Feel free to look back on older stories here—I’ve got nearly 2 year’s worth! I hope you do exactly that and find something interesting.

Didja know that Gordon Cooper launched a tiny satellite from his Mercury flight? Or that the Soviets had a mission that shuttled between 2 space stations? What about those far away space walks, 200,000 miles from earth by Apollo command module pilots. (Those were largely overlooked in the excitement over the moonwalks.

There’s always more to know, and more amazing things. And you’ll get more when I get back.

Cheers!

“The Management”

From NASA's Flickr stream: von Braun & Kennedy at Cape Canaveral

For $26 billion, NASA gave us a couple of great moonlandings—and a slew of photos, all in the public domain.

NASA has culled through its huge collection and posted an interesting subset on Flickr. Take a look!

Vehicle Assembly Building - under construction!

NEAR-Shoemaker: the little spacecraft that could.

Asteroids are all the rage. We worry about being hit by one. We talk about sending people to one. We return sample material (or hope we did) from one.

All this asteroid talk makes me think about a spacecraft’s unplanned landing on an asteroid way back in 2001. The spacecraft—NEAR Shoemaker—was designed to study the asteroid 433 Eros from orbit. (The acronym stands for “Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous.”)

The spacecraft had trouble in its first attempt at orbiting. But after some fidgeting by earth-bound engineers, NEAR went into orbit around its target. Sending back tons of data from a variety of heights, the mission was a resounding success.

But, the really cool part is this: NEAR landed on the asteroid without landing gear! This was one of those crazy improvisations that worked.

Another NASA spacecraft, Dawn, is slated to reach another asteroid—Vesta—in July ofnext year.

It’s the Earth and our moon, from 114 million miles away. That’s a little further than the distance from our planet is (on average) to the Sun. The photo was taken by MESSENGER, a spacecraft that’s on route to an orbital mission around Mercury.

Like the famous Apollo 8 photo, which showed how beautiful and fragile our planet it, this photo from MESSENGER tells a story. I don’t think it shows us as insignificant…but we do look very small. And, in comparison to our solar system, our galaxy and our universe, we ARE small.

What also strikes me is how extremely close to the Earth the moon looks. It’s a mere meteorite’s throw away. We’ve been there. Why are we having such difficulty getting back? I mean, the moon is only the first step. I’ve been waiting more than 40 years for the next step.

That's us (and the moon) near the lower left corner.

Inside the spacecraft.

Next week, a non-profit called Copenhagen Suborbitals will be testing a vehicle to launch a person into space. This flight will have a humanoid dummy aboard, not a person. But it would be an odd and impressive accomplishment nonetheless.

The company itself consists of volunteers. Funding is by sponsors. (They also sell patches and stuff from their online store.)

According to their website, they’ve got an interesting spacecraft design:

The micro spacecraft (MSC) Tycho Brahe-1 is the payload of the HEAT booster. It is a pressurized volume providing support for one upright standing/half-sitting person, with a full view through a polymer plexiglas-dome to experience the entire ballistic ride.

They’ve got an impressive looking rocket. It’s called “HEAT-1x” and uses LOX oxidizer and paraffin fuel. They’ve done quite a bit of testing on their boosters.

The mission will be launched from a platform in the Baltic Sea and will parachute to a traditional splashdown. I’m not sure that I’d personally enjoy a “ballistic ride”, but to each his own…

I wish the principles of the company, Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen, and their whole team of volunteers the best of luck!

If all goes well, the flight will work like this.

NASM 271 directs the administrator of NASA, who was at that time James Webb, to reach out to the Soviet Union and try to introduce the notion of co-operating on space exploration.

Yep. Ten days before he was shot to death, JFK—the man who challenged the Soviets in a race to the moon—was working to (possibly) work with them. I’m not really sure what all that meant. Kennedy was killed, after all, and we did not work with the Soviets to explore space and land on the moon. (After the moon landing, we DID work with them, of course. But that was after…we were being gracious winners.)

The memorandum specifically refers to “co-operation in lunar landing programs.”

In any case, these patches are symbols of America’s voyages above the planet. And they tell stories.

Gus Grissom and the Molly Brown

Exhibit A: the Gemini 3 patch. The patch shows the spacecraft NOT in orbit, but floating in the ocean. The patch also includes the words “Gemini 3″ and the nickname for the spacecraft, coined by mission commander Gus Grissom: “Molly Brown”.

Gus Grissom wouldn't let the Molly Brown sink.

The nickname was a humorous reference to the (then current) broadway musical, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”. Grissom’s first spacecraft, Liberty Bell 7, sunk to the bottom of the ocean after splashdown. Grissom was determined not to lose his new spacecraft.

NASA was not amused. They took more notice of patch design…and spacecraft names. Future Gemini flight would use only their numers as names (i.e. Gemini 4, Gemini 5, etc.)

C.C. Williams and Apollo 12

Then there’s Apollo 12. During Apollo, spacecraft names came back in vogue. After all, when missions have TWO spacecraft (a command ship and lunar module), you need to refer to them separately.

C.C. Williams represented on a mission patch.

The command module for Apollo 12 was called Yankee Clipper. The mission patch shows a 3-masted ship “sailing” around the moon.

