July 20th - Space Exploration Day

July 20th is one of those landmark days on my Calendar.  It is perhaps the most important day for space exploration.  On this day in 1969, 48 years ago today, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and the first humans ever walked on the Moon that night.  41 years ago today, the Viking 1 lander touched down on Mars and returned the first pictures of the surface of the Red Planet.  Both those events, especially Apollo 11, had a huge impact on my future.  The impossible was suddenly possible!

On July 20, 1969, my Dad was stationed in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan in the upper peninsula.  We traveled that day down to Kincheloe Air Force Base (named after another pilot, Ivan Kincheloe, but I did not know anything about him at that time) to shop at the commisary there on base.  We also stopped at some friends where, early in the afternoon, we watched the live TV coverage of the landing of Apollo 11 at Tranquility Base.  They would have had live audio from the landing, but no live video, so everything they showed besides the newsmen were mock-ups and models of what was going on.  I was a month and 2 days short of my 9th birthday and was definitely interested in the space program.  But I did not understand the significance of things like 1201 and 1202 alarms.  I did understand the significance of "Houston, Tranquility Base here.  The Eagle has landed."

We went back home that afternoon and that evening, I got to stay up late for one of the very first times.  They moved the Moonwalk up in time a few hours, but then it took Neil and Buzz a long time to get ready to climb out of their Lunar Module.  While we waited for the Moonwalk to begin, we stepped outside for a bit and I looked up at the nearly quarter phased Moon overhead.  As I gazed on the Moon this night, it was a very different Moon from the one I'd looked at on previous nights.  Tonight, there were 2 men actually on the Moon and another orbiting around it.  What a life changing thought this 8 year old experienced in that moment.

Back inside and watching the TV, the astronauts were finally ready to begin their historic Moonwalk.  Talk of depressurizing the cabin and finally the hatch is open!  Listening to the crew talk as Aldrin helped direct Armstrong through the hatch only made the wait longer as I certainly did not understand the details of what they were doing.  On TV, all they could do was show a suited actor climbing on the ladder of the LM mockup as we waited for the live TV we were told would be broadcast from the Moon.  Finally, Armstrong announced: "Okay. Houston, I'm on the porch."  The porch I can understand, right at the top of the ladder.

Armstrong finally releases the MESA, pulling a D-ring to release it.  The MESA unfolds from the side of the Lunar Module just to the left of the ladder (as viewed from the front of the LM) and contains equipment like the rock boxes that will bring Lunar samples back to Earth.  It also has the TV camera mounted on it and shortly, the first TV signal will be sent back to Earth and broadcast live to something like 1 billion viewers back on planet Earth.

I wasn't sure if the fuzzy black and white image that soon appeared was due to our old Zenith black and white TV or because the signal was coming from a quarter million miles away.  I sat transfixed, watching Neil and Buzz as they spent a little over 2 hours on the Lunar surface.  Their almost ghostly images bounding across the field of view were so fascinating to watch.  And then it was over.  Well, except for their return to Earth, which happily was finished safely.

My life was forever changed on July 20, 1969.  My Universe expanded beyond my own horizons.  Thank you Neil and Buzz and Mike.  Thank you to all those who made Apollo happen and made the impossible possible.

