Polar: Studying the Magnetosphere

Fifteen years ago today — February 24, 1996 — a Delta-II rocket out of Vandenberg AFB lifted a spacecraft simply named “Polar” into a polar orbit.


(Diagram of the Polar spacecraft. See text below for acronyms. NASA image.)

Polar was one of several spacecraft in the International Solar Terrestrial Physics Project. (Here is a better project overview site.) Together with “Wind” and “Geotail,” Polar’s mission was to “obtain coordinated, simultaneous investigations of the Sun-Earth space environment over an extended period of time.”

Polar operations ended in April 2008.

In the image above, the labels point out different instruments on the spacecraft:

  • CAMMICE = Charge and Mass Magnetospheric Ion Composition Experiment
  • CEPPAD = Comprehensive Energetic-Particle Pitch-Angle Distribution
  • EFI = Electric Fields Investigation
  • HYDRA = Hot Plasma Analyzer
  • MFG (should be MFE?) = Magnetic Fields Experiment
  • PIXIE = Polar Ionospheric X-ray Imaging Experiment
  • PWI = Plasma Waves Investigation
  • SEPS = Source/Loss Cone Energetic Particle Spectrometer
  • TIDE = Thermal Ion Dynamics Experiment
  • TIMAS = Toroidal Imaging Mass-Angle Spectrograph
  • VIS = Visible Imaging System
  • UVI = Ultraviolet Imager
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U.S. Rocket Mail

Three weeks ago I posted about the first official “rocket mail” flight, 80 years ago in Austria. Technically that was “rocket history” instead of “space history,” but I don’t care. I find it interesting.

Along those same lines, today in “rocket history” marks the 75th anniversary of the first official U.S. rocket mail flight, on February 23, 1936, in Greenwood Lake, NJ. This past Sunday the town held a commemorative event at the Greenwood Lake Public Library to mark the occasion.

I should note that The Rocket Mail Page mentions an earlier rocket mail flight in Ohio in June 1931, but this excerpt from Aerospace America magazine* makes it clear that the earlier flight could not be considered official.

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*The magazine of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

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Of Tethers and UFOs

Fifteen years ago today — February 22, 1996 — the Space Shuttle Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center on another attempt to study the behavior of tethers in space.


(Tethered Satellite System being extended from its cradle aboard STS-75. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)

STS-75 carried the Tethered Satellite System Reflight (TSS-1R) — “reflight” because the tether jammed on its first flight (STS-46 in June 1992), demonstrating that even the simplest of ideas turn out to be not so simple in space. U.S. astronauts Andrew M. Allen, Scott J. Horowitz, Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, and Jeffrey A. Hoffman, along with Claude Nicollier of Switzerland, and Maurizio Cheli and Umberto Guidoni of Italy, deployed the TSS-1R’s conducting tether and monitored its performance … right up until the tether broke “just short of full deployment of about 12.8 miles (20.6 kilometers).”

The crew also conducted materials science and condensed matter physics experiments using the United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-3), but that’s not where the UFOs come in.

The UFO controversy surrounding STS-75 concerns images that appear in video of the TSS experiments. UFO enthusiasts content that the bright disk shapes may be alien spacecraft, but NASA maintains that they are simply out-of-focus dust particles and similar phenomena. If you’re interested, you can read about the issue on this page and in this discussion thread, or you can watch one of several online videos.

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Making Human Spaceflight (Almost) Routine

Fifty years ago today — February 21, 1961 — the Mercury Atlas-2 (MA-2) pathfinder vehicle launched from Cape Canaveral.


(Mercury Atlas-2 launch. NASA image.)

Launched, of course, on an Atlas rocket, Mercury Atlas-2 flew a suborbital test profile “designed to provide the most severe reentry heating conditions which could be encountered during an emergency abort during an orbital flight attempt.” This was a precursor, of course, to the first U.S. human spaceflight, which would take place about two months later.

