End of an Era

Those who know me, know that I have been a space junkie since before space was cool. Which, to be fair, could mean last week. In truth, my earliest memory of the space program is Apollo 8. I was five years old and one of my classmates looked at a piece of paper sitting on the table and asked the teacher what it said. I looked down and read, "Blast off at noon." Since this was at a time when five year olds did not read, I was hauled off to the principal's office, where I was carefully examined for other obvious abnormalities. The next summer, I sat with my family to watch Neil and Buzz take their steps on the moon and before the next year was out, I can remember explaining to adults why rockets were multi-staged.

When Columbia made its first flight, I sat with a mass of other science geeks and we watched it together. Those of you who never saw a Saturn V launch can't imagine how terrifying that first shuttle flight was. Saturn rockets were an unstoppable force once the engines fired. They moved steadily and with profound dignity off the launch pad and into the sky. Shuttle launches are all together different. The shuttle's main engines fire and then take their time coming to full thrust. Then, once the main engines are at full throttle, the two solid rocket boosters are lit. Once they are at full thrust, explosive bolts fire and the whole combination of shuttle, external tank, and solid rocket boosters pops into the sky as if shot from a slingshot. The thing is, while the main engines are coming to full thrust, they're turning huge amounts of water to steam under the launch pad. The SRBs add to the steam when they fire, but the solid fuel also creates great quantities of smoke. That first launch, when the whole pad and rocket disappeared into a huge white cloud, it looked like a terrible explosion had taken place. As everyone in the room was holding their breath, out pops the shuttle, taking off toward the sky like a bat out of hell. After a moment, the entire room went completely crazy, as the whole crowd cheered and screamed and danced around like over-educated idiots.

When Columbia landed at White Sands, New Mexico in 1982, I traveled with three other technicians from the Fusion Research Center, driving overnight from Austin to catch the landing. Of course, it didn't land that day because of the worst sandstorm in the history of the region, and we had to return to Austin (or risk losing all of our jobs), so we missed the actual landing the next day.

When Challenger exploded, I was still at the University of Texas. I went home and watch replay after replay, with tears streaming down my cheeks. That day and 9/11 were probably the two most emotionally devastating in my life. I was a scientist, a physicist, and I had spent my life believing in technology. And there it was, scattered across the sky. I have read the accident review board's report and Feynmann's addendum many times since then and to this day I believe that PowerPoint killed seven people.

I've gotten up early and stayed up late and taken lunches at strange hours, all to watch the shuttle launch. I was even watching, by pure coincidence, the Challenger landing on NASA TV when it shattered into thousands of pieces across Texas. When Atlantis went up, I had the NASA feed running on my computer. Of course, my boss came in to talk just before launch and by the time I could shoo him out, I was I sure that I had missed the launch. Fortunately for me, there was a hold at T-31 seconds that lasted just long enough for me to catch the restart of the clock.

Here's the weird part: I've never liked the shuttle. It's the wrong spacecraft, built to go where no one needed to go, with capabilities that didn't contribute to science. It was built to satisfy the needs of the Air Force, who hardly used it before Columbia and never used it after. They built an entire billion-dollar launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base for the shuttle and it was never used. The wings that failed for Challenger were added for the Air Force, which had a need for what's called cross-range capability. Most things that fall from space, including spacecraft, fall in more or less a straight line. This means that you need to reenter the atmosphere at a time when you're lined up with where you want to land. The thing is, the Air Force wanted the ability to go up and either leave something up there or bring something down without anyone knowing about it. This pretty much means a once-around flight. The problem is that while you're making your orbit (in about ninety minutes), the Earth is busy spinning, so you're going to come down about fifteen hundred miles from where you took off.* Since this is rather inconvenient, the Air Force wanted the ability to "fly" the shuttle back to where it took off. In the end, the shuttle made very little use of this capability and the next result was large and fragile wings that cost huge amounts of energy to lift into orbit.

* The assumptions here are that you're launching into near-polar orbit, which is why they built the site at Vandenberg, and that your launch site is near the equator, which is not true for Vandenberg. At the latitude of Vandenberg, the cross-range need is only about 1200 statue miles, which is, remarkably enough, the exact cross-range capability of the space shuttle. In fact, one feature of every launch is the discussion of the AOA, or Abort-Once-Around. This is an option if there is a main engine failure on launch. Outside of the shuttle industry, it's not widely known that this capability is all but useless for a flight from the Kennedy Space Center. The window between a TAL (Trans-Atlantic-Abort) and an ATO (Abort-To-Orbit) is pretty much zero.

