Fire and Ice — Delta II Polar Orbit Double Shot

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Ten years ago today — January 12, 2003 — a Delta II rocket launched from Vandenberg AFB carrying two very different spacecraft.


(A representation of ICESAT’s orbit and its measurement of ice sheet thickness. NASA image.)

On the “fire” side, CHIPS — the Cosmic Hot Interstellar Spectrometer — was an astrophysics spacecraft sent up to study the plasma in the “local interstellar bubble.” It primarily looked at “hot and diffuse nebulae at about a million degrees temperature.”

CHIPS rode into space with ICESAT, the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite. ICESAT carried the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System to measure the thickness of ice sheets.

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Three Days, Three Lunar Launches … A Few Years Apart

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It seemed interesting that the anniversaries of three lunar launches fell on three consecutive days, so I’ve grouped them all in one blog post.


(Lunar Prospector. NASA image.)

The first of the three launches happened 45 years ago today — January 7, 1968 — when Surveyor 7 launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas Centaur rocket. The spacecraft landed on the Moon on January 9, making it the fifth of the Apollo pathfinder series to achieve a soft landing.

And 40 years ago tomorrow — January 8, 1973 — the Soviet Union launched Luna 21 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Proton K rocket. Luna 21 carried and deployed Lunokhod 2, the USSR’s second lunar rover. The rover covered about 37 km during its four months of operations.

Finally, 15 years ago yesterday — January 6, 1998* — Lunar Prospector launched on an Athena 2 rocket out of Cape Canaveral. Lunar Prospector entered a low lunar polar orbit in order primarily to map the Moon’s surface for possible polar ice deposits, though it also carried instruments to study the Moon’s magnetic and gravity fields.

The mission ended on 31 July 1999 at 9:52:02 UT (5:52:02 EDT) when Lunar Prospector was deliberately targeted to impact in a permanently shadowed area of a crater near the lunar south pole. It was hoped that the impact would liberate water vapor from the suspected ice deposits in the crater and that the plume would be detectable from Earth, however, no plume was observed.

The spacecraft was sent into Shoemaker crater, and carried a portion of the remains of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker, which became a topic of discussion among the lunar colonists in my unpublished novel, Walking on the Sea of Clouds.

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*It was already January 7 under Greenwich Mean Time (Universal Time).

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Another New (and More Serious) Song: ‘Winter Simplifies the World’

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A few weeks ago I had the chance to debut a couple of new songs at “Winter Tales,” an Orange County Library event organized by James Maxey. I previously posted the video of the second song, “Tauntauns to Glory,” and here’s the video of the first — and much more serious — song, “Winter Simplifies the World.”

The clip includes James introducing me and a little about the inspiration for the song: my year at Thule Air Base in Greenland. After I sing the song, I lament the fact that it turned out to be pretty emotionally heavy, and that becomes my way of introducing the much lighter, Star Wars-inspired “Tauntauns to Glory”.

Finally, here are links to videos of the other “Winter Tales” presented that night —

It was a lot of fun, and I’m very glad James let me be a part of it!

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Happy New Year, and My illogiCon Schedule

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Happy 2013 to one and all! I hope your New Year has started well, and that it gets better as it goes along!


(Professor Schroedington, the illogiCon mascot, from their CafePress store.)

A new year means a new round of science fiction and fantasy conventions, and the first one on my calendar is illogiCon, to be held right here in the Research Triangle 11-13 January. Here’s my schedule for the event:

Friday the 11th

  • Filk Workshop, 8 PM

Saturday the 12th

  • Panel, “Finance for Beginning Writers,” 10 AM
  • Filk Concert, 2 PM
  • Baen Books Traveling Road Show, 3:30 PM

Sunday the 13th

  • Reading, 1 PM
  • Panel, “Sitting in the Hot Seat,” 3 PM

Tim Powers is the Writer Guest of Honor, Mark Van Name is the Toastmaster, and a whole lot of other cool people are guests at this year’s con. I know I’ll have a great time! Hope to see you there.

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Launch of a Satellite I Babysat for Over 8400 Miles

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Ten years ago today — December 29, 2002 (GMT) — the Nimiq 2 communications satellite launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Proton rocket. Before that, though, it had to get there …


(Antonov AN-124 ‘Condor’ ready to on- or off-load cargo. Image by Mike Young, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Nimiq 2 was a Canadian satellite, built for Telesat by U.S. manufacturer Lockheed Martin and launched by ILS — International Launch Services — on a Russian booster. I got involved in the program as a space technology security monitor, responsible for making sure no U.S. technology or satellite design methodology was transferred to the foreign companies.

As part of the monitoring effort, I had the task of escorting the satellite from the San Jose, California, factory to Baikonur. The spacecraft was loaded onto a Russian Antonov AN-124 cargo aircraft, and I rode with it for the entire trip — including eating Thanksgiving tuna-and-crackers en route.

