Today marks the day the National Air and Space Agency commemorates their Honored Comrades with A Day Of Remembrance
I know I have been trying to avoid the history lesson trap that I have
reverted to in the past. That said, I think these bear repeating. Your friendly neighborhood space cadet has written about
them before.
NASA's
week of tragic anniversaries finally comes to an end. On January 16, 2003 the Space Shuttle, Columbia, OV-102 launched from LC-39A complex at the Kennedy Space Center. Columbia was flying the STS-107 mission (actually the 113th flight as STS-107 had been delayed for over two years). It was during this 28th launch that the heat shielding
on her left wing was damaged when a portion insulation broke off of an
external tank and struck the leading edge of the wing. As a result of
this damage on February 1st, 2003 and following a two-week mission Columbia experienced
structural failure and disentergrated during re-entry. All hands were lost as the debris fell over parts of Texas and Louisiana.
Mission Commander Richard D. Husband.
Mission Pilot William C. McCool.
Payload Commander Michael P. Anderson.
Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon.
Mission Specialist Kaplana Chawla.
Mission Specialist David M. Brown.
Mission Specialist Laurel Clark.
In Memoriam
The crew of STS-107. L to R: Brown, Husband, Clark, Chawla, Anderson, McCool, Ramon
January 28th, 1986: Challenger OV-099 flying the twenty-fifth space shuttle mission launched from Launch Complex 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center.
Challenger's crew included; Mission commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialists Ellison Shoji Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair, Gregory B. Jarvis and the first Teacher in Space, Christa McAuliffe.
Seventy three seconds
after liftoff STS-51-L, Challenger was lost with all
hands when an O-ring in one of solid rocket boosters failed and the Shuttle suffered total structural failure and disintegrated over the
Atlantic ocean near the coast of Florida.
In memoriam.
Back row (L-R): Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik. Front row (L-R): Michael J. Smith, Francis "Dick" Scobee, Ronald McNair.
Today marks the beginning of a week filled with the sad anniversaries of NASA's tragedies.
At 1 pm EST on January 27th, 1967 Command Pilot, Lt. Colonel Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot, Lt. Colonel Edward White, II and Pilot Lt Commander Roger Chaffee climbed into the command module of AS-204. Perched atop a Saturn IB launch vehicle at the Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 34 the three men were testing the ability of the command module to operate properly on its internal power. The simulated countdown was suspended and resumed several times as the testing continued. At 6:30 pm the countdown was on hold at T-10 minutes. Test instruments indicated a change in a normally stable electrical circuit at 6:30:54 pm. Ten seconds later Grissom reported a fire in the cabin. All transmissions from the crew ended abruptly at 18:31:21.
Left to Right: White, Grissom, Chaffee
The wives of the Astronauts asked for the mission to be retroactively renamed as Apollo 1.
April 24, 1990, 08:33:51 am EDT (12:33 UTC) Man’s vision, though still myopic becomes a bit more farsighted. Strapped securely in the payload compartment of Discovery OV-103 on the STS-31 mission was the Hubble Space telescope.
Named after astronomer Edwin Hubble, the instrument is placed on a low earth orbit 347 miles overhead and despite a design flaw in the instrument’s mirror of 2.2 microns, (the average human hair is 100 microns in diameter) opened our eyes to wonders of the mulitverse mankind had never before seen.
A solution to the mirror’s flaw in was devised and launched aboard Endeavour OV-105 flying STS-61 in December 1993. Hubble, with brand new glasses really showed us the black.
The Hubble space telescope has looked back in time to the virtual birth of our universe, The HST has focused on a mini galaxy, the light from which has taken 13.4 billion years to reach us here on our tiny, pale blue dot., Thirteen billion light years, or nearly 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles. Look at this mini galaxy today and you are seeing this galaxy as it was when our part of the multiverse was a mere 480 million years young.
Equipment failures, gyroscopes nad batteries will sound the death knell for The HST. Plans were considered to de-orbit the telescope by retrieving it and bringing it home on an STS shuttle mission. The retirement of the Orbital vehicles and the prohibitive costs of the mission have all but eliminated the possibility of displaying HST at the Smithsonian.
Sometime between 2019 and 2032 Hubble’s orbit will decay and the instrument will fail and fall from the sky. Not without providing us with invaluable astronomical insight to our universe.
If you’re reading this, the chances are pretty good that you’ve seen images captured by Hubble, and perhaps even used some as wallpaper or a screensaver for you computer.
I was an almost ten year old space cadet that day. A space cadet for whom these adventures had not yet become routine. Who am I kidding here? Those of you who know me or for those who have read some of my previous posts will probably know that I’m still a space cadet and now forty two years later, those adventures have never become routine and still never cease to amaze me.
