February 20, 2008
Space opera
Lots of things happening heavenward today.
An astronaut whose mother was killed by a train while he was on the International Space Station for 120 days will return to Earth on the Shuttle.
The US Navy will attempt to hit a satellite moving at 22,783 MPH with a warhead-less missile launched from a ship in the Pacific. (Note to military: ever considered a self-destruct button on our spy sats? Or just telling the world we're testing a new weapons plaftorm? That would work too.)
A total lunar eclipse will occur at 10:01 PM ET tonight.
Posted at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
February 20, 2007
Project wisdom from the old NASA
“If a major project is truly innovative, you cannot possibly know its exact cost and its exact schedule at the beginning. And if in fact you do know the exact cost and the exact schedule, chances are that the technology is obsolete.”
-- Joseph G. Gavin, Jr., discussing the design of the lunar module* that landed NASA astronauts on the moon.
Yeah, boss. That's why we're late and over budget. You don't want to be obsolete, do you?
[*] The upper half of which is called, ahem, an ascent stage. We're all about inspirations to innovation around here.
Via SvN.
Tags: NASA, projectmanagement
Posted at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 6, 2007
Caputo's career kaput
Looks like my shout-out last year to the world's first female Italian-American in orbit will be my last for her. The press just loves the story of Lisa Caputo Nowak's alleged melting-down over a love triangle -- as though astronauts aren't human. She's an Italiana, fercrissakes! Of course she's fiery!
I think it's fair to say that she's not going to pass the next pre-flight psych check. My guess.
If you're catty in space, can anyone hear you growl?
UPDATE: And the whole fascination with wearing diapers for the long drive. C'mon, how do you think they spacewalk for 8 hours? She's just used to efficiency.
Tags: NASA
Posted at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
February 14, 2006
If failure is an option, call back
A friend of mine recently had the amazing chutzpah to pick up the phone and call Gene Kranz, retired NASA flight director and one of the heroes of the Apollo 13 rescue. He very nearly got hung up on. But somehow, amazingly, Kranz stayed with him and they ended up having an actual conversation about NASA yesterday and today. Since then they've been e-mailing back and forth. Here's an excerpt of their correspondence.
Cpt. Kranz: Good afternoon. This is the guy that called your home and blabbered at you a few weeks ago. So a question: whether youre in a flat spin or at console getting a 1201 with 30 secs left, what goes through your mind? Is there something you go to down deep besides keeping your eye on the ball? A saying? Or is it pure focus and training?Kranz responded to TC's somewhat nutty note with:
honored,
TC
TC, In crisis mode I depend on my training to get me through the first few minutes then revert to a checklist that I developed in early spaceflight and during training. See the attached. It was the key to getting through the first hour of Apollo XIII.
Cheersl
I love the use of present tense -- "In crisis mode I depend on ..." -- suggesting that he reacts similarly to household crises in his retirement.
Here's the checklist:
CONTINGENCY CHECKLIST
VEHICLE/CREW
1. PROBLEM INDICATIONS
2. PROCEDURE AVAILABLE
3. CRITICAL SYSTEMS
4. LIFETIME AVAILABLE
5. LIFEBOAT AVAILABLE AND INITIALIZED
6. ASSIGN TEAM TO TRACK S/C CONFIGURATION
7. DEFINE ONBOARD READOUTS
8. MAINTAIN ATTITUDE REFERENCE
9. MEMORY DUMP
DATA RECOVERY
1. TAPE DUMP/PLAYBACK
2. MCC/RTCC/CCATS CALLUP
3. DATA PRIORITY
4. VOICE TRANSCRIPT
5. DATA SECURITY
6. TERMINATE UNNEEDED EXTERNAL COMM
7. DATA ANALYSIS TEAM CHIEF
8. ARCHIVE DATA/TESTING/MFG/OTHER
MISSION IMPACT
1. CONTINUE/ALTERNATE/ABORT
2. SYSTEMS CAPABILITY FOR PLANNING
3. RETURN TO EARTH OPTIONS
4. TIME FOR GO/NOGO DECISION
5. TRACKING REQUIREMENTS
FLIGHT CONTROL TEAM
1. TEAM TAGGED UP AT ALL TIMES
2. BACKUP TEAM CALLED
3. PHASE TEAM ON STANDBY
4. MANAGEMENT CALLED
5. SPAN WORKING PROBLEM
6. RECOVERY STATUS
7. SHIFT SCHEDULE
8. PAO AND SECURITY BRIEFING
9. TERMINATE NON-ESSENTIAL ACTIVITY
10. SIMULATORS CALLED UP
11. MAKE TEAM ASSIGNMENTS FOR ANALYSIS,-/OPTIONS/PROCEDURES
CAUTIONS
ASSURE COMM DURING MANEUVERS
IMPACT OF NEXT CRITICAL FAILURE
VALIDATE GROUND/CREW INDICATIONS
LIMIT CREW RECONFIGURATION
SLOW AND CONSERVATIVE
Now, I'm not a director of space missions (though god knows I should be), but I'm going to try using this checklist next time one of my projects runs into trouble. Perhaps tomorrow? Will let you know how it goes.