The End of the Shuttle program - part I

It's been 2 months since I watched Atlantis rocket into the Florida sky on its way to the International Space Station.  I'll cherish my memories of that day as well as those that followed as we first watched the launch, then watched the SRBs return to port, then eventually, we watched the last space shuttle landing before returning to reality and home.  About 8 minutes after Atlantis disappeared behind the cloud deck about 40 seconds after liftoff, I continued to intently listen to the NASA TV audio - long after about half of the other viewers at Space View Park were heading for their cars and the long parking lot streets they must have experienced.  I listened to all the launch calls and all the abort mode calls as I was amazed at how quickly people started leaving.  Launch wasn't over!  SRB sep still hadn't happened and they were heading for the exits.  It was like Dodger stadium in the 6th inning!  Out of sight, out of mind - as soon as the shuttle pierced the cloud deck and vanished above the clouds, folks were off.  They hadn't even got to the "Go at throttleup" call & they were heading out.  Finally, I heard the call I was waiting for - "MECO!"  That's when I take my first deep breath, knowing that everything went fine all the way into orbit.  Until then, they are still launching and there are still a gazillion things that can go wrong and cause NASA and our brave crew to have a bad day.  "MECO." I hear over the Space View Park loudspeaker. I pumped my fist into the air and called out "They're in orbit!"  And then I also pointed out: "135 launches and not a single failure in the 3 main engines on all of those flights!" Back in April 1981, if you'd asked me what the most likely cause of the first shuttle accident, I would have said it was the shuttle main engines.  They have to burn perfectly for about 8 and a half minutes & there are so many moving parts and so many things pushed to unimaginable limits.  No way they would fly 135 times and not once have a significant failure!  Well, they did.  There were a couple close calls - just before Challengers fatal flight, an engine shut down in flight a little early, but it was only a sensor error and it was late enough during launch that the shuttle was able to limp into orbit with the only ever abort call during launch, "Abort to Orbit" where they burned the other engines a little longer and made it into a useful orbit without having to make an emergency landing at some runway around the world.  There was another close call during the first launch with a female commander when the engine nozzles had a small leak in a propellant line used to cool the engine bells.  But that wasn't in the guts of the main engines even.  135 times 3 times 8.5 minutes (less about 7 minutes for 3 of them on poor Challenger).  That is about 57 hours of main engine burn time!  If you had told me that the main engines would burn for almost 2.5 days without a single failure back in 1981, I would have laughed you out of the room.

The shuttle was an amazing vehicle, despite its flaws and shortcomings.  In a few blog posts, I plan to talk a bit more about the Space Shuttle.  I just wanted to start this off on the 2 month anniversary of the last ever Space Shuttle launch.  Click on this link to see my view of that launch: http://pixofmyuniverse.blogspot.com/2011/07/go-atlants-go.html

Annual time of Mourning at NASA

There have been three fatal accidents involving NASA astronauts and their spacecraft. They all happened at this time of year. On January 27, 1967 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were running a "plugs out" test in their Apollo spacecraft atop the AS-204 Saturn IB rocket with the hatch sealed shut and the cabin pressurized to about 16.7 psi with pure oxygen. Hindsight is 20/20 and everyone was as shocked and surprised that no one foresaw the incredible hazard of such a configuration - pure oxygen at such pressures makes almost everything a fire hazard and it was pure luck over the previous 6 years that such an accident had not happened to a Mercury or Gemini spacecraft. Apollo was very much more complex and it had fallen behind schedule. Mistakes were made and the best estimate for what occurred is that a spark from some frayed wiring ignited a fire that rapidly spread through the cabin, asphyxiating the crew with smoke and fumes from the explosive fire. The crew was dead by the time the ground support personnel could get the inward opening hatch opened. The ensuing investigation uncovered flaws in design and workmanship as well as higher level decisions. Improvements in the Apollo spacecraft and in operations almost certainly saved the program from later disaster that could have ended the program.

