Category Archives: Space

Blog Action, Space History, Whatnot

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I’m typing this while I try to watch the debate, which I now know from new research is really impossible (as I wrote about in this blog post) … but anyway:

This year’s Blog Action Day topic is “Poverty.” All the blog-savvy readers undoubtedly already know that Blog Action Day “is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.”

Hmmm, what do I post about poverty? As a science fiction writer and editor, I like this quote from Robert A. Heinlein’s “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” (in Time Enough For Love):

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as ‘bad luck.’

Something to think about in this political season.

Moving on, we have two space history anniversaries today.

First, 50 years ago today the X-15 rolled out from the North American plant in Los Angeles, CA. When we were stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, I was on the Pegasus Flight Readiness Review Committee with Bill Dana, one of the X-15 test pilots. That was pretty cool.

And five years ago today, the Chinese launched their first manned mission with taikonaut Yang Liwei aboard Shenzhou-5 (“Divine Vessel 5”).

Finally, the “whatnot” … it looks as if this post is long enough already, so I’ll leave off the whatnot.

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Noting Two Key Space History Anniversaries

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Today is a red-letter day in space history, with a failed flight that still featured some success, and a big success that followed on the heels of a tragic failure.

Fifty years ago, October 11, 1958, NASA launched Pioneer-1 — the first launch by NASA, which was less than two weeks old. Its target was the moon, but a launch vehicle malfunction sent the spacecraft into a ballistic trajectory instead. It reached an apogee of 70,700 miles altitude and returned some scientific observations of our planet’s magnetic field before it burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere on the 13th.

Ten years later, on October 11, 1968, NASA launched Apollo-7. Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walt Cunningham checked out the newly redesigned Command Module — redesigned, that is, after the fatal fire that destroyed Apollo-1 — in the first manned flight of the Apollo program. This mission achieved a string of spaceflight firsts:

  • First flight test of the Apollo Command/Service Module, with the first rendezvous & station-keeping maneuvers
  • First launch of a three member crew
  • First launch from Launch Complex 34
  • First crew-assisted flight of the Saturn-IB rocket
  • First live network TV broadcast from space during a crewed space flight
  • First time astronauts experienced head colds during a mission
  • First flight of the Apollo space suits
  • First crew to drink coffee in space

Wally Schirra was one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, and Apollo-7 was his third and final space flight. Here’s a brief and amusing tribute to Schirra and particularly to the flight of Apollo-7 and Schirra’s key role in redesigning the Command Module.

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Project Mercury, and A Useful List for Writers

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Today’s space history anniversary: Fifty years ago today — October 7, 1958 — Project Mercury was formally organized in Washington, D.C. Almost makes me want to watch The Right Stuff.

___

In other news, my friend Edmund Schubert, editor of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, posted a nice list of writerly terms on his blog. It’s a good run-down of terms aspiring writers need to understand.

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Fifty Years Ago in Space and Military History

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On October 4th, 1958, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, was dedicated — and a few years later we were stationed there. For those who don’t know, Vandenberg is also known as the Western Space and Missile Center, and we spent two years there (1993-95) managing launch facility refurbishment projects as part of the Titan System Program Office.

Congrats, Vandenberg, on 50 years of service to the nation!

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Space History, and We Were There

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Twenty years ago today, the Space Shuttle Discovery landed on Runway 17 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, after the “return to flight” mission following the loss of Challenger. It just so happens that we were stationed at Edwards at the time, and got to see it.

Later, I was on the Air Force Flight Test Center shuttle recovery team, and worked four shuttle landings as part of the crew that would help extract astronauts in an emergency. For this landing, though, I was just a spectator — which was, in itself, pretty cool.

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Happy 50th Birthday, NASA

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Fifty years ago yesterday was the end of NACA, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, and 50 years ago today was the first day of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Congratulations — you’ve accomplished a lot since then, but there’s a lot still to do.

Onward and upward!

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A Cornucopia of Blogness … or a Hodge-podge

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So many blog-able things, so little time.

First, do you consider yourself conservative or liberal? If you answered “yes,” then you’re a person after my own heart. That’s the Anti-Candidate’s position, too, as seen here.

That is, the anti-candidate is conservative on some things, and liberal on other things. So far as we can tell, the anti-candidate is conservative and liberal on all the right things.

Next, a little space history: 50 years ago today was the last day of NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. (My aerodynamics professor once tried to convince us that NACA stood for the “National Association for Cambered Airfoils.” Go figure.)

And finally, progress on the novel has stalled. Last night I had an idea of something to add, and I’m struggling with whether it’s a good idea or not. I may have to leave a big block of white space labeled “figure it out later” and move on. It’s very frustrating.

But, life goes on. At least until it doesn’t.

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Shuttle Return to Flight — 20 Years Ago Today

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On September 29, 1988, Space Shuttle Discovery launched on mission STS-26, the first mission after the loss of the Challenger two years earlier. Astronauts Fred Hauck, Dick Covey, John Lounge, David Hilmers, and George Nelson successfully deployed Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS)-3. You can read more about the mission here.

In more recent space news, yesterday the SpaceX company had the first successful launch of their Falcon-1 booster. Congratulations!

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Some Recent Space and Lunar History

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Five years ago today, the European Space Agency’s SMART-1 mission was launched to the moon. SMART was an acronym for “Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology,” and the spacecraft tested solar electric propulsion technology on its way to the Moon. According to the ESA fact sheet on SMART-1, the spacecraft entered lunar orbit on November 15, 2004 — for those who didn’t know, electric ion thrusters don’t make for a particularly speedy trip — and after a one-year extension the mission ended on 3 September 2006 with a planned lunar impact.

As well as testing new technology, SMART-1 did the first comprehensive inventory of key chemical elements in the lunar surface. It also investigated the theory that the Moon was formed following the violent collision of a smaller planet with Earth, four and a half thousand million years ago.

And hopefully, relying on some of the latest lunar science observations will help make my novel MARE NUBIUM a little more realistic. Time will tell.

Now, back to work on the thing 😉 .

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Space Past, Space Recent, Space Present

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Space Past: 35 years ago today, the Skylab-3 mission splashed down in the Pacific after astronauts Alan Bean, Jack Lousma, and Owen Garriott spent almost two months aboard the station. You can read more about the mission on this Wikipedia page.

Space Recent: I missed this when it was on the Discovery Channel, but a recent experiment demonstrated the technology for beaming power from space-based solar collectors. This interests me because one of my Ornery American essays was on using space-based power to help recovery efforts after natural disasters.

Space Present: The folks at Sea Launch successfully lofted the Galaxy-19 satellite yesterday. (I worked as a technology security monitor on the Galaxy IIIc launch, which was a great adventure.) Congrats!

Space Present II. Also yesterday, the House passed a waiver that would allow NASA to continue purchasing Soyuz flights to the International Space Station beyond the 2011 expiration of the current waiver.

Because it takes three years to build a new Soyuz, an INKSNA waiver extension is required for NASA to avoid unmanning the station starting in 2012. If the Senate goes along and the extension becomes law, NASA would be able to maintain an uninterrupted presence on the lab complex and bridge the gap between the end of shuttle operations in 2010 and the debut of its replacement in 2014 or 2015.

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