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Scifi and Fantasy Forum: Speculation: Space exploration New and Tidbits:
Archive through May 29, 2003
Archive through May 29, 2003
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Posted By:  shadow Mar 26, 2003 - 11:02 am |       | lol @ Nomad,
great article... I visited Roswell once, interesting place....
| Posted By: Nomad Mar 26, 2003 - 05:02 pm | | he he he. I figured someone would get a kick out of it.
NASA selects Mars landing sites
By Leonard David
SPACE.COM
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., April 11 — In the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) landing site sweepstakes, the winners are: Meridiani Planum and Gusev crater. NASA has concluded that these two touchdown zones on Mars offer the greatest science reward for the soon-to-be launched dual Mars Exploration Rovers.
EACH MER ROBOT will examine its landing site for geological evidence of past liquid water activity and past environmental conditions hospitable to life.
CALLING THE SHOTS
Picking the two top sites follows a complex process of culling through some 155 prospective landing spots. The two sites are a giant crater that appears to have once held a lake, while the other is a broad outcropping of a mineral that usually forms in the presence of liquid water.
“Landing on Mars is very difficult, and it’s harder on some parts of the planet than others,” said Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for space science in Washington, D.C.
It was Weiler who called the shots — as to where each of the robots would be targeted.
“In choosing where to go, we need to balance science value with engineering safety considerations at the landing sites. The sites we have chosen provide such balance,” Weiler said in a NASA press release.
LONGSTANDING LEADER
A longstanding leader of the pack of possible landing spots has been Terra Meridiani. This area is believed to contain a rich deposit of hematite.
Here on Earth, hematite can collect in hot springs or in standing pools of water. This grayish mineral on Mars is thought to be indicative of ancient hot springs.
“We have come amazingly far since Fall of 2000 when the plans for this effort unfolded,” said James Garvin, NASA Mars Program Scientist. “Over the past 2-plus years, we have engaged the broadest possible cross-section of the science community in a ‘crusade’ to identify the most scientifically compelling, as well as ‘science safe’, landing sites for the MER rovers that are humanly possible,” Garvin told SPACE.com.
EYES WIDE OPEN
Garvin said that today’s announcement follows four landing site workshops. In addition, many human-years of effort have been put forth to understand the performance specifications of the MER landing system. That is, the difficult task of entry, descent, and landing followed by airbag roll stop, with each rover then wheeling away to begin their exploration.
“There has clearly been more diligent effort applied to optimizing science against the risks of landing on Mars for the sites under consideration than ever before,” Garvin said in pre-landing site decision remarks.
“It is striking now, in retrospect, how little we had to go on for Viking and even Pathfinder. For MER, we are going to land with our ‘eyes wide open’ thanks to the rich legacy of new data from Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, as well as the greater fidelity of simulation models of the MER landing system,” Garvin said.
ON SCHEDULE
The first rover, scheduled for launch May 30, will be targeted to land at Gusev Crater. The second, scheduled to rocket Marsward on June 25, will be precision-pointed to land at Meridiani Planum.
Which rover is targeted to a specific site is still considered tentative, while further analyses and simulations are conducted. NASA can change the order as late as approximately one month after the launch of the first rover.
The first mission will parachute to an airbag-cushioned landing on January 4, 2004, and the second on January 25, 2004.
Once they reach their landing sites, each rover’s prime mission will last at least 90 Martian days (92 Earth days). The rovers are solar-powered, and in approximately 90 days, dust slowly accumulating on their solar arrays likely will decrease rover power, bringing to a close each robot’s sojourn.
from http://www.msnbc.com/news/898948.asp
Thanks nomad. Am finding it really interesting so far.
Quote:Once they reach their landing sites, each rover’s prime mission will last at least 90 Martian days (92 Earth days). The rovers are solar-powered, and in approximately 90 days, dust slowly accumulating on their solar arrays likely will decrease rover power, bringing to a close each robot’s sojourn.
Windshield wipers.
| Posted By: Nomad Apr 14, 2003 - 06:30 am | | LoL...you would think they could add somethng to atleast help clear the Solar panels. Perhaps a small compressed air burst? Turn into the wind?
| Posted By: Nomad Apr 18, 2003 - 09:42 am | | Space ... the final front? Should the Pentagon expand its military operations in outer space? Here’s a selection of the e-mails I’ve received on the issue:
Howard Eury, North Carolina: “Space should never be used military purposes. Are we not so sick of war here on Earth that we need to guarantee the dominance of the planet from the last frontier? No weapons in space should be the answer.”