Thirty-five years later, human spaceflight had become nearly routine. For example, on this date in 1996, the Russians launched Soyuz TM-23 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the 25th expedition to the Mir space station. Cosmonauts Yuri Onufrienko and Yuri Usachev docked with the station on the 23rd.

And, for a little bonus space history: 30 years ago today — February 21, 1981 — the Japanese launched the Hinotori to study solar flares. It rode atop an M-3S launch vehicle from the Uchinoura Space Center.

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MystiCon Schedule

Next weekend I’ll be at MystiCon in Roanoke, Virginia. I’m scheduled to participate on several panels:

Friday, 02/25

  • 8 p.m. – When SF Goes Wrong – SF’s Abuses of Real Science
  • 10 p.m. – From SF to US – Making It Real

Saturday, 02/26

  • 10 a.m. – Allen Wold’s Writing Workshop
  • 2 p.m. – Star Trek – Where To From Here?
  • 5 p.m. – When Is It Time to STOP

Sunday, 02/27

  • 10 a.m. – Allen Wold’s Writing Workshop (conclusion)
  • 11 a.m. – Stroking Your Editor’s Ego

I took Allen Wold‘s writing workshop at CapClave many years ago — I like to think I learned a little about writing better story openings — and I look forward to working it from the other side of the desk, as it were. And, of course, I look forward to spending time with my writing friends, and especially to learning from David Gerrold, the MystiCon Guest of Honor.

Should be a good weekend!

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The Era of Mir Begins

Twenty-five years ago today — February 19, 1986 — the core module of the Mir space station was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Mir space station. NASA image.)

The first piece of Mir was launched atop a Proton rocket — an earlier model of the same type of rocket I saw being processed at Baikonur in 2002 — and over the years was joined to other modules to form the complete station.

As of the date of this post, the National Space Science Data Center page on Mir references a 1993 European Space Agency information page, but still presents some good information about the station. In contrast, this Wikipedia page has the full story on the space station, from this first launch until its re-entry in 2001.

“Mir” is usually translated as “peace.”

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NEAR-Shoemaker Launched

Fifteen years ago today — February 17, 1996 — the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft launched on a Delta-II rocket out of Cape Canaveral.


(NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft. NASA image.)

The spacecraft was renamed NEAR-Shoemaker in honor of astronomer Gene Shoemaker, and was sent on its way to the asteroid Eros.

NEAR-Shoemaker flew by the asteroid 253 Mathilde on June 27, 1997, made a gravity-assist maneuver around Earth on January 23, 1998, flew by Eros on 23 December 1998, and finally entered into a tight orbit around Eros on (appropriately enough) Valentine’s Day 2000. As we noted a few days ago, after a year of observations NEAR-Shoemaker landed on Eros on February 12, 2001.

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Explorer-9

Hat tip to J Michael Antoniewicz II, for calling this one to my attention:

Fifty years ago today — February 16, 1961 — the Explorer-9 inflatable sphere was launched into orbit on a Scout rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia.

Explorer-9 was the first spacecraft orbited from the Virginia launch facility, and the first placed in orbit by an all-solid-fuel launch vehicle.

Thanks for flagging this for me!

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Codex Blog Tour: ELAINE ISAAK

The third installment in our discontinuous series of “blog tour” posts featuring fellow members of the Codex Writers online community.

Today our guest is Elaine Isaak, who dropped out of art school to found Curious Characters, designing original stuffed animals and small-scale sculptures, and to follow her bliss: writing. Elaine is the author of The Singer’s Crown (Eos, 2005), and sequels The Eunuch’s Heir (Eos, 2006) and The Bastard Queen (Swimming Kangaroo, 2010).


(The Bastard Queen cover art. Click to enlarge.)

Beloved bastard of an unloved king, Fiona will do anything to please her father, even studying magic though she never shows more than a spark of talent. But the plague that grips their city sends her to work with the dying, as enmity builds between the two peoples her father has brought together.