Posted at 6:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 28, 2006
Six words, seven heros, twenty years
"Challenger, you are go for throttle-up."
Posted at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 12, 2005
Roar in the Gobi
China launched its second manned spaceflight today. The Shenzhou VI capsule carried two astroanauts (taikonaut is the word used previously, though I'm not seeing it employed this time around) and much-improved living quarters into orbit a few hours ago for a 5-7 day trip around the Earth. A module attached to the capsule itself will be left in space, presumably as some kind of remote-controlled lab, but details are vague. Vagueness is typical of the Chinese space program, but my colleagues in Beijing confirm that the launch itself was a big news event, broadcast live on state TV. That's progress. The first launch -- like the first Soviet launches so long ago -- was kept a secret until the capsule was safely in orbit.
A light snow was falling at liftoff, reports say. I'd like to see a picture of that. There's something about a light blanketting of snow preceding the cataclysm of a rocket launch that's pleasantly odd, almost like a Photoshopped image.
One wonders if this launch was actually delayed since last week the People's Republic celebrated National Day and a launch event, source of such national pride, would have made sense then. If it was delayed this is a good sign that China has their launch priorities in line. Perhaps they've learned from the close-calls the early Soviet space program had in trying to launch in conjunction with politically-significant events.
The long march to the moon continues.
Posted at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 10, 2005
Lunar threepeat
Tom Hanks has a thing about the Apollo program. I suppose you could say I do too. I've been interested in NASA and spaceflight since I was young, but what really what set me on my current path of obsession was the Hanks-produced and -introduced HBO mini-series From The Earth To The Moon from 1998. It was extraordinary television, dramatic and intelligent. Only after that did I dive into Apollo 13 in earnest. It was one of the first DVD's I ever owned and it still is the benchmark with which I test new AV gear at home. (Pay attention to the surround sound field as the camera pans along the fuel pipes just before liftoff.) I treated Apollo 13 as a kind of alternate chapter to From The Earth To The Moon, even though the film preceded the mini-series by three years.
So, Hanks is back at it with Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D, an IMAX 3D short film. Like most IMAX it is a temporary fun, not exactly satisfying after the fact. Add in the 3D glasses -- something I have not worn since Jaws 3D in the 1980's I'm pretty sure -- and you have enough gimmicks to truly stack the deck against the show. You really can't tell the story of Apollo in 55 minutes and you certainly don't have elbow room for narrative arcs so what Magnificent Desolation aims for is merely to make you feel like you are walking on the moon. This it achieves. My four-year-old was reaching out to grab the moondust that was kicked out into the audience via 3D. The best effect was the now-typical pan way out (ala Titanic) from the lander to a very broad shot of just how alone the astronauts actually were, not a shot that any Apollo-era photo could ever provide. The only aspect of drama in the whole thing was a play off this loneliness where they enacted an emergency scenario, thankfully never used in six moon landings, where the astronauts were stranded after a rover malfunction kilometers from the lander. One of the astronaut's oxygen was low and they had to hoof it back to home so they buddy-breathed their way back to spacecraft. It was very well done, but the whole time I was thinking that when we do go back to the moon (and by "we" I guess I mean the Chinese) it will be a hell of a lot easier to fake a moon landing than Capricorn One. We won't even need O.J. Simpson.
In the end it was satisfying, but only in the way that an amusement park ride is. Cheap thrill, go home, forget about it -- except to blog it. The show interspersed a bunch of actual footage of the landings, but because of the resolution difference -- 1960's-era film versus six stories of IMAX screen -- meant that the footage was shown picture-in-picture as a small overlay. This will be the fate of so much pre-HD footage in the future, jarring you out of the experience merely because the effect is so low-res.
Magnifcent Desolation had a bit of an agenda too. They interviewed kids to see what they knew, mostly focusing on what they didn't, about the Apollo program. One child, a young latina, said she'd love to go to the moon. Her story and her crayon drawing of how she would get there was dramatized at the very end in a future scenario where said child was the commander of an extensive moon base, making ample reference to the fact that humans have not stepped foot on our satellite in over thirty years. It won't change the fact that there is no public will to do this any time soon, but it was powerful nonetheless.
