Cruising to Venus, and a Space History Update

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First, a little space history that I didn’t catch the first time around: 35 years ago this week, the Soviet Union sent two missions to Venus from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Venera lander, or “descent craft.” Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)

The first of the two, Venera 11, consisted of a flyby platform and a lander (“descent craft”), and launched on September 9, 1978. The second, Venera 12, also consisted of a flyby platform and a lander, and launched on September 14th. Venera 12’s course got it to Venus four days ahead of Venera 11: the Venera 12 lander reached the surface of Venus on December 21, 1978, and the Venera 11 lander followed on Christmas day.

And to follow up on one of my earliest space history posts which noted the launch, 20 years ago today, of the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-51: 5 years ago when I wrote that entry, I had no idea that a little over a year later I would meet one of the STS-51 astronauts, Frank L. Culbertson, Jr., at a NASA Industry-Education Forum. He was a very pleasant fellow, and well met.

Life can be weird and wonderful.

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GeoEye One

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Five years ago today — September 6, 2008 — a Delta II rocket launched from Vandenberg AFB carrying a privately-owned remote sensing satellite.


(GeoEye 1. Image from the Satellite Imaging Corporation web page.)

Despite being privately owned and operated, one of GeoEye 1‘s main customers for its multi-spectral images is the Department of Defense. You can see a selection of GeoEye imagery in this gallery.

And on the same day that GeoEye 1 launched, the Chinese launched two environmental monitoring satellites, Huan Jing 1A and Huan Jing 1B, from the Taiyuan launch site on a Long March 2C rocket.

So, 5 years ago today was a good day for remote sensing!

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On My Way Out the Door: First Afghani Cosmonaut, and Five German Satellites

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I’m headed to Dragon Con in just a little while! But first …

Twenty-five years ago today — August 29, 1988 — a Soyuz rocket out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome carried the first Afghani citizen to fly in space.


(Soyuz TM-6 insignia from Wikimedia Commons.)

The Soyuz TM-6 crew consisted of Russian cosmonauts Vladimir A. Lyakhov and Valeriy V. Polyakov, plus Afghani cosmonaut Abdul Ahad Mohmand. They spent a little over a week on the Mir space station before returning to earth.

In other space history, on this date 5 years ago another mission from the Baikonur Cosmodrome carried five German remote sensing satellites known as RapidEye-A through -E.

And speaking of remote sensing, congratulations to the Delta 4 launch team for successfully launching a National Reconnaissance Office satellite yesterday from my old stomping grounds, Vandenberg AFB!

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Spitzer Space Telescope Launched

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The space history series is not dead yet! Here’s an item I missed the first go-round.

Ten years ago today — August 25, 2003 — a Delta 2 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the fourth of NASA’s “Great Observatories.”


(Artist’s conception of the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Earth’s orbital track. NASA image.)

Originally called the Space InfraRed Telescope Facility (SIRTF), it was renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope after astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer, Jr. (1914-1997), who “was the first person to propose the idea of placing a large telescope in space and was the driving force behind the development of the Hubble Space Telescope.”

The Spitzer orbiting observatory was the largest space-based infrared telescope yet launched. It trails behind the Earth in a heliocentric orbit.

More about the Spitzer mission is on this site.

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The Future of the Space History Series

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I started my space history series of blog entries five years ago this month. I’ve never claimed that it was authoritative or museum-quality, or even particularly complete. But since I’ve concentrated on hitting events on their 5-year anniversaries, I’ve gotten to the point that I would be repeating entries.

Air and Space Museum
(If you want museum-quality coverage of space history, you’re better off going to a museum. “Air and Space Museum” by Rob Crawley, on Flickr via Creative Commons.)

For instance, I posted about today’s anniversary of the Explorer 5 launch five years ago (although then I missed the event by one day). But I don’t see the point of repeating things I’ve already catalogued, so the nature of the series is going to have to change.

I plan to be more selective about entries from now on. I may pick out select incidents that are particularly important to me, or I may pick more contemporary items to highlight. I haven’t decided exactly how I want to proceed.

If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them! For instance, yesterday Guy Stewart suggested this story about Lunar Orbiter 1 taking the first picture of Earth from the Moon, which happened 47 years ago yesterday. Great story, Guy!

