29 June 2007
+ 3 - 5 | § ¶Today In History
On this date in 1995, Atlantis, on its
STS-71 mission, made the first Space Shuttle docking with the Russian Mir space station, forming the largest object ever in orbit.
Keywords: history,mir,nasa,roskosmos,space,space_shuttle
+ 1 - 6 | § ¶STS-118 Update
NASA has
officially moved the launch date of STS-118 two days closer, to August 7, making it a nice birthday present for me if it actually launches then. I've fixed the countdown clock accordingly.
Keywords: launch_schedule,nasa,space,space_shuttle,sts_118
28 June 2007
+ 2 - 3 | § ¶Genesis II
It should tell you something about how busy I am that Bigelow Aerospace's
Genesis II spacecraft is now in orbit, and this is the first I've written about it lately.
Genesis II, the second experimental pathfinder spacecraft by Bigelow Aerospace, has been successfully launched and inserted into orbit. The privately-funded space station module was launched atop a Dnepr rocket at 8:02 a.m. PDT from the ISC Kosmotras Yasny Cosmodrome located in the Orenburg region of Russia.
Keywords: altspace,bigelow,space
26 June 2007
+ 2 - 1 | § ¶Reduced Hallows
In case anyone's planning on ordering the seventh Harry Potter book when it comes out, I thought I'd share that Amazon is offering a $5 gift certificate for pre-ordering
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Cover for the book is $34.99, and Amazon's price is $17.99, which means, after the "rebate," your paying $12.99.
Of course, to really make the most of the offer, you need to place an order of over $25 so you get free shipping, so this would be a great time to go ahead and preorder the second book in the Outward Odyssey series,
In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969
,
(more)
Keywords: apollo,books,history,moon,nasa,outward_odyssey,soviet,space
+ 1 - 2 | § ¶Another ITSS Review
Yeah, yeah, I still haven't finished reading
'Into That Silent Sea' by Francis French and Colin Burgess, the first book in the
Outward Odyssey series. I'm a bad person.
In the meantime, though, here's
another review of the book, this one from The Space Review. I agree with some of his points, and disagree with others, but that will be in my (very positive) review when I finish it.
Keywords: books,history,mercury,nasa,outward_odyssey,soviet,space
23 June 2007
+ 3 - 2 | § ¶STS-118 Update
As of yesterday afternoon, STS-117 is safely on the ground, so I've now started the countdown clock for STS-118, even though the rumors are that the date may change. But for the better this time, so that's good.
Keywords: launch_schedule,nasa,space,space_shuttle,sts_118
22 June 2007
+ 2 - 3 | § ¶Today In History
On this date in 1978, astronomer James Christy discovered Charon, the largest moon of Pluto (so large, relative to Pluto, that last year it came really close to being a planet). In 2005, two more moons were discovered orbiting Pluto.
Also on this date, in 1973, the first crew of Skylab returned to Earth after a record-setting (briefly) 28-day stay.
Keywords: astronomy,history,nasa,planets,skylab,space
+ 1 - 1 | § ¶STS-117 Update
Per NASA:
Five landing opportunities are available today for space shuttle Atlantis and the STS-117 crew. Flight controllers and forecasters continue to monitor the weather at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
Atlantis’ first landing opportunity is at 2:18 p.m. EDT on orbit 218. If controllers elect to take it, Commander Rick Sturckow will perform the deorbit burn at 1:12 p.m. to begin the descent to Kennedy. Orbit 219 provides opportunities at both landing sites – a 3:49 p.m. landing at Edwards and a 3:55 p.m. landing at Kennedy.
The second opportunity for the California base is on Orbit 220. The deorbit burn would occur at 4:18 p.m. with the landing at 5:23 p.m. The final opportunity is on Orbit 221 and it calls for the deorbit burn to occur at 5:56 p.m. with the landing at 6:59 p.m.
Thunderstorms in the vicinity of Kennedy forced flight controllers to wave off both opportunities Thursday. Today’s weather forecast for Kennedy calls for the threat of thunderstorms in the area and high winds are a possibility at Edwards. Opportunities are also available Saturday.
Keywords: nasa,space,space_shuttle,sts_117
21 June 2007
+ 1 - 2 | § ¶Today In History
Staying more recent than usual for the TiH feature, on this date three years ago, the era of private spaceflight began when Scaled Composite's
SpaceShipOne made its first suborbital flight into space.
Keywords: altspace,history,space
+ 1 - 2 | § ¶Going And Going And Going
Remember the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity? They're not in the news as much as they were, say, three years ago, but they're still on Mars (of course) and still rolling (less of course).
In fact, recent events may keep Spirit rolling even longer. The
rover got another spring cleaning from Martian winds, increasing the amount of power generated by its solar arrays.