25 years ago, on January 28, 1986, NASA launched its 25th Space Shuttle flight into a chilly Florida sky. The previous 24 flights were a model of success, at least from a casual perspective. The 24 flights included the first re-use of a manned spacecraft when Columbia launched on STS-2. It included the launch of a variety of spacecraft as well as the retrieval of a pair of malfunctioning spacecraft. It included the first spacewalks of the shuttle program as well as the first untethered spacewalk when Bruce McCandless flew a jet backpack called an MMU (Manned Maneuvering Unit) which was later used for the retrieval of the Solar Max satellite. But beneath the facade of success was a disaster waiting to happen. On many flights, hot gases caused damage to O-rings in the solid rocket boosters (SRBs). Rather than delay the program by stopping flight, disrupting a crowded flight schedule, NASA management chose to continue flight while working the problem in the background. On this cold January morning, the crew of STS-51L made its way to the launch pad like the 24 space shuttle crews before it. The crew consisted of 4 veteran shuttle astronauts including the 2nd woman and 2nd African American astronauts to fly as well as the first Asian American astronaut all making their 2nd spaceflights. The commander, also making his 2nd spaceflight was Francis R. "Dick" Scobee. The three rookies on this flight included teacher in space Christa McAuliffe. As space shuttle Challenger left Launch Complex 39B, the odds caught up with manned spaceflight as hot gases burned past the O-ring near the base of the right hand SRB releasing puffs of black smoke for a moment as the shuttle rose off the pad. For another 50 seconds or so, the leak sealed but as it flew through maximum dynamic pressure, the seal failed and the SRB began burning through, releasing hot gas that rapidly started damaging first the SRB, then the base of the giant orange external tank (ET) including the mount points of the SRB to the tank. 73 seconds into the flight the damage to the SRB and external tank reached catastrophic levels. In the preceeding moments, the flames from the SRB burned through the base of the Hydrogen tank at the bottom of the ET. The rear attachments of the SRB to the ET burned through allowing the SRB to hinge on the forward attachpoint. The nose of the SRB punctured the forward part of the tank where the Oxygen tank is located. The net thrust from leaking Hydrogen at the base of the ET pushed forward into the oxygen tank causing rapid disintegration of the ET. Without the ET to hold the vehicle together, the SRBs flew off into their "Y" shaped paths. There was no explosion - the hydrogen and oxygen cloud expanded with only minimal burning giving the distinctive shape to the expanding debris and vapor. Without the ET, the shuttle could only respond to all the forces acting on it. There was the thrust from the still burning 3 main engines. There were the aerodynamic forces of the airflow over the wings and aero surfaces. The net result was for the orbiter to pitch itself belly into the wind and the aerodynamic stress on Challenger caused it to shatter into pieces. The structurally strongest parts of the orbiter remained somewhat intact including the crew compartment and each flew out of the expanding debris cloud. There was evidence that the crew survived the initial breakup of the vehicle and possibly were alive (but likely unconscious) for the remainder of the fall to the ocean as the cabin flew upward another 3 miles before descending to the water below. The investigation revealed the cause of the disaster to be O-rings chilled to more than 30 degrees below the previous record cold launch temperature which in itself was almost 20 degrees below the rated temperature of the O-rings. Without a proper seal, the hot gas eroded through the O-rings and then into the case of the SRB before burning through and continuing to damage the vehicle. The orbiter was responding to the slightly varying thrust of the two SRBs and continued to try to fly even after the start of the breakup, adjusting the gimbal of the main engines to compensate. The root cause of the accident showed many similarities to the events of 19 years and a day earlier, though management not listening to the concerns of their staff combined with the need to meet demanding launch schedules kept the problem from being dealt with before the disaster happened.

8 years ago on February 1st the crew of space shuttle Columbia were returning home from a demanding 16 day mission of science. They did not make it home. Just 16 minutes from the runway at the Kennedy Space Center the shuttle broke up into debris similar to what had occured 17 years earlier, though moving at mach 18 over the skies of Texas. In the days and weeks that followed we learned that the shuttle and crew of 7 were doomed from nearly the start of their mission when a piece of ET foam broke away from the tank at about 82 seconds into the launch of mission STS-107 and slammed into the leading edge of the left wing of the orbiter at about 500 miles per hour. A piece of the light grey Reinforced Carbon Carbon leading wing surface broke free of the orbiter near the base of the left wing shortly after arriving in orbit. The hole in the wing would allow the hot gases of atmospheric entry inside the wing 16 days later during re-entry of the orbiter. The hot gases ate up the inside of the wing until it finally reached a critical point where the shuttle flew out of control and broke up due to aerodynamic forces. Once again, the crew cabin remained intact for some time after the breakup of the orbiter but was destroyed later as it fell into the thicker atmosphere. Pieces of Columbia were spread over parts of two states as they fell out of the sky. Many of the symptoms from the Challenger accident resurfaced in the face of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board analysis including signs and portents of disaster going all the way back to the earliest shuttle flights as debris strikes on the orbiter from launch were a problem on every flight. Most were harmless but required repair of the tiles between every flight. The 2nd flight after Challenger nearly caused the loss of orbiter Atlantis on STS-27 when a foam strike on the belly of the shuttle which caused over 700 "dings" to the belly and the loss of one tile and near burn through during re-entry. During the STS-107 mission, analysis of the debris strike underestimated the potential for damage to the orbiter and since the strike area was out of sight of the crew and believed to have been a glancing blow on the belly of the orbiter, the debris analysis suggested it would not produce significant damage. Only in hindsight when impact tests using a large gun that could shoot foam at speeds similar to those estimated during Columbia's flight into wing leading edge material did the potential for disaster become fully apparent.