Ray: “I think we should begin pursuing the option of a Space Fleet, or Space Navy, or whatever it might be called. I bet we would see space open up much faster on an exploratory front if the backers of military might in the U.S., the lobbyists, the financiers, the defense contractors, etc., became interested in space. In addition, wouldn’t it be nice if we could have something up in the heavens that could possible protect us from being hit by an asteroid?”
Charles: “I don’t want to have some foreign power’s missiles aimed at me. For this reason, we need to put our missiles up there first to prevent others from doing so. Does this sound too ultra-nationalistic? Consider that as much as we know that the U.S. is not beyond lies and initiating wars, I trust the U.S. far more than other governments to avoid initiating war for the sole purpose of conquest.”
John Stanley: “Absolutely ban all weapons in space. We have seen the terrible rhetoric about surgical strikes dropped as the reality of civilian slaughter has marked this war. The prospect of having satellites delivering weapons into my back yard is the ultimate ‘friendly fire’ but certainly no less likely than chemically dependent pilots delivering them to their own troops, not on one pass but a second close-range attack! I say a clear no to weapons in space! While the generals (and Don) control foreign policy, none of us are safe anyway!”
Orlando Reborado, San Juan, Puerto Rico: “We must. If we don’t, we’ll be at the mercy of the Chinese within a few years. Their program is not definitely peace-oriented.”
We already have weapons in space. Or to be exact we have the guidance and targetting systems operated by satellites, and satellite info is used for military purposes. Actual weapons in space (at least weapons aimed downward) is a daft idea as it causes all sorts of logistical and financial problems without yielding any real advantage. The best system is the aim from space, shoot from high altitude method employed at the moment.
That said some serious heavy firepower pointing outwards would be pretty cool, although making a missile able to travel accurately meaningful distance in outer space seems an awful lot of effort.
As to those crazy rovers that get battered by dust, what's up with that? They must have considered windowscreen wipers at some point, so why won't they work? I'm going to be tortured now trying to figure out why window wipers don't work on other planets now. 
I can think of three pragmatic reasons why orbital weapons-delivery systems are not considered much.
1. The orbit will eventually degrade and the weapons system fall back to earth, like Mir did. The satellite would need fueled thrusters to maneuver into firing positions or different orbits, and it would run out of fuel (like recon sats do). Any weapon that's worth putting into such an expensive system is something that you don't want falling into your yard. Or falling into your enemy's hands with the fuse disarmed.
2. It's believed that orbital combat satellites would actually be rather easy to shoot down. At least for most countries. Both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had anti-satellite missile plans during the Cold War. As far as I know, they both knew that and also that ASATs would be cheaper than the combat sats, so neither built combat sats, so neither built the ASATs. But it could be done, with tech that's now a couple of decades old. Second-rate countries could develop it if we gave them reason to. Also, the EMP of a nuke detonated up there (ionosphere?) might be pretty devastating. A single warhead could wreck trillions of dollars worth of satellites.
3. It'd be uber-expensive. Think of how many bombs we drop on Iraq each time we go to war. Imagine the cost to lift all those into space...securely. How much rocket fuel would it take to boost a 2000 pound bomb into orbit anyway? For all the expense, the only result would be that it would be slightly quicker to call down a satellite strike than to call a TLAM strike from subs or call in an aircraft strike.
As for creating a space fleet...we can't even talk NASA into sending a small team to Mars yet. And they're too busy conducting multi-decade experiments trying to figure out what the effects of weightlessness on astronauts are to create spin-based artificial gravity ships. They've put the concept of any noticeable human presence in space on permanent hold until they finish their paperwork.
Yeah NASA sucks in that respect. If people really want to make serious headway into space then what is needed is a train full of cash and a gung ho attitude. We should be shooting people into space as often as possible and not bringing the whole world to a standstill just because a few don't come back.
Well here's away to get into space with out NASA.....
