Hope you can join us this Thursday at Hibachi Grill for our monthly Retirees Luncheon at 11:30 (we delayed it from last week since it was July 4th week).
Monday, July 9, 2012
JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1. TODAY: It Does Take a Rocket Scientist! Stan Love Explains Why Mars is Hard
2. Building 30 Mission Control Center Security Office Moving Temporarily to Building 110
3. Ellington Field Visits
4. Feds Feed Families Needs YOU!
5. Half-Marathon Training -- Starport's Run To Excellence
6. Using Technology to Improve Nutrition Habits
7. Wellness Classes This Week -- Sign Up Online
8. Callout for P.E. Licensed Engineers Willing to Be References for JSC
9. Recent JSC Announcement
10. 'The Greener Side' - JSC's Environmental Newsletter
11. Johnson Space Center Astronomy Society (JSCAS) Meeting
12. Corvalent's 'Mastering the Technology Evolution' - July 11
13. Lunarfins JSC SCUBA Club Meeting
________________________________________ QUOTE OF THE DAY
“ Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value.”
-- Albert Einstein
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1. TODAY: It Does Take a Rocket Scientist! Stan Love Explains Why Mars is Hard
Astronaut, physicist and, well, rocket scientist Stan Love will present his powerful and very entertaining presentation on "Why It's SOOOOOO Hard to Get to Mars." Like Stan says, it does take a rocket scientist. Lots of rocket scientists. And other really cool stuff that we are working on. Join Love in the Building 30 Auditorium this morning, July 9, at 8:30 a.m. for his 40-minute presentation. Stay to ask questions -- really tough questions.
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111
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2. Building 30 Mission Control Center Security Office Moving Temporarily to Building 110
The Building 30 Mission Control Center (MCC) Security will be getting a renovation. The office will be closed in the MCC main lobby from July 4 through end of September.
Mission Operations Directorate (Buildings 30, 9, 5) badging (escort required, official visitors, etc.) will now be handled through the Building 110 Security Office, located at the front gate, until renovations are complete.
For more information, call the Security Office at x32119.
Tiffany Sowell x32119 http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/ja/js/js4/external/badpro.cfm
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3. Ellington Field Visits
Ellington Field is known for the unique aircraft that are housed there, but its flight line can be a dangerous place if you do not know what to watch out for and what rules to follow. Because of these hazards, all visits to NASA flight-line areas at Ellington (official business and tours) need to be coordinated through the Aircraft Operations Division Office (at x49767) so that an appropriate escort can be coordinated. This is especially important when you are requesting access to the flight line to watch aircraft in movement, or even viewing aircraft at rest.
Brandy Ingram x46533
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4. Feds Feed Families Needs YOU!
We need everyone's support to reach our 50,000-pound goal this summer! More than 50 collection bins have been distributed across the JSC campus, with competitions underway in many organizations. Please join us in helping our local community food banks in the Houston/Galveston and White Sands communities. Food bags and vouchers are available in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops. For more information on how you can help, contact Bridget at x38082 for the JSC main campus; Sandra at the Sonny Carter Training Facility(x32529); or Mary Burke at the White Sands Test Facility (575-524-5449).
Karen Schmalz x47931 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/
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5. Half-Marathon Training -- Starport's Run To Excellence
Are you ready to take your training up a notch? The time is NOW for you to accept the fitness challenge and train for a half marathon!
Starport's Run to Excellence program is for anyone who wants to run, walk or run/walk a half marathon. The group meets on Saturday mornings for a long-distance session and during the week for speed and hill training sessions. Each member will get a training log and an AWESOME Run to Excellence tech shirt. Take that step toward doing something healthy, empowering and successful.
Registration now open:
- Early: July 9 to 20 - $99
- Regular: July 21 to 27 - $120
The program begins at 6 a.m. on July 28 at the Gilruth Center.
Steve Schade x30304 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Fitness/RecreationClasses/RecreationProgram...
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6. Using Technology to Improve Nutrition Habits
Do you love gadgets, spend hours on your computer or can't put your new phone down? This is the perfect class for the tech savvy (or those who would like to be) to discover what products and services are available that can actually improve your health. We will discuss current technologies that can help get you on the path to healthier eating! Join us tomorrow, July 10, at 4:30 p.m. in Building 8, Room 248.
You can sign up for this class and other upcoming nutrition classes online at: http://www.explorationwellness.com/WellnessCSS/CourseCatalogSelection/
If you're working on improving your approach to healthy nutrition but can't attend a class, we offer free one-on-one consultations with Glenda Blaskey, the JSC Registered Dietitian.
Glenda Blaskey x41503 http://www.explorationwellness.com/Web/scripts/Nutrition.aspx
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7. Wellness Classes This Week -- Sign Up Online
Exploration Wellness is offering several educational classes this week. Whether you're interested in knowing more about exercise and disease, are curious if supplements are for you or need to tune up your personal finance, there's plenty to choose from!
Exercise's Role in Disease, Ageing and Gender
This class explains the role of exercise in cardiovascular disease risks, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, cancer, psychological stress and ageing. Gender differences in physical fitness are also discussed.
Supplements: Things Every Consumer Should Know
Are you currently taking or considering to take a supplement? Learn about the different types of supplements in the market today, industry safety standards and where to find reliable information on the safety of supplements.
Financial Wellness Foundation - Are You Ready to Get Financially Fit?
Budgets, debt, insurance and long-term care -- introduction to a variety of important personal finance topics.
See the link for details and online registration.
Jessica Vos x41383 http://www.explorationwellness.com/rd/AE107.aspx?July_Signup.pdf
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8. Callout for P.E. Licensed Engineers Willing to Be References for JSC
We would like to start a database for P.E.-licensed engineers who are willing to serves as references for fellow JSC engineers applying for a state-issued Professional Engineering License. All disciplines are welcome, and all P.E. licenses are applicable as issued in the United States. Please provide your contact information if you are willing to serve as a reference. Per the Texas Engineering Practice Act and Rules Regulation 133.51(e), engineers who provide reference statements shall not be compensated.
Joseph Muniz x33323
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9. Recent JSC Announcement
Please visit the JSC Announcements Web page to view the newly posted announcement:
JSCA 12-018: Communications with Industry Procurement Solicitation for the Engineering Fabrication Services Contract
Linda Turnbough x36246 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/DocumentManagement/announcements/default.aspx
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10. 'The Greener Side' - JSC's Environmental Newsletter
We are near the heat of summer! Check out energy-savings tips and other environmental points in JSC's "The Greener Side" newsletter.
Environmental Office x36207 http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/bbs/scripts/files/365/GreenerSide%20v5n3%20(Jul...
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11. Johnson Space Center Astronomy Society (JSCAS) Meeting
How does the nightly news meteorologist make the weather forecast for a week in advance? Or, how do we learn about what has been man's impact on the Earth's biosphere? Join us this Friday night and you'll learn those answers and a lot more about NASA's lesser-known Earth observation missions from JSCAS' own Jim Wessel at the July meeting.
Other topics covered at the meeting include: "What's Up in the Sky this Month?" with suggestions for beginner observing; "Astro Oddities;" dates for upcoming star parties; and the always popular novice Q&A.
Our meetings are held on the second Friday of each month at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the USRA building (3600 Bay Area Blvd. at Middlebrook Drive).