Above the moon, we see 4 stars representing the crew. Hey, wait! Apollo missions had 3-man crews, not four!

The fourth star represents astronaut C.C. (“Clifton”) Williams. Based on regular crew rotation, Williams should have been on that flight. Williams would have been the fourth man to walk on the moon.

But Williams died when his jet crashed on October 5, 1967. Instead of Williams, Alan Bean served as Lunar Module pilot on that flight. But Williams was not forgotten.

Rushing to build a new HLV: Where's it going, again?

First of all, Bill, don’t feel bad about disagreeing with Neil and John—because so does Buzz Aldrin. This is an issue where smart people can and do disagree.

You’ve got a pretty good case for the new plan. As I understand it, here’s the key points:

1. Constellation was struggling and not going anywhere soon.
2. The new plan puts money into research and private space companies—two sensible and promising areas to put your money.
3. Under the new plan, we’ll be going to an asteroid and beyond—which sound like a pretty exciting mission, if you think about it.

So, with all these promising and exciting elements in the Obama plan, why isn’t everyone as excited as you?!

As Bill understands it, opponents of the plan don’t want to give up on the shuttle. They don’t like not having a manned spacecraft. Bill points out that, whatever we do, we were going to have a period with no American manned spacecraft. So, it’s not a flaw of the new space plan.

Maybe some are mostly concerned about the shuttle. Not me. Here’s MY problems with the new plan.

1. It’s not specific. Where are we going and when? The plan talks about possibly sending people to an asteroid, but with no specifics (which asteroid? by when?), I don’t see us going anywhere.
2. Constellation isn’t fatally flawed. Mostly, it’s been underfunded. Insufficient funding will kill ANY space plan. As for the technical problems, the first Apollo spacecraft caught fire and killed the crew. On its unmanned test, the Saturn V shook so violently it would have killed any human occupants. Those problems were solved and we got to the moon. Engineers can solve Constellation’s problems, too.

I would heartily support the new plan IF the goals and deadlines were made specific and if there was a commitment—at the highest levels—to stick with it. I don’t see why we’re rushing to get a new HLV (hey, wasn’t the Ares V an HLV?), without a specific mission for it.

Let’s secure some multi-year funding, get down to brass tacks—with the old plan or the new one—and start going places!

The International Space Station: Still up there...and thank goodness!

America’s future in space is uncertain. The Obama Administration has a plan—albeit a vague one—and Congress is playing with that plan, making alterations and, of course, controlling the budget.

The Shuttle program is ending, Constellation is doomed. We are probably entering an exciting era of private spaceflight, including private manned spaceflight. But we don’t know when or if Americans will ever get beyond earth orbit. Nor do we have a clue what vehicle they might take to get there.

ISS Not Canceled

Still, we have the International Space Station. It’s not perfect—and it is, in some ways I think, entirely superfluous. Although science is performed there, the mission of the ISS is muddy at best. It has, however, marked the (seemingly) start of the permanent human habitation of space. (This could change…if something goes wrong.)

But, whatever its shortcomings, as the New York Times points out, with everything else canceled or at least in question, the ISS provides a rare and important bulwark of stability in our—and the world’s—space program.

Almost Retired

And to think: the ISS had been slated for retirement by 2016. Now, we are trying to extend that to 2020…and hopefully more. Keeping it alive and viable may be tough. With the shuttle retiring next year, and nothing specific even on the drawing board, it’s practically all we have left.

Deke Slayton (bottom, left) just happy to fly. His commander, Stafford, is behind him.

Astronauts—especially the early astronauts—are generally very proud people. That’s why, during the Gemini program, nobody would dare be called “co-pilot”. The crew was called commander and pilot. (In fact, the “pilot” WAS kind of like a co-pilot.)

Of all astronauts, probably the proudest were the original seven Mercury astronauts. And they had every right to be proud—they took on incredibly dangerous assignments, and carried them out brilliantly.

For the most part, the Mercury astronauts commanded every space mission they were on. Wally Schirra, for example, commanded three missions—one each of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. Schirra said that he didn’t work for NASA; he worked with NASA.

Mercury astronauts as crew

But two Mercury astronauts were on space flights that they didn’t command. Here’s what happened…

Deke Slayton was grounded for health reasons before he could fly on Mercury. He was selected as an astronaut, but didn’t really get his wings. Years later, he was activated again, as his health problem was fixed. He flew on the last mission using Apollo hardware—the Apollo-Soyuz Test Projects (ASTP). The main objective of this mission was to rendezvous and dock with the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in orbit.

Slayton, having never flown in space, had no experience in these maneuvers. But Gemini veteran Tom Stafford did. Stafford commanded the flight, and Slayton was under his command. But, after a long, long wait, Slayton was thrilled to get his spaceflight.

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, retired from the space program without a second flight. He went on the become a U.S. Senator. Using his influence there, he landed a seat on a shuttle flight. The alleged purpose for putting the 78 year old Senator into space was to do some studies on the effects of aging. Well, maybe. But Glenn certainly had put his life on the line for his county and for our space program. He deserved the seat.

At 78, even Glenn himself probably didn’t want to command a space mission.

Only two of the original seven are left, and they are getting very old. I doubt we’ll see Scott Carpenter or John Glenn in orbit ever again. But for all these guys did, we owe a huge “thanks!”