Apollo 1 Crew – Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee – via NASA
Space is an unforgiving place. It shows no mercy to those who venture to its infinite realm. It is a vacuum, cold and dark, punctuated by points of lights from stars and planets. Exposure to radiation from the sun and galactic cosmic sources causes significant risk of contracting cancer. Your body reacts differently to an environment without gravity. Fluids move towards the head. Mineral loss to the bones occurs. Medicines work differently. And you’d better get along with your crewmates, because you’re going to be together in a cramped space with little privacy. And the further one travels from the Earth, the longer it takes for a signal to reach the spacecraft. Connecting with loved ones becomes more challenging.
There’s also a very real chance of becoming marooned or worse, die.
Yet the prospect of traveling to worlds unknown seems a risk worth taking. The ultimate dare. It’s how discoveries are made. For all of humankind’s history, people have ventured beyond their horizons to discover new ones. If there’s money to be made, so the better. Since most of the Earth’s been explored, it’s natural to want to see what else is out there.
Sometimes, though, the whole point is to do what no one else has done. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, we chose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Anyone who ventures outside of our Earth’s atmosphere subjects themselves to violent forces to escape the Earth’s gravity. Take, for example, the Saturn V rocket. To get there, one has to sit atop a rocket with 7.5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.
The Saturn V was the rocket used to send Apollo 1 on its mission to test the capabilities the Apollo command and service module, necessary to send man to the moon.
On January 27, 1967, during a launch rehearsal test, its crew – Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee – experienced difficulties communicating with the Operations and Checkout Building and the Complex 34 Blockhouse control room. Grissom’s microphone was stuck open, causing him to say, “How are we going to get to the moon if we can’t talk between two or three buildings?”
Shortly thereafter, as the astronauts were going through their checklist, one of the astronauts, thought to be Grissom, discovered a fire in the cabin. Within moments, it consumed the cabin. The men had been unable to unlatch its door, although it seems they attempted to. Five minutes passed before pad workers were able to open the hatch. Grissom and White were found out of their seats, while Chaffee remained strapped to his seat, as procedure dictated. Nylon had melted from their spacesuits. It took ninety minutes to free them from the capsule.
The Charred Remains of the Apollo 1 Capsule – NASA image, Public Domain, 1967
Because of this disaster, changes were made to the entry hatch, enabling those inside to easily exit the vehicle, instead of relying on those outside to free the crew.
Over in the Soviet Union, Colonel Vladimir Komorov prepared for Soyuz 1. He, along with Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space and Alexei Leonov, the first man who accomplished extravehicular activity (EVA), made up the Soyuz team. On this particular mission, Gagarin was Komorov’s backup.
Colonel Vladimir Komorov and Soyuz 1 (Image – NASA)
It has been said that there were issues with the construction of the spacecraft Komorov was to fly, and that a memo had been sent by Gagarin to Leonid Brezhnev detailing numerous engineering and technical deficiencies. But given the secrecy of the time, reliable information is difficult to come by, and it’s not certain such a memo was either sent or exists. It has also been said that on the day Komorov prepared to command the inaugural flight of the Soyuz program, Gagarin showed up at the launch site, insisting on taking Komorov’s place. The two were very close friends, and he worried about Komorov’s flight into space. But Gagarin was a national treasure. He would’ve never been given permission to substitute for his friend.
So on April 23, 1967, Komorov launched into space from Baikonor Cosmodrome to orbit the Earth. Once in orbit, one of the solar panels failed to fully open, thereby compromising the ability to generate the electricity needed in the cabin. The automatic stabilization system failed as well as the orientation detectors. By orbit 13, it was decided to abort the mission.
It wasn’t until the 19th orbit that Komorov gained the ability to properly orient his space vehicle towards the sun and managed to fire the retrorockets. He entered the Earth’s atmosphere safely and deployed the drogue parachute (a smaller parachute designed to slow the rapid pace of reentry), followed by the main chute. For some reason, the main chute failed to deploy. Komorov then manually activated the reserve main chute, only for it to become tangled with the drogue chute. He plummeted towards the Earth at 40 miles/second, until he crashed in Orenburg Oblast, in southeastern Russia.