The part about being built to go where no one needs to go probably needs some explanation. After all, everyone has been talking about how we need to resupply the International Space Station now that the shuttle is no longer around to do the job. Once again, there is a story behind the story. The ISS was built to give the shuttle something to do. There is no real analogy to it except building a railroad into the middle of a desert and then deciding to build a city there, so that building the railroad seems like a good idea.

Here are the problems with a manned station in low orbit. The things that low Earth orbit (LEO) are good for tend to be things like Earth observation. Taking pictures of various types to observe clouds, oceans, and landforms or for map making. There are also some experiments like growing crystals of materials that can't mix in gravity. None of these require human intervention. In fact, having people around means that there is unexpected motion, as the people move around, as well as the need for air, heat, water, and food.

Where should people be in space? On the rocks and ice cubes all around the solar system. People are very good at pattern recognition and adaptability. While it's perfectly fine to have rovers wandering Mars (go Opportunity!), a person could cover more ground, faster. Also a trained person can spot things that look out of place. For example, from the transcript to Apollo 15:

145:41:19 Scott: Get that unusual one. (Pause) Here's some dense...And there's another unusual one; look at the little crater here, and the one that's facing us. There is a little white corner to the thing.

The unusual rock with a little white corner is the "Genesis Rock", the first piece of anorthosite to be found on the Moon. These rocks (more would be found by the Apollo 16 astronauts) date back nearly 4.5 billion years and solidified shortly after the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized planetoid hit the just-formed Earth. Developing algorithms that can spot slightly odd rocks on a field of more or less identical rocks is a difficult task. Fortunately for us, seeing something that looks out of place is a strong survival tool, so the evolutionary algorithm generator has been hard at work on this problem for a very long time.

So where should we go now that the last shuttle has launched? There are hints of a plan, if politics, greed, and stupidity don't screw it up too badly. Having commercial operations like SpaceX deliver supplies to the ISS sounds like a great idea. Let's face it, UPS and FedEx do a better job delivering packages than does the Post Office. The same will be true for crew transfers, too. Despite what some would have you believe, there is very little difference between delivering parts and people, at least on the way up. When returning to Earth, you want to be more careful with the goods when people are involved.

If there is a place for government involvement in manned space flight, it should be in the development of genuinely heavy lift rockets. These have been out of favor since Saturn, but a new rocket in that class would go a long way toward getting men and women onto the Moon.

As an old space cadet, I'll have more to say someday. I'll also put together some links where you can learn more about these topics from people who are far better qualified than I am. Until then, I say to the crew of Atlantis, best of luck and may the wind be at your back.

Flying the Dragon

SpaceX successfully launched their Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. With all due respect to Burt Rutan and the folks at Scaled Composites, this is a much more significant event, as putting a craft into orbit and successfully recovering it is a much more difficult task than a sub-orbital hop.

What is interesting to me is that the next flight is scheduled for 12 April 2011, which will be the fiftieth anniversary of the first manned flight and the thirtieth anniversary of the first flight of the space shuttle.

It's hard to believe that it's been thirty years for the shuttle. Many of my coworkers weren't even born when it first flew, yet for me it seems to be only a moment. What's even harder (and more painful) to believe is that it only took twenty years to go from Vostok 1 to Columbia, but that the last thirty years has taken us from Columbia to soon to be nothing at all.

The darkness of space is nothing more than the veil of willful ignorance. How many of today's engineers and scientists were inspired by watching those early launches? What will inspire the builders of the future?

For Elon Musk and his crew, I congratulate and thank you. In your honor, I think that I'll break open my copy of Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon.

Godspeed, Falcon.

It's a Good Time to Be a Space Cadet

As long as your horizon extends farther than manned missions, it's a pretty good time to be a fan of the space sciences. There are a number of terrific space probes out and about in the solar system (and even slightly beyond). It's truly incredible to go outside on a dark night and imagine that we've got little robots whizzing around visiting some of the neighbors.

My favorite active spacecraft are:

Opportunity and Spirit
Until NASA calls it for Spirit, I'm sticking with her. In the cosmic scheme of bang for the buck, these two little girls have definitely reset the bar. I have friends who joke that I can't go to the restroom without having an adventure, but Opportunity is the queen of the pop-up adventure. She's found so many meteoroids just lying on the surface of Mars that it seems as though someone held a galactic rock concert and she's the clean-up crew.

