Going A-Viking to the Red Planet

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We haven’t really gone “a-viking” to another world (yet), but 35 years ago today — August 20, 1975 — we did launch the Viking-1 mission from Cape Canaveral. Viking-2 was launched a few weeks later, on September 9th.


(Viking-1 image of Chryse Planitia, looking northwest over the lander’s radioisotope thermal generator (RTG) cover. NASA image, August 30, 1976.)

Launched by Titan-IIIE boosters, the Viking missions each consisted of a lander and an orbiter. In addition to cameras that returned stunning images of the Martian landscape, the Viking landers carried instruments to study the Martian surface in terms of biology, chemical composition, meteorology, seismology, and other properties.

Viking-1 entered Mars orbit on June 19, 1976. The orbiter and lander orbited Mars together for a month while the orbiter took images which NASA used to select a landing site. The lander and orbiter separated and the lander descended to the surface on July 20th.

Other than the failure of the seismometer and difficulty with a stuck locking pin on the sampler arm, all of the experiments on the Viking-1 lander performed well. The lander “was named the Thomas Mutch Memorial Station in January 1982 in honor of the leader of the Viking imaging team.” Contact with Viking-1 was lost on November 13, 1982.

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Space Goes to the Dogs … No, the Other Way Around

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Fifty years ago today — August 19, 1960 — the USSR launched Sputnik-5 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Strelka, shown in a television image from Sputnik-5. Image from the National Space Science Data Center. The raster lines in the TV signal give the image an interesting quality.)

Sputnik-5 carried two dogs, “Strelka” and “Belka,” into orbit to test Russian systems intended for their manned space program.

Sputnik-5 and its canine crew spent one day in orbit, after which the spacecraft and dogs de-orbited and were successfully recovered. This marked the first time a “biologic payload” was brought back safely from orbit.

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First Successful CORONA Mission

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Fifty years ago today — August 18, 1960 — Discoverer-14 launched from Vandenberg AFB. It was known to the public by that name, but to insiders in what would become the National Reconnaissance Office it was known as CORONA Mission 9009.


(Aerial recovery of Discoverer-14. USAF image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Discoverer-14 was the first CORONA mission in which the film canisters were successfully recovered from orbit.

The National Space Science Data Center describes the film recovery process:

Over Alaska on the 17th pass around the earth, the Agena ejected Discoverer 14 from its nose and retrorockets attached to the reentry vehicle fired to slow it for the return from orbit. After Discoverer 14 reentered the atmosphere, it released a parachute and floated earthward. The descending parachute was sighted 360 miles southeast of Honolulu, Hawaii, by the crew of a US Air Force C-119 recovery aircraft from the 6593rd Test Squardon based at Hickam AFB, Hawaii. On the C-119’s third pass over the parachute, the recovery gear trailing behind the aircraft successfully snagged the parachute canopy. A winch operator aboard the C-119 then reeled in the Discoverer after its 27-hour, 450,000 mile journey through space. This was the first successful recovery of film from an orbiting satellite and the first aerial recovery of an object returning from Earth orbit.

The NSSDC also notes that “38 Discoverer satellites were launched by February 1962,” although the CORONA project itself continued until 1972. CORONA was declassified in 1995.

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Venus Lander Launched, Four Decades Ago

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Forty years ago today — August 17, 1970 — the USSR launched the Venera-7 mission from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Venera-7 capsule. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)

Venera-7 landed on Venus on December 15, 1970, and was “the first man-made object to return data after landing on another planet.”

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An Echo in Space, and a Mission to Mars

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Fifty years ago today — August 12, 1960 — a Thor-Delta rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral* carrying the Echo-1 satellite.


(Echo-1 satellite, fully inflated, inside a Navy hangar in Weeksville, NC. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Echo-1 was a Mylar balloon 100 feet in diameter which reflected radio waves aimed at it. Its only transmitter was for telemetry: for communications, it was a passive reflector. One of the first signals reflected by Echo-1 was a recorded radio message from President Eisenhower.

The spacecraft should probably be known as Echo-1A, since the original Echo-1 was lost when its launch vehicle failed the previous May, but the Echo-1 name has endured.

Fast forward forty-five years …

Five years ago today, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas-5 rocket. It has been in orbit around Mars since March 2006, sending back detailed images of the red planet’s surface and sub-surface features.

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*One source gave the launch site as Vandenberg AFB, which was the launch site for Echo-2 in 1964.