His descent module immediately burst into flames and so hot was the fire, its metal shell melted. Rescuers threw dirt on it to extinguish the flames. Afterwards, there was little left of the entry vehicle. After the rescuers extinguished the fire, Komorov was discovered strapped inside, his burned body reduced to a horrible mass of blackened remains. It was determined he died of blunt force injuries.
NASA released the following statement:
“We are very saddened by the loss of Col. Komarov. We feel comradeship for this test pilot because we have met several of his fellow cosmonauts and we know that we are all involved in a pioneering flight effort that is not without hazard. We particularly want to express our deep sense of sympathy to Mrs. Komarov, their children and his fellow cosmonauts.”
Colonel Vladimir Komarov died on April 24, 1967. He was mourned as a national hero. And because of his death, critical technical changes were made to future Soyuz missions to ensure the safety of their crews.
Credits: Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et al.
So where does one begin on a day like today? I can’t honestly say what story could top seeing a photograph of an actual black hole. But the news certainly is fascinating. And check out the link. There’s a complete picture of Messier 87, a giant galaxy some 55 million light years away, located in Virgo.
Einstein theorized in a paper published in 1915 that star’s light rays curved around the sun during an eclipse. That meant the stars appeared about 1.75 second of arc away from their positions.
In May 29, 1919, when a six-minute total eclipse in Brazil caused British astronomer Arthur Eddington to determine that light rays from other stars bent when subjected to the gravitational field of our sun. He proved this through the use of photographs, and others have proven it since.
Jump to 2016. MIT graduate student Katie Bouman created the algorithm that produced the first image of the black hole. Her contributions seem to be a bit underreported, but thanks to her work, we now see the image pictured above.
Credit: Kennedy Space Center
The second big story (to me at least) is Falcon Heavy. It was supposed to launch today, but thanks to high winds aloft, we’re going to have to wait until tomorrow. But the cool thing about it is its three boosters, all expected to land perfectly. I’m always fascinated by this new generation of rockets. Elon Musk, for all his faults, is a genius. Not only did he create a better class of rockets, partly recyclable, he also made their capsules so sleekly modern.
And lastly, on April 11 NASA will host a teleconference on its study of its astronaut twins, Mark Kelly and Scott Kelly. This eagerly-awaited report will detail how Scott Kelly was affected by living in the ISS for 340 days, as compared to his twin brother, Mark Kelly, who remained on Earth. So far, these are the only twins who have both served on the ISS, and, as such, are uniquely qualified for this important study.
It’s all over the internet: Einstein was right – there are such things as gravitational waves.
In a seemingly impossible experiment, a group of astrophysicists announced on Thursday, February 11, 2016 that they now had aural evidence of gravitational waves. An international mega-group of 1000 scientists published a report in Physical Review Letters confirming their findings.
For those of you who might be asking, “What are gravitational waves?”, here’s a quick definition. They’re ripples in spacetime created by any particle or object with mass. Einstein predicted them in his theory of relativity in 1916.
In a classic case of “if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound,” two black holes collided so impossibly far away – a billion light years – and only now is the Earth receiving the noise from that cataclysmic event.
Two antennas designed for receiving any sound a gravitational wave would generate, located in Washington State and Louisiana, and part of LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), picked up a brief chirp on September 14, 2015.
This event’s also a significant achievement for astronomy, where so much is dependent upon what can been seen. This experiment delivers another dimension from which to observe and measure the universe.
If you’d like to read more about this important confirmation of Einstein’s theory of relativity, here are a few sources:
Sure, everyone’s done it. You pick up the phone, take a quick glance at a number you’ve never seen before and dialed it. A voice connects at the other end and it sure sounds unfamiliar. Still, you ask for the person you intended to reach, hoping a friend or a wife or a kid answered the phone. And no, they’re not there because you’ve dialed the wrong number.
