Scientists and engineers involved with the Galileo mission to Jupiter breathed a sign of relief this week when officials announced that the spacecraft's tape recorder passed a test, alleviating fears that the recorder had failed and placed the mission in jeopardy.
"A test of the tape recorder aboard the Galileo spacecraft conducted Friday, October 20, was successful...On command, the tape recorder moved and read its tape in a normal manner," the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced in a press release October 21.
In the test, the spacecraft was commanded to read a 10-second section of the tape. The recorder performed this task without incident.
The status of the tape recorder had been a concern since October 11. After taking three images of Jupiter and recording the data on tape, mission controllers ordered the spacecraft to rewind the recorder for later playback. Telemetry from Galileo showed that the recorder continued to rewind after the end of the tape was reached.
Mission controllers placed the tape recorder in standby mode while engineers studied the problem. Two possibilities emerged: either a hardware failure occurred, in which case the tape recorder was likely irreparably damaged; or a software error had been found, in which case the error may have been recoverable.
Although the recorder worked in the October 20 test, the cause for the initial error is still unclear. JPL officials report the tape recorder can be unreliable in some operating conditions, but the problems should not jeopardize the return of data.
Controllers are taking some additional precautions with the tape recorder. On October 24, the spacecraft was ordered to wind its tape an extra 25 times around a section of tape that may have been weakened by the recorder anomaly. This will secure that section of the tape from any stresses that might snap the tape. That section of the tape will not be used for data recording, reducing storage capacity on the tape by about 10 percent.
Also, mission planners have made a change in the mission plan that will emphasize recording data from the spacecraftÕs entry probe. Controllers have cancelled plans to record images of Europa and Io on December 7, as Galileo arrives at Jupiter and the probe enters JupiterÕs atmosphere. The change reserves all the tape recorder space for probe data.
"Our priorities are clear," said project manager William J. O'Neil. "We have to get all the probe data."
The tape recorder became a vital part of the mission when the high-gain antenna failed to open in 1991. Since Galileo can take data faster than it can send it to Earth using its low-gain antenna, the tape recorder is necessary to save data for later transmission to Earth.
The tape recorder has already seen significant use. In 1991 Galileo flew by the asteroid 951 Gaspra, the first close encounter with a main-belt asteroid. Two years later Galileo flew by another asteroid, 243 Ida. Images of Ida stored on tape and later transmitted to Earth revealed the existence of a small moon of Ida, later named Dactyl. Dactyl is the first moon known to orbit an asteroid.
In 1994, Galileo provided a unique vantage point for observations of the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) with Jupiter. Galileo was the only observer able to directly see the impacts as they occurred: Earth-based observers has to wait until impact plumes appeared above the limb of the planet or the impact sites rotated into view, up to a half-hour after each impact. Data recorded on tape and transmitted back to Earth in 1994 and early 1995 provided information on the size and brightness of the impacts.
During Galileo's two-year mission in orbit around Jupiter, the spacecraft will take 2,000 images of the planet and its moons. This number of images is far smaller than planned with a working high-gain antenna, however, the images will be of a much higher quality than Voyager and Hubble Space Telescope images of the planet and its moons.
If the tape recorder had failed, only 150-300 high-resolution images could have been returned, according to project scientist Torrance Johnson. Those images would have been stored in the spacecraft's memory, transmitted to Earth, then erased to clear the memory for another image.
The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed authorization bills for NASA's fiscal year 1996 budget in October, each cutting NASA's budget from 1995 but funding different programs.
The House bill, part of an omnibus civilian science bill, authorized $13.7 billion for NASA for 1996. The Senate bill authorized $13.8 billion for NASA. Both figures represent about a 3 percent drop from 1995 funding levels.
Both the House and Senate approved full funding for the international space station program, but differed in other areas. The Senate version approved $48.7 million for SOFIA, an airborne observatory, and $15 million for SIRTF, an orbiting infrared observatory. The House version specifically denied SIRTF any funding, but provided Gravity Probe B, a spacecraft to test general relativity, with $51.5 million. Both versions gave $30 million to the New Millennium program.
The differences between the House and Senate versions will be worked out in a conference committee.
Astronaut Wendy Lawrence, who was to begin a year of training in Russia as a backup for a future mission aboard the Russian space station Mir, has been removed because she does not meet height requirements.
Lawrence becomes the second astronaut in October to be reassigned from Mir training due to height requirements. Earlier in the month, Scott Parazynski, who had already been training in Russia as a backup for a 1996 Mir mission, returned to the U.S. after Russian officials determined that he was two centimeters too tall to fit into a Soyuz capsule safely.
