successful launch into orbit. The first test launch of the Falcon 1 ended after 30 seconds of flight when a fire caused the first stage engine to fail. The second flight nearly made orbit, but sloshing fuel in the second stage tanks caused a premature engine cut-off. Flight 3 is not billed as a test flight, but an operational flight. They are launching an experimental DOD payload, along with two smaller payloads for NASA and one for the Malaysian space agency. I think they have an excellent chance for success, based on the progress made in the past two launches. I can't wait!
SpaceX is a new company founded by Internet mogul Elon Musk with the money he made from selling PayPal. It is one of a new breed of space enterprises often referred to as "newspace". These new companies, mostly self-funded, are aiming to create a new era of private commercial space travel by bringing down the cost of getting into space. The genius of newspace is to leverage the market economy and entrepeneurial spirit of this country to vastly accelerate the pace of innovation in this industry. Dozens of companies are trying dozens of different approaches. Most will fail, but some may succeed. Musk's approach is more conventional than most. He aims to beat the majors (Boeing, Lockheed-Martin) at their own game by producing conventional boosters that compete directly against existing ones, but undercutting their price. He is betting over $100 million of his own money on it.
How can a new company produce rockets cheaper than the big boys? I think there are several key elements of Musk's strategy:
Even more significant, perhaps, is the opening of the launch window for Flight 3 of their smaller Falcon 1 rocket. (The launch of Flight 2 is pictured at right.) Sometime between now and August 5 I'm hoping to watch a live webcast of their first successful launch into orbit. The first test launch of the Falcon 1 ended after 30 seconds of flight when a fire caused the first stage engine to fail. The second flight nearly made orbit, but sloshing fuel in the second stage tanks caused a premature engine cut-off. Flight 3 is not billed as a test flight, but an operational flight. They are launching an experimental DOD payload, along with two smaller payloads for NASA and one for the Malaysian space agency. I think they have an excellent chance for success, based on the progress made in the past two launches. I can't wait!
SpaceX is a new company founded by Internet mogul Elon Musk with the money he made from selling PayPal. It is one of a new breed of space enterprises often referred to as "newspace". These new companies, mostly self-funded, are aiming to create a new era of private commercial space travel by bringing down the cost of getting into space. The genius of newspace is to leverage the market economy and entrepeneurial spirit of this country to vastly accelerate the pace of innovation in this industry. Dozens of companies are trying dozens of different approaches. Most will fail, but some may succeed. Musk's approach is more conventional than most. He aims to beat the majors (Boeing, Lockheed-Martin) at their own game by producing conventional boosters that compete directly against existing ones, but undercutting their price. He is betting over $100 million of his own money on it.
How can a new company produce rockets cheaper than the big boys? I think there are several key elements of Musk's strategy:
- Hire the best and the brightest engineers away from the majors.
- Run a lean operation with a flat structure and a spirit of innovation that empowers these engineers to produce the best products possible with the least overhead.
- Start with a clean-sheet design while still leveraging the accumulated experience of the past fifty years.
- Optimize the design for lowest price instead of highest performance.
- Leverage automation whereever possible to reduce labor costs in the design, manufacture, testing, and operation of the vehicle.
So far SpaceX is doing rather well financially. They haven't put a single payload into orbit (yet!), but they have at least a dozen missions on their launch manifest. They won a COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) contract from NASA worth $278 million that is helping to bankroll their development work, and have so far made all their milestones. The big question, I think, is not whether they will get to orbit successfully, but whether over the long haul they can deliver on their promise of significantly lower launch costs than the majors. Right now, I wouldn't bet against them. Go SpaceX!
