Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Ranger-1

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Fifty years ago today — August 23, 1961 — Ranger-1 launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas-Agena rocket.


(Ranger-1 spacecraft. NASA image.)

Ranger-1 was designed as a pathfinder mission to test components for future lunar and planetary missions. It also carried scientific instruments such as telescopes, particle detectors, a magnetometer, etc., to “study the nature of particles and fields in interplanetary space.”

The Atlas rocket put Ranger-1 in a “parking orbit,” but the Agena upper stage did not restart. Ranger-1 separated from the Agena and ended up tumbling in a low Earth orbit, re-entering the atmosphere a week after it was launched. Thus the mission was counted a partial success: “much of the primary objective of flight testing the equipment was accomplished but little scientific data was returned.”

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A FAST Launch, and the Hugo Awards

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Fifteen years ago today — August 21, 1996 — a Pegasus-XL rocket launched the “Fast Auroral SnapshoT explorer” to study how particles funneled through the Earth’s magnetosphere produce auroras.

(FAST satellite, after installation of its body-mounted solar panels. NASA image.)
FAST was placed in a polar orbit, the better to observe auroras, in an interesting configuration: the craft is spin-stabilized but its spin axis is perpendicular to its orbital track, so it would appear to roll or “cartwheel” through space. Its Pegasus launch vehicle originated out of Vandenberg AFB, and was carried to the Pacific drop zone by its L-1011 mothership.

In more recent news — tangentially space-related, since the Hugo Award features a stylized rocket ship — last night my friend Mary Robinette Kowal won the Hugo for Best Short Story: “For Want of a Nail”, which appeared in the September 2010 issue of Asimov’s. The complete list of Hugo winners is available here.

Several other writing friends — Rachel Swirsky, Aliette de Bodard, and Eric James Stone — were also nominated for Hugos, and two — Larry Correia and Saladin Ahmed — were nominated for the Campbell Award … which is pretty awesome even though they didn’t win.

But, as I posted to Larry on Facebook, even though he didn’t win I’m pretty sure he’s the only nominee with a song written about his book.

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Happy Birthday, Orville Wright — and, Follow the Hugo Awards

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Not sure this falls under the category of “space history” exactly, but it’s close: 140 years ago today — August 19, 1871 — Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio.


(Montage of Orville Wright images, from NASA’s biography page.)

We don’t really need to go into detail here about who Orville Wright was, do we? The NASA bio linked above covers his life and achievements quite well.

In other, more recent news, tomorrow night’s Hugo Award ceremonies will be video-streamed and live-blogged for all to enjoy. North Carolina author and podcaster extraordinaire Mur Lafferty will be one of the live-bloggers on the @Renovationsf and @TheHugoAwards Twitter feeds: look for the hashtags #hugos, #hugoaward, and #hugoawards. The awards start at 8 p.m. Pacific time on Saturday night.

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ADEOS (Midori) and the First Frenchwoman in Space

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Fifteen years ago today — August 17, 1996 — the Japanese launched the first of a series of environmental remote sensing satellites, and the Russians launched a mission to Mir that included the first female French astronaut.


(Artist’s conception of ADEOS spacecraft. JAXA image.)

ADEOS, which was later renamed “Midori,” was the ADvanced Earth Observation Satellite and was launched from Tanegashima Space Center on an H-2 rocket. The spacecraft operated until mid-1997, measuring winds, ocean surfaces temperature, atmospheric aerosols, ozone, and greenhouse gases. You can read more about the first ADEOS/Midori spacecraft on this JAXA page.

And Soyuz TM-24 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Soyuz-U launch vehicle, bound for the Mir space station. Russian cosmonauts Valery G. Korzun and Alexander Y. Kaleri flew on this mission with Claudie Andre-Deshays, the first French woman in space.

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In Memoriam: Colin Harvey

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Others have penned more eloquent tributes than I, but I was saddened yesterday to learn that my writing friend Colin Harvey had died after suffering a stroke.


(Colin Harvey. Image from the Codex Writers web site.)

Colin consented to be interviewed by me this past March, and I found him to be a delightful fellow. I wish I’d been able to meet him in person.

Rest in peace, good sir.

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What's This? Brad Pitt to Play Me in a Movie?

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Hey, I was as shocked as anybody when I saw the headline, but according to Screen Rant, Brad Pitt has signed on to play The Gray Man.

