Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

First Flight for Shuttle ATLANTIS, and the First Repeater Satellite

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Twenty-five years ago today — October 4, 1985 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis was in orbit on its maiden flight.


(First launch of the Shuttle Atlantis, October 3, 1985. NASA image.)

Atlantis actually launched from the Kennedy Space Center 25 years ago yesterday on mission 51J. This first mission was a DoD mission, in which astronauts Karol J. Bobko, Ronald J. Grabe, Robert A. Stewart, David C. Hilmers and William A. Pailes deployed what was later revealed to be a pair of Defense Satellite Communication System (DSCS, pronounced “discus”) satellites.

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Also on this date, but twice as long ago — October 4, 1960 — the world’s first repeater satellite, Courier-1B, was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Thor “Ablestar” rocket. The first Courier satellite had been lost due to a launch vehicle failure. For more on the Courier experimental communication satellite, see this article.

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A Special Stop on the Tour, and I Provide Commentary on a Web Video

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(Cross-posted, with minor edits, from the “Manufacturing Makes It Real” tour blog.)

Yesterday the “Manufacturing Makes It Real” tour stopped at Scott Health & Safety in Monroe, NC, where they make Scott Air Paks — self-contained breathing apparatus used by firefighters and emergency responders all over the world.

Of all the places we’ve been, why was the Scott Health & Safety tour stop so special to me?

When I was stationed at Edwards AFB, California, at the AF Rocket Propulsion Laboratory,* I was the chief of the Disaster Response Force. Not only did I don Scott Paks and Graylite suits** in training, but I had occasion to wear them several times for real-world accident responses. (Ask me about them sometime.)

Yet as many times as I wore a Scott Pak, I never thought about where it was made or by whom. That’s the way it is with a lot of things we use — we take for granted that they exist and that they will work when we need them to, but we too often forget that real people made those things.

So I had no idea that Scott Paks were made by a company in North Carolina, nor did I have any idea of the pride they take in making products that help save lives. But I saw it firsthand yesterday afternoon, and that was nothing short of fantastic.

I know the weather is threatening to impact our next few stops on the tour, but I hope folks will come out to hear more about the great people at these companies who make terrific products that are vital to our lives.

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Yesterday morning, during our stop at ArvinMeritor in Fletcher, I took local radio reporter Dan Hesse (News Radio 570, WWNC) through our display trailer so he could shoot some video for the station’s website. I answered some questions and provided some commentary, and for a few seconds you can catch my ugly mug on the video. The segment is six minutes long, and you can watch it on YouTube.

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*The name changed twice while I was there; when I left, it was the AF Astronautics Laboratory. Now it’s part of the Phillips Lab, but it will always be the “Rocket Lab” to me.

**Or, “rocket propellant handler’s ensemble.”

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On the Road with the Manufacturing Tour

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All this week I’m traveling with the “Manufacturing Makes It Real” tour, which the NC State University Industrial Extension Service is running to showcase and celebrate the state’s products and the people who make them.

My job, leading up to this, was to plan the route and make sure the bus and tractor-trailer get from point A to point B to point C to … the end. “There and back again,” as Bilbo Baggins would say.

Yesterday we traveled to RLCB in Raleigh, Thomas Built Buses in High Point, and Polychem Alloy in Lenoir. I’m typing this from my hotel room — isn’t technology marvelous? — in Fletcher, where this morning we’ll visit ArvinMeritor before heading down the mountain to National Gypsum in Mount Holly and Tyco/Scott Health & Safety in Monroe.

It’s already been quite the adventure, between miscommunication on where to meet yesterday morning, a flat tire on the bus that had to be swapped out at RLCB, and extra cars that blocked our entry to one factory. (That, in a way, is a nice problem to have: so many people showing up that we had to ask some to move their cars!)

Our industry hosts have been fantastic, especially considering the much-needed rain that forced all our events yesterday indoors. And the manufacturers who have come seem to relish the opportunity to show off their products and praise their employees.