[Afternoon update] SpaceX has announced the opening of a five hour launch window at 6:00 pm CDT (4:00 PDT and 7:00 EDT). Webcast will begin 30 minutes before launch.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Kudos for Kibo
The space shuttle Discovery is home after a safe landing in Florida today. Congratulations to all involved. The big accomplishment on this mission (besides fixing the space toilet!) was delivering the main module of the Japanese Kibo laboratory to the International Space Station. This is Japan's big contribution to the station, and we do mean "big". Larger than the other modules, it was delivered empty to save weight. Some of the experiment racks were prepositioned on ISS by previous missions. Others will be delivered later. The combination of being the largest module and being delivered empty produced a unique opportunity for the astronauts:
I just love this video. All the astronauts work really hard when they are in space. I'm glad to see that nobody gave them a hard time about taking five minutes to enjoy the novelty of the new, empty laboratory. Looks like fun, doesn't it?
I also applaud the Japanese for making such a major investment in ISS. They are planning to do lots of research using Kibo. I wish them and the other partners much success and look forward to their future accomplishments.
I just love this video. All the astronauts work really hard when they are in space. I'm glad to see that nobody gave them a hard time about taking five minutes to enjoy the novelty of the new, empty laboratory. Looks like fun, doesn't it?
I also applaud the Japanese for making such a major investment in ISS. They are planning to do lots of research using Kibo. I wish them and the other partners much success and look forward to their future accomplishments.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Mars Rocks!
The resident Geek has too long forsaken the blogosphere. This week I must return to offer a hearty congratulations to NASA on two great missions currently ongoing. This week we're watching the shuttle Discovery and seeing the continued expansion of the International Space Station. Before that we watched the arrival of the Phoenix lander on Mars a couple of weeks ago. It was virtually flawless! The pictures, as always, are totally captivating to me. Most amazing so far:
This view of Phoenix descending on its parachute was captured by the high resolution camera of the Mars Reconnaissence Orbiter that orbits about 200 miles above the Martian surface. Never before have we had an image of any spacecraft landing on another body of the solar system. To give you a sense of exactly what they mean by "high resolution" you need to see the complete image this one was cropped from:
Click on the image to see full resolution. The crater is actually well in the background. A trick of perspective makes it seem like the spacecraft is about to land in the crater.
The pictures that really capture my imagination, though, are the ones from the surface looking out toward the horizon. We've only seen a few of those so far from Phoenix. But here is a dramatic example from Opportunity, one of the Mars Exploration Rovers that have been studying the surface of Mars for the past four years:
Again, click on the image for full resolution (416KB). This panorama shows part of the rim of Victoria Crater. To give you an idea of the dimensions, the steep cliff in the foreground is about 20 feet high. The far rim of the crater is about a quarter mile away.
What I love about these images of Mars is that it seems like a real place! Now, I don't mean to suggest I ever thought Mars is imaginary. What I mean is that it looks like you could just step out into that picture. It might have been taken in a desert here on Earth. It looks like real estate, not a "celestial body". It's not just something to study, it's a place to explore. Alas, I'm not sure humans will ever walk on the surface of Mars in my lifetime. I'm 52 years old, so maybe they will. I hope so. Never did I imagine when the world was watching the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon that it would be so long before we went exploring again.
This view of Phoenix descending on its parachute was captured by the high resolution camera of the Mars Reconnaissence Orbiter that orbits about 200 miles above the Martian surface. Never before have we had an image of any spacecraft landing on another body of the solar system. To give you a sense of exactly what they mean by "high resolution" you need to see the complete image this one was cropped from:
Click on the image to see full resolution. The crater is actually well in the background. A trick of perspective makes it seem like the spacecraft is about to land in the crater.
The pictures that really capture my imagination, though, are the ones from the surface looking out toward the horizon. We've only seen a few of those so far from Phoenix. But here is a dramatic example from Opportunity, one of the Mars Exploration Rovers that have been studying the surface of Mars for the past four years:
Again, click on the image for full resolution (416KB). This panorama shows part of the rim of Victoria Crater. To give you an idea of the dimensions, the steep cliff in the foreground is about 20 feet high. The far rim of the crater is about a quarter mile away.