News: Private manned space plane unveiled
Fully-built spacecraft, launch system developed in secrecy
MOJAVE, Calif., April 18 — Aircraft designer Burt Rutan unveiled Friday a fully-built launch system that, if flights outside the atmosphere prove successful, would be the first private manned space program. Both the spacecraft, called SpaceShipOne, and its launch platform, a futuristic jet known as the White Knight, were developed and built in secret and have already begun tests at lower altitudes.
DK: So if your interested read more here:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/902224.asp
| Posted By: Nomad Apr 20, 2003 - 11:01 am | | Yup, Gringo...It's all about the $$$! Like when we put man on the moon, they got money thrown at them to accomplish it. It was a part of the Cold War.
86 Billion for a war might have been good for space flight. We need to bight the bullet and spend the money. Let your legislators know that.
| Posted By: Nomad May 05, 2003 - 09:49 am | | Asteroid Is Named in Mister Rogers' Honor
By Associated Press
posted: 10:25 am ET
02 May 2003
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Mister Rogers now has an asteroid named in his honor.
"Misterrogers,'' formerly known as No. 26858, honors Fred Rogers, creator and host of public television's "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.'' Rogers died Feb. 27 at age 74.
"I doubt that there are many who have not been touched in some way by the life and work of Fred Rogers,'' said John G. Radzilowicz, director of the Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium & Observatory at the Carnegie Science Center, which made the announcement Thursday.
The science center worked with Family Communications Inc., the production company Rogers founded, to produce a planetarium show for preschoolers called ``The Sky Above Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.'' The show now plays at 15 planetariums across the country.
"Misterrogers'' can be found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and is about 218 million miles from the sun, which it takes about 3 1/2 years to orbit. It was discovered in 1993 by E.F. Helin at the Palomar Observatory in California.
The International Astronomical Union names comets, asteroids and surface features such as moon craters after individuals. The honors cannot be bought, and they are based on merits judged by the astronomers.
| Posted By: Nomad May 05, 2003 - 09:50 am | | Japan's Asteroid Sample Return Mission Prepares for Launch
By Eric Talmadge
Associated Press
posted: 04:57 pm ET
04 May 2003
TOKYO (AP) -- Fresh off the successful launch of its first spy satellites, Japan is now preparing a more ambitious, and less controversial, mission: to bring home the first space rocks since U.S. astronauts gathered samples from the moon over 30 years ago.
"This is by far our most complex mission to date,'' said Junichiro Kawaguchi, who is heading the mission for Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science. "There are many difficulties that could bring down the chances of success.''
For starters, Japan has its sights set on a much smaller -- and far more distant -- target than the moon.
If all goes well, Kawaguchi said, the unmanned MUSES-C probe will make three one-second touch-and-go contacts with 1998 SF36, a tiny asteroid some 180 million miles (290 million kilometers) away from Earth, and bring back a gram or so of its surface.
Muses would be the world's first two-way trip to an asteroid. A NASA probe collected data for two weeks from the surface of the Manhattan-sized asteroid Eros in 2001, but it did not return with physical samples.
"No probe has brought back extraterrestrial samples since the Apollo program'' in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kawaguchi said.
Japanese space officials have been encouraged by five consecutive successful launches of their domestically developed H-2A rocket, which they hope will become a competitive commercial launch vehicle.
The latest H-2A, which lifted off in March, put two spy satellites into orbit.
But the MUSES-C launch, scheduled for May 9 from a pad on an island in southern Japan, will mark Japan's first space exploration mission in more than three years.
Getting off the ground hasn't been easy.
The failure of an M-5 rocket to put the last space probe into orbit in February 2000 forced planners to postpone the Muses-C launch, and aim it at a different asteriod than originally intended. A glitch in its altitude regulating system caused a further delay, and swelling costs prompted NASA to shelve a project to build a tiny, wheeled robot for the probe.
Undaunted, mission planners now intend to gather surface samples from the asteroid in June 2005 and parachute them in a re-entry capsule to a range near the southern Australia town of Woomera two years later.
Little is known about asteroids.
Muses' football-shaped target is only 2,300 feet (690 meters) long and 1,000 feet (300 meters) wide, and has a gravitational pull only one-one-hundred-thousandth of Earth's. Though it will take MUSES-C about two years to get there, the asteroid is among the closest neighbors to Earth other than the moon.
