A Space History Tragedy

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The date may not register with all of us every year, but few space enthusiasts — and probably few U.C. citizens — over thirty will ever forget the mishap that destroyed the Space Shuttle Challenger.

It’s hard to believe that it was 25 years ago today — January 28, 1986 — that the Challenger lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-51L, and exploded a little over a minute into the launch profile.

To this day, I find it almost painful to watch the video of the explosion. Indeed, I find it hard to compose this post, even though I’ve known it was coming for a long time.

So I will just post this picture of the Challenger astronauts — Francis R. “Dick” Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, and Gregory Jarvis — the way I like to remember them:


(STS-51L crew, leaving the Operations & Checkout Building. NASA image.)

Hopeful. Enthusiastic. Fearless.

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Is Science Fiction Becoming More Conservative?

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I don’t know that the question has a single “true” answer, but in this Pajamas Media article, SF legends Orson Scott Card* and Jerry Pournelle, along with relative newcomers Tom Kratman and Larry Correia, provide some interesting insights.

It was no surprise that Baen Books (for whom I read slush) should be mentioned so prominently, but I particularly liked this bit, from OSC:

Back when I cared, most of the writers of my generation were so extremely leftist in their formal opinions, and so extremely elitist in their practices, that it would be difficult to discern where they actually stood on anything. It’s as if the entire Tsarist aristocracy fervently preached Bolshevism even as they oppressed their peasants. But that view is based on observations back in the mid-1980s. Since then, my only exposure to their views has been the general boycott of mine. In short, I’m their Devil, but I have no idea who their God is anymore.

The last sentence is hyperbole, as I think Kratman, John Ringo, and a few other Baen authors may have better claim to being the real bugaboos of the SF left.

One last thought, speaking of becoming more conservative … or at least seeming more conservative: I thought last night’s State of the Union speech was quite good. I appreciated the tone and the balance, and look forward to seeing whether both continue.

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* Full Disclosure: OSC is a former employer of mine. I attended his “Literary Boot Camp” and later had the pleasure of reading slush for his magazine, Intergalactic Medicine Show.

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A Voyage[r] to Uranus

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Twenty-five years ago today — January 24, 1986 — the Voyager-2 spacecraft made its closest approach to the planet Uranus.


(Oberon, one of Uranus’s moons, photographed by Voyager-2. NASA image.)

Its flyby carried Voyager-2 to within 50,600 miles (81,500 km) of Uranus. In addition to taking images of the planet’s rings and known moons, Voyager-2 discovered ten previously unseen moons and two previously unknown rings.

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New Horizons: Launch to Pluto

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Five years ago today — January 19, 2006 — we sent a deep space probe from Cape Canaveral to rendezvous with Pluto and study the Kuiper Belt.


(Artist’s conception of the New Horizons spacecraft in the vicinity of Pluto. NASA image from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.)

New Horizons launched atop an Atlas-5 rocket on its way to Pluto and Charon (Pluto’s moon). It will reach Pluto in July 2015, where it will map Pluto, study its atmosphere and other characteristics, and continue on to other objects in the Kuiper Belt.

This page has compelling details about the mission, including a countdown to the rendezvous and the mission’s Twitter feed.

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Hermes, Messenger of the Gods … in Space

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Thirty-five years ago today — January 17, 1976 — a Delta launch vehicle out of Cape Canaveral launched the Communications Technology Satellite into geosynchronous orbit.


(Artist’s conception of the Hermes satellite. Canadian Space Agency image.)

Also called Hermes, after the messenger god of Greek mythology, CTS was an international mission to test new global communications techniques and equipment. According to this informative Online Journal of Space Communication article:

Under the agreement with NASA, Canada designed and built the spacecraft. NASA provided an experimental 200W traveling-wave-tube amplifier (TWTA) and environmental test support. In 1972, DOC/CRC [Canada’s Communications Research Centre] signed an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA), under which ESA agreed to provide 20W TWTAs, a SHF parametric amplifier and to develop the solar blanket.

NASA provided the launch vehicle, launch and operational support to place the spacecraft in the geostationary satellite orbit. Following the handover from NASA to DOC/CRC of the satellite in orbit at 116 [degrees] W longitude, DOC/CRC configured the satellite for its operational mission, and operated the satellite for U.S. and Canadian communications and spacecraft technology experiments.

The Hermes operations proved very successful, and led to much-improved geosynchronous satellite communications that we all enjoy today.

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January 15th Space History: Spacecraft Launching and Returning

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Thirty-five years ago today — January 15, 1976 — a Titan-IIIE rocket with Centaur upper stage launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the Helios-B spacecraft on a unique deep-space mission.

Helios-B was developed by the Federal Republic of Germany, but as a cooperative program with NASA it carried both German and U.S. experiments. Its mission was to characterize the “interplanetary medium” inward from Earth’s orbit. Within only a few months, Helios-B had reached perihelion — the closest point in its orbit to the Sun — at a distance of 43.432 million kilometers (26.987 million miles, or 0.29 astronomical units), meaning that it was closer to the Sun than the planet Mercury. That’s the closest any space probe has ever gotten to the Sun.