Membership to the JSCAS is open to anyone who wants to learn about astronomy. There are no dues, no-by laws -- you just show up to our meeting.
Jim Wessel x41128 http://www.jscas.net/
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12. Corvalent's 'Mastering the Technology Evolution' - July 11
The SAIC/Safety and Mission Assurance Innovation Speaker Forum will feature Ed Trevis, president/CEO of Corvalent; and Denise Manchester, vice president of Sales at Corvalent.
Topic: "Mastering the Technology Evolution - Consistency vs. Change - Longevity By Design"
Date: July 11 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Location: Building 1, Room 966
- Ending Revalidations due to technology change
- Consistency is critical in manufacturing and technology
- Quality components for long-term computer reliability
Corvalent's "Longevity by Design" delivers the lowest overall cost of ownership by providing the highest quality board-level designs, embedded computing systems and design consulting to equipment engineers and designers. Come hear their story!
Joyce Abbey 281-335-2041
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13. Lunarfins JSC SCUBA Club Meeting
The next meeting of the Lunarfins JSC SCUBA Club will be held Wednesday, July 11, at 7 p.m. at the Clear Lake Park building (5001 NASA Pkwy.). The Clear Lake Park building entrance is at the park traffic light on the lake-side. Our speaker for this month is Dennis Deavenport from the Houston Underwater Photography Society, presenting "UW Photography 101." Deavenport will cover getting the right equipment for your budget, building your skills, stalking your "prey," setting your camera/strobes and how to compose good pictures. The show will end with some video segments taken in the Philippines on two spectacular whale shark dives, and pictures taken on a night dive when all of the stars were properly aligned. All are welcome to attend - guests and visitors. Bring your equipment and your questions.
Mike Manering x32618 http://www.lunarfins.com
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JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.
Human Spaceflight News
Monday, July 9, 2012
HEADLINES AND LEADS
NASA Finds Overseas Ventures More Elusive
Andy Pasztor - Wall Street Journal
The U.S. space program, after five decades of setting the agenda for exploration, appears increasingly stymied when it comes to new cooperative ventures with other countries. Russia and the European Space Agency, or ESA, are moving to team up on unmanned rovers intended to eventually retrieve soil samples from Mars, even as they seek to entice other nations to join them on potential lunar missions. China last month successfully concluded its first manual docking of spacecraft in orbit, as part of a methodical, well-funded drive to establish itself as a major space power and create its own orbiting laboratory.
Space tourist trips to the moon may fly on recycled spaceships
Space.com
Space tourists may soon be able to pay their own way to the moon onboard old Russian spacecraft retrofitted by a company based in the British Isles. The spaceflight firm Excalibur Almaz estimates that it can sell about 30 seats between 2015 and 2025, for $150 million each, aboard moon-bound missions on a Salyut-class space station driven by electric hall-effect thrusters. Excalibur Almaz founder and chief executive officer Art Dula estimates it will take 24 to 30 months to develop the remaining technology needed and to refurbish the ex-Soviet spacecraft and space stations the company already owns. It bought four 1970s-era Soviet Almaz program three-crew capsules and two Russian Salyut-class 63,800-pound (29,000 kilograms) space station pressure vessels.
Promoter hoping to delay shuttle departure until his Cocoa Beach air show
Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel
As air-show flyovers go, this one would be huge: a NASA space shuttle riding piggyback atop a massive 747 airliner. That sight already has wowed crowds this year in New York and Washington, and local promoter Bryan Lilley figured that Florida residents — specifically, those at his air show — should get one last shot at seeing the shuttle before NASA completes its delivery of the retired orbiters to museums nationwide. So Lilley gambled. Rather than schedule the Cocoa Beach Air Show during its usual time slot in late October, he moved the event to mid-September in hopes the timing would coincide with the transfer of shuttle Endeavour from Kennedy Space Center to a Los Angeles museum. So far, Lilley has recruited the help of Florida's two U.S. senators, Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio, as well as U.S. Reps. Bill Posey of Rockledge and Sandy Adams of Orlando. The four lawmakers earlier this year asked NASA chief Charlie Bolden to change the Endeavour departure date to accommodate the air show, as well as to honor KSC.
NASA centers are selling to industry now and not just buying
Lee Roop - Huntsville Times
They've been around since NASA's beginnings, but Space Act Agreements between NASA and private companies have recently taken off as America launches a private space industry. NASA centers like Huntsville's Marshall Space Flight Center have hundreds of legal contracts with industry today, and they are creating a new business model in which NASA sells services as well as buys them. NASA's message to industry today? "We really appreciate the business and, if you have anything else, we're here and we'll be happy to work it for you."
Nash Replaces Reed after 17-year Stint as VCSFA Chief
Dan Leone - Space News
Alaska Aerospace Corp.’s Dale Nash will replace Billie Reed as executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA) effective July 31. The shakeup ends both Reed’s 17-year tenure as Virginia’s top commercial space official and six months of uncertainty about his role in Virginia’s developing commercial space launch industry. Reed, who has run the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority since the group was created in July 1995, could not be reached for comment the week of July 2. Rumors of his departure from VCSFA first emerged in January, when the Daily Press, a Hampton Roads, Va., newspaper, reported that Reed would retire. Reed, at the time, called the report “exaggerated.”
TEDx turns into a call to collaborate
Innovators stress togetherness at conference
James Dean - Florida Today
As nations, continents and oceans rolled by below, NASA astronaut Ron Garan saw not a succession of political and ethnic boundaries but a planet of shared resources and challenges. He saw opportunities to achieve sustainability and reduce suffering through improved collaboration, just as 15 nations came together to build the International Space Station, his orbital home for nearly six months last year. “We are all interconnected, and the only way we’re going to solve the problems that we all face is together,” Garan said Friday at TEDxISU.
Sky's the limit for Fabricast Valve of Kelso
Erik Olson - Longview Daily News (Texas)
A Kelso valve maker is rocketing to new heights, thanks to privatization of the U.S. space program. Fabricast Valve, located at the former Tolleycraft yacht factory in Kelso's industrial area, is completing a 10-ton steel knife gate valve that will be used at the Texas rocket testing facility of SpaceX, one of the country's fastest-growing private space shuttle companies. SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the International Space Station and hopes to one day launch people to the moon.
Education opportunities could emerge with XCOR’s possible move
Meredith Moriak - Midland Reporter-Telegram
The possible relocation of a private aerospace engineering company to Midland could open the door for an aerospace engineering program at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, according to President David Watts. Though he wouldn’t comment on XCOR Aerospace Inc. specifically, Watts said having such a company in Midland would “be a marvelous opportunity for engineering students. It could create a real synergy.”
Jack King, 'Voice of Apollo
Florida Today
Jack King was “The Voice of Apollo,” the man who did countdown commentary while the whole world was watching. (NO FURTHER TEXT)
Bit by bit, a new space program emerges
John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)
The pictures of the Orion spacecraft that arrived at the Kennedy Space Center this week told the most important part of the story of our changing role in the space program. For almost five decades, our friends and neighbors here on the Space Coast have prepared and launched rockets and spacecraft. Now, we are building them. The core of the Orion spacecraft slated for a 2014 test flight arrived here to be assembled. It's the base piece of the spaceship, but it's not a spaceship yet. Kennedy teams will take the core and other pieces, such as a heat shield, and build a spaceship.