Muses' first mission will be a three-month survey of the asteroid with cameras and infrared imaging gear from an altitude of about 12 miles (19 kilometers). It will move in close enough to fire a small bullet into the asteroid and collect the ejected fragments in a funnel-like device.
It won't be coming back with much -- the amount of material planners hope to capture wouldn't even fill a teaspoon.
"People often ask why just one gram," said Kawaguchi. "For us, that's a lot. It's enough for tests and analysis."
A target marker the size and shape of a grapefruit will guide the probe to its sample collection sites.
To boost public awareness of Japan's space program, a campaign to collect names to be sent into space with the probe was held over the Internet. Though the campaign fell short of its 1 million goal, 877,490 names have been etched on an aluminum-foil wrapper around the target marker.
Roughly half of them are Americans; Japanese account for about 40 percent, according to the Japan Planetary Society, which sponsored the campaign.
| Posted By: Nomad May 05, 2003 - 09:51 am | | Russian Space Chief Promises Answers on Soyuz Trouble
By Chris Kridler
FLORIDA TODAY
posted: 10:00 am ET
05 May 2003
MOSCOW -- The head of Russia’s space agency promised today that it would find out quickly what caused a Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts to land hundreds of miles away from its intended target.
Yuri Koptev, head of the Russian Space Agency, said the capsule that dropped Ken Bowersox, Don Pettit and Soyuz commander Nikolai Budarin 120 miles north of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan would be taken to Moscow within a couple of days and examined. It could yield answers almost immediately, he said.
The crew, which left the International Space Station in the hands of a new two-man crew after a five-month stay, arrived by plane at a military air base north of Moscow today. The men were greeted by cheering family members, officials and a mob of photographers.
Budarin was off the plane first, raising his hands to the cheering crowd, followed by a grinning Bowersox, the former station commander. Pettit, who had routine post-flight medical treatment in Kazakhstan, according to a NASA spokesman, came off last.
A few minutes later, at Star City - the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center north of Moscow - the returning explorers were given a traditional welcoming gift of bread and salt before being sequestered by flight surgeons. Bowersox said he was looking forward to a walk among the trees with his wife and getting back to Houston later this month to hug his kids.
Bowersox called the landing a "normal return to Earth" while he was in Kazakhstan, but it was anything but. A large number of Russian and NASA officials and families at the mission control center north of Moscow were biting their nails for two-and-a-half hours while helicopters and planes searched for the missing ship, which landed almost 300 miles outside its target area.
"I was worried early, often, regularly, all the way through this entire engagement," NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe admitted afterward.
He praised the new and old station crews. "They’re a heroic bunch on both sides, in both crews, and there was not a moment when I thought any of this would be routine. It has proven to be nothing but that. But across the way, the depth of the partnership, I think, has been demonstrated."
Later, at the air base, O’Keefe acknowledged "very anxious moments this morning" and said astronaut Jim Newman, NASA’s representative in Star City, would be involved in the Soyuz investigation.
O’Keefe and Koptev held an impromptu press conference today after the safe landing was confirmed, with O’Keefe repeatedly emphasizing the friendship between the U.S. and Russia, and embracing Koptev.
O’Keefe is to return to Washington Monday, after meeting with Koptev to discuss International Space Station issues, including funding. U.S. assistance must be managed through the other international partners, because the Iran Non-Proliferation Act prohibits direct payments to Russia.
Russia’s Soyuz and Progress flights are critical to keeping the station manned and supplied while the shuttles are grounded. Space shuttles will not fly again until the Gehman board finishes its investigation of the Columbia accident, which killed all seven crew members upon the ship’s reentry into the atmosphere on Feb. 1.
That event was on everyone’s mind when Bowersox’s capsule wasn’t immediately located. Although communication with the crew was reported solid during descent, it was cut off upon landing.
The capsule’s discovery by a search plane - with the astronauts outside and waving in the Kazakh desert - was greeted by cheers of relief among the exhausted crowd in the mission control center outside Moscow, some of whom had been there all night.
Ivanov Nikolai Mikhailovich, an expert on ballistic or shallow entries for the Russian Space Agency, said Budarin, Bowersox and Pettit could have experienced a G-load of nine if they made a shallow entry. That’s nine times the force of gravity and twice the forces that Soyuz crews usually experience.
