Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

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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Soyuz and SCISAT

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Fifteen years ago today — August 13, 1998 — the Russians launched a crew to the Mir space station, and the U.S. launched a small science satellite.


(SCISAT-1. NASA image.)

Soyuz TM-28 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with Gennadi I.Padalka, Sergei V.Avdeyev, and Yuri M.Baturin aboard. The trio docked with Mir two days later using manual controls because one of the two automatic systems had failed.

And on this date 10 years ago, the Canadian research satellite SCISAT 1 launched on a Pegasus XL rocket. The Pegasus was released over the Pacific Ocean from its L-1011 carrier plane, on a flight that originated out of Vandenberg AFB, and placed SCISAT in orbit to monitor atmospheric ozone and dust.

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ICE: First Spacecraft to Study Two Comets

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Thirty-five years ago today — August 12, 1978 — an Explorer-class spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta rocket.


(ISEE 3. NASA image.)

Originally named International Sun-Earth Explorer 3, the spacecraft was placed in a halo orbit around Lagrange point L-1 between the Earth and the Sun to study the magnetosphere. In 1982, after its L-1 observations, it was put through a series of maneuvers that took it through several encounters at the L-2 Lagrange point on the other side of Earth from the Sun.

After several passes through the Earth’s magnetotail, with gravity assists from lunar flybys in March, April, September and October of 1983, a final close lunar flyby (119.4 km above the moon’s surface) on December 22, 1983, ejected the spacecraft out of the Earth-Moon system and into a heliocentric orbit ahead of the Earth, on a trajectory intercepting that of Comet Giacobini-Zinner. At this time, the spacecraft was renamed International Cometary Explorer (ICE)…. [T]he spacecraft traversed the plasma tail of Comet Giacobini-Zinner on September 11, 1985, and made in situ measurements of particles, fields, and waves. It also transited between the Sun and Comet Halley in late March 1986, when other spacecraft (Giotto, Planet-A, MS-T5, VEGA) were also in the vicinity of Comet Halley on their early March comet rendezvous missions. ICE became the first spacecraft to directly investigate two comets.

In 1991, ICE was re-tasked for solar study. It operated until May 1997.

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Mars 7’s Ill-Fated Voyage, Plus One

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Yesterday was a strange day … so odd that I missed posting a space history anniversary. It crossed my mind, briefly, once. I’m deeply disappointed in myself, of course.

It just so happens that forty years ago yesterday — August 9, 1973 — the USSR launched Mars 7 on a Proton K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Mars 7, essentially the same as Mars 6. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)

Launched four days after its sister ship, Mars 6, and about two weeks after a companion pair of spacecraft, Mars 4 and Mars 5, Mars 7

reached Mars on 9 March 1974. Due to a problem in the operation of one of the onboard systems (attitude control or retro-rockets) the landing probe separated prematurely (4 hours before encounter) and missed the planet by 1300 km. The early separation was probably due to a computer chip error which resulted in degradation of the systems during the trip to Mars…. The lander and bus continued on into heliocentric orbits.

While we’re on the subject of ill-fated spacecraft, and to return to the usual space history routine, 45 years ago today — August 10, 1968 — Applications Technology Satellite 4 (ATS 4) launched from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas Centaur. The rocket’s second stage failed, however, and stranded the spacecraft in a parking orbit instead of boosting it to the planned geosynchronous orbit. Put bluntly, even though some experiments were performed, “The primary objective of inserting a gravity-gradient-stabilized spacecraft into a geosynchronous orbit was not accomplished.”

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Pioneer Venus Multiprobe Mission

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Thirty-five years ago today — August 8, 1978 — a US mission to Venus, featuring four separate probes, launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas Centaur rocket.


(Artist’s conception of one of the probes descending toward the surface of Venus. NASA image.)

The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe Bus carried the four probes on the 123-day journey to Venus. On November 16, the Bus released the Large Probe and on the 20th it released the three small probes, which were designated Day, Night, and North, according to their entry into the Venusian atmosphere.

Two Small Probes entered on the nightside, and one Small Probe and the Large Probe entered on the dayside of the planet. The spacecraft was spin-stabilized. The Large Probe took 1-1/2 h to descend through the atmosphere, while the three smaller probes reached the surface of the planet 75 min after entry…. The Probes stopped transmitting temperature data about 15 km above the surface of Venus, but two Probes survived on the surface and transmitted other data for a matter of seconds to minutes.

The Bus itself acted as a fifth probe, though it was not intended to get near the surface. It

was targeted to enter the Venusian atmosphere at a shallow entry angle and transmit data to Earth until [it] was destroyed by the heat of atmospheric friction during its descent…. [It] ceased transmitting data at an altitude of about 165 km.

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