Struggling to find a cure for the plague, Fiona discovers that its emergence is no coincidence—and that her scorned suitor may be leading a conspiracy that will end in genocide. Even her father wears a false face, and every new tragedy reveals another secret set to shatter her life and her kingdom.

A mother of two, Elaine also enjoys rock climbing, taiko (Japanese drumming), weaving and exotic cooking — when she can scrape the time together.


(Elaine Isaak. Click to enlarge.)

Given all her many activities, we appreciate Elaine taking time out to answer our questions about how she turned her idea for The Bastard Queen into reality.

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How long was it between first conceiving The Bastard Queen and actually working on it in earnest? What did you do in the interim?

This one had to wait. It’s the third in a generational series (that is, they build on each other, but they’re not a single story-arc). I had finished the first and second, but hadn’t sold them yet. While I had some fun ideas for a third, it seemed foolish to work more on something I wouldn’t be able to sell for a while. Instead, I had a dramatic idea for a different series which I started in the meantime, giving myself a second book to offer if my first series didn’t sell. Ultimately, it did, and I had the chance to write The Bastard Queen — it was definitely informed by some of the research I was doing for the new books.

How long did it take to complete The Bastard Queen? How did the work progress, from research to publication?

The research happened during the two year interval that it took to sell the first books, so I was able to write quickly once I hit the ground. I think it was about 9 months of writing and my revision. Publishing was another matter because of some difficulties with the original publisher, then a change of agent. I finally sold the book to a small press, but it took about another two years. They have a very professional approach to editing, and we worked on revision for another year, then production.

What major obstacle did you have to overcome while working on The Bastard Queen? How did you overcome it?

I changed publishers and agents, leaving this book sort of dangling in the breeze. After much consideration, focusing on my new series made more sense than trying to place this book with another big publisher. Naturally, that brought difficulties of its own, including a problem printing the covers that almost forced a delayed release (and would have ruined the promotional plan I had put in place).

Writing books, for me, is easy. The business of writing, not so much.

What was the biggest surprise you got out of working on The Bastard Queen, and what do you hope your readers get out of it?

This was the first time I had written a full-length novel with a female protagonist. For me, it was a process of overcoming my own perception that, well, boys have more fun. Especially after the more adventure-based The Eunuch’s Heir, it took me a little while to really inhabit Fiona and her concerns.

In general, I want to create worlds and societies that have more realistic complications than are often associated with fantasy fiction. I like to work in the ambiguous spaces where good guys might do bad things.

What’s your next project … and what did you learn from The Bastard Queen that you’re applying to it?

Interestingly, it’s sort of the other way around. The dark historical fantasy series I’ve recently sold is the one I started when I set aside The Bastard Queen. As a result, my “new” work actually informed this older one rather than the other way around. But I think exploring some of the issues of class and race that crop up in The Bastard Queen, and trying to achieve a stronger level of realism, will serve me well as I move ahead with the new books.

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We’re glad we had this opportunity to showcase Elaine Isaak and her new book The Bastard Queen. And don’t forget about the two books ahead of it in the series:



(Cover art for The Singer’s Crown and The Eunuch’s Heir. Click to enlarge.)

Visit www.ElaineIsaak.com to read sample chapters of The Bastard Queen and find out why you do NOT want to be her hero.

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Codex Blog Tour: LEAH CYPESS

Continuing our discontinuous series of “blog tour” posts featuring fellow members of the Codex Writers online community ….

Today we talk (so to type) with Leah Cypess, author of Mistwood (published last year in hardcover and coming out in paperback in April).

Mistwood is the story of an ancient shapeshifter bound by a spell to protect the kings of a certain dynasty. And of a confused girl found in a forest who is told she is that ancient shapeshifter, even though she can’t remember anything about her past. Possibly they’re the same story … possibly not. She’ll have to figure it out while protecting the current prince, navigating his intrigue-filled court, and making sure nobody finds out that she has lost both her memory and her powers.