Bowersox, eagerly chomping on a banana and wearing a yellow T-shirt aboard the airplane flight back to Star City, downplayed the off-the-mark landing as he chatted casually with NASA’s space station manager Bill Gerstenmaier and astronaut Mike Foale, soon to get his own stint on Alpha. Bowersox and Gerstenmaier said they were confident in the Soyuz and the Russians’ preparation for landing.
"It was fantastic for me as a test pilot to do the first re-entry of a test vehicle," Bowersox said of the Soyuz TMA, an upgraded version of the venerable Russian craft that has flown for decades. "Today is a perfect example of how things you don’t expect to happen do. We all expected a 100 percent nominal entry, but that’s what happens when you test fly a new vehicle."
Resolving the mystery of the wayward capsule will be critical for the Russian Space Agency, since the Soyuz is the only ship now capable of taking crews to and from the station. Gerstenmaier said NASA will be involved in the investigation because of the capsule’s importance to the station project, but expressed no concerns about the reliability of the craft. The second Soyuz TMA took the Expedition 7 crew, Yuri Malenchenko and Ed Lu, to the station just over a week ago and will take them home in six months, when they are to be replaced by another Soyuz crew.
If shuttles are flying by early 2004, as some officials suggest, that crew - expected to be NASA’s Foale and Russia’s Alexander Kaleri - could be relieved by a space shuttle. Foale, however, said he expected he and Kaleri would serve a full six months on the station.
| Posted By: Nomad May 06, 2003 - 11:35 am | | Software bug sent Soyuz off course
By James Oberg
NBC NEWS SPACE ANALYST
HOUSTON, May 5 — A mysterious software fault in the new guidance computer of the Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft was the cause of the high-anxiety off-course landing over the weekend, NASA sources tell MSNBC.com.
ONCE IDENTIFIED, the error should be easy to fix in the computer of the Soyuz TMA-2, which is now attached to the International Space Station to provide the new two-man crew with a way to return to Earth.
But until the flaw has been identified and, if it is generic in all models of the spacecraft, repaired, it’s one more worry for the new crew of the space station. They, too, might face a grueling drop back to Earth if they need to evacuate the station.
Improvements to the landing equipment on this new model spacecraft, along with the Feb. 1 Columbia tragedy, combined to heighten anxiety even before the Soyuz headed back to Earth on Saturday. So when the premature euphoria of an incorrectly-announced “safe landing” shifted to the worrisome news that the Soyuz was far off course and out of radio contact, the possibility of a second space landing disaster wasn’t far from anyone’s minds.
WHAT HAPPENED
The Soyuz was skimming horizontally across the edge of the upper atmosphere at close to 25,000 feet per second (Mach 25, or 25 times the speed of sound), using air drag to shed its tremendous velocity. Normal plans would have called for choosing an altitude where the air was just thick enough to slow the craft by about 150 feet per second every second. In terms of earth surface gravity, whose acceleration is the classic 32 feet per second per second, that gives a deceleration force of about five G’s.
This flight plan requires the Soyuz to fly with the upper edge of its heat shield tilted slightly forward, to gain a small amount of “lift” and keep it from dropping into the lower, thicker layers of the atmosphere which will slow the spacecraft faster — and thus decelerate it more strongly. To accomplish this, the spacecraft was designed to have its center of mass off center, closer to the outer hull above the heads of the crew. By rolling — rotating along its long axis — the heavy side “up,” the necessary lift-producing tilt can be created and controlled.
But this requires that the guidance computer recognize what direction is “up” and where the spacecraft is in relation to its aim point far ahead. While not a particularly complex calculation, it is one that must be done with high precision and reliability. Gemini, Apollo, and Soyuz spacecraft perfected this technique in the mid- to late-1960’s.
What happened this time was that the autopilot suddenly announced to the crew that it had forgotten where it was and which way it was headed.
“The auto system switched to backup,” a NASA source told MSNBC.com, “which surprised them”.
U.S. astronaut Kenneth Bowersox, one of the three men aboard the Soyuz, was even more dramatic in an interview given on his way back to Moscow.
“The first thing we saw was signs on our displays that the entry was going to be off nominal,” Bowersox said. “And when we saw those signs our eyes got very wide.”