Phoenix from the Ashes: The fall and rise of Pad 34
Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.org
In a barren area of Cape Canaveral stands a gaunt, concrete and steel hulk which once formed the launch platform of Pad 34. Today, overgrown by bushes, weeds and a handful of wild pepper trees, it steadily decays in the salty Atlantic air. A faded ‘Abandon In Place’ sign adorns one of its legs. Near its base are a pair of plaques, memorialising one of the site’s darkest days of trauma. The first one reads simply ‘Launch Complex 34, Friday 27 January 1967, 1831 Hours’ and dedicates itself to the first three astronauts of Project Apollo: Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. The second plaque pays tribute to their ‘ultimate sacrifice’ that January evening, long ago. Close by are three granite benches, one in honour of each fallen astronaut.
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COMPLETE STORIES
NASA Finds Overseas Ventures More Elusive
Andy Pasztor - Wall Street Journal
The U.S. space program, after five decades of setting the agenda for exploration, appears increasingly stymied when it comes to new cooperative ventures with other countries.
Russia and the European Space Agency, or ESA, are moving to team up on unmanned rovers intended to eventually retrieve soil samples from Mars, even as they seek to entice other nations to join them on potential lunar missions.
China last month successfully concluded its first manual docking of spacecraft in orbit, as part of a methodical, well-funded drive to establish itself as a major space power and create its own orbiting laboratory.
Over the years, Beijing has dramatically improved the reliability of its boosters and, partly for prestige, is pushing equally hard to accomplish the same for the communications, scientific and military satellites Chinese factories turn out.
At the same time, India, Japan and Brazil are working separately to develop world-class boosters. And in Iran, which already has blasted a trio of satellites into orbit, government leaders maintain their goal remains sending a human into orbit, perhaps by the end of the decade.
U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials still extol the virtues of international partnerships, especially during the current era of general spending restrictions and constraints on scientific projects. NASA chief Charles Bolden repeatedly has said that multination ventures are essential to continue robust deep-space exploration.
American scientists and government officials, however, no longer dominate how and when international partnerships are created. "It's much harder for the U.S. to maintain the lead it has enjoyed in space over the years," particularly in light of the "extraordinary competition coming from Europe and Asia," according to Peter Nesgos, a veteran aerospace and communications lawyer in the New York office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.
The international space station, with its broad range of partners and hopes for stepped-up scientific research, remains the paramount example of finely tuned international teamwork in orbit.
But NASA's current leadership, according to space experts on both sides of the Atlantic, seems ineffective in leading or influencing other cross-border initiatives. Buffeted by budget cuts and domestic political pressures, the agency's latest policy and spending priorities emphasize independent rather than cooperative ventures.
The shift is evident "not only on technical issues, but also in the political arena," says Elliot Pulham, chief executive of the Space Foundation, a think tank, education and industry advocacy group based in Colorado Springs, Colo. Traditional U.S. allies "are not seeing us establish the agenda and leadership we once had," Mr. Pulham adds.
NASA's primary manned-exploration goal over roughly the next two decades is to land American astronauts on an asteroid. But the concept hasn't garnered international consensus. For starters, a long-term-exploration road map approved last year by countries partnering on the international space station concluded that returning to the moon is an equally viable and scientifically justifiable destination.
Countries with an interest and expertise in exploiting natural resources have set their sights on first getting to the moon. Other governments are focusing more on exploring asteroids, partly reflecting expertise in remote-sensing technology. So far, the U.S. hasn't been able to bridge that gap.
Part of NASA's pullback also reflects its own stark budget realities. Five months ago, NASA and the White House surprised and angered Europe's space establishment by abruptly abandoning what had been a showcase, multibillion-dollar joint effort to build and launch next-generation rovers designed to look for signs of Martian life.
Europe's space agency immediately turned to Russia to supply the rockets and other technologies Washington had promised, though ESA officials tried to put the best possible face on the clash with the U.S. At the time, Franco Bonacina, an ESA spokesman, said "the strength of a partnership isn't measured on a single moment of weakness by one of the partners."
The U.S. side argued NASA simply couldn't afford to continue its part of the project. Since then, the NASA chief has ordered various studies to develop less-expensive alternatives. Barely a few months ago, he testified on Capitol Hill that agency leaders have had "to figure out how we prioritize our science budget" because "we cannot do it all."
Yet U.S. planetary scientists and lawmakers are still fuming about the negative consequences. Rep. Steven Palazzo, a Mississippi Republican who chairs a House science subcommittee overseeing NASA, is among those pushing to reverse proposed White House funding cuts for robotic missions to Mars and elsewhere. As a result of the controversial decision on developing the Mars rovers, Rep. Palazzo has warned that NASA risks being "viewed by our international partners as an unreliable, schizophrenic agency."
Other trends affecting NASA's diminishing global influence are the steady growth and success of space programs based elsewhere. In 2011, for example, China for the first time launched more rockets than the U.S., according to a recent study released by the Space Foundation.
Overall, more than 50 nations have some space capabilities, and about 20 of those countries each have at least five satellites circling the earth, according to data compiled by the OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Conservative estimates peg world-wide government spending on space programs at more than $130 billion annually, though it's hard to verify individual country totals.
Despite a difficult transition, some experts predict NASA's international clout won't necessarily slip further in coming years.
"A number of countries clearly would like to play as equals" to the U.S., so the days when the U.S. had an effective monopoly on reaching deep-space destinations are long gone, says Michael Simpson, executive director of the Secure World Foundation, based in Broomfield, Colo.
After studying the technical merits and sustainability of NASA's programs, Mr. Simpson said his team concluded that international pressure could end up as a positive force. History demonstrates that U.S. scientists and aerospace companies "have always been more creative in the face of competition," according to Mr. Simpson.
Space tourist trips to the moon may fly on recycled spaceships
Space.com
Space tourists may soon be able to pay their own way to the moon onboard old Russian spacecraft retrofitted by a company based in the British Isles.
The spaceflight firm Excalibur Almaz estimates that it can sell about 30 seats between 2015 and 2025, for $150 million each, aboard moon-bound missions on a Salyut-class space station driven by electric hall-effect thrusters.
Excalibur Almaz founder and chief executive officer Art Dula estimates it will take 24 to 30 months to develop the remaining technology needed and to refurbish the ex-Soviet spacecraft and space stations the company already owns. It bought four 1970s-era Soviet Almaz program three-crew capsules and two Russian Salyut-class 63,800-pound (29,000 kilograms) space station pressure vessels.
Declaring that he is ready to sell tickets and that a 50 percent return on investment could be achieved in three years, Dula told the Royal Aeronautical Society's third European space tourism conference on June 19, "At $100 million to 150 million [per seat, we can sell] up to 29 seats in the next 10 years, and that is a conservative estimate. We [chose] not to use, for this presentation, the aggressive estimates."
Those conservative and aggressive estimates are from a market study entitled "Market analysis of commercial human orbital and circumlunar spaceflight" carried out for Excalibur Almaz by the management consultancy Futron. In 2009, Excalibur Almaz officials told SPACE.com the company's first flight would be in 2013.