What I love about these images of Mars is that it seems like a real place! Now, I don't mean to suggest I ever thought Mars is imaginary. What I mean is that it looks like you could just step out into that picture. It might have been taken in a desert here on Earth. It looks like real estate, not a "celestial body". It's not just something to study, it's a place to explore. Alas, I'm not sure humans will ever walk on the surface of Mars in my lifetime. I'm 52 years old, so maybe they will. I hope so. Never did I imagine when the world was watching the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon that it would be so long before we went exploring again.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A Dangerous Business
Traveling to space and back is still a dangerous business. We tend to get inured to the dangers as mission follows mission and nothing happens. It barely makes the evening news. It takes a disaster like Challenger or Columbia to awaken public interest. But every time a space mission succeeds it is the result of lots of hard work and attention to detail. Also a little luck.
This weekend a Russian Soyuz capsule returned from the International Space Station with three crew members on board: Russian Yuri Malenchenko, American Peggy Whitson and South Korean Yi So-yeon. They landed safely and in good health, but it was a close call. Their Soyuz capsule, workhorse of the Russian space program for forty years, had malfunctioned.
Each Soyuz spacecraft has three sections: an orbital module on top, a descent capsule in the middle, and a propulsion module on the bottom. To land successfully, the rocket engines in the propulsion module must fire to begin the descent, then the descent capsule with the crew members inside must separate from the other two sections for reentry. Only the descent module has a heat shield and is designed to survive reentry.
Early reports indicate that on Saturday the propulsion section failed to separate normally. As the spacecraft began its fiery reentry its hatch side was facing forward instead of the heat shield. Fortunately, the propulsion module finally separated before the heat damage became critical. The capsule then made a failsafe ballistic landing instead of its normal guided descent. This subjected the crew to about twice the normal G forces - almost ten times the force of gravity. The radio antenna was destroyed by the heat, so the crew could not communicate with Moscow's Mission Control. For almost half an hour no one knew where the Soyuz had landed or even whether the crew survived. To add to their troubles, the still-hot capsule ignited a grass fire upon landing which filled the cabin with smoke for a few minutes.
The Russians train every crew for such situations, however. Despite the fact that the craft landed on its side and despite the fact that he had just endured a 10 G reentry after six months in zero G, Malenchenko managed to free himself from his seat restraints and exit the capsule. He used a satellite phone to contact Mission Control. (One has been included on each Soyuz mission for just such a purpose ever since a similar off course landing occurred in 2003.)
Since they landed 260 miles short of their target, the first people to reach them were the astonished Kazakh locals. They helped the astronauts exit the craft and unload some of their equipment. Shortly thereafter the first Russian helicopters arrived. The astronauts were returned to Star City in Russia where they were examined and found to be healthy. Their capsule will now be examined for clues to the cause of the malfunction.
Some day I hope space travel becomes as routine as air travel, but that day has not yet arrived.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Buran Buran
Did you know the Soviet Union had its own space shuttle? That's a picture of it to the right. It was called Buran, which means snowstorm in Russian.The Soviets built Buran at great expense to compete with the U.S. space shuttle. Buran flew exactly once in 1988, before being permanently mothballed in the final days of the Soviet Union. The expense of the program was simply unsustainable for the cash-strapped Soviet government. Buran was in many ways technologically superior to the U.S. shuttle on which it was modeled. For instance, it was completely automated. Although it was designed to carry a crew, its maiden flight was unmanned.
Like so much of the Soviet era space hardware and facilities, Buran quickly fell into disrepair. Two were built, but one was destroyed a few years ago by the collapse of the hanger in which it was kept. Now the sole surviving model has been sold to a German museum, where it will go on permanent display. On this last trip to its final home, Buran rode on a barge this week down the Rhine river:
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Space Tourism
The space tourism market seems to really be heating up. So far, most of the press has gone to Virgin Galactic, the high-profile company launched by Sir Richard Branson. They recently unveiled their design for SpaceShipTwo, pictured above. Branson is working with Burt Rutan, who built SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004. Rutan won the $10 million prize by building a vehicle that flew twice in a two week period to an altitude greater than 100 km, which is generally regarded as the edge of space.