NASA officials decided Lawrence would not meet the minimum height requirements for the Soyuz capsule. Both astronauts are now eligible for assignment to normal shuttle missions.
Although American astronauts who spend time on Mir will use the shuttle to go to and return from the space station, they must still be able to fit into a Soyuz capsule in case an emergency requires the station crew to evacuate using a capsule attached to the station.
The maiden launch of the Conestoga booster failed October 23 when the rocket exploded 45 seconds after launch from Wallops Island, Virginia.
Officials from EER Systems, Inc., makers of Conestoga, were unable to identify the cause of the explosion. According to one company official, EER, NASA, and the Department of Transportation were conducting an investigation, which may last a week or more.
The 200-ton, 16.7-m (55-foot) high rocket had been scheduled to launch in August, but the launch had been aborted due to a problem with an engine.
The $14 million rocket was purchased by NASA to carry 14 scientific experiments, for NASA and private companies, into orbit. The experiments included projects on zero-g plant growth, cancer research, and the effect of low temperatures on commercial heaters.
At a ceremony Monday morning (October 30), astronomers and Planetary Society officials inaugurated the latest, most extensive search for signals for extraterrestrial intelligence.
With the flip of a switch, The Planetary Society started BETA, the Billion Channel Extraterrestrial Assay. Using the radio telescope at the Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, Massachusetts, scientists will scan the heavens in search for signals that may have been created by other intelligences.
The project gets its name from its ability to look at a billion channels, or small regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, at the same time. Powerful computers will process the signals in real time to identify any unusual signals for further analysis.
Attending the ceremonies Monday were Louid Friedman, executive director of The Planetary Society; Paul Horowitz, director of project BETA and a professor at Harvard University, and SETI pioneer Frank Drake.
Columbia astronauts took time off from microgravity reseach Wednesday to take a unique part in the national pastime. With his crew at his side, mission commander Kenneth Bowersox tossed the ceremonial first pitch for Game Five of the World Series. The pitch was taped and rebroadcast the next night at the site of the game, Jacobs Field in Cleveland, and for the national television audience... Brazil and the Ukraine are working on a space technology accord. The Ukraine would provide Brazil with advanced rocket technology for its growing space program, and Brazil would open a site for test launches near the equator. Leaders of the two countries discussed the accord at a summit meeting in Brasilia last week... Officials called the launch of a NASA sounding rocket in Australia a success last week. The Black Brant IX rocket was launched October 25 from the range in Woomera, South Australia. The rocket carried an x-ray camera for astronomical observations of a "superbubble" of hot gas called Loop-1.
As far as this writer is concerned, the single most important issue concerning the future of the human race is the future of space exploration. If you're reading this article in SpaceViews, you at least consider the future of space exploration an important issue. As important to the future of the human race as space exploration is, positive support for space exploration and development should be the ultimate non-partisan issue.
In politics, space is a non-issue. As a rule, candidates issue no statements at all on the future and space. The New York Daily News cover of March 4, 1995 read, "STAR TREK: THE NEWT GENERATION; Gingrich's bizarre call to colonize space." The coverage inside was even worse. "Perhaps he [Speaker Newt] should be reincarnated as Captain Video. This is okay for a TV special on unidentified flying objects but for a serious policymaker it is not harmless." Think of it. Your views on space are dangerous. If you were wondering about why candidates don't issue statements on the future and space, this type of coverage could be a major contributing factor.
At the rate we're going and the direction society is heading, technological society will collapse long before self-sufficient space colonies are established. Since this result spells doom and extinction of the human race, we ought do something about it. Something different from what we have been doing. We've been talking to ourselves for years; no one else is listening. This is what must change.
Letters to congresscritters are good; we all have written them. They are not enough. Are you actively involved in your local political committees? If you're not in the military or not covered by the Hatch act, you should be. All political action starts at the local level. All of it. This is why the radical right and equally radical left control the platforms of the two major parties. Ideologues get actively involved in politics routinely. Input for the rest of the populace consists of voting, for those that bother. If you and other like minded people don't get actively involved in the political process politicians won't give a hoot what you think. (This idea of involvement has seen print from Marianne Dyson and Theresa Holmes; I'm echoing it. It deserves repeating.
But, if space is so important to the future, why can't we simply write our congresscritters and tell them so? After all, the arguments for space are compelling and straightforward, aren't they? Only to us. I'm going to be extremely critical of Congress here. In general, the Congress of the United States is made of technologically illiterate people. The majority of both houses in the last Congress were lawyers. If not a majority in the current Congress, they're certainly the largest portion. Lawyers generally know law really well, and little of anything else. (My apologies to Jeff Liss, a sterling exception.) They tend to be interested much more in process then results. They also demand perfection as the end result of any process they are not involved in, therefore placing much more faith in science and engineering than scientists and engineers. Congresscritters with a law background have moved a little past the majority of their fellow attorneys; they have learned to care about public opinion, as the rest of their congressional colleagues do.