Recycling spacecraft
The architecture for the lunar mission involves a Soviet Almaz Reusable Return Vehicle (RRV), which can carry three people, launched by a Soyuz-FG rocket. This rocket also launches Russia's Soyuz manned capsule. The RRV weighs 6,600 pounds (3,000 kg) and has a habitable volume of 159 cubic feet (4.5 cubic meters). The lunar flight also uses a Salyut-class 63,800-pound (29,000 kg) space station that is launched by a Proton rocket. While Excalibur Almaz intends to use the Soyuz-FG and Proton initially, Dula did not rule out using other rockets, including Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) Falcon 9 in the future. Dula said Excalibur Almaz would wait for the Falcon 9 to accumulate enough flights that it became feasible to insure the space station module aboard the rocket.
"Our customers are private expedition members and I think it is fundamentally different to tourism," Dula said. "What we are offering [with the lunar flight] is more like expeditions."
Once in orbit, the station and RRV will dock and the station's propulsion system, which is a group of electric hall-effect thrusters, propels the stack out to the moon. Excalibur Almaz is in talks with Natick, Mass.-based Busek Space Propulsion to develop the hall-effect thrusters needed. Dula described an electric system for the station module that would use up to 100,000 watts of power for its thrusters. If a solar or cosmic radiation event threatened a flight's crew and passengers, the company could run power through "electrical lines around the station and keep most of the charged articles away — protons you can keep out with an electrical field." He also said the station would have a refuge area crew and passengers could use to protect against radiation storms.
In addition to electric thrusters to propel a space station to the moon, Excalibur Almaz must pay for the development of digital flight-control computers, life support systems and an in-space propulsion system. Dula indicated that his company has spent about $150 million on the in-orbit space propulsion module.
"The cost is say $250 million; we already have much of the nonrecurring expense [engineering research and development] paid for this," he said. This propulsion system is based on the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle's propulsion module. EADS Astrium is a contractor for Excalibur Almaz. Another contractor is Russian military and industrial joint stock company Mashinostroyenia.
Building on the past
Dula emphasized the investment by the Soviet Union that Excalibur Almaz was able to leverage. "We already have a proven [RRV] emergency escape system that's operated nine times and one time in an actual failure, a real test and it worked," he said. "We have reissued all the drawings for this emergency escape system to modern standards, they are ready to be built and we have a cost estimate for the first ten units."
According to Excalibur Almaz, the Almaz program saw nine unmanned RRV test flights and use of the spacecraft for ferrying equipment and cargo to the Almaz space stations. The RRVs were in orbit for up to 175 days, and while docked with the station they were occupied to validate the life support system. While the RRVs spent time in only low-Earth orbit, the heat shield is designed to cope with the greater heat experienced from a moon-return trajectory.
Dula said that the RRV capsules can be reused up to 15 times each, according to their Russian manufacturer. "We performed technical feasibility studies of the RRV and their subsystems as well as launch vehicle compatibility and the overall program architecture," he told the Society's conference audience.
Dula also said that his space transportation system could be used by individuals, governments and private companies that wanted to conduct research or bring metals back from near earth objects, such as the billionaire backed Planetary Resources firm plans to do. He added that where governments wanted to operate on the moon, Excalibur Almaz could deliver a telecommunications satellite that would serve the moon from a Lagrange point 2 orbit and gave a price of $75 million. The L2 location is 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, away from the sun.
The company also plans to offer other lunar Lagrange point services, such as deep space technology testing for $150 million per mission, and payload delivery to the lunar surface for $350 million. For lunar payload delivery, Excalibur Almaz is researching momentum transfer using tethers. Momentum from the 63,800-pound space station orbiting the Earth would be transferred to the payload using a tether and that payload would then be propelled to the moon.
Wider plans
In terms of Excalibur Almaz's wider business plans, Dula said, "we've got unmanned research missions, human transportation and tourism. We have commissioned market studies. We have never announced these before. We have a complete business plan for cargo deliveries for the International Space Station, we just haven't released it." He added that if NASA reopened bids for supplying International Space Station cargo, he would respond.
For low-Earth orbit missions, Dula said the RRVs and space stations could each be worth about $35 million per year in advertising revenue alone, according to studies paid for by Excalibur Almaz. He also confidently said of his Futron report, "There is a market for commercial dedicated unmanned scientific research missions. One of our capsules may well be dedicated to such missions." He priced this service at $225 million and added that a manned scientific research mission would cost $495 million.
Dula is not the first to offer commercial unmanned spacecraft science missions. SpaceX is planning its DragonLab service, the first of which the company's website launch manifest states will occur in 2014. SpaceX's DragonLab fact sheet does not list any prices. For these missions, Excalibur Almaz would use a new module, which is being developed with the help of EADS Astrium. On its website, Excalibur Almaz describes a service module, which is used for storing consumables and acts as a habitation area, and a cargo module that can deliver up to 22,000 pounds (10,000 kg) of cargo.
Crew transport
For crew transport to low-Earth orbit, Dula said that NASA was distorting the market by paying $63 million per seat, but that his company is still part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program with a nonfunded space act agreement. Dula said that Excalibur Almaz had achieved all of its CCDev milestones on time and on budget so far.
Because of the international nature of its work, with Excalibur Almaz based on the British-dependent territory of the Isle of Man, located between Britain and Ireland, using Soviet technology, and European and potentially U.S. expertise, the company has sought the necessary approvals. "We have the state department license required to work with American, European, Russian contractors to refurbish these systems. And we have the export licenses from the Russian Federation," said Dula.
The Isle of Man-headquartered company is subject to the U.K.'s Outer Space Treaty law. The U.K. Space Agency does not have any manned spaceflight rules but has talked about developing them because of suborbital spaceline Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic, owned by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin group, is a U.K. company. Despite its U.S. arm, Virgin Galactic LLC, which conducts the suborbital flights, Branson's firm is still expected to obtain U.K. launch licenses. Of one thing Dula is certain, "If you don't have an escape system, you will never get a license from the British space agency."
Promoter hoping to delay shuttle departure until his Cocoa Beach air show
Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel
As air-show flyovers go, this one would be huge: a NASA space shuttle riding piggyback atop a massive 747 airliner.
That sight already has wowed crowds this year in New York and Washington, and local promoter Bryan Lilley figured that Florida residents — specifically, those at his air show — should get one last shot at seeing the shuttle before NASA completes its delivery of the retired orbiters to museums nationwide.
So Lilley gambled.
Rather than schedule the Cocoa Beach Air Show during its usual time slot in late October, he moved the event to mid-September in hopes the timing would coincide with the transfer of shuttle Endeavour from Kennedy Space Center to a Los Angeles museum.
But it didn't — he missed by at least two days — and now Lilley is pulling every string he can to convince NASA to delay Endeavour's departure so that the orbiter and its 747 can take a star turn at his two-day air show, which starts Sept. 22.
"People will come from all over the country to see something like this," said Lilley, president of the air show.
So far, Lilley has recruited the help of Florida's two U.S. senators, Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio, as well as U.S. Reps. Bill Posey of Rockledge and Sandy Adams of Orlando. The four lawmakers earlier this year asked NASA chief Charlie Bolden to change the Endeavour departure date to accommodate the air show, as well as to honor KSC.
"The event would not only provide a larger audience for the flight, it would give the dedicated Space Shuttle workforce a final chance to bid farewell alongside their Space Coast friends and family," the four Florida legislators wrote Bolden.