We’re traveling all over the state, so if you’re anywhere along our route or near one of our stops and you have a little extra time, stop by and see what’s going on! A quick walk through the display trailer will surprise you, in terms of the variety of different things manufactured here in North Carolina.

Hope to see you on the tour!

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Operation Paperclip

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Sixty-five years ago today — September 20, 1945 — “Operation Paperclip” brought Dr. Wernher von Braun and six other German scientists to the United States.

The first seven technicians arrived in the United States at New Castle Army Air Base, just south of Wilmington, Delaware, on September 20, 1945. They were then flown to Boston and taken by boat to the Army Intelligence Service post at Fort Strong in Boston Harbor. Later, with the exception of von Braun, the men were transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to sort out the Peenemünde documents. These would be the documents that would enable the scientists to continue their rocketry experiments.

Finally, von Braun and his remaining Peenemünde staff were transferred to their new home at Fort Bliss, Texas, a large Army installation just north of El Paso. Whilst there they trained military, industrial and university personnel in the intricacies of rockets and guided missiles and helped to refurbish, assemble and launch a number of V-2s that had been shipped from Germany to the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico.

(From this article on Operation Paperclip.)

This Wikipedia article also mentions September 1945, though it locates Fort Strong in New York instead of Boston Harbor; in contrast, this article states that the first scientists did not come to the U.S. until November 18th.

But come to the U.S. they did, and they helped us win the space race. As Dan Berlinrut, one of my USAF colleagues, put it many years ago, we beat the Soviets to the Moon “because our Germans were better than their Germans.”

However, their Germans were very good — and the Russian rocket scientists were no slouches themselves. We see whose launch systems are being abandoned and whose continue to operate, don’t we?

We ran the space race as a sprint, but it’s really a marathon. Will we decide to run a different race, or will we continue to lag?

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I missed a space anniversary yesterday: 50 years ago yesterday, on September 19, 1960, NASA launched an Argo D-8 rocket from Vandenberg AFB carrying the “Nuclear Emulsion Recovery Vehicle.” As stated on this history page, the suborbital launch “reached an altitude of 1,260 miles before landing 1,300 miles downrange where it was picked up by U.S. Navy ships. It was the first manmade object to travel to such an altitude in space and be recovered upon its return to Earth.” (It was also NASA’s first launch from Vandy.)

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A Landmark Day for Space Robots

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Forty years ago today — September 12, 1970 — the Soviet Union launched the first fully-robotic mission to retrieve a sample from a celestial body and return it to the Earth.


(Luna-16. NASA image.)

Luna-16 launched on a Proton-K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It landed on the Moon and collected its sample on the 20th of September. The next day, it launched its return package, which parachuted to a safe landing in Kazakhstan on the 24th.

The United States had already carried out two Lunar sample return missions, Apollo-11 and Apollo-12. Luna-16 marked the first time a sample return mission was accomplished remotely, by a robotic system.

For more on the Luna-16 mission, see this NASA solar system exploration page.

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An Observation on Publishing, Formulated at Dragon*Con

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At various conventions over the last several years I’ve worked at the Baen Books “Traveling Show.” I usually hand out things or help set up, and it’s always fun to see how exuberant Baen fans can be when they learn what’s coming soon from their favorite authors. This year at Dragon*Con Senior Editor Jim Minz ran the slide show, since Publisher Toni Weisskopf was in Australia for WorldCon, and the whole thing went very well.

During Dragon*Con I also attended similar shows by other publishers, to keep abreast of what to expect from the industry as a whole. I went to the Pyr, Del Ray, and Tor presentations, and in sum got a good look at what science fiction and fantasy publishers are buying.

Unfortunately, they’re not buying much of anything like what I’ve written. The only near-future, realistic science fiction I recall from any of the four presentations was Back to the Moon by Travis Taylor and Les Johnson, coming out from Baen in December. I saw a lot of fantasy, of many different descriptions, a lot of steampunk and alternate history, and even some hard science fiction, but only that one book tells a story that could happen in the next few decades.