So, to sum up: Many thanks to everyone who has enjoyed the series, and let us know what you think we do from here on out!

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Now Available Online: Truths and Lies and Make-Believe

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Folks on Facebook saw this yesterday, but the Truths and Lies and Make-Believe album is now live online!


(Front cover by Christopher Rinehart, using photo by Paul Cory Photography.)

The album has ten original songs, several of which relate to well-known science fiction or fantasy franchises and others that are more personal:

  • “Steampunk Pirates”
  • “The Monster Hunter Ballad”
  • “Another Romulan Ale”
  • “Dare to Do Great Things”
  • “Mortal Men”
  • “Tauntauns to Glory”
  • “Help My Unbelief”
  • “I Think I’ll Run for Congress”
  • “Day to Day Disguises”
  • “Finding Serenity”

 

For folks who prefer a physical CD, you can also order one online even though they’re not available quite yet. They should arrive from the manufacturer next week, and they cost $10 (hey, that’s $1 per song) whether you buy one from me in person or order one online — although we’ll add shipping & handling to the latter. (To download the online version is only $7.) Since Dragon_Con is next weekend, I won’t be able to ship out any orders until the first week of September.

Tell your friends, or tell your enemies, Truths and Lies and Make-Believe is out!

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CD Manufacturing Now In Progress

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Physical copies of Truths and Lies and Make Believe are now in work.


(This playful image by Paul Cory Photography is the scene on the interior cover art of the physical CD.)

For those folks who no longer trade in physical CDs, tonight or tomorrow I should complete the process of uploading the files for electronic access. I hope to decide about digital distribution this week, also, but no matter which service I use the album will take additional time to show up on iTunes and whatnot.

Tell your friends, or tell your enemies, Truths and Lies and Make Believe is coming soon — sooner now than ever!

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Pioneer Zero: First Attempted Lunar Mission

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Fifty-five years ago today — August. 17, 1958 — the U.S. made its first attempt at sending a spacecraft to the Moon.


(Pioneer 0. NASA image.)

Called alternately Pioneer 0 or Able 1, the satellite launched on a Thor-Able rocket out of Cape Canaveral. Not only was it the first attempt to reach the Moon, but it was “the first attempted lauch beyond Earth orbit by any country.”

Unfortunately, the first stage of the Thor exploded 77 seconds into the flight.

Failure was suspected to be due to a ruptured fuel or oxygen line or a faulty turbopump gearbox. Erratic telemetry signals were received from the payload and upper stages for 123 seconds after the explosion, and the upper stages were tracked to impact in the ocean.

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… and Make-Believe

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Today we made a hard decision about the very last song on the album.


(The ‘Question’ looks on, probably wondering why Gray hasn’t written any songs based on comic books. Image by Paul Cory Photography.)

The mix we had planned to use wasn’t up to the standards of my friend who’s mastering the album, so my engineer friend made a new mix to consider in addition to an earlier (and simpler) version of the song. Of course, we could only pick one, but we didn’t all agree on which one to use. I suppose that’s the nature of things sometimes. Keeping in mind that (as my former Commander used to say) we shouldn’t “let perfect be the enemy of good,” I think this was a case of having two pretty-good-but-not-perfect options to choose from, each of which was good for a different reason.

So I’ve made the decision, and I’m confident it’s the right one. However, as I used to tell the troops who worked for me, decisions are “right” or “wrong” based on what we know at the time we make them, but they’re only “good” or “bad” later, when we’ve experienced the outcomes. So I won’t know if this decision is good or bad until more folks have heard the song.

Unfortunately, this delay puts the schedule I had in my mind in jeopardy. All I can say at the moment is that the album is coming, but I can’t say when exactly.

We’ll see what happens.

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Truths and Lies …

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The album is in the mastering process right now, which unfortunately has not gone as smoothly as I hoped.


(Image by Paul Cory Photography.)

On the other hand, the artwork process is proceeding apace. The plan is for the audio master to be ready when the cover and CD art are, at which time I will order a limited run of physical CDs.

For folks who no longer bother with physical CDs, I will make the album available on my BandCamp page, which currently only has one of the songs on it. I am investigating which digital distribution service I want to use with respect to iTunes, Spotify, etc.

This might be a real thing, one of these days.

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