No biggie. It happens.
Except when that wrong number happens to originate from the International Space Station.
British astronaut Tim Peake mistakenly called someone and later tweeted about his wrong attempt and apology. I’m sure the person at the other end thought it was a bunch of bored kids pranking and though little of it until the story broke in the news. It just goes to show you that no matter who and where you are, accidents happen, even at the ISS.
But here’s something: do you know that anyone can contact the ISS? That’s right. If you’re a licensed ham radio operator, you have an opportunity to contact the ISS when it’s above your neck of the woods.
As it turns out, there are three ham radios aboard the ISS: an Ericsson MP-X handheld radio, a Kenwood TM D700 and a Kenwood D710.
Credit: NASA – John Phillips at an ISS Ham Radio
Obviously, their frequencies operates on different ones than Houston. Its purpose is exactly the same as Adrian Lane discovered – as a means of public education. Schools, for example, reach out to the inhabitants of the ISS to ask questions.
When astronauts have free time, they choose to make random, unschedule contact with whomever is choosing to reach them. Though their work schedules dictate their availability, an astronaut’s waking period is weekdays between 7:30 am – 7:30 pm UTC during the week, which means during that time they’re generally working. However, at either end of that schedule they might be available, as well as weekends, when more free time is also available.
Crews don’t scan but switch between frequencies, depending upon their location. Since the ISS travels rapidly, a person only has about 45 seconds worth of contact time.
If you are interested in contacting the ISS, visit this excellent website hosted by Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS). It details location prediction maps, frequencies, and everything else you’ll need to set up contact and once you do, how to receive a QSL card to prove it! And though it’s entirely random, you might just get lucky like Adrian Lane.
A few weeks ago I wrote about space junk. This entry’s a bit different. And yes, while this stuff was deliberately placed there, it’s not your garden-variety space program detritus. It’s all simply for fun.
My first entry has an awful lot to do with “Star Wars,” which, thanks to Disney utterly saturating the market without mercy, hasn’t quite gone this far to promote their film. In fact, the producers of this little clever snippet are garnering worldwide attention just to snatch a couple of opening night tickets. Hey, for what it’s worth, I say these guys deserve it! Attaching an X-wing fighter to a weather balloon’s a pretty nifty idea and puts a bit of a scientific spin on a sci-fi icon.
But why stop at an X-wing fighter? Haven’t you ever wondered what would happen if a pink glazed doughnut took a updraft hike?
Credit: Stratolys
Curiosity knows no bounds as a small team of Swedes gather in what appears to be a running track and launched the first doughnut into space. There’s little fanfare, but it seems the Coast Guard comes to the rescue.
Now that you fought a war and ate a doughnut because you’re starved, how about celebrating your achievements with some space whisky? Ria Misra from i09 writes about gross-tasting, overpriced whisky that Ardbeg, a single malt Islay Scotch whisky company tested, was sent in space to the ISS in 2011 and returned to earth in 2014. Hey, it was worth a try, eh?
Credit: Ardbeg
Clearly, those with enough money and resources know what’s going to capture attention. Sure, doughnuts and X-wing fighters are great do-it-yourself projects. But we’re talking classy booze here! Discriminating palates await! After a hard day’s walk out into the Great Vacuum, you’re going to relax and take a nip or two.
But for those of us stuck here on the ground, there’s always this:
Maybe you read The New York Time’s July 16, 2015 article regarding a fragment of a Russian weather satellite passing near ISS caused one astronaut and two cosmonauts to enter a Soyuz capsule until the all clear was issued. It wasn’t the first time something like this happened, nor will it be the last.
Take a look at the above picture. That’s a graphic representation of all of the flotsam and jetsam from the entire planet’s space industries. First, blame it on the United States and Russia. Then, blame it on any nation that dared test the limits of gravity. Pretty soon, anything as minuscule as a paint fleck to a section of a satellite remained at various levels of orbit, zooming around at 175,000 mph/281,640 km/h. Occasionally bits fall to earth, succumbing to gravity and burning up harmlessly as they enter the atmosphere.