Of the rest without law degrees, from the biographies in the reference works I had, not one had a degree in engineering or a hard science. While not all people with liberal arts degrees are technically ignorant, a very small percentage understand technical arguments, especially when numbers and math of any kind are thrown in. Almost all pro-space arguments, even the philosophical ones, are based on numbers. Most congresscritters really don't believe in numbers of any kind, for they are all used to lies, damn lies, and statistics.
So, while our letters to Congress don't hurt, they are few enough to have no real influence on long term space plans. (Though targeted letter blitzes have achieved some remarkable short term accomplishments.) So, what do we do? Get personally and politically involved, even if the idea is distasteful to you. Personal political involvement is essential to promote our radical pro-space agenda.
What else? A neglected area of communication is the old fashioned letter to the editor. In this one public arena it is not necessary to be well known or influential to be published and heard. I've personally had two pro-space letters published (and several more on other subjects) over the last several years. How many have you even sent? Use any excuse to send one. Any excuse. If they ask the man in the street, "Where should we save money?" and one of them answers, "Cut space spending for it is wasteful," send a letter. If they run an article on rocks from space threatening the Earth, send a letter explaining how space colonies could divert the threat. If Spaceweek is coming up, the anniversary of the first Apollo landing, the last Apollo landing, or any other occasion, or just because you're irritated one day, send a letter to the editor. If you get an alumni magazine from your alma mater, write a pro-space article for them. If you get a newsletter from your chess or garden or butterfly collecting club, put a pro-space article in the newsletter. Get active writing letters, using any avenue of publication. Maybe your fellow lepidopterists need only a nudge to become pro-space, to promote our radical pro-space agenda.
Another thing that readers of SpaceViews can do is demand pro-space publicity actions from leaders of the space movement. If I called a press conference, no one would come. If John Denver, on the NSS Board of Governors, called a press conference to make an important announcement, some reporters would show up. If he then spent thirty minutes explaining the need for developing the X-33 now with increased funding in order to preserve the future for our children and grandchildren, it would create a splash in the media. If Majel Barrett Roddenberry (who has done a LOT for the pro-space movement, and NSS in particular) were to arrange a guest spot on Jay Leno, then talk about the reality of our future in space compared to the Star Trek vision, and call for a real space development program, millions would see it. There are literally hundreds of local radio talk hosts throughout the nation who would love to host an astronaut live. Ad Astra lists a bunch of astronauts on the Board of Directors and Board of Governors. I have never heard an astronaut in a public forum press home any kind of powerful and specific pro-space argument. Why not? If any of them want to start soon, they can send me email, and arrangements will be swiftly made for them to talk live on an afternoon drivetime talk show in the Albany, NY area. Astronauts are true American heroes. Those that have chosen to become leaders in the pro-space movement need to use that hero status to present pro-space arguments in public forums. Our pro-space astronauts don't need me to appear on talk shows. They themselves could arrange for appearances on national radio talk shows, Larry King, Leno, or Letterman, simply by calling the producers. There are advantages to being a hero.
The next presidential elections are in 1996. A concerted effort could make space an issue prior to the election. Us not-well-known grassroots activists could work from the bottom. Our leaders, the ones that could call the media and have them come running, could work from the top. If we start now, even if we all run off in different directions initially, we can make a difference.
[Editor's Note: These comments are based on an article titled "Arguments for Space: Space Travel or Extinction", from the October issue of SpaceViews .]
I am in essential agreement with the "do or die" conclusions reached by Harold Hamblet in his article in the Oct. 95 SpaceViews with regards to the *necessity* (and not mere desirability) of human expansion into space. I've thought about the issue for some time but this is the first time I've seen in print (cyber or otherwise) a piece expressing the magnitude and immediacy of the problem with the degree that I also feel is justified.
The only place I differ is with the inevitability of human extinction after the collapse of civilization. I think we are a rather resilient species (like cockroaches?!) and that after such a conflagration a small fraction of humanity will likely survive, existing as hunter/gatherers and maybe regaining (eventually) an agrarian pre-industrial society.
However, if we fail to become a space-fairing civilization before the coming collapse (i.e., soon) then HUMANITY WILL REMAIN EARTH-BOUND *FOREVER*.