So far, though, NASA has said no.
"In order to maintain delivery schedules and minimize cost, logistical complexity, and liability, NASA does not plan to have the Orbiter … take part in the air show, though the Agency appreciates the invitation and interest," the agency wrote.
Endeavour is the last of four orbiters headed to a museum. Discovery is at a Smithsonian complex near Washington, and Enterprise is on the flight deck of the USS Intrepid in New York. Atlantis is being prepped for a place at the KSC visitor center.
The transfers to Washington and New York, which included flybys of the National Mall and Statue of Liberty, drew huge crowds in the middle of the week.
An early timeline indicated that Endeavour would leave KSC on Sept. 20 and arrive a few days later in California, although NASA said the schedule still is being finalized. A parade and other celebrations are planned for its arrival and eventual rollout through the streets of Los Angeles to the California Science Center.
Agency officials noted that the Space Coast still would get a dramatic flyover. When NASA flew Discovery from KSC to the Washington area in April, the 747 pilots looped around the center's beaches; NASA plans a repeat performance with Endeavour.
NASA just won't commit to the air show, where tickets range from $19 to $149.
Lilley said the inclusion of the shuttle would increase attendance "exponentially" — from at least 60,000 last year to as many as 250,000, he estimated. Planned for this year are demonstrations by an F-22 Raptor and stunts by a seven-aircraft formation known as the Black Diamond Jet Team.
But Lilley is quick to point out that most attendees — "95 percent of people," he said — don't buy tickets and just watch from the beach. "It's not about revenue to the air show; it's about economic impact to the community," he said.
But even if NASA remains stubborn, there's a chance that air-show fans still could get a shuttle sighting.
Weather delayed the transfer of Enterprise to New York for several days, and another string of bad — or good — luck could mean air-show attendees could get a glimpse anyway.
NASA centers are selling to industry now and not just buying
Lee Roop - Huntsville Times
They've been around since NASA's beginnings, but Space Act Agreements between NASA and private companies have recently taken off as America launches a private space industry.
NASA centers like Huntsville's Marshall Space Flight Center have hundreds of legal contracts with industry today, and they are creating a new business model in which NASA sells services as well as buys them.
NASA's message to industry today? "We really appreciate the business and, if you have anything else, we're here and we'll be happy to work it for you."
That's Teresa Vanhooser, director of Marshall's Flight Programs and Partnerships Office, explaining last week how her office follows up with its nearly 300 business partners.
The office can't market the Huntsville center with a media campaign, but it can "follow up," and it can send representatives to industry trade shows to make sure its assets are known.
Space Act history
The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the federal law that created NASA, authorized the agency "to enter into and perform such contracts, leases, cooperative agreements, or other transactions as may be necessary in the conduct of its work and on such terms as it may deem appropriate, with any agency or instrumentality of the United States, or with any state, territory, or possession, or with any political subdivision thereof, or with any person, firm, association, corporation, or educational institution."
NASA has interpreted its work recently to include fostering a private space industry. The agency's 2011 strategic plan called for NASA to "facilitate the transfer of NASA technology and engage in partnerships with other government agencies, industry, and international entities to generate U.S. commercial activity and other public benefits."
That priority comes right from the top and the office of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr.
Space Act Agreements, essentially legal contracts for goods or services, are how NASA partners. Some are "reimbursable," meaning a company pays NASA for facilities or expertise. Some are "non-reimbursable," meaning NASA and the company each bring something to the table. Sometimes, the agreements are with other government agencies, such as the Army or Air Force.
What NASA sells
Marshall is NASA's acknowledged center of propulsion expertise or, as Vanhooser put it, "anything related to a launch vehicle."
Its engineering expertise is a valuable commodity that can save companies time and money chasing dead ends. But the center also has facilities it can -- and does -- rent and experts who can assist companies in flight-related tests.
Recently, for example, Sierra Nevada Corp, Orbital Sciences and Aerojet have all used Marshall test centers or expertise.
Besides bringing in money, Vanhooser said the agreements broaden Marshall engineers' expertise, keep their skills sharp, and give them insight into the growing commercial space industry.
NASA needs that industry to succeed, she said, repeating the mantra heard from the top of the agency to the bottom. The idea is that, given the limited money Congress is willing to provide these days, NASA can only focus on deep space if industry handles the milk runs to the International Space Station.
The amount of revenue generated by Marshall's Space Act Agreements last year wasn't available by press time. A Marshall spokeswoman was trying to gather it from the center's records last week.
Vanhooser doesn't think it's enough money to make her office a big Marshall profit center. But it's enough that her team has worked hard to streamline and flatten the agreement process -- what Vanhooser calls the approval "signature loop" -- and worked hard to price the center's facilities and professionals consistently.
Selling services and renting facilities calls for layers of legal and management review. No agreement is signed without approval by NASA Headquarters in Washington. The oversight is to make sure NASA doesn't unfairly compete with business or encourage centers to compete with each other for business the way they have historically competed for new NASA programs.
"That is a sensitive part, making sure the centers don't get at odds with each other," Vanhooser said. The solution is a cross-agency group that meets regularly to talk about potential areas of cooperation and competition.
"What we're trying to do," Vanhooser said of Marshall, "is, if we don't have it and somebody else does, say 'Here's somebody who does.'"
But if more than one center has it -- whatever "it" is -- expect businesses to talk to them all. "They will shop around," Vanhooser said.
Nash Replaces Reed after 17-year Stint as VCSFA Chief
Dan Leone - Space News
Alaska Aerospace Corp.’s Dale Nash will replace Billie Reed as executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA) effective July 31. The shakeup ends both Reed’s 17-year tenure as Virginia’s top commercial space official and six months of uncertainty about his role in Virginia’s developing commercial space launch industry.
Reed, who has run the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority since the group was created in July 1995, could not be reached for comment the week of July 2. Rumors of his departure from VCSFA first emerged in January, when the Daily Press, a Hampton Roads, Va., newspaper, reported that Reed would retire. Reed, at the time, called the report “exaggerated.”
Under Reed’s tenure, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) — a commercial launch facility on Wallops Island, Va., — has struggled to complete construction and certification of a launch pad leased to Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences Corp. for cargo-delivery missions to the international space station.
The VCSFA Board of Directors announced Nash’s appointment June 27. Nash will be only the second executive director in the authority’s 17-year history. He will be responsible for spaceport design and development and bringing new business to the state’s commercial spaceport. Nash is chief executive of Alaska Aerospace Corp., which he joined in 2007. He was responsible for operations of the Kodiak Launch Complex in Kodiak Island, Alaska. He has also been director of launch operations for space shuttle operator United Space Alliance of Houston, and vice president and general manager for Solid Rocket Booster Operations at ATK Launch Systems of Magna, Utah, which provided the shuttle’s side-mounted solid-rocket motors.
In a July 5 email, Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski said Nash “brings a wealth of experience to his new role at MARS which we believe will serve the Virginia spaceport well in the future.”
Orbital has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the international space station, and it plans to launch these flights from Pad 0-A at MARS, a three-pad commercial launch facility located on the southern tip of Wallops Island alongside the NASA-operated Wallops Flight Facility. VCSFA is responsible for expanding and operating MARS.
