Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Reviews, Good and … Less Good

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My friends with more stories in print than I have many different perspectives on reviews. Some avoid anything that smacks of a review, others read every review and pay them greater or lesser amounts of heed, and some study the reviews — good or bad — to see what lessons they can learn from them to improve their craft.

I would like to take that final approach, but only time (and hopefully some future publications) will tell. But with that as an aim, at least, I’ve read a few reviews of “Therapeutic Mathematics and the Physics of Curve Balls,” my story in the September issue of Analog.

Most recently, Tangent Online‘s Sherry Decker posted a quite positive review:

Does Joey run after the scientist or return to the freak show and protect his only friends? It’s an agonizing choice.

This SF/F story takes place in the early 1940s, right about the time J. Robert Oppenheimer’s involvement in the Manhattan Project succeeded in changing the world forever. Who, other than Gray Rinehart ever imagined solving the final equation was due to the genius and youngest member of Fineas Ferguson’s Fabulous Freakshow on his one, lonely, stolen day?

Sensitive character creation, believable atmosphere, clever conclusion. Well done. I enjoyed it.

To balance the scale, the eminent Lois Tilton at Locus posted a neutral review a few weeks ago:

An interesting enough situation, but weak on resolution, offering one of those ambiguous endings that don’t quite tell us what the character has chosen and definitely not what will come of his choice. There are some rather tantalizing hints of WWII secrets, but nothing comes of them.

To some people that might come across as negative, but the fact that she thought the story situation was interesting and that I served up “tantalizing hints” of more is, to my way of thinking, pretty good.

Elsewhere on the web, SFRevu’s Sam Tomaino called the story “a nicely told tale with a good sense of the time in which it was taking place,” and British reviewer John Fairhurst said it was “a rather nice tale with the bleakness of Joey’s life in the show being counterpointed by flashbacks to his life with his father” and “eventually, an uplifting tale.”

All the reviews aren’t in, of course, and doubtless some readers will not have enjoyed the story at all. I’m pleased that anyone enjoyed it, but most especially that Dr. Schmidt enjoyed it enough to publish it!

This goes to show, I think, that every story is not for every reader. Still, I appreciate the work the reviewers do month in and month out — living deep in the slush pile as I do, I do NOT envy them their task — and I hope to use the comments, good or bad, to make my next stories even better.

And in the end I can always reflect on the fact that this issue had a FANTASTIC cover:

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A New Target for Asteroid Exploration?

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NASA reported yesterday that Canadian astronomer Martin Connors of Athabasca University identified a 1000-foot-wide asteroid orbiting in a very convoluted path around the Earth’s leading LaGrange point.

Connors made the discovery using data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft.


(Image from the WISE spacecraft, with the newly discovered asteroid 2010 TK7 circled in green. NASA image.)

Surprisingly, the New Scientist article in which I first learned about the find pitches it inaccurately as an asteroid stalking the Earth. It is more accurate to say the asteroid is leading the Earth in its orbit around the sun.

The asteroid is roughly 1,000 feet (300 meters) in diameter. It has an unusual orbit that traces a complex motion near a stable point in the plane of Earth’s orbit, although the asteroid also moves above and below the plane. The object is about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) from Earth. The asteroid’s orbit is well-defined and for at least the next 100 years, it will not come closer to Earth than 15 million miles (24 million kilometers).

NASA has an interesting video of the asteroid’s orbit: Earth’s First Trojan Asteroid (NASA video)

Alas, 2010 TK7’s odd orbital path probably excludes it from being explored and exploited any time soon. But there are plenty of other possibilities still waiting to be found for future explorers … and even for fictional ones like the “Asteroid Consortium” in my novel.

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Apollo-15: Endeavour, Falcon, Lunar Rover … and Books

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Forty years ago today — July 26, 1971 — Apollo-15 lifted off from Cape Canaveral with astronauts David R. Scott, James B. Irwin, and Alfred M. Worden, to become the fourth manned mission to land on the Moon.

The Apollo-15 mission was the first of three upgraded missions designed to maximize the scientific returns from the program. Scott, the commander, and Irwin, the lunar module pilot, landed on the Moon on July 30th in the Lunar Module “Falcon”, and spent several days exploring and collecting samples. Worden, the command module pilot, remained in orbit in the Command and Service Module “Endeavour” and photographed several high-interest lunar formations.


