Midnight Thoughts at the Space Center

Hello Troops,
I'm sitting here befuddled.  Before me is a blank white screen waiting for words to form in my tired brain and find their way down my arms, through my fingers and onto this electronic void.  What could I possibly write at 11:56 P.M. on a Friday night that you would find interesting?

I feel a few thoughts taking shape but nothing is congealing.  They are just vague ideas popping back and forth between the rational and irrational parts of my consciousness like electrons transitioning between dimensions of space time.

Wait, something is taking shape......I'm thinking of the awesome campers we're hosting from Ridgeline Elementary.  Great kids with positive attitudes and intelligence beyond their years......

... and there the thought goes - disappearing into the Aether like a vapor from a boiling pot.

I'm seeing something else through the fog of a midnight's delirium.   It's a young volunteer stretched out on one of our ancient cots procured from the War Department after the Spanish American War (well, not really but you'd think so if you ever tried to find a comfortable sleeping position on one of them).  He's giving me a thumbs up.  Yes, perhaps I could write about the new job I've created for our young Connor J.  He is our newly appointed Chief of Cot Quality and Comfort (CCQC).  The CCQC was created in a response to years of complaints from our campers regarding the Overnight Camp's sleeping cots.  Connor tolerably completed his assignment this evening.  He stretched out on each of our older cots, rolled about a bit to simulate a night's unconscious motion, and sat up, putting all his weight on the center of the cot where the unforgiving support bar is found.

"These cots pass," he said with a pride only found in someone who knows he has put in a days work for a day's pay.  "The campers should have no problem with them.  They aren't comfortable in the classical sense of the word but not so uncomfortable a camper couldn't find at least a few hours sleep."

I told him his job rested entirely on the comments made by the campers on the post camp survey.  If the cots aren't mentioned at all, then he keeps his title and position.  If there are complaints, then its back to where I found him in the Center's boiler room shoveling coal into the massive boilers which provide the power to drive our ship's powerful Warp Drive Engines.  Connor gulped down a powerful urge to sob uncontrollably while nervously rubbing his calloused hands together.

I could write about Connor and the cots, but the thought is disappearing as quickly as it appeared.  Besides, I doubt anyone out there would find our troubles with cots an interesting read when compared with the problems Greece is having with the Euro.

Wait, there is something else in the mist.  And its gone before I could make out a shape.

I think I'll put up the white flag and call this post a complete failure.  I'm relieved to a certain extent.  I can stop typing.  I can turn off the light and try to get some sleep on the pad in front of my desk.  I'll tell the staff to stop talking in the Odyssey before going to bed .  I'll also have to ignore the sleeping dock's creaking in the Voyager's Captain's Quarter's .  Every time the boys turn or move, the boards in the sleeping dock squeak.  I'll talk to our builder about fixing that when he comes in next.

It's 12:23 A.M.  Time for bed.

Goodnight from the Space Center.

Mr. W.

50 Years Ago: Aurora 7 in Space!

 

Mercury-Atlas 7 blasts off!

Fifty years ago, on May 24, 1962, NASA launched mission MA-7 with astronaut Scott Carpenter from Launch Complex LC-14 at Cape Canaveral. The capsule, named "Aurora 7" by the astronaut, entered Earth orbit five and a half minutes later. Like John Glenn's MA-6 flight, the mission lasted for 3 orbits and completed its primary mission objectives.

 

Mercury Mission Control.

Some of the mission objectives were scientific. One objective was to observe liquid in a weightless environment. Another involved investigating things that John Glenn had reported during his flight, such as the airglow in the atmosphere layer, and identification of the "fireflies" Glenn had reported, which turned out to be frozen ice particles from the spacecraft exterior. Photographs were taken of the Earth and the colors in the atmospheric layer.

 

Photo taken from Aurora 7.

 

Most importantly, the spacecraft was checked out for engineering tolerances, and deemed ready for continued missions with longer orbits. Unfortunately, the Automated Control System suffered a malfunction. Astronaut Carpenter was able to manually take control and operate the spacecraft so that no mission objectives were affected, except one.

Carpenter inside the Mercury spacecraft before launch.

 

After a flight time of 4 hours 30 minutes, Carpenter began re-entry operations. The retro rockets fired, slowing the spacecraft so that it began to lower its altitude. Carpenter lowered and secured the periscopic viewer used for outside observations, and a minute and a half after firing the retros, the retro pack was jettisoned, exposing the heatshield for re-entry. During re-entry and the blazing fire of heated plasma around the craft, Carpenter used the spacecraft controls to orient the spacecraft position. At some point during the process, enough error entered the flightpath to cause it to go slightly off course. The main parachutes were deployed perfectly, and splashdown occurred at mission time T+4 hours, 57 minutes, 10 seconds. The only problem was, there was no one there to fetch him!