From sending probes into space to welcoming them home …

Fast forward 30 years, to January 15, 2006, when the Stardust capsule returned to Earth with samples taken around the vicinity of Comet Wild-2.


(Microscopic view of one of the “Calcium Aluminum Inclusion” particles returned to Earth by the Stardust mission. NASA image.)

Scientists have been studying the materials trapped in Stardust’s aerogel, with surprising results including “a remarkable set of minerals that form at extremely high temperature” and the amino acid, glycine. Pretty amazing, considering the capsule entered the Earth’s atmosphere at over 28,000 miles per hour: the fastest-ever reentry of anything we’ve ever sent into space.

[BREAK, BREAK]

In other news, the first day of the MarsCon science fiction & fantasy convention went well. (Nothing like showing up at a panel to provide moral support and being invited to participate.) Today I’m sequestering myself, trying to finish writing a short story before I venture back out. That’s my next task, as soon as this post is live … wish me luck.

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On Unpreparedness

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I was not a Boy Scout for long — one of many childhood endeavors I didn’t complete, and opportunities I squandered — but I was a Scout long enough to remember the motto: “Be Prepared.”

Would that I had lived up to it last night.

It’s not that I didn’t prepare at all for my part of the “Speculative Fiction Night” sponsored by Bull Spec magazine (fourth issue on newstands now!). Before I left the house, I thumbed through Orson Scott Card‘s Characters and Viewpoint and a couple of novels to check my memory of their treatment of point of view — including, for instance, Robert A. Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast, with its multiple first-person storytelling.

Then, having made no notes and instead trusting to my memory, I drove to Durham. My intent was to conduct a thoroughly unscientific poll of the forty or fifty attendees on their reading preferences (which I did, though not well) and to ask them how much an author’s choice and handling of point of view affects their reading enjoyment (which I botched most thoroughly). That’s right: after stumbling through the first few questions, I forgot the key question I meant to ask the audience.

Overall, and despite my poor performance, the event went quite well. I chatted with several author friends and SF&F fans, and heard some nice praise from the audience for Baen Books (and especially the new Baen website). I finally snagged a copy of The Greyfriar — with a name like Gray, how could I not? — and got Clay and Susan Griffith to sign it, and also picked up Forbidden Cargo by newly local author Rebecca Rowe. If I didn’t have to go to work this morning (thanks, Tuesday’s ice storm, for throwing off my schedule), I could’ve spent more time with Samuel M. Blinn, Bull Spec editor and our host for the evening, Ada Milenkovich Brown, James Maxey, et al. But, alas, my devotion to Ben Franklin’s dictum forced me home.*

In sum, it was a nice evening — I just wish I’d done better for my part. For anyone who might have been there, I apologize for my unpreparedness. The next time I go to something like that, I’ll just plan to read from a short story and be done with it.

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*I don’t know why I follow his advice. So far it hasn’t made me particularly healthy, wealthy, or wise.

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First Congressman in Space, a Quarter Century Ago

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Twenty-five years ago today — January 12, 1986 — the Space Shuttle Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center carrying into orbit the first member of U.S. House of Representatives to fly in space.


(In-flight portrait of the STS-61C crew. NASA image.)

The entire STS-61C crew consisted of astronauts Robert L. “Hoot” Gibson, Charles F. Bolden, Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, George D. “Pinky” Nelson, Steve A. Hawley, and Robert J. Cenker, plus Congressman William C. Nelson. In addition to being the first time a sitting Representative flew in space, it was the first flight for Bolden, who is the current NASA Administrator, and for Chang-Diaz, the first Costa Rica-born astronaut.

The crew deployed the SATCOM KU-1 communications satellite and conducted a number of different experiments. Their landing was originally moved up one day, then had to be delayed because of weather.

The NASA mission summary doesn’t mention how much concern they had over seeing a piece of thermal insulation in orbit alongside the shuttle:


(One of the shuttle’s thermal insulation tiles photographed from inside Columbia. NASA image.)

I imagine that sort of thing, even if not uncommon, would increase the “pucker factor” when it came time for landing. But such is the life of the “steely-eyed missile men.”*

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*And women, of course, but there weren’t any on this mission.

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January 11 Space History: STS-72 Launched

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Fifteen years ago today — January 11, 1996 — the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from the Kennedy Space Center with an international crew.


(STS-72 clears the launch tower. NASA image.)

U.S. astronauts Brian Duffy, Brent W. Jett, Jr., Leroy Chiao, Daniel T. Barry, and Winston E. Scott were joined by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata on mission STS-72.

The crew retrieved the Japanese “Space Flyer Unit,” a microgravity research satellite originally placed in orbit by a Japanese H-2 rocket the previous March. They also deployed and retrieved the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST) “Flyer,” a free-flying platform rigged with a number of different experiments, during their 8-day mission.

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