I'm not too familiar with Drake's Equation or the Fermi Paradox that Mr. Hamblet uses, but I think an earthly argument is also sufficient to reach similar conclusions. In a nutshell: OUR CIVILIZATION HAS ALREADY EATEN THE "SEED CORN" FROM WHICH THE NEXT CIVILIZATION CAN SPRING.
The track record for human civilizations is lousy; they have all collapsed eventually. The fact that ours has become global in scope makes our stance all the more precarious; we have no elbow room, no fallback position. In the past, when civilizations fell they did so without totally devastating and depleting their world. It was possible for new civilizations to arise elsewhere or even in the same place. The potential triggers for our collapse are, unfortunately, many and varied (the chance of nuclear holocaust has diminished in recent years, but we still have MTV). And, our world-wide interdependencies have become so pervasive that the collapse, when triggered, would be swift and nearly complete.
Imagine a future, perhaps centuries or millenia after such a collapse, when humanity is getting itself back on its feet; there is a renaissance in science, art and exploration. People again use their developing understanding of the world to improve their lives and use "new" sciences, such as geology, to guide them to the resources they need for this. But wherever the geologists have them look for oil and ore, all they find is depleted rubble. Rubble and the crushed, empty beer cans of their ancestors.
Kilroy was here.
Our early industrial age (dirty as it was) became the dynamic force it was in large part due to the easy availability of energy and resources. The gushers are gone now and we must use increasing levels of technology to garner resources from poorer sources in ever more remote and inhospitible places. We are therefore imposing an ever-expanding "BAND GAP" that any future society must cross on the road to becoming a technological and, eventually, space-faring civilization.
Could a pre-industrial agrarian society jump to our world of remote sensing and high-tech resource extraction processes without all the steps in between? Conceivable (I suppose) but not too likely; some evolution needs to go with the revolution. Much more likely is that their industrial revolution would be nipped in the bud and they continue as a pre-industrial agrarian society.
All this begs the question of whether a technological civilization is better to live in than a non-technological one, but that is the subject of another discussion.
Also begging the question is what "space-faring" will do to avert the collapse, but this has also been much discussed. Everything from being humanity's insurance policy (if the collapse happens anyway), to providing sources of new resources from near-Earth asteroids and comets, to allowing the re-greening of Earth by shifting polluting industry off-planet, to just for the frontier of it.
What has not been much discussed, and is the major point in Harold Hamblet's article I wanted to reinforce, is the *immediacy* of the need to develop a self-sustaining expansion into space. I can't say how much leeway we have in this, but it is not something we can wait with until "things get a little better". We stand on the threshold of space not only for our immediate future, but for the entire future.
[Editor's Note: From Moon Miners' Manifesto #89]
It has become all too customary for complacent, uninventive space advocates to make a big ado about every 5th Apollo 11 Moon Landing anniversary and totally ignore the educative potential of commemorating the major anniversaries of any of the other Apollo missions. Thanks to Jim Lovell's recent book, "Lost Moon", and to Ron Howard's well-received movie dramatization of the "Apollo 13" mission, we begin to suspect we may have been overlooking other opportunities that the inexorable march of time presents.
Not all the Apollo Missions seem individually remarkable or memorable, even though each in turn expanded the envelope of our operations on the Moon. Apollo 12 and Apollo 14 served as public sleeping pills. The steps each took beyond its predecessor mission were not sufficiently dramatic to maintain public interest. Granted, that's a hard order to fill.
Apollo 15 introduced the moonbuggy rover and at least some of the dozing public woke up briefly to take note. The 25th anniversary of Apollo 15 occurs in July '96 in Spaceweek. What a splendid opportunity, if we were to begin now, to celebrate the anniversary with Design Competitions for new lunar rovers, making major advances over past achievement: pressurized cabins, capacity to operate at night, multi-day excursions, "amphibious" duty as spacecraft cabin (the "frog" concept), etc. If not a design competition, then a series of workshops with publicized results. It's definitely an opportunity to bring up the topic of going beyond Apollo.
Apollo 17 was our curtain fall effort on the Moon, and the liftoff from the Moon marked the beginning of our long retreat - December '97 marks the 25th anniversary of this triumph-become-tragedy, this seizure of defeat from the jaws of victory. We could mark it with a series of workshops on an orderly envelope-busting return to the Moon in which we first set up an outpost that can be repeatedly reoccupied, then demonstrate a capacity to remain "overnight " - all month long, then demonstrate the ability to use local resources to make products that will allow us to expand our operations with less reliance on supplies from Earth and at reduced costs.
We propose a major effort at ISDC '97 - Orlando to organize this do-something celebration with follow ups at ISDC '98 - Milwaukee. Yet, building our return foundations "on the sand" of public interest is risky business and we must do it as a secondary support strategy only.
Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets:
The Search for the Million Megaton Meance That Threatens Life on Earth
by Duncan Steel
308pp, B/W photos and illus.
John Wiley and Sons, 1995
ISBN 0-471-30824-2
Events in recent years have made many people acutely aware of the small but significant threat asteroids and comets pose to the Earth. From the discovery of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan that may be evidence of a dinosaur-killing impact 65 million years ago to last year's collision between Jupiter and comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, it is clear that small bodies in the solar system have collided with the Earth and other planets, often with devistating results. Despite the sensational-sounding title Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets, Australian astronomer Duncan Steel provides an accurate and readable account of the threats and consequences of cosmic impacts.
Part of the problem determining the threat asteroids and comets pose to the Earth is the small percentage of Earth-crossing asteroids that have been cataloged. To date, approximately 160 Earth-crossing asteroids have been discovered, half of which are more than 1 km in diameter. However, estimates based on statistics and power laws show that there may be 2000 Earth-crossers 1 km across or larger. This lack of knowledge about our celestial neighbors could be very dangerous.
With the statistics of Earth-crossing asteroids determined, Steel then addresses the probabilities of impacts and their effects. A typical 1-km body strikes the Earth, on average, every 100,000 years, releasing the equivalent of 100,000 megatons of TNT. Such an impact could kill up to half the world's population According to Steel, this means the odds of dying due to an asteroid or comet impact is 1 in 10,000: while the impacts are rare, their effects are catastrophic. By comparison, the odds of dying in an airplane accident are 1 in 20,000.
After Steel discusses the effects impacts have had on the Earth (inclduing an offbeat but interesting discussion on how meteor showers and impacts may have influenced the construction of Stonehenge and the Pyramids), he discusses efforts to look for Earth-crossing bodies, including Spacewatch and the planned (but not funded) Spaceguard project. Also discussed, although not in great detail, are methods to deflect bodies on a collision course, and whether it's wise to develop such a defense, knowing that it could be used by people to deflect asteroids *onto* collision courses with the Earth.
Rogue Asteroids and Doomdsay Comets paints an accurate picture of the current state of knowledge about the threat asteroids and comet impacts play. The book is written for the layman, but even people with backgrounds in astronomy will still find the book useful.
In preparation for our Constitutional Convention on Space Interdependence Day, 2000, we would like to submit several documents for consideration by delegates assembled from around the world... Our plan is to have the preliminary drafts result over the next five years as an outcome of our Global Space Essay Contest. The first such document is entitled A Declaration of Space Interdependence. Entries will be evaluated by a panel of judges selected from USIS' Council of Regents, chaired by Dr. George S. Robinson, associate general counsel of the Smithsonian Institution. The winning manuscript and those of five runners-up will then form the basis of a revised Declaration prepared by the Board and Regents of the United Societies in Space, Inc., co-sponsor of the contest with the World Bar Association.
The product may be submitted by an individual or team from any nation. However, attorneys, professors, law and social science students and particularly encouraged to participate in this undertaking. Space scholars and activists are urged to convene working sessions to discuss the contents (e.g., a chapter meeting of the National Space Society or a symposium of the International Institute of Space Law). Obviously, the United States' Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights provide models for consideration. The many published books on astro or space law availabale in libraries will also offer background information on this subject. in researching this theme, we suggest review of two related books - Envoys of Mankind (Washington, DC: Smithsonian institution Press, 1986) by G. S. Robinson and H. M. White - it contains a "Preamble: The Spacekind Declaration of Interdependence"... Living and Working in SPace by P. R. Harris (Chichester, UK: Ellis Horword/Praxis, 1992: John Wiley & Sons, USA distributor) - refer to Chapter I, "Towards a Space Ethos and Synergy" and Appendix A "Declaration of First Principles of Outer Space Societies." Back issues of our journal, Space Governance, may also be ordered from USIS' headquarters; they contain helpful articles for entrants.
The Prize: The first-place winner of this Global Space Contest, whether an individual or team, will receive an award purse of $2,000. The amount is symbolic of Year 2000, the turn of the century when our Constiutional Convention for a space metanation will be convened... There will also be five Honorable Mentions. All six finalists will also be presented with a special plaque form the contest sponsors, the World Bar Association and United Socities in Space... Publication of the winning manuscript is assured in our journal, Space Governance; excerpts from the Honorable Mention submissions will be considered for possible publication. All six mansucripts become the property of the contest sponsors whose Board members and Regents will utilize as input for a revised document draft to be presented to delegates of Constitutional Convention 2000.