Little did the world know that this mission would become NASA’s Adventure of the decade.
Lovell, Swigert and Haise.
That Saturday afternoon, Mission Commander James Lovell Jr. Command module pilot John “Jack” Swigert and Lunar module pilot Fred Haise Jr. strapped themselves atop the ultimate E-Ticket ride on the ultimate machine; the monstrous three stage Saturn V, thirty-six stories tall and capable of muscling 262,000 pounds into orbit. Think about that number, that’s forty five Cadillac Escalades carried to an altitude of at least one hundred and sixty miles over the Earth’s surface all in about 17 minutes or so. That would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 570 mph. The Saturn Five remains the biggest, most powerful, bad-ass beast of a rocket mankind has ever developed. One testament to the Saturn program, and a little known fact about the Apollo 13 mission is that during the second stage burn the center engine shut down two minutes early, the remaining four engines were able to compensate and complete the maneuver that placed the Command, Service and Lunar modules on the way to the moon. Can you tell that I find this nothing but AWESOME? Too bad this isn’t about the Saturn program, maybe I’ll devote a future blog about it.
I hadn't intended this to become a history lesson, that's been covered.
Three days later, on April 14th, 1970 C.E. things turned sideways and we began to hold our collective breath.
From 199,990 miles closer to the Moon, Jack Swigert sends a radio transmission to Houston. That radio transmission is often misquoted and has become part of the American lexicon.
The actual radio message is; "Okay Houston, we've had a problem here."
We all know the outcome of what NASA calls a "successful failure." The Lunar module was used as a lifeboat and towed the crippled Command module to the moon for a flyby and then back home.
Lovell, Swigert, Haise and the entire team on the ground all showed "The Right Stuff" during April of 1970.
On February 18th 1977 OV-101 Enterprise makes her first flight attached to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Enterprise is carried aloft for two additional flights. After being carried aloft by the carrier aircraft she was jettisoned and returned to earth, gliding un-powered to touchdown.
In addition to Enterprise, five other vehicles have been built; OV-102 Columbia, OV-099 Challenger, OV-103 Discovery, OV-104 Atlantis, andOV-105 Endeavour. Columbia flies the first orbital test flight; STS-1 on April 12th 1981, and the first operational mission STS-5in November of 1982. In the following 34 years the Orbital Vehicles have carried 306 men and 49 women, representing 16 countries into space. To date, the Orbiters have traveled some 500 million miles, 500,000,000, or 800 million kms. Think about that number a little. That represents a distance equivalent to the distance between our Sun and the planet Jupiter. It takes the light from our Sun nearly 45 minutes to make the trip.
None of this is without cost. Fourteen astronauts have paid with their lives.
In Memory
OV-099 Challenger January 28, 1986
OV-102 Columbia February 1, 2003
The total cost of the program is estimated to be $210 billion in today’s market. That may sound phenomenal, however, if you think about it a little, you’ll discover that works out to about $420 per mile. Aside from the human cost, I personally believe that the knowledge and the experience that we have gained far outweigh the cost. Cheap at twice the price, and economical too.
We stand at the end of an era. OV-104 Atlantis is scheduled to launch the STS-135 mission on the morning of July 8th 2011. However, at the time of this writing weather delays are expected. There are additional launch opportunities available on both Saturday and Sunday.
Unfortunately I have never witnessed a launch in person, but I will be watching, and I will be as amazed, awed and as astonished with this launch as I was with the very first one I saw. Being the space cadet child of the space age that I am I’m sure it would have been an Apollo mission and may very well have been a Gemini flight. I was almost a year old when Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin first orbited our little rock. Nine years old when Buzz and Neil walked on the moon while the unsung hero Michael Collins waited on orbit in another Columbia.
April 24, 1990, 08:33:51 am EDT (12:33 UTC) Man’s vision, though still myopic becomes a bit more farsighted. Strapped securely in the payload compartment of Discovery OV-103 on the STS-31 mission was the Hubble Space telescope. 
At 19:13 UTC (14:13 EST) the seventh manned launch in the Apollo series, and the third scheduled for a manned lunar landing lifted off from launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center. 
On February 18th 1977 OV-101 Enterprise makes her first flight attached to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Enterprise is carried aloft for two additional flights. After being carried aloft by the carrier aircraft she was jettisoned and returned to earth, gliding un-powered to touchdown.
We stand at the end of an era. OV-104 Atlantis is scheduled to launch the STS-135 mission on the morning of July 8th 2011. However, at the time of this writing weather delays are expected. There are additional launch opportunities available on both Saturday and Sunday. 