The crew knew that without guidance commands, the autopilot would stabilize the spacecraft using a simple-minded backup procedure. It would send commands to steering thrusters to perform a slow roll, turning the spacecraft’s “heavy side” continuously around the dial. This had the desired effect of “nulling out” any now-unsteerable lift and let the Soyuz follow a “ballistic” descent.
But this also meant that without the lift to stretch its flight path, the Soyuz would fall faster into thicker air. That in turn would impede the spacecraft’s forward speed even more “aggressively” (Bowersox’s word), resulting in a deceleration about twice as high as normal and a landing far short of the planned site.
SOFTWARE PROBLEMS CAN BE FATAL
Historically, this is a very rare type of failure. It occurred several times between 1967 and 1975, but never afterwards. Thus, suspicion immediately focused on this new Soyuz’s “improved” guidance computer.
“Ken suspects a software problem”, a NASA source told MSNBC.com.
There was also the real possibility of crew error, and on Sunday, the head of the corporation that builds and operates the Soyuz spacecraft, Yuriy Semyonov, suggested that “one of the Americans” had pushed the backup-mode activation button. Bowersox was the only American who had any active role in the descent (it was astronaut Donald Pettit’s job to follow the checklists), and he denied touching the button — which, he joked, was being guarded carefully by Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin. “We don’t think we did anything to cause that to happen,” he later said to a NASA press official.
Software problems in the Soyuz guidance computer aren’t just a matter of landing randomly back on Earth; they are potentially fatal. In 1988, a confused guidance computer nearly jettisoned the Soyuz T-M5’s rocket engine section while the crew was still in orbit, a malfunction that would have doomed the men to a slow death by suffocation. Only the alertness of one of the pilots detected and aborted the insane command.
In March 1997, the three-man Soyuz TM-24 barely evaded two potential catastrophic software flaws during its return to Earth. First, after separating from its propulsion module, the command module was nearly rammed by the jettisoned unit when its control computer fired the wrong set of pointing rockets. Moments later, the command module’s autopilot lined it up for atmospheric entry — but in precisely the wrong direction, nose first rather than heat shield first. Manual intervention fixed that problem — but even at the height of the shuttle-Mir US-Russian space partnership, there’s no indication the Russians shared news of either of these flaws with NASA.
This time, since Budarin, Bowersox and Pettit knew that their backup descent profile was safe — if rougher — they kept their hands off the manual controls. “They didn’t do anything,” MSNBC.com was told. ”[They] just let the auto system control.”
The rest of the descent appeared to go as planned, and the parachutes and soft-landing engines did their job. As in about half of all Soyuz landings, the landing module wound up on its side, probably pulled over by a gust of wind in its parachute just at touchdown.
The three men, who knew they were far off course, were able to open the hatch themselves and get out; it’s a much easier drop to the ground when the capsule is on its side. They then waited two hours to be spotted by a search plane, and several hours more for the arrival of the first helicopter.
| Posted By: Nomad May 06, 2003 - 11:36 am | | Astronauts describe harrowing ride
Relief gives way to speculation after difficult reentry
By Kathy Sawyer and Sharon LaFraniere
THE WASHINGTON POST
May 6 — The first sign of anything unusual was a tiny reentry timing light that flashed five seconds earlier than expected in the cabin of the Soyuz spacecraft, U.S. astronaut Kenneth D. Bowersox recalled, describing a ride back to Earth that took a harrowing turn.
SUDDENLY, other control display screens began giving startling readings, and the three incredulous men in the cramped, plummeting spacecraft knew their reentry was not going according to plan. A rapid buildup of gravitational forces — “Gs” — was coming, so they all “got strapped in good,” Bowersox said.
With a fireball blazing outside the window, cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin hooted like a cheerleader all the way down, while the others “strained against the Gs — ‘aaaugh, aaaugh!’ It was quite an experience,” said Bowersox.
On the ground, officials and families feared a nightmare replay of the Feb. 1 loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its crew. The Soyuz landed safely, but almost 300 miles away from the target zone.
A SLENDER THREAD
Beyond the relief was the realization of what a slender thread now supports human spaceflight. With NASA’s shuttle fleet grounded, the Soyuz is the only way to and from space. As of yesterday, there was only speculation about what went wrong in the descent, which took place Sunday Russian time.