(Lunar Roving Vehicle, first used on Apollo-15. NASA image.)

Apollo-15 was the first mission to feature the Lunar Roving Vehicle. For those interested in the technical details,

The Lunar Roving Vehicle had a mass of 210 kg and was designed to hold a payload of an additional 490 kg on the lunar surface. The frame was 3.1 meters long with a wheelbase of 2.3 meters. The maximum height was 1.14 meters. The frame was made of aluminum alloy 2219 tubing welded assemblies and consisted of a 3 part chassis which was hinged in the center so it could be folded up and hung in the Lunar Module quad 1 bay. It had two side-by-side foldable seats made of tubular aluminum with nylon webbing and aluminum floor panels. An armrest was mounted between the seats, and each seat had adjustable footrests and a velcro seatbelt. A large mesh dish antenna was mounted on a mast on the front center of the rover. The suspension consisted of a double horizontal wishbone with upper and lower torsion bars and a damper unit between the chassis and upper wishbone. Fully loaded the LRV had a ground clearance of 36 cm.

The wheels consisted of a spun aluminum hub and an 81.8 cm diameter, 23 cm wide tire made of zinc coated woven 0.083 cm diameter steel strands attached to the rim and discs of formed aluminum. Titanium chevrons covered 50% of the contact area to provide traction. Inside the tire was a 64.8 cm diameter bump stop frame to protect the hub. Dust guards were mounted above the wheels. Each wheel had its own electric drive, a DC series wound 0.25 hp motor capable of 10,000 rpm, attached to the wheel via an 80:1 harmonic drive, and a mechanical brake unit. Manuevering capability was provided through the use of front and rear steering motors. Each series wound DC steering motor was capable of 0.1 hp. Both sets of wheels would turn in opposite directions, giving a steering radius of 3.1 meters, or could be decoupled so only one set would be used for steering. Power was provided by two 36-volt silver-zinc potassium hydroxide non-rechargeable batteries with a capacity of 121 amp-hr. These were used to power the drive and steering motors and also a 36 volt utility outlet mounted on front of the LRV to power the communications relay unit or the TV camera. Passive thermal controls kept the batteries within an optimal temperature range.

The lunar rover performed well during Apollo-15 and the next two lunar missions, and enabled the astronauts to examine much more terrain than they could have otherwise.

Apollo-15 landed on the eastern edge of Mare Imbrium, at the base of the Apennine range, near the snaking channel known as Hadley Rille:


(Hadley Rille, taken from the Apollo-15 Lunar Module on the last orbit prior to landing. NASA image.)

Of interest to those of us with a literary bent, Hadley Rille was the source of the name for Hadley Rille Books, a small but well-respected publisher of science fiction and fantasy. One of their recent releases is Buffalito Contingency, by my friend Lawrence Schoen (whom I interviewed here and here). Their Footprints anthology is also very good, and proof that their lunar fascination is not just in name only.

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From Liberty Bell to Atlantis

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In other blog posts, I’ve catalogued the Space Shuttle landings I worked as part of the AF Flight Test Center team at Edwards AFB — I worked four landings, and saw quite a few more — and with that experience in mind I watched with proud sorrow the shuttle Atlantis glide in for its landing this morning at the Kennedy Space Center.

When the shuttle era began, we had high hopes for it, and though it was exciting to be even a small part of it the program never lived up to our expectations. But as we close the books on this phase of the U.S. space program, and especially as we look forward with hopeful anticipation to some new phase, let’s not forget to look back as well to the pioneers who braved the hazards of the earliest days of space exploration.

Because 50 years ago today — July 21, 1961 — Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom became the second U.S. man in space. His Liberty Bell 7 capsule launched into a suborbital trajectory atop a Redstone rocket, in a mission appropriately labeled Mercury-Redstone-4.


(View of earth from Mercury-Redstone-4. NASA image.)

