April 12, 2007
April 12, 1961. The first Cosmonaut's day.
Vostok 1 carried Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin on the first manned space flight, an orbital, lasting 1 hour and 48 minutes, just 25 days before Alan Shepard made the first American space flight in Freedom 7, a 15 minute suborbital journey, which redefined the "Shepard's Prayer" (during the countdown, he said "Please, dear God, don't let me fuck up.")
Whilst Chuck Yeager dubbed the American Mercury astronauts 'Spam in a can', it was far more applicable to Yuri who had no control at all over the ship, it being run remotely by ground crews, whilst Shepard had control of all three axis of movement.
Yuri was killed when his plane crashed in 1968. The is still controvery over the cause.
Image source: The Russian Institute of Radionavigation and Time
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:55 AM
April 11, 2006
Because boys never stop enjoying smashing things, that's why.
LOS ANGELES - NASA plans to crash a space probe into the moon in 2009 — a collision so violent it will be visible on Earth through a telescope, the space agency said Monday.
Why? Think of NASA as a larger Mythbusters program. The boys there like explosions - and what could be cooler than directing an SUV sized impactor at 5,600 miles per hour at the surface of the moon?
Well, here's the official reason:
First, the craft will direct the upper stage used to leave Earth orbit to crash into a permanently-shadowed crater at the lunar south pole, creating a plume visible to Earth-based observatories. Next, the satellite will observe the plume and fly through it using several instruments to look for water. At the end of its mission, the satellite will itself become an impactor, creating a second plume visible to lunar-orbiting spacecraft and Earth-based observatories.
Smashing the second one, of course! They even provide simulated video. They don't actually have a third ship to fly through the second impact plume and then impact, but they have spectrographs to analyse it at least.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:45 AM
April 06, 2006
This is why we need to increase funding for space exploration.
I think even Ted Kennedy will agree.
Astronomers say they have spotted a cloud of alcohol in deep space that measures 463 billion kilometres across, a finding that could shed light on how giant stars are formed from primordial gas. The vast bridge-shaped cloud of methyl alcohol has been spotted in a region of our galaxy, the Milky Way, that is called W3(OH), where stars are being formed by the gravitational collapse of concentrations of gas and dust, the discoverers said in a press release.Source
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:37 AM
March 09, 2006
Life in outer space
NASA's Cassini probe has made a very interesting find Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus (typically described as "about the size of Arizona").
"We haven’t found water, per se, we’ve found evidence of water, and our best models, right now, are those that suggest that there’s pockets of liquid water under the surface, and what we’re seeing in these jets are like the equivalent of Old Faithful, in Yellowstone, they’re geysers that are erupting out of pockets of water."
"It appears we have all the ingredients that all the experts have claimed for a long time now, you would need to have environments suitable for living organisms. And so, that’s what we think we have here. We have found another environment in our solar system, in a very surprising place, that could host living organisms. Now, of course, we’ll never know until we go there, but it’s a very, very, very exciting possibility. It's really broadened the diversity of those environments that we can expect to see conditions suitable for life."
Which is pretty damn cool.
Bob says: "I'm going to have to keep my hopes up that A) They find something and B) It isn't hostile to human systems because they will try to bring some back somehow."
We just need stasis tubes, and it'll all be fine. Really. Nothing has ever gone wrong with those before. Or we could just keep them contained, maybe set up a petting zoo with the smaller ones.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 01:23 PM
January 28, 2006
Roger, go at throttle up.
Exactly twenty years ago, eleven years old, I was wonderfully excited. I woke around 5am, rushed to the television and turned it on. I sat transfixed for two hours (Australia is 14 hours ahead, it would have been 3pm on the east coast of the US). I cheered as the countdown crept down to ten, then to the "and liftoff!" . The Space Shuttle Challenger roared majestically into the sky, leaving giant river of smoke behind.
Seventy three seconds later the river forked, rockets pinwheeling to either side. After moments of shock, I knew there would be parachutes emerging shortly. Somehow, a silken mushroom would balloon out. And the debris rained down, seemingly in slow motion, plunging into the ocean. The parachutes will be opening soon. Perhaps they're too small and high for the cameras to see.
There were no parachutes that day. Twenty years ago this day, I wept unashamedly. And today, I will do so again.
The crew on STS-51L were:
Francis R. Scobee (Mission Commander)
Michael J. Smith (Pilot)
Ronald E. McNair (Mission specialist)
Ellison S. Onizuka (Mission specialist)
Judith A. Resnik (Mission specialist)
Gregory B. Jarvis (Payload specialist)
Sharon Christa McAuliffe (Payload specialist)
Partial voice recorder transcript
T+57..............CDR..... Throttling up.
(NASA: Throttle up to 104% after maximum dynamic pressure.)
T+58..............PLT..... Throttle up.
T+59..............CDR..... Roger.
T+60..............PLT..... Feel that mother go.
T+60............. Unknown. Woooohoooo.
T+1:02............PLT..... Thirty-five thousand going through one point five
(NASA: Altitude and velocity report, 35,000 ft., 1.5 Mach).
T+1:05............CDR..... Reading four eighty six on mine.
(NASA: Routine airspeed indicator check.)
T+1:07............PLT..... Yep, that's what I've got, too.
T+1:10............CDR..... Roger, go at throttle up.
(NASA: SSME at 104 percent.) [Space Shuttle Main Engine]
T+1:13............PLT..... Uhoh.
T+1:13.......................LOSS OF ALL DATA.
And I remember President Reagan's speech later that day. I still believe it.
Address to the Nation, January 28, 1986
by President Ronald W. Reagan
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering.
Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight; we've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle; but they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.
For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, "Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy." They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.
We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.
I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute.
We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue.
I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it."
There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and an historian later said, "He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it." Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 12:00 AM
September 20, 2005
A return to the moon, then on to Mars.
On monday, NASA unveiled plans for a return to the moon and a manned mission to Mars. Today, space.com carries a story today about the plans (New Agenda or Apollo Retread?).
Aspects are somewhat vintage Apollo in approach
Well, of course. They were good ideas then and they're good ideas now. Things like the crew module on top of the rocket (easy to jetison in an emergency and away from any debris).
Of course, there are some new twists. The earth-to-moon stage would be pre-launched, and the astronauts would rendezvous with that stage in earth orbit before continuing on. Then they will leave the exploration vehicle in autopilot while all four continue on to the lunar surface.
Return to Earth would be in a similar fashion to the Apollo missions, however a splashdown is now considered a contingency, they're aiming to bump down in the mid-west somewhere.
Where do I sign up?
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 10:54 AM