Keywords: mars,nasa,rovers,space
+ 1 - 1 | § ¶STS-117 Update
Per NASA:
Landing day has arrived for space shuttle Atlantis and the STS-117 crew. Atlantis is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., at 1:55 p.m. EDT.
Forecasters and flight controllers will be monitoring the weather closely today. There is a chance of thunderstorms of the Florida spaceport.
If flight controllers elect to take the 1:55 p.m. opportunity, Commander Rick Sturckow and Pilot Lee Archambault will perform the deorbit burn on Orbit 202 at 12:50 p.m. The other opportunity available on Thursday is Orbit 203, which calls for the deorbit burn at 2:25 p.m. and a 3:30 p.m. touchdown at Kennedy.
Landing coverage will be available on NASA TV, and can be
viewed online.
Keywords: nasa,space,space_shuttle,sts_117
20 June 2007
+ 2 - 2 | § ¶Today In History
I'm outsourcing today's Today In History to my coworker Heather since she blogged about
Cola Wars in Space.
That said, whatever happened to the Cola Wars? There's still competing colas, but they really don't seem to war as much. Did they reach some sort of detente? Are we in a Cola Cold War? My personal hope is that there's some sort of behind-the-scenes Cola Mutually Assured Destruction, a secretly developed cola so powerful that were one company to unleash it on the market, it would totally devastate the cola industry as we know it.
Keywords: history,nasa,space
+ 2 - 2 | § ¶STS-117 Update
Image courtesy collectSPACE, from NASA TV.
"That's no TIE fighter, it's a space station!"
After undocking yesterday, Atlantis flew around the International Space Station and took pictures of the new configuration.
Pics of what the ISS looks like now can be seen
here and
here. (
This one is particularly nice, in my opinion.)
The new symmetric configuration is particularly exciting since the station has finally taken on something substantially similar to its proper form -- matching arrays mounted on its Y-axis truss. For decades, this, or something along these lines, has been what a space station is supposed to look like. The station finally appears as it did
on the first crew's patch, seven years ago.
Atlantis is scheduled for landing at 12:55 p.m. CDT tomorrow.
Keywords: collectspace,international_space_station,nasa,space,space_shuttle,sts_117
19 June 2007
+ 2 - 2 | § ¶COTS Update
Taking another step towards the day that NASA astronauts and cargo will catch rides to the International Space Station aboard private commercial spacecraft,
NASA has signed space act agreements with three more companies under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The three new companies -- SpaceDev, SPACEHAB and Constellation Services International -- join current partners SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler.
SpaceDev, SPACEHAB and CSI will work to develop and demonstrate the vehicles, systems and operations needed to transport cargo to and from a low Earth orbit destination. SpaceDev also will include crew transport in its development program.
...
"This is a significant development," said Scott Horowitz, NASA associate administrator for Exploration Systems. "First there were two, and now there are a total of five private companies cooperating with NASA by dedicating entirely private funding to help establish a robust commercial space transportation industry."
Keywords: altspace,international_space_station,nasa,space
+ 1 - 2 | § ¶STS-117 Update
Per NASA:
Space Shuttle Atlantis’s 10-day stay at the International Space Station will come to an end today when it undocks at 10:42 a.m. EDT.
The STS-117 crew said farewell to the Expedition 15 crew Monday before the hatches closed at 6:51 p.m. EDT, wrapping up joint operations.
...
The crew installed the truss June 11 and conducted four spacewalks to activate the S3/S4 and assist in the retraction of solar array on the Port 6 truss. During the third spacewalk, the crew repaired an out of position thermal blanket on the left orbital maneuvering system pod.
...
Atlantis is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., at 1:54 p.m. EDT Thursday.
And from the station homepage:
Flight controllers in Moscow conducted a test to check the ability of the Russian segment’s terminal computer to fire thrusters and maintain attitude of the International Space Station.
Russian and U.S. mission managers gave the computer a passing grade.
Keywords: international_space_station,nasa,roskosmos,space,space_shuttle,sts_117
+ 3 - 1 | § ¶More Dave-Friend Book-Pimping
Editor's Note: I moved this post up from Saturday, since blog readership is less over the weekend and I wanted to make sure people saw it.
As regular readers of ATW know, I enjoy pimping books written by friends of mine, in part because I like the fact that I actually know people who have written real-live books. And 2007 has been an incredible year for that!
The latest book by someone I know is by Jeff Weddle, whom I saw around Ole Miss, where he was a grad student instructor, and who went on to become the director of the Sunflower County library system while I was working for the newspaper in Indianola. Jeff went on to make something of himself, earning his PhD and teaching at the University of Alabama.
According to Jeff, his publisher was supposed to have started shipping his book to resellers yesterday, so it should start shipping to buyers soon.