So, I recommend this if you can see it in an IMAX theater. If not, the DVD will underwhelm. Sorta like saying, if you can buy a ride to orbit, do it. Otherwise, wait for the movie.
Posted at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 7, 2005
Coasting
Maciej Ceglowski has written an oustanding piece on what's wrong with the US manned space program. No argument here.
But NASA dismisses such helpful suggetions [about discontinuing manned space altogether] as unworthy of its mission of 'exploration', likening critics of manned space flight to those Europeans in the 1500's who would have cancelled the great voyages of discovery rather than face the loss of one more ship.
Of course, the great explorers of the 1500's did not sail endlessly back and forth a hundred miles off the coast of Portugal, nor did they construct a massive artificial island they could repair to if their boat sprang a leak. And we must remember that space is called space for a reason - there is nothing in it, at least not where the Shuttle goes, save for a few fast-moving pieces of junk from the last few times we went up there, forty years ago. The interesting bits in space are all much further away, and we have not paid them a visit since 1972.
Posted at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 2, 2005
Careful with those clippers
A couple of thoughts on the emergency repair of the shuttle tile fillers that will take place soon.
This kind of unrehearsed response to a potential calamity is precisely the kind of thing we need to be comfortable with if we are ever going to leave Earth orbit again or go to Mars. So, on the one hand, I feel that there is a bit of overreaction from NASA at play here -- that filler fabric has come undone thousands of times before and it was not the result of any impact at launch. But this could also be a sign of a new risk-tolerant NASA, the "old" NASA so to say. Not a NASA that accepts risk cavalierly but one that has confidence that a task that has not been dissected from every angle and rehearsed for months might still be worth the effort. Jim Lovell (of Apollo 8 and 13 fame) has suggested that one of the problems with NASA post-Challenger has been a reluctance to embrace the unknown, to push boundaries where the risk seemed worthwhile. Certainly NASA has attempted first-of-a-kinds since Challenger, but this statement rings true. Conducting this ad hoc repair is a good thing for NASA's confidence, even if not 100% necessary.
Good luck, Stephen Robinson!
Posted at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 27, 2005
STS-300
NASA
Atlantis is already mated to its own external tank-solid rocket booster launch stack, and was slated for a Sept. 9 liftoff before today's foam find. NASA also tapped Atlantis to serve as a rescue ship for the STS-114 crew in the remote chance Discovery was too damaged to return home and its astronauts forced to take shelter aboard the space station. That contingency rescue mission is known as STS-300.
No one is faulting NASA for reacting with such care to the news that foam insulation did in fact shake loose during launch. The images of the divots and missing patches are eerie reminders of Columbia, scars of an ignorance we thought we'd overcome. But one has to wonder if the dozens of new cameras trained on the shuttle during ascent is making the problem seem worse than it is. Stuff shakes loose in the tug-o-war with gravity. Always has. In whatever we build to fly us to space next we need to attempt to prevent debris and harden whatever critical surfaces might be compromised by that debris.[*] This kind of protection was not added in the post-Columbia changes, to my knowledge.
The clock is ticking on the shuttle transportation system. My bet, we won't make 2010.
Re-entry is going to be tense.
[*] The heat shield on the Apollo capsule was safely sheathed until very close to the beginning of re-entry, for example.
Posted at 8:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 26, 2005
Aloft
Associated Press / NASA TV
I've been known to bad-mouth the shuttle in these parts -- mostly a tough love thing -- but I gotta admit that I got a little choked up to see it leap off the pad this morning. Bravo, NASA.
Eileen Collins and the crew had what looked like a flawless ascent. CNN noted that her voice before the solid boosters peeled off was shaky, but c'mon she's on top of 6.6 million pounds of thrust. Like trying to have a phone conversation sitting on the roof of a locomotive.
NASA's launch announcer always has a brief prepared tag line right when the countdown goes from minus to plus. This time he said "... beginning America's new journey to the Moon, Mars, and beyond." This is interesting because none of that journey involves the shuttle. NASA is looking forward, so much so that they used the return to space of the shuttle to reaffirm its retirement. I like this.
And the camera on the external tank! I've seen other launches from this angle, but never from the shuttle. That was damn cool. I'm scrounging for footage of the separation of the tank from the orbiter -- something no one had ever seen previously. Amazing how smooth that was and to see the orbiter engines direct it to orbit.
No word on the fuel sensor gauge, but, as a friend who had a flaky gauge on his Wagoneer noted, the key is just to jot down your mileage as you tank up. Isn't that what mission specialists are for?
Posted at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 16, 2005
Divine ship
The day after NASA scrubbed its return to space China announced that Shenzhou VI, its second manned flight, would go into orbit in October. China Daily reports that the announcement came on the occasion of the handover of a meteorological satellite from its maker to the Chinese government. Let's call it what it was, though. They're rubbing it in NASA's face!