NASA and the Department of Defense keep an excellent log of anything larger than a softball and if any debris comes close enough to the ISS, both Houston and Moscow work together to plan a strategy to keep the inhabitants safe. If a threat is deemed plausible, all are instructed to go into the ISS’s lifeboats – the Soyuz capsules – in case a quick getaway is necessary.
But this poses a larger problem: what’s being done to clean up the mess? Simply ask this question to Google and you’ll get numerous responses on various sites. Space.com has an article listing 7 Wild Ways. Popular Mechanics has its own solutions.Here’s what Mental Floss has to say.
The truth is, nothing’s being done…yet. Sure, the idea’s been kicked around, maybe even a few plans surfaced. It seems getting there and back takes priority over all the mess it takes to accomplish our goals. It’s a junkyard, for sure, and like the neighbor who refuses to let go of all the cars (and their subsequent parts) owned over the past 30 years, it’s unsightly, only getting worse, and isn’t going away.
Of course, there’s been a multitude of sci-fi inspiration drawn from this. Take, for example, the recent movie “Gravity,” wherein Sandra Bullock’s character Ryan Stone finds herself floating in space untethered thanks to a run-in with remains. David Brin’s novel, “Existence” tells the story of an alien artifact tucked among the pieces of debris.
Sadly, this is a commentary on how the inhabitants of this planet choose to deal with exploration and conquering the impossible. Mt. Everest is defiled by the remains of extreme tourism. Roman ruins scattered about their former empire faced years of abuse from casual visitors seeking an up-close inspection.
SpaceX, to its credit, is developing multistage rockets that return to earth to be used in future missions. It’s facing challenges with no successes yet, but it’s not giving up and it’s getting closer with each try. They do seem to be one exception, though.
Until we learn that exploration often results in exploitation and near-irreversable damage, perhaps any further missions might benefit from following SpaceX’s lead. If not, there won’t be any room up there to put a satellite nor will be be safe to remain in any space station.
Hooray! Today, the Hubble Telescope celebrates its 25 anniversary! And what a celebration it should be, and is. The New York times posted an article today that features astronomers and others involved in Hubble’s history what their favorite photo is.
Here’s one of my favorite images:
This photo is from 2012, and a brief description taken from NASA’s HubbleSite.org follows:
The giant elliptical galaxy in the center of this image, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, is the most massive and brightest member of the galaxy cluster Abell 2261.
Spanning a little more than one million light-years, the galaxy is about 10 times the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. The bloated galaxy is a member of an unusual class of galaxies with a diffuse core filled with a fog of starlight. Normally, astronomers would expect to see a concentrated peak of light around a central black hole. The Hubble observations revealed that the galaxy’s puffy core, measuring about 10,000 light-years, is the largest yet seen.
The observations present a mystery, and studies of this galaxy may provide insight into how black hole behavior may shape the cores of galaxies.
Astronomers used Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 to measure the amount of starlight across the galaxy, dubbed A2261-BCG. Abell 2261 is located three billion light-years away.
The observations were taken March to May 2011. The Abell 2261 cluster is part of a multi-wavelength survey called the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH).
Object Names: Abell 2261, A2261-BCG
Image Type: Astronomical
Credit:NASA, ESA, M. Postman (STScI), T. Lauer (NOAO), and the CLASH team
# # #
But what do I find so fascinating about it?
Click on the above link for larger files of the above photo. Take a look. It’s an amazing assortment of galaxies – tons of them! And they’re beautiful, so beautiful, gems each and every one. This literally took my breath away. Not only are those galaxies millions of light years away, their light comes to us from millions of years ago. What we see no longer is, and who knows what’s taken its place, if anything at all.