Orbital is more than a year and a half behind schedule in flying its first space station cargo mission for NASA, which will be launched by the company’s first liquid-fueled rocket, Antares. Orbital says that the rocket would have launched by now if not for pad construction and certification delays it blames on MARS. The company has put $45 million of its own money into the MARS pad and related infrastructure and held a voting position on VCSFA’s board of directors.
However, legislation signed by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in April restructured the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority to relegate space industry representatives to a nonvoting advisory role. A 2011 report on the authority by auditors KPMG said Orbital’s dual role as customer and board director, along with the company’s right of first refusal for use of MARS launch facilities, presented a possible conflict of interest that might make the Virginia spaceport unattractive to other prospective customers.
As part of legislation signed in April, VCSFA was also given a bigger budget — $9.5 million a year, up from $7.5 million in 2011. Some of that money will go toward a strategic study of Virginia’s commercial spaceflight needs and opportunities, which the authority was directed to submit to the Virginia government by Dec. 1. The study has to be repeated every four years, per the new law, the Commercial Space Flight Authority Promotion and Reform Bill.
Meanwhile, the first Antares hold-down test at Pad 0-A is now scheduled for September. As part of its fight demonstration agreement with NASA, Orbital has to complete that test before it can launch Antares on its maiden flight, now scheduled for December. In the December flight, Antares will fly without its Cygnus cargo module. It would not be until next year, when Antares flies for the second time, that Orbital’s European-built Cygnus freighter would fly to orbit and berth with the space station. The first Antares/Cygnus flight was supposed to happen in December 2010.
MARS, because of its close proximity to NASA launch sites, needs a NASA safety certification before Orbital can carry out any of these test flights.
The last big certification milestone at MARS was in May, when officials there completed so-called cryoshock tests. For these tests, tanks and fuel lines were flooded with liquid nitrogen — a cheaply procured stand-in for the liquid oxygen that will be used for actual launches — to see if they could handle the temperature extremes of supercooled rocket propellent. The cryoshock test will have to be repeated with liquid oxygen before the September hold-down test of Antares’ kerosene-fueled first stage.
TEDx turns into a call to collaborate
Innovators stress togetherness at conference
James Dean - Florida Today
As nations, continents and oceans rolled by below, NASA astronaut Ron Garan saw not a succession of political and ethnic boundaries but a planet of shared resources and challenges.
He saw opportunities to achieve sustainability and reduce suffering through improved collaboration, just as 15 nations came together to build the International Space Station, his orbital home for nearly six months last year.
“We are all interconnected, and the only way we’re going to solve the problems that we all face is together,” Garan said Friday at TEDxISU.
Nearly 500 people filled Florida Tech’s Gleason auditorium for the TEDx conference hosted by the 25th International Space University Space Studies Program.
TED produces annual conferences that bring together innovators in technology, entertainment and design to discuss “ideas worth sharing.” An “x” denotes an independently organized TED event.
Collaboration was a recurring theme of the four-hour program titled “open source space,” which began with an artist, closed with a medical doctor and in between featured engineers, scientists, business executives and a live musical performance.
All shared a core optimism that efforts to advance technology through space activity could improve life on Earth.
Garan discussed Unity Node, an initiative named for the node that connects ISS modules. It seeks to develop an open source platform that shares data and develops applications to improve the scale and efficiency of humanitarian efforts often working in isolation.
“We don’t have to be in orbit to have an orbital perspective,” he said.
Brian Wheedon of the Secure World Foundation is pulling together disparate databases to improve tracking of orbital debris, work that could prevent collisions in space and conflicts on the ground over space assets.
Brian Rishikof, CEO of Odyssey Space Research, sees potential for iPhones to serve as small avionics boxes and research platforms. His company developed applications that were tested on the space station.
“Small is the new big,” he said. “You can really accomplish a lot in a small package.”
Jeffrey Manber, managing director of NanoRacks, which has designed small boxes that house experiments performed on the ISS National Lab, said a more commercial business approach was changing space operations.
“For those of us who have been working this for a very long time, to try to get space to be just another place to do business, this is our moment,” he said.
Sarah Jane Pell, an Australian artist who plans to participate in an undersea habitat expedition this summer, discussed the intersection between art and science.
“From inner space to outer space, from deep space to ocean space, from cyber space to real space, every space project needs an artist,” she said.
Peter Diamandis, a co-founder of the International Space University and the conference’s planned headline speaker, dropped out due to a family illness.
A video showed Diamandis discussing a new book written with Steven Kotler, “Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think.”
The conference premiered a short video featuring space imagery, titled “Dream.”
“So many times we hear today that people have stopped dreaming, that people have given up,” said conference organizer Chris Stott, CEO of ManSat. “No way. Not if we have anything to say about it.”
Sky's the limit for Fabricast Valve of Kelso
Erik Olson - Longview Daily News (Texas)
A Kelso valve maker is rocketing to new heights, thanks to privatization of the U.S. space program.
Fabricast Valve, located at the former Tolleycraft yacht factory in Kelso's industrial area, is completing a 10-ton steel knife gate valve that will be used at the Texas rocket testing facility of SpaceX, one of the country's fastest-growing private space shuttle companies. SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the International Space Station and hopes to one day launch people to the moon.
"It's been fascinating" working in the new field of private space exploration, Fabricast Valve co-owner Jon Hansen said last week.
The 15-foot tall valve is one of the largest Fabricast has built in its five-year history. At 72 inches in diameter, the stainless steel valve opening is taller than Hansen and requires 850 turns of the wheel to fully open, he said. SpaceX will use the valve as part of a cooling system for the ground pad where it tests its Falcon 9 rockets in McGregor, Texas, Hansen said.
About a half dozen of Fabricast's 20 workers have been on the SpaceX job for the past eight weeks, Hansen said. The company expects to ship the valve later this month, he said.
California-based SpaceX was formed in 2003 and has become a leader in the space-travel business since NASA decided to end its 30-year-old space shuttle program last year after facing Congressional pressure to cut costs.
In May, SpaceX launched the first commercial vehicle to dock at the International Space Station, carrying equipment and supplies. The company says it hopes to send manned flights into orbit, aiming to land one day on the moon or Mars. It's not cheap. The starting cost for flights now is $54 milllion.
SpaceX is also boosting its testing facility in McGregor, more than doubling the site to 632 acres in March 2011. It's good economic news for that community and for suppliers, such as Fabricast, SpaceX officials said.
"Our Texas rocket development facility is critical to our operations. This lease will allow us to move forward on the growth we have planned for Texas. SpaceX already has more than $2.5 billion in launch contracts for us to carry out over the next few years — McGregor is going to be a very busy place," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a written statement last year.
Fabricast won the knife gate valve contract, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, with the help of its connection to Texas distributor Hi-Teck Valve, Hansen said. (Fabricast would not provide an exact contract amount.)
Hansen, Sid Somers and Steve Norvey started Fabricast Valve at the Port of Longview in 2007, then moved to Kelso two or three years ago. The company's core business is supplying valves for mining companies in Canada, but the owners say they hope this new project with SpaceX will help them diversify and earn more contracts in the space business.
"It's been a fast five years for us," Hansen said, adding that the company has relied on commercial loans from Twin City Bank in Longview to buy the parts for the SpaceX project.
"It's still kind of new. So who knows what the future will bring?"