Keeping with the China and excrement theme, Shenzhou VI will apparently contain a new toilet. Useful, since there'll be two taikonauts this time.
By the way, there's an official bottled water of Chinese taikonauts. Can you even imagine such a thing in America nowadays?
Posted at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 14, 2005
Fuel for thought
Gotta admit I was selfishly pleased to see the launch scrubbed. It ain't easy catching a mid-afternoon launch when you are Houston +13. That fuel sensor problem really seems like the undead issue. Can't kill it.
I bet the commander, Eileen Collins, had deja vu when the window cover fell off on the launch pad -- and not because of the falling foam that doomed Columbia. Collins had her foot on the gas for the scariest ride up in recent shuttle history, STS-93, when three cooling lines were ruptured by a falling pin during main engine ignition. Collins and her crew ended up short of their orbit, but the mission was a success. I'm pretty sure NASA had this in mind when they selected her for the program's return to flight. She's apparently quite cool under pressure.
I really wish NASA had a shuttle alternative in the functional prototype phase in the next year or so. By my calculations, even if the shuttle makes it to the 2010 mothballing date there will be several years -- akin to the post-Skylab pre-shuttle era -- where the US has no operational manned space vehicle program.
Ironic that that the two bright areas in manned spaceflight are private industry and communist China. What an odd space race.
Sidenote: You can get uncluttered live video and often telemetry data from United Space Alliance, the contractors who provide many of the ground operations to NASA.
Sidenote II: Does anyone know of any good space blogs? Why can't I find this?
Posted at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 4, 2005
Bang!
The Deep Impact probe successfully slammed into the Tempel 1 comet early on July 4th. Nice fireworks!
NASA hopes to analyze the cometary innards for clues about the composition of the early solar system.
See also video from the impactor point-of-view just prior to collision and
images from the flyby probe, Hubble, and an elated Mission Control.
Happy July 4th, America!
Posted at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 2, 2005
At least it ain't a Friday
Launch set for July 13. Countdown begins July 10.
Posted at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 25, 2005
"A turbulent zone of near-nothingness"
No, not my marriage -- which is nine-years-old today, hooray! -- but rather a description of the edge of the solar system which the spacecraft Voyager I has finally reached. Launched when the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977, this diehard explorer (and its twin) embody the best of NASA: trailblazing and science-oriented. If today's NASA could regain that clarity of purpose we'd be so much better off than wondering how long we can keep a geriatric low-earth orbiting big rig from falling to pieces.
Image copyright NASA.
Voyager is truly alone now. Even the sun is just a pinprick of light. Here's hoping someone -- some thing -- eventually encounters her golden cargo. Seeya, V'ger!
Posted at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
March 30, 2005
It was a different time back then, 1957 or '58
This is one of the funniest things I have seen in ages. The Old Negro Space Program is a ten-minute documentary that's one part Negro Baseball League, one part NASA, and all Spinal Tap. The parody of the professor and the crappy Photoshopping cracks me up. Keep your eye out for Peter 'Stinky Pete' Carver.
As a sidenote, NASA had a single African-American astronaut, Robert H. Lawrence Jr., during the race for the moon, but he died in an air crash in 1967.
[Via Coudal]
Posted at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
March 22, 2005
A stage that needs to ascend
Much has changed since the shuttle last went aloft, but that doesn't mean it isn't important for the US and for manned flight in general to get it back up a few times before phasing it out for something better and letting private industry take over orbital trucking.
NASA is still hoping to launch Discovery as mission STS-114 on May 15, though it is not at all certain they will hit that date and the launch window closes on June 3. As you might expect the spacewalks planned for this mission focus on feasibility tests of repairing damage during a mission. Also on the task list are delivery of the Raffaello module to the International Space Station and the installation of a digital camera (yes, they were using film) on the underside of the shuttle to snap pictures of the external tank separation. NASA has said that another shuttle could go up as early as June 14 if there was a need for a rescue mission.
Get ready, spacegeeks, live telemetry feeds will soon be coming your way!
Posted at 6:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 28, 2005
Where do you want to go today?
That's funny. I consider this to be a problem. Note to O'Hare and/or the city government. Quit quibbling about whose is bigger with Hartsfield and build a spaceport for god's sake. Take one of these, float it out into the middle of the lake, launch stuff into LEO. Why? Because launching from the middle of the US obviates these.
Why do I not work for NASA?
Posted at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
December 18, 2004
Glove on the abort handle
For those of you who noticed that the NASA Administrator, Sean O'Keefe, resigned this week, do you care? Didn't think so. I sure hope his successor realizes how much has changed since the shuttle last went up.
Posted at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