Dawn
Dawn is going to orbit the asteroid Vesta and then she'll wander off and orbit Ceres. How cool is that? It's moderately neato to actually visit an asteroid, but hopping between the (dwarf) planets is what the future was supposed to be about. Of course, doing it with an electric engine is so 21st Century, too.

Voyagers 1 and 2
The ultimate Energizer bunnies. The first man-made objects to leave the solar system. They're out there in the great beyond now. One neat thing about the Voyager Interstellar Mission is that they are calling home with 23-Watt radios. This is less power than a standard marine-band VHF radio.

Good News. Bad News

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter successfully entered orbit around the Red Planet this afternoon. Everything seems to be nominal at this point. We'll hear more at the press conference later this evening.

On the other hand, word on the wire is that NASA is going to change out the ECO sensor in the external tank, pushing the launch of Discovery to July at the earliest. That's for the best, as the first results from the wind tunnel testing of the reconfigured tank were not good. This could change as the complete series of tests is run, but it's better not to rush at this point. With the launch moved back, there will be plenty of time to run (and re-run, if necessary) all of the tests needed to be certain about the aerodynamics.

Blackstar

There is a must-read piece at Aviation Now. The folks at Aviation Week and Space Technology have decided to release what they know about an ultra-black two stage to orbit system that was developed in the 1980's to launch a small manned craft into orbit.

For 16 years, Aviation Week & Space Technology has investigated myriad sightings of a two-stage-to-orbit system that could place a small military spaceplane in orbit. Considerable evidence supports the existence of such a highly classified system, and top Pentagon officials have hinted that it's "out there," but iron-clad confirmation that meets AW&ST standards has remained elusive. Now facing the possibility that this innovative "Blackstar" system may have been shelved, we elected to share what we've learned about it with our readers, rather than let an intriguing technological breakthrough vanish into "black world" history, known to only a few insiders. U.S. intelligence agencies may have quietly mothballed a highly classified two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane system designed in the 1980s for reconnaissance, satellite-insertion and, possibly, weapons delivery. It could be a victim of shrinking federal budgets strained by war costs, or it may not have met performance or operational goals.

What's more, they claim that this system was operational in the 90's and has only recently been terminated, due to the high cost of the war in Iraq. It used a B-70-like mothership that was built out of pieces that had been purchased for the third (unbuilt) prototype of that Mach 3 bomber. The space capsule was derived from the X-20 Dynosoar (everyone has wondered why that technology hasn't been used for something).

What evidence exists for this program? I definitely recommend that you read the article.

Here We Go Again

There is a report today from NASASpaceflight.com that an Engine Cut-Off (ECO) sensor in the shuttle's external tank is acting up again and that sources within Lockheed Martin and NASA have indicated that it must be changed. This involves entering the tank, which would guarantee a miss on the May launch window. NASA PR people are denying that any decisions have been made.

This is a reprise of last year's launch fiasco where an erratic ECO was giving erroneous signals. NASA issued a variance of their flight rules and flew with only three of the four ECOs operating then, under the explanation that the anomoly was intermittent. Reports from the Cape indicate that it was indeed intermittent, as it would disappear when the SIM circuit was shut off and reappear when it was turned back on. Unfortunately, the purpose of the SIM circuit is to detect failures in the ECO — signals that should only appear when the SIM is on.

Anyone with any doubts as to what NASA's internal politics are like should read Dragonfly, about the American astronauts on Mir. Managers from low-level up to the director are willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the money flowing. Astronauts know that to speak up means that they'll never fly in space, so they keep their mouths shut and hope that when their turns come, nothing will fall off or explode. It is not an environment designed to elicit clear rational thought.

Make no mistake: spaceflight is a terribly dangerous activity. People will die on the way to and from the heavens. If advances are to be made it is probably the case that people should die; for if not, we are probably not pushing the envelope hard enough. What is not necessary is that people die because of bureaucratic stupidity.

One for the Visiting Teams

Yesterday, the heads of the Russian, Japanese, and European space agencies all met at NASA to announce the new IIS construction schedule. The transcript of the press conference is an interesting read. The European and Japanese science modules were all moved up in the assembly sequence. The Russians have agreed not to fly one of their power modules, instead taking power from an American module.

When Mike Griffin was asked whether any American modules would not be flown, he deferred the question, saying that the head of space operations would know better than he. This is disingenuous, as Griffin knows full well that the American habitation module, which would have provided living quarters for four astronauts, and the propulsion module, which would have given the station the ability to correct its own orbit have been cancelled, even though both have been built. The Centrifuge Accommodation Module, which was built by the Japanese to pay for their shuttle flights has been grounded as well. He knows all this because he was the one who cancelled all of these projects.