(Mistwood cover art. Click to enlarge.)

We appreciate Leah taking the time to answer our questions about how she turned her idea for Mistwoodinto reality.

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When you first conceived of Mistwood, did you start working on it right away, or did you set the idea aside for a period of time?

I didn’t conceive of the book as a whole so much as I conceived of the first scene — an image of men riding into a misty forest in search of a supernatural creature. I started writing that first scene as soon as I thought of it, and continued working on the book pretty regularly after that (with “regularly” modified by the fact that I was in law school at the time).

Wow, law school and novel writing at the same time — how did that work? How long did it take to write the book and then to shop it around?

Since I was in law school when I started working on Mistwood, I had many interruptions along the way — including a revision request from an editor for a previous manuscript, and then working at a law firm, which was a rather large interruption.

I finished a basic first draft over three years, where “basic” means “scattered throughout various notebooks I used to bring with me on my morning commute.” After two years of working at a law firm, I quit and spent some time writing full-time; during the first few months of my full-time stint, I finished both Mistwood and another manuscript I had been working on.

After some thought, I decided to submit the other manuscript first, because it was about vampires and I was under the impression that vampires were hot. Turned out that by the time I started submitting, vampires were no longer hot, and I got a bunch of rejection letters saying, essentially, “Good story but we’re sick of vampires.”

One of those rejection letters, from an editor at Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins), was very detailed and included a request that I send her future manuscripts. So I sent her the query and first two chapters of Mistwood, a manuscript I hadn’t looked at closely for over a year. She sent a request for the full about a month later, and then emailed me two weeks after I sent it to say she was interested in the manuscript and wanted to show it to the other editors.

What major obstacle did you have to overcome while working on Mistwood, and how did you overcome it?

My biggest obstacle was that I wrote the book over the course of three years and in a very disjointed fashion. When I finally gathered together all the various pieces, it turned out I had written some scenes that completely contradicted each other, others that were out of order, and had written at least one scene twice! Piecing it all together in a way that made sense was rather headache-inducing. I could never have managed it without the help of critique groups (I sent it through Critters a total of four times!) who could point out things like, “Your heroine made the same shocking discovery twice,” or, “but she already knew that in Chapter Four!”

What was the biggest surprise you got out of working on this project? Is there anything in particular you hope your readers get out of the finished work?

As someone who worked for 15 years to get a novel published — and who had the experience of watching a manuscript be considered by a publisher for two years before being rejected! — I was very pleasantly surprised by how fast it happened once it happened. (Though publishing is still a very slow business, overall; that patience I acquired has come in handy more than once.)

The most important thing I want my readers to get out of any of my books is a great reading experience. But I also hope that experiencing my main character’s dilemma might help someone who is faced with difficult choices.

You’ve got a new novel coming out soon … what did you learn from Mistwoodthat you applied to it?

My new novel, Nightspell, a stand-alone companion novel to Mistwood, will be published in May 2011. The first draft of Nightspell was mostly written by the time I sold Mistwood, but I learned a lot from the revision process for Mistwood — mostly about keeping scenes tight and clarifying characters’ motivations — that I applied while revising Nightspell.


(Nightspell cover art. Click to enlarge.)

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Leah’s 15-year odyssey to publication is a great example of perseverance, and an inspiration to those of us who are working and writing, and writing and working.

A little about Leah: She used to be a practicing attorney in New York City, and is now a full-time writer in Boston. She much prefers her current situation.


(Leah Cypess. Click to enlarge.)

Leah published her first short story (in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine) while still in high school, and a mere 15 years later, finally sold her first novel. Mistwood was published by HarperCollins (Greenwillow) in 2010; Leah’s second novel, Nightspell, will be published in May 2011.

Mistwood‘s paperback release is April 26th, and Nightspell will be released in hardcover on May 31st.

For more information, visit Leah’s web site at http://www.leahcypess.com/.

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