Another Soyuz is now docked at the space station, waiting to ferry home the Russian and American who arrived there April 29 for a six-month stay. If doubts arise about the safety of the Soyuz program in general, that could force space officials to rethink their mission — or even to mothball the $100 billion space station project until the shuttles are deemed safe to fly, perhaps in a year or more.
NASA spokesman Rob Navias said today NASA still has absolute confidence in the Soyuz. “Absolutely, no question about it,” he said. “It is among the most reliable spacecraft in the history of human spacecraft.”
Following the “thump down” Sunday morning on the grassy steppes of Kazakhstan, the three space travelers were flown back to their quarters in Star City, Russia, the cosmonaut training center, savoring the happy outcome. There they got a hero’s welcome, complete with a brass band and bouquets of roses.
A NASA camera crew followed them on their flight to Star City and through a series of chats, interviews and reunions with family and friends. This footage was carried on NASA cable TV yesterday, providing the first detailed account by the crew members of the mission’s harrowing end. Quotes from the astronauts in this article are taken from this footage.
Why the Soyuz followed a steeper descent path than planned — a computer-ordained alternate to the planned route — is under investigation by Russian and American experts. Navias and Russian space officials said yesterday that the descent, while highly unusual, was one of three alternate landings for which the crew had trained.
Navias said that the possible causes for the descent include a software error or some kind of trigger from atmospheric conditions.
Early speculation suggested a crew member may have accidentally hit a button that would have changed the descent path. But Bowersox told NASA officials that Budarin had the button covered with his hand so no one would accidentally hit it. “We don’t think we did anything that caused that to happen,” Bowersox said.
EARLIER CASES WITH SOYUZ
A U.S. expert in Russian systems said a similarly extreme Soyuz reentry has occurred twice before. In the first case, in 1979, it happened because the Soyuz engine fired longer than it was supposed to, he said. In the second, in 1988, a engine problem caused the crew to override a control computer and fire the engine manually, which resulted in the same effect.
This was the first flight of a new model of the workhorse Soyuz craft, and the first reentry of Americans aboard a Russian spacecraft.
‘THAT’S NOT RIGHT’
Bowersox, Soyuz commander Budarin and science officer Donald R. Pettit, had been relaxed and confident as they ended an unexpectedly long mission aboard the space station — they were supposed to return in March in a shuttle — and began their reentry late Saturday EDT, they said.
According to Bowersox, when they saw the early flashing of the timing light, which indicates that a certain stage of reentry has begun, “Nikolai asked me, check the time, maybe we got the time wrong. You always doubt yourself first.” But a check turned up no sign of human error at that point.
The three “didn’t believe” what was happening, Bowersox said. “We kept saying, ‘that’s not right. Boy, is this some new mode?’ ”
“At the time we saw it [the building of G-forces] coming, we said, ‘Okay, guys, let’s get strapped down in your seats, because it’s about to get fun fast,’ ” Bowersox said.
Instead of a gentle glide toward Earth, the Soyuz was heading down at a steep angle, meaning that it was decelerating faster than planned. As a result, the crew was subjected to G-forces equivalent to about 8 to 10 times Earth’s gravity, about twice what they would normally experience on a reentry.
The reentry lasted for about 70 minutes. Then parachutes deployed without incident, for a 20-minute descent to “thump down.”
ANXIETY GIVES WAY TO RELIEF
Once on the ground, “the first thing we did was shake each other’s hand. ... We grasped each other’s hands and just kind of gave ‘em a big shake,” Pettit said.
When they opened the hatch, they were still strapped into what had become the ceiling, he said. “As soon as you unbuckle your seat straps, you sort of fall down on the cosmonaut panel.”
When the hatch first cracked open, the smells of spring on the steppes and the sounds of birds overwhelmed them. “Real earthy smells, because we’d stirred up a fair amount of dirt when we landed and then we rolled and were dragged a bit. So you had this fresh dirt smell, which was just a beautiful smell ... and it had a little bit of crushed grass in it, too,” Pettit said.
“Then the next thing that hit me were all the birds chirping. ... It was just music to our ears.”