 

Aurora 7 in the water, with Navy frogmen assisting.

 

The spacecraft had overshot the expected landing area, and Carpenter found himself 402 kilometers away from where they were looking. Eventually though, he was found and Navy divers were dispatched to place a flotation collar around the capsule to prevent it sinking like what happened to Gus Grissom's capsule. Carpenter egressed from the upper hatch and entered one of the liferafts provided. The rescue ship, carrier Intrepid, arrived and the capsule was recovered and Carpenter brought on board for a successful end to the MA-7 mission.

 

Carpenter on the deck of USS Intrepid.

 

By Mark Daymont

Space Center Educator

Spacerubble.blogspot.com

Dragon Blasts Off to ISS!

 

Falcon 9 rocket blasts off with Dragon spacecraft from pad LC-40.

In a remarkable first for space exploration, a private corporation has sent a spacecraft carrying supplies to the International Space Station. After the launch abort on May 19th, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) engineers replaced a faulty check valve on engine number 5 (dubbed "Merlin") and prepared for a new countdown. Early this morning at 3:44 am EDT, the engines ignited perfectly and the Falcon 9 rocket made a smooth and flawless flight into space. The Dragon capsule separated without error and entered low Earth orbit. On schedule, the Dragon deployed its twin solar panels, a first for SpaceX and the Dragon design. The next step was to "open the pod bay door"(a reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, if you haven't seen it, you're not a space fan...). The navigation bay pod door has to open in order to deploy several experiments and reveal the docking latch, that will be used by the ISS robotic arm to grapple the Dragon prior to docking. Engineers breathed a sigh of relief as the door successfully opened (SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted that it was a better result than that on 2001).

Dragon is on course to pass by the ISS on DAY 4 of its mission, should all orbital tests be completed. After that, the Dragon will approach the station again for a rendezvous with the CanadArm for docking. A lot of hope rides on this mission, and should it be completed successfully, it will end the test phase of the COTS2 program for SpaceX and the company will begin regular supply missions to the ISS, a great leap for commercial space applications.

SpaceX, NASA prepare for Dragon launch

Liftoff! No- Wait- Guess not...

Wonderful thing, that technology. I have this amazing device called an alarm clock that woke me a half hour before SpaceX's expected flight of the Dragon spacecraft in the wee hours of May 19. I switched to NASA TV, and there it was, SpaceX's Falcon rocket with Dragon spacecraft ready to launch. Everything seemed ready to go, until the actual launch. Then as the engine began ignition, the system automatically shut down (as it was designed to do) at T- 0.5 seconds. The cause: higher pressures than allowed in the center engine of the Falcon rocket.

Well, better an abort than a mission failure! There is an awful lot of space business riding on this mission. It will be the first commercial cargo delivery to the ISS and the start of a new way of doing space business for our country. Unfortunately, there are some people in congress who do not want space business out of the hands of the government.  For my part, I'm hoping this mission will be a tremendous success. Within seconds, SpaceX engineers were working to resolve the problem and set the mission back on the timetable. And they have done so. A faulty check valve on the "Merlin" engine - no. 5- on the first stage is the guilty party, and currently engineers are switching out the valve. SpaceX and NASA will try agian on Tuesday, May 22, at 1:44 a.m. MDT. Time to set that alarm again.

Soyuz TMA-04M docked at ISS. Part of ISS blocks the front module of the Soyuz capsule.

Meanwhile, up in space... The second part of the Expedition 31 crew arrived at the ISS on Thursday, May 17 bringing the crew to its full complement of six space explorers.  The Soyuz TMA-04M docked to the Russian Poisk Module. Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka, Sergei Revin, and astronaut Joe Acaba joined Expedition 31 Commander Oleg Kononenko (Russian), Andre Kuipers (From the Eurpean Space Agency) and flight engineer Donald Petite (NASA). 

Astronauts Petite and Kuipers will be operating the CanadArm robotic arm should the Dragon spacecraft reach the ISS. The arm will grapple the spacecraft, and maneuver it to dock at the ISS. The docking will be at the US Harmony module.

 

By Mark Daymont

Space Center Educator

Spacerubble.blogspot.com