All-in-all, the partners sounded very pleased to have the schedule compressed and to have their components moved up in the schedule. There was much talk about the Americans leaving the ISS program after 2015 ("abandon in place" is NASA's unofficial motto) and the whole assembly schedule is based upon the shuttle launches matching their twenty-five year average of 4.56 flights per year.

Ad Astra Per Aspera

The Schedule is Everything

The folks at NASA are working hard to get Discovery off the ground during the May launch window. For those of you who might not be following along at home, the space shuttles are doomed to the Sisyphean task of pushing space station parts into orbit. In order to maximize the loads they carry, they must launch when the station is properly positioned. After Columbia, it was decided that at least the first two shuttle flights had to take place when both the launch and the point where the external tank is discarded is in daylight, to allow for visual and photographic inspection. This inspection is what showed that huge chunks of foam were still falling off of the tank.

After both Challenger and Columbia, NASA officials were taken to task for creating an environment where adherence to schedule trumped concerns for safety. Now, with an launch window available in May, NASA is doing it again, rather than waiting for the July window.

The external tank that will fly has just left the construction facility outside of New Orleans, having been rushed out a week ahead of schedule. Even still, the normal preflight foam inspections and repairs will eat up every day of contingency time in the schedule. At the same time, leaking helium seals have been replaced in two of Discovery's engines. Unfortunately, three of the four seals don't meet specifications, despite being hand-picked as the best available in the inventory. There are also metal shavings that have been detected in a filter screen in the oxygen line of one engine. More have been found in one of Endeavour's engines. NASA has no idea of where this metal came from or what it's made of.

Even with all of these problems, the shuttle program manager remains very optimistic that there will be three shuttle flights this year. The launch director, Mike Leinbach, has said, "What we've done this time is, we've put together a schedule that has no contingency in it. Some people could call that an aggressive schedule. I like to call it an exciting schedule. It has a reasonable chance of success. If we run into a significant technical issue, we don't have much time to resolve it, obviously. But barring the big 'gotcha' in the processing, we feel pretty good about making that schedule."

There is a reason for all of this haste. Many of the remaining components of the space station have been built and have been sitting for years awaiting launch. For various technical reasons, these parts are reaching the end of their viable storage lives. If they are not put into service soon, they will require extensive (and expensive) refurbishing to replace seals, batteries, and other items. So, just as happened before Challenger and Columbia, NASA has become schedule-driven to meet arbitrary dates. It will be interesting to find out how many variances of the Flight Rules will be needed to get Discovery into the air in time for two more launches this year.

It's Rocket Science

NASA has just released their FY2007 budget request and it shifts 4.63 billion dollars out of the space science budget between now and 2010. Where is this money going? You might think that it's supposed to pay for the work that's needed to put men back on the Moon and for the first landing on Mars, but you'd be wrong. Exploration Systems, which NASA says, "develops and demonstrates new
technologies that will enable NASA to conduct future human and robotic exploration missions, including the development of robotic precursor missions for lunar exploration" is losing $1.51 billion over the same time frame and Human Systems, which according to NASA: "advance knowledge and technology critical for supporting long-term human survival and performance during operations beyond low-Earth orbit,with a focus on improving medical care and human health maintenance", is getting whacked for $2.41 billion. That's an $8.55 billion decrease in the science budget.

Of this, $2.95 billion is going to pay for additional space shuttle missions, the destination of each being the International Space Station. You may remember the ISS, which was widely promoted by NASA hacks as being the greatest scientific tool since the invention of the microscope. If you do remember it, it's almost certainly not for the science, as it hasn't generated enough data to provide source material for a single decent dissertation.

Another $1.23 billion is earmarked for a new program called the Innovative Partnerships Program. This is a handout to private industry and a handful of national laboratories. NASA makes a big deal of talking about the Small Business Initiative for Research, which earmarks some of this money for small companies. They don't mention that the SBIR program accounts for only 2.5% of this spending. They also trumpet their Enterprise Engine which is a venture capital fund to sponsor "youngyoung, privately-held companies developing innovative, multi-use technologies that will meet NASA's future mission needs, as well as better position these technologies for future commercial use." This fund accounts for all of 1.0% of the IPP.

The rest of the windfall, some $6.8 billion including additional funds, is going to down the hole to create the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV), and the Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLLV), about which more will be said in the near future.