Having come from almost six months in weightlessness, it took the three men more than an hour to drag themselves out of the hatch under the oppression of Earth’s gravity and erect a folded communications antenna to help the searching planes and helicopters find them, they said.
“You’d crawl out. ... You’d move a little bit. Rest. Move a little bit more. Rest,” Bowersox said. “It was pretty amazing.”
And he added, “I feel really lucky.”
Long Shot
Defying the odds, even before the recent loss of the space shuttle Columbia, an eccentric company called Sea Launch has become the first private enterprise to send large rockets into space—from an enormous floating launch pad that sails to the equator for blast-off. Has the era of private space travel begun?
by Gregg Easterbrook
Extract:Sea Launch's core idea is a novel one; neither the National Aeronautics and Space Administration nor anybody else has tried the ocean approach to space. And it works: Sea Launch can send rockets into space more cheaply per payload pound than anything the government can offer, and those rockets place satellites exactly where they are supposed to go. Since its debut, in 1999, the Odyssey has launched seven large satellites, including the orbital broadcast towers for the new XM Satellite Radio subscription network—two multi-ton techno-marvels dubbed Rock and Roll.
For the long report go here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/05/easterbrook.htm
DK: No I have not read the whole report and I not going to.....
| Posted By: Hyperion May 23, 2003 - 07:16 am | | MARS MISSION NEWS.
Beagle 2, the British Mars lander, is sheduled for launch on this coming Monday-26'th may 2003.
Mission Control, which is situated in a public museum and which will be open to the general public, in what is the first ever time such a space control centre has been available to the public, was unveiled today -
Friday 23'rd MAay 2003.
The Mars Lander -Beagle 2- is sheduled to touch-down on mars around Christmas day. During all of the mission time from lauch to landing and the landers exploration of the Marsian surface, Mission Control will be open to the public.
Excellant stuff imho 
Hyperion out
| Posted By: Nomad May 29, 2003 - 08:52 am | | Mystery Object is Student's Discovery of a Lifetime
NASHVILLE -- Roger Cohen shifted nervously in his chair Monday as his colleague explained their joint discovery, a mystery object apparently orbiting another star in a never-before-seen configuration.
Cohen stood, shy upon being introduced to reporters. He bowed awkwardly, not sure if that's what he was supposed to do. He spoke under his breath a few times during the presentation and corrected his elder colleague once.
Thin and polite, Cohen looks young, as though he might still be in college. In fact, he just graduated Sunday from Wesleyan University.
Yet, not even in graduate school, Cohen has nailed the discovery of a lifetime.
While working on his senior thesis a few months ago, Cohen was pawing through five years of data on various stars, collected through the grunt work of undergraduates at the university's modest 24-inch (0.6 meter) telescope. One star, called KH15D, appeared to wink partially, dropping in brightness by one-half as if eclipsed by some passing object. But it was the slowest such wink ever measured at any star by any astronomer of any age.
"I nearly fell out of my chair," Cohen said.
He showed the data to William Herbst, a Wesleyan astronomy professor who has some experience with winking stars.
"When I saw the data I knew Roger had found something special," Herbst said. "It was something never seen before." Previously, the longest eclipse of a star had lasted two years. The eclipse of KH15D was 3-and-a-half years long, "totally amazing," Herbst said.
Herbst presented the discovery here at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Cohen sat among the reporters, too green to take the pressure, the professor said.
Herbst detailed how the star faded for about a year, bottomed out, and then brightened again for about a year, then leveled off at its pre-event luminosity. The pattern its changing light leaves on a graph is consistent with that of an eclipse by an object orbiting the star, Herbst said, but he doesn't know what could cause such a long eclipse. It is possibly a cloud of material that might be destined to develop into a planet, he said. It is unlikely to be a star or a foreground object of any sort.
A half-dozen other experts in how dust and planets evolve around other stars had no good suggestions. One of them, a University of Florida astronomy professor, did ask Cohen to consider Florida for grad school, however.
In an interview, Cohen said he hasn't decided his career path. He figures it will probably be astronomy. "This certainly didn't hurt," he said of the discovery.
But Cohen is still young. There are other things on his mind, too. He put in about 5-10 hours a week on the work that led to today's announcement. Meanwhile, he's been playing the drums in four or five bands and studying philosophy, too.
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