Send your essay to United Societies in Space, Inc., in the following format:
a) The front page should contain: the essay's title and author's name, address, telephone and fax numbers. It should include this statement with the author's signature(s): "If this essay is among the six winning finalists of Global Space Essay Contest for 1996, the author(s) assign the sponsors, United Socities in Space, Inc., the copyrights for publication and documentation purposes."
b) Use 8 1/2" by 11" paper with 1 1/2 inch margins. Double-space the text. While international participation is expected, the contents must be in the English language.
c) Limit the essay to 3,000 words or less. Exhibits are encouraged and are excluded from the word limitation.
d) Include a short biography or resume of yourself with the essay.
2. Bibliographies and references can be obtained from our office.
3. No entry fee is required.
4. Deadline for receipt of submissions is December 31, 1996. The winner will be announced on Law Day, May 1, 1997. The content awards will be made in conjunction with a banquet celebrating Space interdependence Day on July 20, 1997.
Send submissions to:
United Socities in Space, Inc.
Attn: Essay Content Entry
6841 South Yosemite, #3-C
Englewood, CO 80112 USA
SETIQuest Magazine Volume 1, Number 4 is now available. SETIQuest is the publication of SETI and bioastronomy research. Subscription information follows.
Issue 4 contains the following articles:
SETIQuest Vol. 1, No. 1 is available for FREE by sending your postal address to the following net address: sqinqnet@pixelacres.mv.com. It contains subscription information.
Or write to the following:
SETIQuest Magazine
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Tel: 603-924-9631
Fax: 603-924-7408
Our October lecture was given by our own vice president, Bill Corker, reviewing an x-ray sensor project he supervised in the mid-1960's for an early Apollo mission. Bill subtitled his talk "A Study on How a Development Program Can Go Wrong." I also found it to be a testament to creativity and perserverance in the face of shallow preparation by NASA and internal management problems -- things haven't changed much in 30 years, have they?
NASA approved a sensor project to go up on a pre-moon Apollo mission to identify and map the sources of unexpected 'soft' x- rays outside the Earth's atmosphere. In 1965, the Cambridge firm American Science and Engineering (AS&E) won the contract to build an x-ray sensor and a young Bill Corker was given the design and fabrication responsibilities.
The sensor was to be mounted "between the command module heat shield and the upper deck of the service module". In addition to fitting in this small space (less than 16 square inches), the sensor (collimator) had to scan to 1.0 arc minute, weigh less than 30 pounds and survive "severe random vibration during launch."
Bill worked on the design to finally arrive at the 1.0 arc minute scan and keep the weight under limit. Outfitted with an aspect-sensor (starmapper) to identify where the sensor picked up the x-ray radiation, the Apollo pilot could rotate the craft on its axis to focus the scan. Bill showed multiple overheads of hand-drawn mechanical specifications of the design. (Hand-drawn??? It's been a long time since we seen that kind of graphics!)
An underweight-limit design on the drawing board doesn't always materialize that way. The contractor to create the casing for the collimator had difficulty producing the minute thickness required for the sensors themselves. After redesign, the contractor finally got a good mold out. However, AS&E soon discovered they were 20 lbs. overweight.
Bill decided on a lightweight magnesium for the casing, but only a Canadian company could cast with this metal. More delays ensued as special permission had to be gained to use a non-American firm to perform Apollo mission work. The firm took several pourings to finally get it right.
Meanwhile, the NASA project scientist reported that the collimator would require shielding because any external signal would be masked by the gamma rays generated by highly radioactive cobalt 60 being used to measure nearby fuel reserves. NASA finally agreed that additional shielding was required and approved a tungsten shield design. Because this dense metal (18.8 grams/cc vs 11.3 for lead) would have to be milled in a single piece, a 200 lb. block of tungsten (from China - yes, more approvals) was ordered at a cost of $15-20,000 to make the shield structure. Yes, 200 pounds of shielding for a 30 pound sensor. Some cost was recouped as the milling contractor bought scrap tungsten... at $.50/lb.
To determine the potential effects of the radiation, several radiation tests were done at AS&E which presented challenges as well - not the least of which was a temporary worker moving radioactive sources around the test room without even an radiation badge on his labcoat. Bill ordered him the badge. More about this story later!
Bill and his manager had to take the sensor to North American Aerospace (NAA) to meet with NASA and make sure it would fit on the Apollo mock-up model, only to find a unionized shop that required one of their staff to carry any equipment into the building. It would take two days to schedule this, even though the meeting was about to start. Bill and his manager snuck in the back door.
At this meeting, they were informed that the bulkhead had proved to be much more compliant than originally thought and the increased random vibration (by a factor of ten) would destroy the collimator. Vibration absorbers were added, for an additional 60 lbs. Total weight - 300 lbs.