There are other companies planning to offer suborbital joyrides, of course. But one of the more credible efforts was announced just yesterday by XCOR Aerospace, a small company that has been building rocket engines and rocket planes for almost ten years. Yesterday they revealed their plans for the Lynx (above), a two seater rocket plane that will fly from an ordinary runway on rocket power and climb to 61 km. They have even received some funding from the Air Force, which is interested in encouraging the development of technologies that make it easier to get into space and back routinely and on short notice.
You can already buy a ticket from Virgin Galactic, although not yet from XCOR. The price? Only $200,000! Well, yeah, did I mention you better be rich if you want to fly in space? They say the prices will come down, though. :-)
Endeavour is Home!
A nighttime landing is a fitting finish to STS-123 which began with a nighttime launch. This was a very successful mission. It included a record-setting five spacewalks and was the longest space station construction flight yet. Congratulations to NASA and their international partners!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Endeavor arriving!
It's a busy week in space. The space shuttle Endeavor docked last night with the International Space Station after a spectacular night launch Monday night. Meanwhile, the first of Europe's new unmanned ATV spacecraft is closing in on ISS for a rendevous after the shuttle leaves. It was launched from French Guiana on March 8. The ATV is a cargo ship which is intended to bring regular supplies to the station. It carries three times the cargo of the Russion Progress spacecraft, which along with the shuttle currently handles all the space station resupply needs.The astronauts on ISS have borrowed the old Navy tradition of ringing a bell to announce the arrival of a ship (or its captain). ISS commander Peggy Whitson rang the bell and called out "Endeavor arriving" as shuttle commander Dominic Gorie and his crew floated through the hatch. Once again, there are ten human beings living and working together in space at the same time, three from the station and seven from the shuttle.
This shuttle mission, STS-123, continues the blistering pace of space station construction since flights resumed after the Columbia disaster. Endeavor is delivering the first of three parts of the Japanese laboratory. It also brings a Canadian robot named Dextre (shown at left) designed to work with the station's remote manipulator arm to do construction and maintenance tasks outside the station.There's more "I" in ISS than ever. It now includes habitable modules built by four different nations: Russia, the United States, Europe and Japan. Not to mention smaller parts built by a variety of partners such as Canada. In both a technical and a political sense it is a remarkable achievement.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Something else to worry about
And now, as if we hadn't already identified enough things that might wipe out our species, we learn that astronomers have discovered a loaded gun pointed at our planet. Wolf-Rayet star 104 could go supernova at any time, and it's pointed straight at us. At only 8000 light years away, it could emit a gamma ray beam that would fry Earth's ozone layer. At that point you would need some pretty stout sunblock...I'm thinking SPF 200 or something. Say, a quarter inch layer of lead paint, like Queen Elizabeth I used to wear. Trouble is, all the little plants and critters in the forests and oceans don't have any sunblock. We might be eating canned beans for a long, long time.
How much time do we have left? Well, the astronomers say this thing might blow at any moment. Which, to an astronomer, means a few hundred thousand years. Better start stocking the pantry now.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
In the Shadow of the Moon
We finally rented In the Shadow of the Moon from Netflix and watched it this past weekend. This is the documentary about the Apollo program that came out last year. It features interviews with many of the original astronauts combined with lots of original footage of the missions. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although of course I am a space nut. The one single overriding impression of the movie, though, is how old these guys are getting. It really brings home how long it has been (nearly forty years) since we went to the moon. What is more, most of them will probably be dead before anyone ever goes back there. Personally I find this very disheartening.
Why do so few people care any more? Why does space travel no longer fire the imaginations of most young people? How many of you even realize NASA is working on a program to send astronauts back to the moon by the year 2020? Whatever happened to the spirit of the frontier? I wish I knew.