It turns out, contrary to what you may have heard, thought, dreamed, or laughed at, The Gray Man is not about yours truly or even my Pawley’s Island-based alter ego, but is the title character of the 2009 bestselling thriller The Gray Man by Mark Greaney. I think if I’d ever seen that book I would’ve bought it just for the title — it’s a shame I haven’t heard about it before now.*

However, lest anyone think that I’m just trying to jump on the “Gray Man” bandwagon at the last minute,** here’s yours truly speaking at his 2006 USAF retirement ceremony:


(The Gray Man Speaks. The hard hat lettering was done by then-TSgt Steve Clay while we were stationed at Offutt AFB, 1998-2000. USAF photo.)

Even if it’s not about me,*** I wish them the best of luck.

But I think they should fill the cast and crew with people named “Gray,” and people who are related to me.

___
*Especially since I’ve been trying to figure out a Gray Man-themed series of my own since Dragon*Con 2007.
**On the contrary, I’m on my own bandwagon which will happily follow along with theirs for a while.
***As I keep reminding myself, per the first line of Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life.

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Explorer-12 and Meteor/TOMS

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Two bits of space history today.

First, 50 years ago, Explorer-12 was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Thor-Delta rocket. Part of the extensive Explorer series, Explorer-12 was the first of a sub-series of four satellites orbited to “measure cosmic-ray particles, trapped particles, solar wind protons, and magnetospheric and interplanetary magnetic fields.”


(Model of the Explorer-12 satellite, on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air & Space Museum. NASM image.)

And then 20 years ago a U.S. meteorological instrument — a Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) — was for the first time launched as part of a Soviet satellite. The Meteor/TOMS launched from Plesetsk on a Tsiklon-3 (read, “Cyclone-3”) rocket.

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My First Air Force Orders

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Pawing around in the filing cabinet, I found my Extended Active Duty Order, dated 25 years ago today: August 12, 1986.


(US Air Force seal. Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The orders assigned me to the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (Air Force Systems Command), Edwards AFB, California.

In officialspeak, Block 12 of the orders told me exactly what to do:

Effective date of duty is on or after 9 Sep 86. On or after this date, individual will proceed and report not earlier than 0800 and not later than 2400 hours on 15 Sep 86 to the 24 hour arrival point, Edwards AFB CA.

And thus, the stage was set for the adventure …

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Double Dose of Space History: Lunar Photos Station Shuttle

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Forty-five years ago today — August 10, 1966 — Lunar Orbiter 1 was launched atop an Atlas Agena rocket out of Cape Canaveral.


(Lunar Orbiter spacecraft. NASA image.)

Lunar Orbiter 1 was the first of five spacecraft that took photographs of predominantly smooth areas of the Moon so landing sites for Surveyor and Apollo missions could be selected. Mission controllers got the opportunity to deal with some real-time problems during the spacecraft’s flight to the Moon:

The spacecraft experienced a temporary failure of the Canopus star tracker (probably due to stray sunlight) and overheating during its cruise to the Moon. The star tracker problem was resolved by navigating using the Moon as a reference and the overheating was abated by orienting the spacecraft 36 degrees off-Sun to lower the temperature.

Although some of the first orbiter’s photographs were smeared, the mission was an overall success, including taking the first two images of the Earth from the vicinity of the moon.

And on this date 10 years ago, the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-105. Astronauts Scott J. Horowitz, Frederick “Rick” W. Sturckow, Daniel T. Barry, and Patrick G. Forrester transported 7,000 pounds of supplies and equipment to the International Space Station. They also ferried the ISS Expedition 3 crew — Frank L. Culbertson, Jr. (see below), Vladimir N. Dezhurov, and Mikhail Tyurin — to the station and returned the Expedition 2 crew — Yury V. Usachev, James S. Voss, and Susan J. Helms — to Earth.

Eight years after his return to earth, I sat next to Captain (USN, Retired) Culbertson at the NASA Industry-Education Forum in Washington, DC. He was a very nice fellow, despite having graduated from a rival high school down in Charleston.

Many years ago I gave up my dream of being an astronaut (I’d already worked Shuttle landings at Edwards AFB, but failed to be accepted as a Flight Test Engineer candidate), but it’s cool to have met and worked for some. Thankfully, I can still take imaginary voyages through my own and others’ fiction.

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Last Mission of the Luna Program

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Thirty-five years ago today — August 9, 1976 — Luna-24 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Proton-K rocket.


(Graphic of the lunar sample return portion of the Luna-24 mission. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)

Luna-24 was the third Soviet mission to retrieve and return lunar ground samples, and the last mission for their Luna spacecraft series.

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