The book,
Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press, "uses the day-to-day operations of a small press as a lens through which the nascent underground publishing industry can be understood":
In 1960, Jon Edgar and Louise "Gypsy Lou" Webb founded Loujon Press on Royal Street in New Orleans's French Quarter. The small publishing house quickly became a giant. Heralded by the Village Voice and the New York Times as one of the best of its day, the Outsider, the press's literary review, featured, among others, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, and Walter Lowenfels. Loujon published books by Henry Miller and two early poetry collections by Bukowski.
Bohemian New Orleans traces the development of this courageous imprint and examines its place within the small press revolution of the 1960s.
Drawing on correspondence from many who were published in the Outsider, back issues of the Outsider, contemporary reviews, promotional materials, and interviews, Jeff Weddle shows how the press's mandarin insistence on production quality and its eclectic editorial taste made its work nonpareil among peers in the underground. Throughout, Bohemian New Orleans reveals the messy, complex, and vagabond spirit of a lost literary age.
And, heck, while you're buying that, go ahead and get a Weddle bonus book by picking up
Mondo Barbie
, a collection to which Jeff contributed a poem. You can pick up a used copy for only a penny, which ain't bad at all.
And while you're shopping for books that only have limited contributions by people I know, this would also be a great time to
finally get that copy of
The Duchovny Files: The Truth Is in Here
, an unauthorized X-Files book published many moons ago, for which the author actually paid Lain Hughes $20 Canadian for the rights to include some Top Ten lists Lain had written. The bad news is, it's out of print, but the good news is that means you can also get it used for a penny! And it's worth every, uh, ha'penny of that.
And to review, here are other recent books being published this year by people I know, which you should buy immediately if you haven't already (the books, not the people):
- Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965
, by Francis French and Colin Burgess, the first book in the Outward Odyssey series that will include my work next year.
- In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969, also by Francis and Colin, the second book in the series.
- Black Men Built the Capitol: Discovering African-American History In and Around Washington, D.C.
, by Jesse Holland, my former editor at The Daily Mississippian.
- Spatula Forum Greatest Hits, by Nik Dirga.
OK, that last one is just self-published (and not even really this year), and is long as you're buying self-published stuff, you should pick up
The Leonardo Code, which I'm sure you will find will be the best $11.07 you ever spent on The Leonardo Code.
I've probably diluted this entry into uselessness at this point, but, seriously, you should buy Jeff's book. I did!
(more)
Keywords: apollo,blog,books,broken_triad,comics,history,journalism,media,mercury,mississippi,moon,nasa,newspapers,ole_miss,outward_odyssey,skylab,soviet,space,writing
18 June 2007
+ 2 - 2 | § ¶Today In History
On this date 24 years ago,
Sally Ride became the first U.S. woman in space on the STS-7 shuttle mission, the second flight of Challenger.
Keywords: history,nasa,space,space_shuttle
+ 1 - 2 | § ¶Mach 10
A
new scramjet-based aircraft reached Mach 10, traveling at 6,835 miles per hour over the Australian Outback last week.
The vehicle was developed by Australia's defense Science and Technology Organization and the U.S. DARPA.
Keywords: aircraft,darpa
+ 2 - 0 | § ¶STS-117 Update
Per NASA:
Russian flight controllers will fire thrusters today to test the operation of the navigation computers that went offline last week. If the flight controllers and mission managers like what they see, space shuttle Atlantis and the STS-117 crew will undock from the International Space Station and begin the journey home on Tuesday. The test is set for 10:28 a.m. EDT.
The STS-117 crew is scheduled to bid farewell today to the Expedition 15 crew before the hatches close at 6:23 p.m. EDT between Atlantis and the station. Atlantis is slated to undock at 10:42 a.m. Tuesday.
Keywords: computers,international_space_station,nasa,space,space_shuttle,sts_117
17 June 2007
+ 1 - 1 | § ¶Orbital Sandbox
In case you hadn't heard, there were some problems on the International Space Station this week.
Which means, of course, another round of I-told-you-so's from the chorus of ISS naysayers. If those voices are to be believed the problems just demonstrate the fragility of the space station. And for those who think that the ISS was a misstep in space exploration -- that we should have skipped getting "mired" in Earth orbit and gone on to exploring other worlds -- this is just another piece of evidence for that argument as well.
The truth, though, is just the opposite in both cases. The space station has proved its worth against both of those arguments this week.
Fragile? Among other things, the oxygen generation system went down, and the crew was prepared to stay for a couple more months without it. In fact, it's still down. The
oxygen generation system. One of those things that sounds like it would be rather important. But the station system is sturdy enough, and has enough redundancy, that it turns out you can live without it. For months. That's pretty far from fragile in my book.
And an unneeded step that could be skipped? If a vital, multiple-redundant computer system that is supposed to be immune to single-point failures is, in fact, not immune to single-point failures, I'd rather be hours from Earth's surface than months when I found that out. When a spacecraft departs for Mars, or even the moon, we need to have the best-possible understanding of everything that can go wrong, how it could be fixed, and what you need to have with you in order to fix it.