The MR-4 capsule differed from Alan Shepard’s “Freedom-7” capsule in that it had an enlarged window and a new type of hatch:

The explosively actuated side hatch was used for the first time on the MR-4 flight. The mechanically operated side hatch on the MR-3 spacecraft was in the same location and of the same size but was considerably heavier (69 pounds rather than 23 pounds). The explosively actuated hatch utilizes an explosive charge to fracture the attaching bolts and thus separate the hatch from the spacecraft. Seventy 1/4-inch titanium bolts secure the hatch to the doorsill. A 0.06-inch diameter hole is drilled in each bolt to provide a weak point. A mild detonating fuse (MDF) is installed in a channel between an inner and outer seal around the periphery of the hatch. When the MDF is ignited, the resulting gas pressure between the inner and outer seal causes the bolts to fail in tension. The MDF is ignited by a manually operated igniter that requires an actuation force of around 5 pounds, after the removal of a safety pin. The igniter can be operated externally by an attached lanyard, in which case a force of at least 40 pounds is required in order to shear the safety pin.

However, “After splash-down, the explosive hatch activated prematurely while Grissom awaited helicopter pickup.” The capsule sank, but was ultimately recovered from its 15,000-foot-deep resting place.

Liberty Bell 7 was finally raised from its resting place on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, some 4.8 km below the surface and 830 km northwest of Grand Grand Turk Island, in 1999 after a number of expeditions. Two expeditions to the area, in 1992 and 1993, were unsuccessful in locating the capsule. The next expedition succeeded in locating the capsule on May 2, 1999, but the cable which linked the surface ship to the submersible (which would have towed the capsule to the surface) broke, resulting in the loss of the submersible and temporarily dashing the hopes of those who intended to retrieve a piece of history. A final expedition, to recover both the submersible and the capsule, succeeded on July 20, 1999, in raising the capsule to the surface. Still attached to the capsule was the recovery line from the helicopter which tried to save it from going under in 1961. Also among the artifacts found inside were some of Grissom’s gear and some Mercury dimes which had been taken into space as souvenirs.

Grissom, about whom you can read more in this expanded NASA biography, traveled into space once more, as commander of the first Gemini mission, and died in the Apollo-1 launch pad fire.

It seems somehow poignant for the last Space Shuttle to return to earth on the 50th anniversary of the first spaceflight of one of our country’s space pioneers.

May the time come soon when the U.S. once again launches our brave pioneers into orbit … and beyond.

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Gemini Ten

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Forty-five years ago today — July 18, 1966 — John W. Young and Michael Collins launched from Cape Canaveral on the Gemini-10 mission.


(Agena target vehicle as photographed from the Gemini-10 capsule. NASA image.)

Gemini-10 featured the first dual space rendezvous: Young and Collins rendezvoused with two target vehicles, Agena-10 and then Agena-8. In fact, Gemini-10 first docked with Agena-10, and then the astronauts moved the entire dual-spacecraft assembly into the orbital rendezvous with Agena-8.

One of the flight objectives was to retrieve experiment packages from the two Agena vehicles. The spacewalk was “limited to 25 minutes of outside activity due to lack of fuel,” and did not go exactly as planned:

Despite difficulties due to lack of handholds on the target vehicle Collins removed the fairing and retrieved the micrometeoroid detection equipment. During the EVA he lost his camera. He also retrieved the micrometeorite experiment mounted on the Gemini 10 spacecraft, but this apparently floated out of the hatch and was lost when Collins reentered the capsule.

Overall, though, the Gemini-10 mission was successful: Young and Collins splashed down on July 21st, having completed another step in the pathfinder checklist on the way to the Moon.

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to My Five-Times-Great-Grandfather

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Our family trip to Williamsburg earlier this summer reminded me of some family history I’d forgotten, specifically my connection to the Page family in Virginia. Some of the history is actually available on the web, which never ceases to amaze me. Around the 4th of July I found another snippet, which I saved for today.

On this date in 1763, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to John Page, who was ostensibly Jefferson’s closest friend at the College of William & Mary, would later serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and as Governor of Virginia, and who happens to be my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. In the letter, we see hints of what would become the keynote statement of the Declaration of Independence:

If I am to succeed, the sooner I know it, the less uneasiness I shall have to go through. If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off: and if I do meet with one, I hope in God, and verily believe; it will be the last….

Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I have steadfastly believed….