Because the spacecraft and its support equipment made the aircraft so heavy, we could not fly directly to Baikonur. Instead, we made the trip in several hops, stopping for fuel each time:

  • San Jose to Winnipeg, Canada (1490.11 miles / 2398.1 km)
  • Winnipeg to Goose Bay, Canada (1605.93 miles / 2584.49 km)
  • Goose Bay to Shannon, Ireland (2118.3 miles / 3409.07 km)
  • Shannon to Ulyanovsk, Russia (2320.05 miles / 3733.76 km)
  • Ulyanovsk to Baikonur (909.67 miles / 1463.98 km)

Most of the stopovers were short, except for the stop in Shannon where the aircrew enjoyed the RON (rendezvous overnight) in a local hotel while I got to stay aboard the aircraft with the satellite. So much for my first trip to Ireland! I never strayed from the tarmac at the Shannon airport.

Once we arrived at Baikonur, I spent the early part of December 2002 observing the launch preparations, including mating the satellite to the Proton rocket and enclosing it in the payload fairing. Some of that experience went into my short story, “The Rocket Seamstress,” which was published in the literary magazine Zahir in 2007. (The story is now available on Anthology Builder.)

I did not stay at Baikonur long enough to see the Nimiq 2 launch, however. My boss flew in to take over monitoring the final prep and the launch itself, and I flew home (via Moscow and a couple other stops) in time for Christmas. But it was good to know that I had a part in the first commercial launch of a Proton with the Breeze-M upper stage.

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New Song Debut: ‘Tauntauns to Glory’ [video]

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Last Thursday I had the pleasure of appearing with several other central NC authors at the Orange County Library in Hillsborough, for a combined reading called “Winter Tales.” Here’s a YouTube video of one of my contributions:

From left to right at the table behind me were fellow authors James Maxey — who organized the gathering and recruited the rest of us — Rebecca Gomez Farrell, Alex Granados, and Mur Lafferty.

It was great fun, and I debuted two songs I wrote specifically for the event: a serious song called “Winter Simplifies the World” that alluded to the winter I spent stationed at Thule Air Base in Greenland, and, in the video above, my first-ever STAR WARS filk, “Tauntauns to Glory.” I hope you enjoy it!

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Happy Birthday, Arthur C. Clarke

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Ninety-five years ago today — December 16, 1917 — Arthur C. Clarke, the visionary author of many science fiction classics, was born in Minehead, Somerset, England.


(Clarke on the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Image from the Clarke Foundation web site.)

As the Clarke Foundation web site puts it,

Arthur C. Clarke’s legacy bridges the worlds of the arts and the sciences. His work ranged from scientific discovery to science fiction, from technical application to entertainment. As an engineer, as a futurist, and as a humanist, Clarke has influenced numerous artists, scientists, and engineers working today ….

And, no doubt, his work and his legacy will continue to influence and inspire people for years to come.

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First Launch of NRO's 'Poppy' Spacecraft

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Fifty years ago today — December 13, 1962 — a Thor Delta rocket out of Vandenberg AFB launched the first set of electronic intelligence (ELINT) spacecraft in the Poppy program.


(Poppy Type II satellite. NRO image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Also known as 1962 Tau Beta (among other names), the Poppy spacecraft were a follow-on to the Galactic Radiation and Background (GRAB) series of ELINT satellites, pictured in this previous blog entry. Several Poppy spacecraft were launched together, in tandem with the Injun 3 instrumentation satellite.

The National Reconnaissance Office declassified the Poppy program in 2005, and prepared a report entitled Raising the Periscope that contains select details about it and the GRAB program.

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Official Poster for the Upcoming 'Winter Tales' Event

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This Thursday is the “Winter Tales” event at the Orange County (NC) Library. Here’s the library’s poster for the event:

I’ll be one of five local authors appearing at the event, along with Mur Lafferty, Rebecca Gomez Farrell, Alex Granados, and James Maxey. James organized the event, and invited the rest of us to participate. Everyone is supposed to present some original story, poem, essay, or something written just for this event. My contribution will be a couple of new songs (only one of which is filk).

Details, if you’re interested:
Thursday, December 13th, 6:00 p.m.
Orange County Main Library
137 West Margaret Lane
Hillsborough, NC 27278

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The Final — No, the Most Recent — Lunar Mission

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Forty years ago today — December 7, 1972 — Apollo 17 lifted off aboard a Saturn V rocket out of Cape Canaveral as the last Apollo lunar mission.


(Gene Cernan, the most recent man to walk on the Moon. NASA image.)

Astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Ronald E. Evans, and Harrison H. Schmitt comprised the Apollo 17 crew. On their first day in space, the crew took the iconic “Blue Marble” photograph with a hand-held Hasselblad camera.

Cernan and Schmitt landed the Lunar Module “Challenger” in the Taurus-Littrow region of the Moon on December 11. Evans stayed in lunar orbit aboard the Command and Service Module “America.”

Apollo 17 focused on surveying surface features and sampling geological materials in a region selected because it would yield both older and younger samples than previous Apollo missions, and featured Schmitt as the first scientist to land on the Moon. Schmitt and Cernan drove the lunar rover a total of 30.5 kilometers during their 75-hour stay on the Moon, and collected 110.4 kilograms (243 pounds) of lunar material.

When Cernan climbed aboard the Lunar Module to depart the moon, he said, “We leave as we came and God willing as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”* Usually he is referred to as the last man to walk on the Moon, but I prefer to think of him as the most recent man to walk on the Moon.

And even though I won’t get to be the next person to walk on the Moon, I hope someday to see another person walk on the Moon, and Mars, and even other worlds.

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*Shameless plug: I made that sentiment a key part of my short story, “Memorial at Copernicus.”

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