Within each of those galaxies floating in the universe are worlds utterly unknown to us. We can fantasize and dream about life on another planet in another galaxy, but the truth is a bit elusive at the moment. Still, we can regard them for what the Hubble brings to us – a beautiful perspective of the universe and its imagery.
If you find yourself a bit bored, sad or otherwise challenged by the rigors of this world, click on the Hubble Telescope site. Explore its pages. Allow yourself to dream and be awed at this portal on the magnificence of nature.
Yes, I’ll admit I’m a geek. I married one, too. So of course we felt it necessary to see “Interstellar.” We read up on it, exchanged speculations on the theories behind it, compared different viewpoints, opinions, reviews, all of that. After all of this effort, a sensible decision was cast to go and see it, already.
So last night, after first ducking into Target to purchase some chocolates to stick into our pockets so we wouldn’t have to pay the ridiculous price of $4.oo for a $1.oo candy bar, we went. It was great to go into a theatre filled with our kinds of people, equally geeky and completely silent during the showing, with only the rare murmur of approval over a spectacular scene.
Naturally, we weren’t disappointed. Both of us loved it and spent the ride home discussing it. And I could go on about this, that or the other thing regarding the vagaries of space-time travel and the physics behind it.
Why would I? You know all that anyway.
What got me were the small touches, the little hints of things to come and viewpoints either behind the characters or the writers who invented them. First on my list were the books on the shelves in Murph’s bedroom. How many of you took a good look at them? Here’s two that caught my immediate attention: “The Stand” and “Outlander.”
“Outlander” caught my eye because Diana Gabaldon wrote this book regarding a portal that transports a woman through time, and Stephen King’s “The Stand” because the human race is nearly killed off in that one. Both of those elements were the story in “Interstellar.”
Actually, books do figure prominently in the movie. Take, for example, the school district’s reliance on “corrected versions” of history. The moonwalk was all propaganda to economically bankrupt the Soviet Union. After all, the Soviets never made it to the moon, so that propaganda campaign must have worked. Yet Murph refuses to believe it all and listens to her father, who reinforces the truth.
All that talk about chemical compositions and how it affects environments and circumstances also gave me the goosies. The way how too much nitrogen in an atmosphere isn’t ideal or any atmosphere’s makeup is so sensitive to various forms of life made me smile.
But really, when you get right down to it, the use of time as a resource and element defined the film. Everything from the father Cooper as a younger man visiting his daughter Cooper as she lay dying, much older than he (all right, how many of you also knew that was Ellen Burstyn?), to the astronaut left behind for 23 years when Brand and Cooper seemed to be gone only minutes? Or the gradual shift of Earth from viable to slowly dying, which seemed to take both an interminable and finite amount of time?
I could go on about many, many more things about why we enjoyed “Interstellar” so much, but that would take time, so if you haven’t seen it, take the time and go!
I, along with everyone else who keeps their eyes on these things, shouted a big hoot of delight this morning when I saw Philae Lander put on a real showstopper of a landing on a duck-shaped comet named 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko just after 11:00 am, EST in the USA. Released from Rosetta, it marked a real victory for a huge gamble that will reap large rewards for anyone who’s interested in the miracles of our solar system. I’m sorry, but I’m at a loss for words to describe what an amazing accomplishment this for the ESA, for science, and for our futures, so excuse the sap.
The New York Timesposted a series of tweets that a very excited Philae, who couldn’t wait to touch down on the surface of 7P/C-G after journeying ten years to get there (do you blame it?). The newspaper also has a series of incredible photos that document the comet as detail its landing place.
What makes this such a special event?
Landing on a relatively small target from a great distance notwithstanding, it’s ESA’s and the world’s first opportunity to scientifically examine, up close, just exactly how a comet operates, what it sees, where it goes and what it does for a living. The pictures indicate that its shape isn’t anything to brag about, but again, it’s the first time anyone has ever set foot on such a heavenly object and it’s a premiere learning experience for all. NASA has also contributed three instruments to the lander mission, so what makes this even better its international, offworld educational opportunity.