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Spy Satellite Proof-of-Concept Launch, 50 Years Ago

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A half-century ago today — August 10, 1960 — Discoverer-13 launched from Vandenberg AFB on a Thor-Agena rocket.


(President Eisenhower presented with U.S. flag flown inside Discoverer capsule. Dwight D. Eisenhower Library image from the National Air & Space Museum.)

Discoverer-13, and indeed the entire Discoverer series of spacecraft, was part of the highly classified CORONA program managed by the National Reconnaissance Office. Discoverer-13 did not take any images itself, however, as it was used to prove that all the systems would work. Discoverer-14 took the program’s first images a few days later.

The Discoverer-13 capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and became the first man-made object recovered from space. The first segment of this YouTube newsreel video shows President Eisenhower being presented with a U.S. flag that flew inside the capsule.

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Happy Birthday, Neil Armstrong

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Eighty years ago today — August 5, 1930, Neil A. Armstrong was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio. He grew up to be the first man to walk on the surface of the Moon.


(Neil Armstrong in the Lunar Module after walking on the Moon. NASA image.)

And 35 years ago today, in 1975, test pilot John Manke glided the X-24B to a safe landing at Edwards AFB, thereby proving the concept that would allow Space Shuttles to return from orbit and land safely.

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Shameless plug: Speaking of (typing of?) walking on the Moon, my alternate history story “Memorial at Copernicus” concerns a lunar excursion in the future, made possible by an Apollo flight that never was. It’s in this month’s issue of Redstone Science Fiction.

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A Baen’s Bar Patron Describes My Work

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‘nother Mike, one of the long-time patrons of Baen’s Bar, recently suggested some alternatives to the “Slushmaster General” title bestowed upon me by Alethea Kontis, viz.,

  • Admiral of the Slush
  • Grand Master of the Slushy Barrens
  • Explorer Extraordinaire of Slush

In the same message, he presented this “appropriately melodramatic” (his words, not mine) portrayal of the slush reader’s trade:

His steely eyes blazed through his thick goggles as he stared over the mounds and bales of slush, looking for that rough-cut diamond he knew was buried somewhere in the stacks. He knew that it was out there, somewhere, just waiting for him to find it. Despite the storm of distractions, the allure of comfortable working conditions, and all those other temptations trying to pull him away from his true work of rooting through the unending piles of slush, he would persevere until he found it. And when he did, he would turn it over to the readers, those ultimate judges of value, who would decide whether this was a true diamond to be worked by the magic of the editors or just another hunk of glass to be cast aside.

I don’t know about all that, but “Grand Master of the Slushy Barrens” has a nice ring to it ….

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New Story: 'Memorial at Copernicus'

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My story, “Memorial at Copernicus,” went live today at Redstone Science Fiction.


(Redstone Science Fiction logo. Click to enlarge.)

It’s a brief alternate history tale that takes place (of course) on the Moon; specifically, near Copernicus Crater. Here’s the direct link if you want to check it out — I hope you enjoy it!

Also today, I completed a long-overdue web redesign.

Let me know what you think!

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Space History from 1610 (and later)

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Four hundred years ago this week — in 1610 — Galileo Galilei turned his telescope toward Saturn and observed the giant planet’s rings. He didn’t recognize them as rings, however.


(Hubble Space Telescope edge-on view of Saturn’s rings. NASA image.)

(N.B. I’ve found three different dates for the event: today, July 30; July 25; and July 15. July 25th shows up more often than the other dates, so I feel safe in saying “this week.”)

Galileo’s telescope was not powerful enough to resolve the rings; they appeared as separate bodies on either side of Saturn. Galileo wrote that “the star of Saturn is not a single star, but is a composite of three, which almost touch each other, never change or move relative to each other, and are arranged in a row along the zodiac, the middle one being three times larger than the two lateral ones, and they are situated in this form o O o.”

In his 1612 observation they were gone entirely, because he was viewing them edge-on as in the Hubble image above. In 1616 he observed them again and they appeared as two half-ellipses. He did not recognize them as rings even then: that explanation came from Christaan Huygens in 1655.

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Moving forward to the last century, 55 years ago today (July 30, 1955) the Soviet Union announced its plan to launch a satellite — which the world came to know later as Sputnik — as part of the upcoming International Geophysical Year.

And on this date in 1965 — 45 years ago — NASA launched Saturn-10 from Cape Canaveral, carrying the third Pegasus micrometeroid detection satellite and Apollo Boiler Plate BP-9.

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