I can’t help but feel that a subset of science fiction fans would like to read positive, realistic, near-future stories about folks exploring and colonizing our Solar system, but publishers don’t seem to buying stories like that. I guess I’ll have to keep track of how Back to the Moon does, to see whether or not my Walking on the Sea of Clouds has as much of an audience as I think it could.

I’d love to hear other opinions. What kinds of stories do you think readers would like, that publishers aren’t providing right now?

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Viking-2, and Star Trek

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Thirty-five years ago today — September 9, 1975 — the Viking-2 orbiter and lander were launched on their way to Mars by a Titan-IIIE booster out of Cape Canaveral.


(First color image of Utopia Planitia taken by the Viking-2 lander. NASA image.)

The first Viking lander had been launched a few weeks earlier, as noted in this blog post.

Viking-2 landed about a year after launch at Utopia Planitia. Fans of many Star Trek iterations will recognize Utopia Planitia as the place starships are built — with facilities on planet and in orbit above. For more information on the science fictional Utopia Planitia Shipyard, try this Memory Alpha page or this starship guide.

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Atlantis in Orbit: Prepping the ISS

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Ten years ago today — September 8, 2000 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a mission to prepare the International Space Station to receive its first crew.


(STS-106 launch. NASA image.)

STS-106 carried astronauts Terrence W. Wilcutt, Scott D. Altman, Daniel C. Burbank, Edward T. Lu, and Richard A. Mastracchio, along with cosmonauts Yuri I. Malenchenko and Boris V. Morukov, on an 11-day mission to the nascent space station. They unloaded supplies; routed and connected power, data, and communications lines; installed equipment; and boosted the station to a higher orbit.

In other space history, on this date a half-century ago, President Eisenhower and Mrs. George C. Marshall dedicated the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

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Shuttle Endeavour, Two For Two

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Fifteen years ago today — September 7, 1995 — the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-69.


(Close-up of STS-69 launch. NASA image.)

STS-69‘s crew — David M. Walker, Kenneth D. Cockrell, James S. Voss, James H. Newman, and Michael L. Gernhardt — deployed and retrieved two satellites, the first time that happened on the same mission.

The first satellite deployed and recovered was SPARTAN-201 number three, or 201-03, a small satellite that studied the sun’s outer atmosphere, and especially its transition into the solar wind. This was the third of four planned flights for the SPARTAN spacecraft.

The second spacecraft the STS-69 crew deployed was the Wake Shield Facility-2, a stainless steel disk which produced in its wake an “ultravacuum” environment. In that extreme vacuum, NASA grew thin films of material to study space-based production techniques and results. WSF-2 was, as its name suggests, the second flight of the WSF; it was also the first spacecraft to use its own cold gas nitrogen thruster to maneuver itself away from the Shuttle, rather than the Shuttle moving away from it.

The Endeavour crew spent 10 days in space before landing safely on runway 33 at KSC.

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Dragon*Con Success on Day One

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I set a modest goal for Dragon*Con this year: to buy and have signed two specific books. I achieved that goal yesterday, so the rest of the con will entail working at Jim Minz’s behest at the Baen road show, attending whatever-the-heck-I-want, and making some progress on the short story I’m writing.

The books I came in pursuit of were:

  • Shades of Milk and Honey, the first novel by Mary Robinette Kowal, one of my writing friends from the Codex writers group who also happens to be the winner of the John W. Campbell Award for the Best New Writer of science fiction and fantasy, and the current VP of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America … I was determined to buy it here because all the copies sold out too quickly for me to get one at NASFiC
  • Moonbase Crisis, the first volume of Rebecca Moesta & Kevin J. Anderson’s Star Challengers middle-grade SF series, which I talked up to whomever I could when I was still involved in the NC Aerospace Initiative

Both are now signed and safely stowed in the hotel room.

It remains to be seen whether I buy anything else here … the expression “kid with a credit card in a candy store” doesn’t begin to cover it.

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