Philae’s got a big job ahead of it. With only 64 battery hours to get through its tasks initially, it will depend upon solar batteries to provide it with power until March. That, and it has an awful lot of tweets to send us to let us know how it’s doing!
Saturday’s tragic crash of Virgin Galactic’s space plan over the Mojave Desert was inevitable. Two highly regarded pilots subjected a new technology to a test that partially failed. I say “partially” because the launch plane lived to see another day, while the space-skimming component didn’t.
As horrific as it must have been to watch the crash, again, I say, all knew it was a definite possibility. Anyone who flirts with the impossible does. Is it wrong to test fate? Certainly not. It’s expected. Demanded, even, if humankind’s going to stretch its limits to infinite levels.
Long before the days of Icarus, the absence of wings from the human anatomy led the drive to create the next best thing. Someone’s always thought up of a way to fly without success, but it wasn’t until November 1783 that two French citizens, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d’Arlandes, took flight in a hot air balloon created in 1782 by Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. That’s when the earthbound soul could gaze upon the world in an entirely new perspective.
For the next 100+ years, serious study involving the physics of lift and sustained flight occurred. Notably, Sir George Caley’s work led to the first manned, controllable glider capable of sustained flight in 1853. Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, important research and experimentation regarding steam-propelled flight occurred. In 1874 Félix du Temple created an aluminum plane with a 13-meter wingspan. After launching from a ramp under steam power, it remained airborne for a short but significant hop, causing it to be the first hop achieved powered by an engine. In 1875 Thomas Moy set into flight an tandem-winged monoplane dubbed “The Aerial Steamer.” Alexander Mozhaiski, a Russian, built a steam-powered monoplane and in 1884, managed to launch it from a ramp and it remained aloft for 98 feet.
Each of these experiments edged pilots closer to their goal of sustained flight with the use of power to achieve it. Here’s where the controversy comes in. Gustave Whitehead fans know for sure it was he who took to the air on August 14, 1901 in Fairfield, Connecticut and stayed there using his Number 21 Monoplane. It was an event reported in the Bridgeport Sunday Herald. In January 1903 he claimed to repeat his feat two more times. Even Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft stated in 2013 Whitehead was first.
On the other hand, the Smithsonian Institution is sticking to its guns saying that the Wright Brothers, using their unstable, nearly unmanageable aircraft, took flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. Each brother had his turn, with Orville flying 120 feet in 12 seconds, and Wilbur beating his brother by going 852 feet in 59 seconds.
All these contributions were significant. In ten years’ time, flying machines progressed to such a level they became not instruments of how humans can soar with the birds, but shoot them down like game. World War I pilots became famous and infamous, as their canvas and wood planes were capable of killing not just the enemy, but anyone who was brave enough to fly them.
After the war, flight technology progressed rapidly. Aviators pushed the limits as quickly as the engineers who built the planes they flew. Charles Lindbergh was the first to cross the Atlantic without stopping, and Charles Kingford-Smith was the first to cross the Pacific uninterrupted. In 1924 the first aerial circumnavigation was conducted by the United States Army Air Service using a team of pilots.
Of course we all know what came next. World War II brought on unparalleled use of planes as weapons, with the first jet coming from Germany at the end of the war. That led to a combination of supersonic planes and the development of rocketry. Far more pilots died as a result of war than as a result of experimentation of new technology, but it is although through the applied usage of flight that humans have created new boundaries to serve new purposes.
Planes launched a powerless Enterprise, the first American space shuttle. Eventually, rockets got them into space. The missions also met with tragedy twice. But look what those missions gave us: a new understanding to what is possible, and what might be.
My heart goes out to the families whose members made the ultimate sacrifice for pushing the boundaries. Their contributions are not forgotten. Their deaths are not in vain, but will one day serve as an example of what can be ultimately achieved when one bravely steps out to take the ultimate risk.
Moon, Stars and Beyond 