While some would like to portray them as set-backs, the truth is that problems like those that occurred on the International Space Station this past week bring us a step closer to other worlds.
Keywords: computers,constellation,international_space_station,nasa,roskosmos,space,sts_117
+ 1 - 1 | § ¶STS-117 Update
Per NASA:
Mission Specialists Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson began their Father’s Day spacewalk at 12:25 p.m. EDT. While outside, they are scheduled to tackle a number of tasks, including work to prepare the International Space Station’s new truss segment for operation.
The STS-117 crew installed the Starboard 3 and 4 (S3/S4) truss segment onto the station on June 11. The spacewalkers will prepare S3/S4’s Solar Alpha Rotary joint (SARJ) for activation. The SARJ will allow the S3/S4 arrays to track the Sun.
And on the Station side:
The Russian computers aboard the International Space Station are back in near normal, stable operation. Two of three channels of each computer are operating. A third channel is believed to be functioning well, but currently in standby.
The Mission Control Center in Moscow has restarted all Russian systems except the Elektron oxygen generation system, which has been powered but not yet started.
Flight controllers are planning to test Russian thrusters on Monday as they maneuver the station and Space Shuttle Atlantis to a water dump attitude.
Keywords: computers,eva,international_space_station,nasa,roskosmos,space,space_shuttle
16 June 2007
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶STS-117 Update
Per NASA's Space Station homepage:
Russian Flight Controllers Send Commands to Computers
Efforts to bring the Russian navigation computers back to full operation will continue today. Friday, Russian flight controllers and the station crew were able to power-up two lanes of the Russian Central Computer and two lanes of the Terminal Computer by using a jumper cable to bypass a faulty secondary power switch.
Flight controllers began sending commands overnight to restart some systems. The Central Computer is now communicating with the U.S. command and control computer, and the Terminal Computer is communicating with U.S. navigation computers. The plan calls for more system restarts today.
The Russian navigation computers provide backup attitude control and orbital altitude adjustments. For now, the station’s control moment gyroscopes are handling attitude control, with the shuttle’s propulsion system providing backup.
And per the Space Shuttle page:
The Mission Control Center in Houston told the STS-117 crew today that space shuttle Atlantis’ thermal protection system is cleared for re-entry. The astronauts got the good news about 11:20 a.m. EDT while they were transferring cargo between Atlantis and the International Space Station.
The heat shield was cleared after STS-117 Mission Specialist Danny Olivas repaired a protruding thermal blanket on one of Atlantis’ orbital maneuvering system pods during Friday’s spacewalk. Atlantis is scheduled to leave the station on Tuesday and land Thursday.
Early this morning, Mission Specialist Suni Williams set the record for the longest-duration single spaceflight by a woman. Williams passed the previous record of 188 days, 4 hours at 1:47 a.m. as STS-117 and Expedition 15 crew members slept aboard Atlantis and the station.
Keywords: eva,international_space_station,nasa,roskosmos,space,space_shuttle,sts_117
15 June 2007
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Purple Flight
I didn't post this yesterday, because I was hoping that there would be a piece on NASA.gov or a news story that I could link to this morning, but, as of yet, the only coverage I can find is on collectSPACE.
Apollo-era
Flight Director Phil Shaffer died yesterday morning. I never met Shaffer; my only interaction with him was a few e-mails, but Joe Kerwin worked closely with him on our book, Homesteading Space. Shaffer provided us with a wealth of information of what was going on in Mission Control during the Skylab flights, and is basically the voice of mission ops in the book. The Skylab flight controllers were faced with some fascinating challenges, and always managed to find answers.
Sad news, and sad that no one seems to care that another key player in the history of our space program has been lost.
Godspeed, Phil.
Keywords: apollo,books,history,nasa,outward_odyssey,skylab,space
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶STS-117 Update
Per NASA:
The STS-117 crew resumed retraction of the starboard P6 solar array at 12:25 p.m. Thursday. The crew and flight controllers decided to conclude the efforts just before 4 p.m. with about half of the 31½ array bays retracted. The crew will resume retraction activities Friday with the help of the spacewalkers if needed.
The schedule for STS-117 Mission Specialists Jim Reilly and Danny Olivas includes a review of procedures and the practice of techniques they will use during the spacewalk set to begin at 1:38 p.m. EDT Friday. The first task of the extravehicular activity is the repair of a thermal blanket that pulled away from the orbital maneuvering system pod on the rear of the shuttle.
...
Flight controllers continue efforts to bring the computers back up to full operation. For now, the station’s control moment gyroscopes are handling attitude control, with the shuttle’s propulsion system providing backup.
Keywords: eva,international_space_station,nasa,space,space_shuttle,sts_117