(John Page, 1743-1808. U.S. Congressman, 1789-1797. Governor of Virginia, 1802-1805. Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The idea that God puts “in our power the nearness of our approaches to [happiness]” certainly seems like a precursor to “all men … are endowed by their Creator” with rights including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I find it interesting also that he expressed his trust in Providence in terms we are not accustomed to reading from Jefferson:

The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavours of our lives.

The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen.

These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this burthen [sic] of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey’s end, when we may deliver up our trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such reward as to him shall seem proportioned to our merit.

Such, dear Page, will be the language of the man who considers his situation in this life, and such should be the language of every man who would wish to render that situation as easy as the nature of it will admit. Few things will disturb him at all: nothing will disturb him much.


(Depiction of Governor John Page at 16 years old. Image from Genealogy of the Page Family in Virginia by Richard Channing Moore Page, M.D. [New York, 1893], via the New York Public Library Digital Collection, via Wikimedia Commons.)

Jefferson’s letter to Page is quoted in various places on the web, such as this Wikiquote page. This Wikipedia page includes more information about him, most of which is probably correct.

All of this is interesting, but only so — it doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s fun to think of connections to important people and monumental events.

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Space History: Delivering a New Airlock to the Space Station

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Ten years ago today — July 13, 2001 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station to deliver a new airlock.


(Mission Specialist James Reilly moving through the newly-installed airlock. NASA image.)

STS-104, also known as ISS Assembly Mission 7-A, had launched on July 12th* carrying astronauts Steven W. Lindsey, Charles O. Hobaugh, Michael L. Gernhardt, James F. Reilly, and Janet L. Kavandi. The crew spent a total of 12 days in space, completing three spacewalks to attach the joint airlock module — so named because it supports both U.S. and Russian spacesuits — to the Unity Node, attach high-pressure gas tanks to the airlock, and complete troubleshooting on the new system. Once in place, the airlock was named “Quest.”

In other space history, 5 years ago yesterday** Bigelow Aerospace‘s inflatable test unit Genesis-1 was launched from Russia’s ISC Kosmotras Space and Missile Complex atop a Dnepr rocket. Their inflatable space structures concept is very compelling, and I hope they’re able to make it work and turn a profit.

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*I usually post these on the launch anniversary. What can I say? I’m a slacker.
**I already owned up to my slackitude once, in the previous footnote. What do you want from me?

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Space History, Today: Final Shuttle Flight Begins

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The Space Shuttle Atlantis launched today on its final mission, and the final flight of the Space Transportation System program, STS-135.

My involvement in the Shuttle program was tangential — four shuttle landings at Edwards AFB — but still the end of the program is pretty bitter. It would at least be bittersweet if we had another system waiting in the wings.

Here’s where it all began, a little over 30 years ago, in a previous space history blog post and a picture:


(First shuttle launch: STS-1, April 12, 1981. NASA image.)

Meanwhile, in other space history: 35 years ago today — July 8, 1976 — Indonesia got its first telecommunications satellite with the launch of Palapa-1.

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A Boring Magazine Article of Some Interest to Me: 'Grey Vs. Gray'

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Actually, the full title of the imaginary article is “Grey Vs. Gray, The Definitive Argument,” as listed on the cover of TIRED Magazine, the winner of BoingBoing‘s “boring magazine cover contest.”

I didn’t see any indication that the image had been released under Creative Commons, so I won’t post it here. You can see the winning entry by itself at http://nothingofconsequence.com/boingboingcontest/tiredmagazine-big.jpg, or you can can see it along with a few other notable entries at http://www.boingboing.net/2011/07/06/boring-magazine-cont.html.

I didn’t have anything to do with the contest, but being named Gray I have a small stake in the “grey vs. gray” debate.

Which, I supposed, proves how boring my life can be.

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My Blog Goes Berserk

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Craziness in the arcane intricacies of MySQL:

I wrote this morning’s entry and posted it, only to have the system notify me that of a database error. So, I tried again, and once more for good measure. After the third error message, I decided to pack it in and try again later … only to find that the system had indeed accepted each of those attempts.

And then what happened when I tried to delete two of the posts? Another database error notification.

I’m so confused. But even if I get an error message when I post this one, I’m only going to try it once.

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