These three accidents along with two fatal accidents in the Russian space program are reminders of the dangers of exploring new frontiers. The danger should never be forgotten but also should never prevent us from pursuing exploration. We learn from our mistakes and move on keeping the memory of lost pioneers in our minds to help motivate us to continue the work in their names while improving hardware and procedures to help minimize the chances for future accidents. Imagine if we stopped sailing the high seas the first time we lost a ship at sea! Here is to those who gave their all in the pursuit of space.

In the words of Gus Grissom: "If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

New Worlds

(The animated GIF above was created by Emily Lakdawalla and appears in her blog) There are certain days in history where mankind gets its first closeup look at a world. Today is one of them. The EPOXI spacecraft which used to be known as Deep Impact, flew past comet 103P/Hartley 2 taking touristy snapshots as it zipped past the comet like a tourist driving quickly past the Grand Canyon. Admiring these images reminded me of a few other landmark days like this one that I remember. For example, July 20, 1976 when the Viking 1 lander landed on Mars and sent the first closeup images of Mars surface. Another July 20 springs to mind when in 1969 we watched Neil Armstrong plant the first human footprints on another world. And there are flyby's of Jupiter by Pioneer and later Voyager or the photos of Titan's surface when Cassini's Huygens lander touched down on that distant world. In the not too distant future, we'll see closeup images of Pluto when the New Horizons spacecraft flies past that ex-Planet and new Martian vistas when the next lander/rover arrives there in a year and a half or so. And the Messenger orbiter will be returning the highest resolution images of Mercury soon as well. We should also not forget the spacecraft orbiting our Moon and other planets like LRO, MRO, Cassini and many others. We live in a wonderful time when we get to see new worlds for the first time ever as well as seeing worlds we're used to seeing closeup even better than before. Those faint points of light in the sky at night are real places to be studied, someday with our own rock hammers, eyeballs and boots.

41 years and counting

41 years ago today humans walked on another world for the first time... ever. There won't be another time that we'll ever be able to say that. The picture I've included here (and you can link to a higher resolution version if you click on the title) was the first image taken by Neil Armstrong after planting his bootprint into the alien soil. You can see one of the Lunar Modules landing gear legs as well as a white "jettison bag" laying under the LM. You can see one of the landing gear probes bent upward - one of the 3 probes (there wasn't one on the front leg to keep from interfering with the astronauts descent to the surface) that contacted the surface first during the descent which triggered a light in the cockpit telling the astronauts they were within about 6 feet of the surface and could turn off the descent engine.

I remember what I was doing when Armstrong took this picture. I was not quite 9 years old and sat transfixed in front of our black and white TV, watching the events a quarter million miles away in awe. Were the images fuzzy because of our TV or because they were being beamed from the distant orb that I could see in the sky? Probably both.

On this 41st anniversary, it is a bittersweet time. Our nation has decided to back off of its ambitious goals of returning to the Moon. After Apollo 11 and the 5 lunar landings that followed, we have retreated and lost our initiative, investing our incredible capabilities almost exclusively on planet Earth. We've lost our vision and drive to go out there and see what there is to see. We've been limited to sending unmanned probes to other planets and while they have returned remarkable image and data, we have not layed human eyes on an alien landscape since December 1972.

There are so many reasons we should get back out there beyond low Earth orbit. One of the best reasons is one of inspiration. When humans do the impossible, it inspires the rest of humanity to do more with their lives. I am one of many who was inspired by Apollo to reach for higher goals and in my case, I was inspired to become an Astronomer. Countless others went into fields of endeavor such as engineering, science, art, theater. With all the bad images we see on the news of war, terrorism, natural and manmade disasters, we need things like human exploration beyond Earth to help inspire our youth to what we might still think is the impossible.

Mars Global Surveyor

Not quite yet ready to say "rest in peace," but the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft has not been heard from for over two weeks now. The most recent attempts were to image the spacecraft with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) which did not succeed. The next steps are to use the Mars Odyssey spacecraft to relay messages through the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity using the low gain antennas to see if it responds. Check out this space.com article for more details.