Why do so few people care any more? Why does space travel no longer fire the imaginations of most young people? How many of you even realize NASA is working on a program to send astronauts back to the moon by the year 2020? Whatever happened to the spirit of the frontier? I wish I knew.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Rocket Truck Redux
Another run of the Armadillo Aerospace rocket truck:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2008_03_01/longCraneTruckRocket.wmv
Just to be clear. These guys are actually making a serious attempt to develop space vehicles. But they have their engine test stand mounted on the back of their truck, and after a long day of testing somebody said, "Hey, why don't we take the brakes off and just see how fast it would go?"
If you haven't heard of Armadillo Aerospace, they are one of the more successful companies in what is often called New Space or Alt Space. These are small startup companies who are trying to develop space vehicles that are much, much less expensive than the tradional aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Armadillo has specialized in vertical take-off, vertical landing vehicle development. They very nearly won the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge in 2007, sponsored by NASA. This contest, with $2,000,000 of NASA-provided prize money available, requires you to launch your unmanned rocket from one launch pad, fly it to an altitude of 50 meters, stay airborne for at least 90 seconds, then land on another pad 100 meters away. Then you have to refuel your vehicle and fly it back the same way. Armadillo was the only contestant flying in the 2007 challenge and they came heartbreakingly close to succeeding. You can see lots of video and pictures of their effort on their web site.
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2008_03_01/longCraneTruckRocket.wmv
Just to be clear. These guys are actually making a serious attempt to develop space vehicles. But they have their engine test stand mounted on the back of their truck, and after a long day of testing somebody said, "Hey, why don't we take the brakes off and just see how fast it would go?"
If you haven't heard of Armadillo Aerospace, they are one of the more successful companies in what is often called New Space or Alt Space. These are small startup companies who are trying to develop space vehicles that are much, much less expensive than the tradional aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Armadillo has specialized in vertical take-off, vertical landing vehicle development. They very nearly won the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge in 2007, sponsored by NASA. This contest, with $2,000,000 of NASA-provided prize money available, requires you to launch your unmanned rocket from one launch pad, fly it to an altitude of 50 meters, stay airborne for at least 90 seconds, then land on another pad 100 meters away. Then you have to refuel your vehicle and fly it back the same way. Armadillo was the only contestant flying in the 2007 challenge and they came heartbreakingly close to succeeding. You can see lots of video and pictures of their effort on their web site.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Paging Albert Einstein...
For some years now NASA scientists have noticed that two of our early space probes, Pioneer 10 and 11, are not quite where they should be. Launched in the early 1970s to study the outer planets, these two spacecraft are now billions of miles away from Earth on escape trajectories out of the solar system. As scientists have tracked them over the years they have noticed a tiny, unexplained error that has been accumulating in their predicted positions. This is called the Pioneer Anomaly. Efforts to explain the anomaly have been unsuccessful. Is it caused by a slight outgassing from the spacecraft materials, or perhaps infrared photons radiating from the onboard nuclear power supplies? If you eliminate all the possible onboard causes, a much more interesting possibility remains. Perhaps the theory of gravity needs to be adjusted a bit! Einstein's theory of general relativity has been astonishingly successful at explaining the motions of the planets and other heavenly bodies. It would be Big News if even a tiny adjustment needed to be made in theory. For that reason, most scientists have assumed some other explanation will turn up for the Pioneer Anomaly. After all, it has only been observed with those two spacecraft.
Until now. A new anomaly has now been observed in the motions of five other spacecraft. Each is going either slightly slower or faster than expected after a flyby of Earth. There's no obvious connection to the Pioneer Anomaly, but it seems unlikely that two independent anomalous effects would exist.
So is there something wrong with our theory of gravity? Probably not, but it's fun to wonder.
Until now. A new anomaly has now been observed in the motions of five other spacecraft. Each is going either slightly slower or faster than expected after a flyby of Earth. There's no obvious connection to the Pioneer Anomaly, but it seems unlikely that two independent anomalous effects would exist.
So is there something wrong with our theory of gravity? Probably not, but it's fun to wonder.
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