Category Archives: Space

Space

SpaceX Update

[Note: I’ve moved this post to the top until 6 PM Eastern, so scroll down for potential new content]

Here’s a link for a live webcast of the SpaceX launch in less than two hours (via Tom Merkle).

[Update at 2:42 PM EST]

They’re picking up the pace on the launch sequence now. They have a pretty long checklist, it sounds like.

[Update at 3:16 PM EST]

Uh oh. They’re currently fourteen minutes into an unplanned hold (no explanation yet as to why). I wonder how much slack they have, or if this intrinsically delays the launch?

[Update at 3:26 PM EST]

A recovery boat has wandered into an area in the drop zone that’s off limits. They’re moving it and will be back into the count shortly. Good to hear that it’s not a technical problem.

[Update at 2:37 PM EST]

Aaaarrrgghhh.

Not a problem with the launch, but the cabinet people just arrived to unload them into the garage, so I may miss the launch while supervising them. Good luck, if so.

[Update at 4:08 PM EST]

Picking up the count, with a new scheduled launch of 5:30 PM EST

[Update about 4:30 PM EST]

I’ve moved this thread to the top until 6 PM, so if you see it, you can scroll down for newer material. Also, there’s a live discussion going on over at Free Republic.

[Update at 5 PM]

Starting to see what looks like LOX boiloff vapor from the top of the vehicle.

[Update at about T-10 minutes]

They just finished the poll. “Clear to launch.”

[Update a minute or so before]

I’m noticing a couple-minute delay on the webcast, so it may launch before we actually see it.

[A little after 5:30 EST]

It seems to have gotten off the pad, but my image is frozen on one of the on-board cameras. It seems to have dropped the webcast.

It looked like a good launch, as far as I could see, before we lost the feed, but that was only for a few seconds, and what looked like a couple hundred feet of altitude at most. I guess we’ll have to wait for word from SpaceX as to what happened during the remainder of the trajectory. I have to say that it’s a little unnerving to lose contact like that. I’m wondering if SpaceX cut it off because it was showing something untoward. Here’s hoping for the best, though.

[Update a couple minutes later]

The people at Free Republic who retained the stream longer than me reported blue sky and clouds, but also rolling before the webcast cut off. That could be part of the normal trajectory, but I can’t think of any reason for a symmetric vehicle to do a deliberate roll maneuver during ascent, so it remains unsettling.

[Update at 5:43 PM EST]

Vehicle lost, according to Gwynne Shotwell. Probably range safety destruct.

I’ll post more when I know more.

Schade.

Scheisse.

[Update shortly after 6 PM EST]

Word travels fast these days. The BBC already has the story.

Space

Still Going Strong

…over four decades later. Via Jim Oberg, here’s an interesting article about the first woman in space.

This part I found a little puzzling, though:

Astronaut Mary Ellen Weber , who went up twice on the space shuttle, was also in attendance at the dinner, as was Lori Garver, whose plans to go into space were shelved in 2003 after the Columbia tragedy.

Huh?

What did Columbia have to do with Lori shelving her plans to go into space? She was going to go on Soyuz. I thought she shelved her plans because she couldn’t find a sponsor to pay for it. Of course, it doesn’t say she did it because of Columbia, but that’s certainly the obvious inference to me, else why mention it?

Space

What are People Asking about Space?

Joe Betcher, Lake Superior State, email interviews Sam Dinkin (reprinted with permission):

Betcher: In what areas has current space program failed to live up to expectations?

Dinkin: Settlement. Cheap access.

Betcher: What aspects of human spaceflight have been successful?

Dinkin: Dead end jobs. Glory among non space cognoscenti.

Betcher: What changes to human spaceflight can we expect in the future?

Dinkin: Business-like led by Russia.

Betcher: Do you believe the Vision for Space Exploration will be successful and if any changes are necessary to make it better?

Dinkin: Yes. Yes.

Betcher:What are some of the benefits of a trip to the moon or Mars?

Dinkin: Make it one-way and we are a bi-planet species.

Betcher: Do you believe the risks of sending people into space are worth it? Is there any way to make it safer?

Dinkin: Are the risks of pregnancy worth it? Practice makes perfect.

Betcher: In what ways can robots replace humans in space?

Dinkin: We can send a 77-year old robot around the planet a few times to do geriatrics research.

Betcher: What do you believe is in store for the future of human spaceflight?

Dinkin: Going to a store and buying a human spaceflight.

Space

A New Missile Gap?

Or, at least a missile engineer gap:

Not only are fewer American engineers and scientists choosing to work on missile technology, there are fewer of them altogether, the report says. Each year, about 70,000 Americans receive undergraduate and graduate science and engineering degrees that are defense related, compared with a combined 200,000 in China and India, the report says.

The government should pay higher salaries and offer other incentives to attract more experts into the strategic missile field, the report says.

As always, I find it irritating that reporters think that it takes “scientists” to design and operate missiles. I guess they think that someone with a physics degree is a “scientist,” even if they’re actually doing engineering (perhaps because they think that getting a journalism degree makes one a journalist, regardless of how much journalistic malpractice is committed).