In addition to changing external requirements, AS&E management presented challenges of its own. Bill's department head made design recommendations that ignored NASA specifications and often ended up on the draftsman's table without Bill's knowledge. Bill felt a diagnosis of supervisory insanity was verified when that department head wanted to "mount the sensor's connectors to the deck of the service module" itself.
At the end of 1965, Bill left the company of AS&E to pursue a girl and a master's degree full time. Work on the sensor struggled on until an Apollo practice launch caught fire and killed three astronauts. NAA and NASA had to completely redesign the command module and no accommodation was made for the x-ray sensor experiment. The sensor was never used as better sensors were ready before the collimator could be redeisgned and rebuilt.
At least Bill got the girl and the degree. He went on to work on the sun sensor on the Skylab project.
Now for a fun side note: One of our audience read our meeting announcement in the Boston Globe and decided to come to the lecture. Norman Humer had worked at AS&E for a short time, on the x-ray sensor project, and wanted to know whatever had happened to it. By the end of the meeting, he found out the project's fate, and heard himself described in Bill's lecture. It turned out that Norman was the temporary worker for whom Bill had ordered the radiation badge - thirty years ago.
One of the most important applications of space satellite technology is remote sensing satellites. A virtual armada of orbiting platforms are used to regularly observe the weather, map our planet's natural resources, and monitor the health of crops and our environment. While the remote sensing programs in the United States and Europe are well known to most of us in the West, Russia also possesses a very capable fleet of remote sensing platforms whose data are now being marketed throughout the world. Local space historian and writer Andrew LePage presents an overview of the history of Russia's unmanned remote sensing programs, the types of images and other data they obtain, and Russia's plans for future programs that will compete directly with programs in the West.
Bruce Mattson, the Flight Director at the Challenger Learning Center at Framingham State College, will give a presentation. More information on the subject of his presentation will be provided in a future issue of SpaceViews.
David Kang, who has developed the "MITy" miniature autonomous rovers, will discuss and (logistics permitting) provide demonstrations of current work in robotics will applications to space exploration. Note the new date: the meeting was originally scheduled for January 4.
The C.I.S. manned space station Mir with Mir-20 (call sign 'Uran') Cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko, Sergei Avdeyev and Thomas (DF4TR / DP0MIR) Reiter will be appearing in the midwest evening skies October 15th to November 6th, 1995 and returning to the morning skies November 19th to December 6th.
Amateur radio operators can log into the Mir 'Packet' (R0MIR-1) BBS on 145.550MHz simplex or 435.775MHz uplink / 437.775 downlink MHz. The cosmonauts also use the frequencies 145.200MHz, up and 145.800MHz down or 435.725MHz Up/437.925MHz down or 145.550Mhz simplex to talk with amateur radio operators on the ground during their off-hours.
For exact times and locations to see the space station over your
backyard call MN MIRWATCH Coordinator Ben Huset at (612) 639-9109. Look for
MIRWATCH and other great space stuff on my web page at
http://www.skypoint.com/members/benhuset/
"Greetings from 400 km above the earth. It is hard to find words for this incredible view. I mean - it's like .... it's indescribable. We are in the moment over the ocean. The view is magnificent. The station is oriented now perpendicular to the earth's surface.
The first EVA of an ESA Astronaut falls together nicely with the Ministerial Conference. It is an excellent sign for the future and I really hope, in the middle of Earth and Sky, that there are lots of European Astronauts to follow to make a way to our participation in the international Space Station Program.
Many greetings from here."
--- Thomas Reiter after leaving the MIR Station for his first Space Walk on Friday October 20th, 1995 (flight day 48).
Though not a first for Europe, this was the first space sortie by an ESA astronaut (Jean-Loup Chretien of the French national space agency, CNES, had already taken a spacewalk outside Mir, back in 1988).
The two "Space Walkers" Sergei Avdeev and Thomas Reiter exited the station through the airlock hatch in the KVANT-2 module at 12:55 CET. Thomas was almost overwhelmed by the impression of the free space. He said a few sentences in English to document this remarkable event. The two crew members then moved over to SPEKTR module of the station, where the ESEF facility is located. Four experiment cassettes were installed on the facility and tested before the two workers left the site to "walk" to a site with Russian experiments, where they had to exchange some experiment cassettes. Sergei had a small video camcorder mounted to his belly which took breath-taking pictures, played back to us after they had returned to the interior of the station at 18:06 CET. The crew was always ahead of their schedule and while rest periods had been planned for them during the shadow phases (which occur once on every orbit) they worked and acted almost all the time - the full moon gave them enough light to see.