Education opportunities could emerge with XCOR’s possible move
Meredith Moriak - Midland Reporter-Telegram
The possible relocation of a private aerospace engineering company to Midland could open the door for an aerospace engineering program at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, according to President David Watts.
Though he wouldn’t comment on XCOR Aerospace Inc. specifically, Watts said having such a company in Midland would “be a marvelous opportunity for engineering students. It could create a real synergy.”
UTPB gears its programs to “best serve existing and planned industry in the area,” Watts said about the current mechanical and petroleum engineering programs that were established during the last three years.
Watts said the university would consider adding a degree program if an aerospace company were to locate in Midland.
“We will work closely with the Permian Basin community and businesses to try and develop engineering programs that are most responsive to community and industry needs,” he said.
UTPB’s involvement to train future engineers is part of a three-pronged approach to partnering with schools, said Robert Rendall, secretary of the Midland Development Corp. board.
“We believe this company will be very interested in promoting math and science to the people in the public schools,” Rendall said.
He said there may be opportunities for students to gain first-hand knowledge with the company.
Additionally, Rendall said Midland College administrators have been in a discussion about providing technical maintenance training for the company’s employees.
“We believe (education) was one of the things that helped us land this company,” Rendall said.
Bit by bit, a new space program emerges
John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)
The pictures of the Orion spacecraft that arrived at the Kennedy Space Center this week told the most important part of the story of our changing role in the space program.
For almost five decades, our friends and neighbors here on the Space Coast have prepared and launched rockets and spacecraft. Now, we are building them.
The core of the Orion spacecraft slated for a 2014 test flight arrived here to be assembled. It's the base piece of the spaceship, but it's not a spaceship yet. Kennedy teams will take the core and other pieces, such as a heat shield, and build a spaceship.
The distinction is not trivial. Almost a decade back, NASA leaders and local officials began talking about the need to diversify the space work done here, to expand beyond launch services and payload preparation. If the space sector here was going to thrive in an era after the shuttles retired, and there was no longer a need for the standing army to support the fleet, diversity was a necessity.
The seeds were sown throughout the second half of the last decade for NASA to assign assembly of the next government craft here, creating hundreds of jobs that could become safe harbor for those shuttle workers losing their jobs. The work to get assembly facilities ready, to convince NASA assembly ought to happen nearby launching pads instead of in other states and to put together a team paid off.
The first Orion is being assembled here now, and the best news is that the broader strategy of expanding the kinds of space work done here is netting other positives.
The Boeing Co. appears poised to assemble its private space taxi in a former shuttle hangar here as part of the NASA commercial crew crew program.
NASA based that commercial crew program office here at Kennedy.
SpaceX, for all the buzz about its alternate launch sites, continues to plan a robust launch schedule here, including the short-term and long-term launches of its Dragon cargo ship (and ultimately Dragon crew ship).
Craig Technologies is moving into the old shuttle logistics depot in Cape Canaveral, preventing a world class light manufacturing facility from becoming an empty eyesore and protecting priceless space equipment temporarily until NASA needs it again. In the process, watch for Craig to continue to draw unique new lines of aerospace work here.
And, NASA and local leaders continue to work to lure space tourism companies to the unique and well located space launch support facilities across Kennedy and the Cape. As new companies talk about new means of making money in space, Florida seems to be on everyone's short list as a place for space still.
Hopefully, more good news will come. For a decade, it's been clear that the jobs lost to the space shuttle fleet retirement would never be regained via one big new government space program, but rather through the combination of many smaller programs, some public and some private. A dozen jobs here. A few hundred there. Bit by bit, the new space program is being born.
Phoenix from the Ashes: The fall and rise of Pad 34
Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.org
In a barren area of Cape Canaveral stands a gaunt, concrete and steel hulk which once formed the launch platform of Pad 34. Today, overgrown by bushes, weeds and a handful of wild pepper trees, it steadily decays in the salty Atlantic air. A faded ‘Abandon In Place’ sign adorns one of its legs. Near its base are a pair of plaques, memorialising one of the site’s darkest days of trauma. The first one reads simply ‘Launch Complex 34, Friday 27 January 1967, 1831 Hours’ and dedicates itself to the first three astronauts of Project Apollo: Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. The second plaque pays tribute to their ‘ultimate sacrifice’ that January evening, long ago. Close by are three granite benches, one in honour of each fallen astronaut.
Every year, NASA invites the families of the men to visit the spot and reflect upon the tragedy which engulfed them with such horrifying suddenness that Friday. To pause at Pad 34 and consider its significance is to consider the astonishing ability of America’s space programme to rebound from this appalling disaster and plant human bootprints on the lunar surface, barely 30 months later. Even today, the steadily maturing effort to build a new heavy-lift booster for exploration beyond Earth orbit and the political rhetoric about asteroids by 2025 and Mars at some indeterminate time thereafter pales in comparison to the incredible strides achieved by Project Apollo. Cast against a backdrop of steadily declining budgets and overshadowed by the brutality of Vietnam, Pad 34 can be seen not only as a place of despair and sorrow…but as a place of destiny and success.
Yet for NASA, its workforce and the astronaut corps, 1967 turned into a truly rotten year and little of note exorcised the spectre of gloom until the monster Saturn V rocket embarked on its maiden voyage in early November. The tragedy which engulfed Apollo eliminated the space agency’s plans to launch as many as three Earth-orbital missions that year. Apollo 1, carrying Grissom, White and Chaffee, would be a ten-to-14-day shakedown of the basic ‘Block 1’ variant of the craft. It would be followed by Apollo 2 (crewed by Jim McDivitt, Dave Scott and Rusty Schweickart) to evaluate the lunar module in Earth orbit and finally Apollo 3 (manned by Frank Borman, Mike Collins and Bill Anders) to undertake the first piloted flight of the Saturn V to a record-breaking apogee of more than 6,400 miles. The first two missions would originate atop the Saturn IB booster – nicknamed “the big maumoo” by Grissom and his backup, Wally Schirra – from Pad 34.
Neither Grissom, nor Schirra, harboured confidence in the Block 1 vehicle, which they felt was sloppy and unsafe. In fact, they had spent months overseeing poor performance and low standards on the part of prime contractor North American. Unlike Gemini, where they could approach James McDonnell himself if issues arose, the North American set-up was larger and more impersonal – “a slick, big-time bunch of Washington operators,” astronaut Tom Stafford wrote in his memoir, We Have Capture – and there were worries that technicians were more concerned about their free time than about constructing a safe spacecraft. Even NASA’s Apollo manager Joe Shea remarked that after receiving the initial $2 billion contract, North American threw a party and made hats with ‘NASA’ printed on them…albeit with the ‘S’ replaced by a dollar sign…
By late 1966, hundreds of problems with the Block 1 craft remained unresolved – a faulty water glycol pump in the environmental control system, leaky thrusters, coolant glitches, bad wiring and inadequate software – and Grissom’s crew were so angry that they prepared a mocking photograph of themselves, heads bowed in prayer over the spacecraft. “It’s not that we don’t trust you,” Grissom explained, “but this time we’ve decided to go over your head!” On 22 January 1967, shortly before flying to the Cape for a ‘plugs-out’ launch pad test, Grissom plucked a lemon from a tree in his Houston backyard, flew it to Florida in his baggage and hung it over the Block 1 spacecraft’s hatch.