Asked how they felt by ground personnel after they had returned, they replied they felt just fine - the only one that's tired would be Yuri (the crew commander Yuri Gidzhenko who remained inside the station) who was chasing around in the station to support them.
The crew is in a very good mood and excellent condition and looking forward to "meet" their families on Saturday and of course will need their "free" weekend.
Thomas was a "guest" in the ministerial conference in Toulouse France, deciding about the future of Europe's manned space flight involvement in Space Station Alpha. He addressed the Ministers and spoke with them and a press team. The conference has decided to participate in the Space Station program - as you most likely have already got from the media. Needless to say, that we are all very happy about that.
SPIN CONTROL: Recent production delays at the booster plant that builds the Soyuz rockets have forced the launch delay of the Mir-21 crew and nobody wants to pay the over time work required to meet the original launch date of January 16, 1996, yet nobody wants to say that. The European space agency (ESA) released this statement:
ESA Astronaut Thomas Reiter, on board the space station MIR since 5 September 1995 for ESA's EUROMIR 95 mission, might have his record breaking stay of 135 days extended by another 44 days. ESA and Russia are currently negotiating this extension which would serve the interest of both partners. For Russia, it would optimize the use of onboard resources, while it would enable ESA at the same time to intensify and enlarge the scientific program of EUROMIR 95. A final decision about the extension is expected for the end of this month. (October)
Plans continue for the launch of STS-74 to Mir on November 11th, 1995 at 10:25 CST. Major objectives include docking with the Mir space station and delivery of a Russian docking module and 2 solar arrays.
Columbia was launched at 1353 UTC on Oct 20 on the STS-73 mission. RSRM-50 SRB separation came at 1355:04, with main engine cutoff around 1401:30 and external tank ET-73 separating shortly afterwards. This left orbiter 102 in an elliptical transfer orbit, with firing of the OMS engines due around 1435 UTC. The OMS-2 burn was successful and left Columbia in a 90.0 min, 267 x 278 km x 39.0 deg orbit. The US Microgravity Lab 2 mission uses a Spacelab laboratory module in the cargo bay and an Extended Duration Orbiter pallet in the rear of the bay. Columbia is scheduled to land on Nov 5 after a flight lasting 15 days 22 hours.
Astronauts Thomas Reiter and Sergey Avdeev carried out a 5h 11m spacewalk on Oct 20 from 1155 to 1706 UTC (hatch open to hatch close). They used the airlock on the Kvant-2 module. Reiter was transferred to the end of the Spektr module using the Strela crane and installed experiments on the Spektr science platform.
An Ariane 42L was successfully launched into geostationary transfer orbit on Oct 19. It delivered to orbit the Astra 1E satellite, a Hughes HS-601 comsat which will provide television broadcasting services for the Luxembourg-registered company SES (Societe Europeene des Satellites). On Oct 19 Astra 1E was in a 504 x 35845 km x 4.2 deg transfer orbit with a period of 638.13 min.
The US Navy UHF F6 communications satellite, also an HS-601 model, was launched on Oct 22 by a Lockheed Martin Atlas II from Cape Canaveral.
On Oct 18 Luch-1 was drifting at 1.3deg W per day over 82.1 deg E.
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Sep 3 0900 Soyuz TM-22 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 47A
Sep 7 1509 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 48A
Sep 8 1543 Spartan-201 OV-105, LEO Astronomy 48B
Sep 11 1125 WSF 2 OV-105, LEO Micrograv. 48C
Sep 24 0006 Telstar 402R Ariane 4 Kourou ELA2 Comsat 49A
Sep 26 1120 Resurs-F Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43-4 Rem.sensing 50A
Sep 29 0425 Kosmos-2320 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC31 Recon 51A
Oct 6 0323 Kosmos-2321 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 52A
Oct 8 1851 Progress M-29 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 53A
Oct 11 1626 Luch-1 Proton-K/DM2M Baykonur Data Relay 54A
Oct 19 0038 Astra 1E Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 55A
Oct 20 1353 Columbia ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 56A
Spacelab USML-2)
Oct 22 0800 UHF F6 Atlas II Canaveral LC36 Comsat
Sep 4 Progress M-28 Deorbited Sep 6 Kosmos-2314 Deorbited Sep 11 Soyuz TM-21 Landed in Kazakhstan Sep 18 Endeavour Landed at KSC Sep 29 ODERACS IIB Reentered
Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia LEO STS-73 Oct 20 OV-103 Discovery Palmdale OMDP OV-104 Atlantis LC39A STS-74 Nov OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 3 STS-72 Jan 11 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/RSRM-51/ET-74/OV-104 LC39A STS-74 ML3/ LC39B STS-73
* indicates changes from last month's calendar