To be fair, North American had faced their own technical challenges. NASA had mandated that the Apollo command module should operate a pure oxygen atmosphere – an extreme fire hazard, admittedly, but infinitely less complex than trying to implement an oxygen-nitrogen mix, which, if misjudged, could suffocate the men before they even knew about it. In space, the cabin would be kept at a pressure of about a fifth of an atmosphere, but from ground tests would be pressurised to slightly above one atmosphere. This would eliminate the risk of the spacecraft imploding, but at such high pressures there remained the danger that anything which caught fire would burn almost explosively. At an early stage, North American objected to the use of pure oxygen, but NASA, which had employed it without incident on Mercury and Gemini, overruled them.
The choice of pure oxygen had not been made lightly. NASA knew that a two-gas system, providing an Earth-like mixture of 80 percent nitrogen and 20 percent oxygen, pressurised to one bar, would reduce the risk of fire. Moreover, a mixture of this type avoided many other troubles associated with pure oxygen – eye irritation, hearing loss and a clogging of the chest, for example – but the complexities of building such a system threatened to make it prohibitively heavy. The astronauts’ space suits complicated the issue yet further. “To walk on the Moon,” wrote Deke Slayton, “you needed to get out of the spacecraft…and with a mixed-gas system you’d have to pre-breathe for hours, lowering the pressure and getting the nitrogen out of your system so you didn’t get the bends. Of course, if there was a real emergency and you had to use the suit, you’d really have been in trouble.”
Other worries surrounded Apollo’s hatch: a complex device which actually came in two cumbersome pieces – an inner section, which opened into the command module’s cabin, overlaid by an outer section. North American wanted to build a single-piece hatch, fitted with explosive bolts, but NASA felt that this might increase the risk of it misfiring on the way to the Moon. By adopting an inward-opening hatch, cabin pressure would keep it tightly sealed in flight…but notoriously difficult to open on the ground. As the hands of fate turned on Apollo 1, pure oxygen and an immovable hatch, coupled with a mysterious ignition source, would spell death for Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.
With a pessimistic air of foreboding, the three astronauts crossed the gantry at Pad 34 on the afternoon of 27 January 1967. According to their secretary, Lola Morrow, all three men were unusually subdued and in no mood for the so-called ‘plugs-out’ test. (Morrow herself scornfully referred to Project Apollo as ‘Project Appalling’.) The previous evening, their backup crew – Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham – had sat aboard the spacecraft for a ‘plugs-in’ test, with Apollo dependent upon electrical power from ground support equipment and the hatch left open. After emerging from the test, Schirra took Grissom to one side. He hated the Block 1 design. “If you get the slightest glitch,” Schirra told his friend, “get outta there. I don’t like it.”
Communications with the nearby blockhouse, manned by astronaut Stu Roosa, caused difficulties from the start. Grissom was so frustrated that he even asked Joe Shea, at breakfast, to sit in the cabin with them and gain a manager’s perspective of the problems. Shea weighed up the pros and cons of rigging up an extra headset and squeezing himself, in shirtsleeves, into Apollo’s lower equipment bay, but decided against it. Even Deke Slayton considered sitting in the cabin with them, but elected to remain in the blockhouse to monitor the progress of the test.
Grissom took the commander’s seat on the left side of the cabin and quickly became aware of a foul odour – it smelled like sour buttermilk, he said – and technicians scrambled to the spacecraft to take air samples. Nothing was found to be amiss. Roger Chaffee climbed aboard, taking the right-side seat, and Ed White entered last, plopping into the centre seat. The command module’s hatch was closed, the Saturn IB boost cover was sealed and pure oxygen was steadily pumped into the cabin.
As the afternoon wore on, niggling problems hindered the test. A high oxygen flow indicator triggered the master alarm, time and time again, and communications with Roosa were so bad that Grissom exploded: “How are we going to get to the Moon if we can’t talk between two or three buildings?” At 4:25 pm EST, a problem arose with a live microphone, which could not be switched off. NASA Test Conductor Skip Chauvin later recalled that communications were so bad that he could hardly hear the astronauts’ voices. Eventually, the test was put on hold at 5:40 pm. Forty minutes later, after more communications headaches, controllers prepared to transfer Apollo 1 to its internal fuel cells…whereupon the countdown was halted, yet again.
Suddenly, and without warning, controllers noticed the crew’s biomedical readings jump. This was a tell-tale indicator of increased oxygen flow in their space suits. At the same time, around 6:30:54 pm, other sensors registered a brief power surge aboard Apollo 1. Ten seconds later came the first cry from the spacecraft.
It was Roger Chaffee’s voice.
It was just one word.
“Fire!”
On the evening of 27 January 1967, Deke Slayton – one of original Mercury Seven astronauts and then-head of Flight Crew Operations – sat in the windowless blockhouse at Cape Canaveral’s Pad 34, listening to the barely audible voices of three astronauts from the Apollo 1 spacecraft. Atop the new Saturn IB booster, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were working their way through a so-called ‘plugs-out’ test, ahead of their scheduled Earth-orbital mission in late February. All afternoon, the test had been plagued with difficulties. Communications were rendered troublesome, technical glitches cropped up with disturbing regularity…and a few seconds after 6:35 pm EST Slayton heard a word which chilled him to the bone.
“Fire!”
Quickly, he glanced over to a monitor which showed Apollo 1’s hatch window. What normally looked like a dark circle was now lit up, almost white. Frantic calls were now emanating from the spacecraft: “We’ve got a fire in the cockpit,” yelled Chaffee. “Let’s get out. We’re burning up!” Finally, there came a blood-curdling scream.
On the first floor of Pad 34, technician Gary Propst could clearly see Ed White on his monitor. The astronaut’s arms were raised over his head, fiddling to open the heavy two-piece hatch. Propst could not understand why the men did not simply blow the hatch, little realising that its inherent design had made it impossible for them to do this. Instead, White had to use a ratchet to laboriously release six bolts spanning the circumference of the inner section of the hatch. Years later, fellow astronaut Dave Scott wrote in Two Sides of the Moon that, during training, he and White had weightlifted the hatch over their heads whilst lying supine in their Apollo couches. Now, on the few seconds he had available before being overcome by smoke, White barely had chance to begin loosening the first bolt.
Tragically, it made little difference. Fire was gorging Apollo 1 and the accumulation of hot gases sealed the hatch shut with tremendous force. No man on Earth could possibly have opened the hatch under such circumstances; under normal conditions, it would require 90 seconds at best, and even the super-fit White had been unable to do it in less than two minutes during training.
Investigators would later discover that the fire began somewhere under Gus Grissom’s seat, on the left side of the cabin, perhaps in the vicinity of some chafed and unprotected wiring. Once sparked in Apollo 1’s pure oxygen atmosphere, it fed hungrily and quickly exploded into an inferno. Other combustible objects, including Velcro pads, nylon nets, polyurethane pads and paperwork, fanned the flames. The astronauts themselves had taken a Styrofoam block into the cabin to relieve the pressure against their backs, but this exploded like a bomb in the pure oxygen. “At such pressure, and bathed by pure oxygen,” wrote Grissom’s biographer, Ray Boomhower, “a cigarette could be reduced to ashes in seconds and even metal could burn.”
At length, pressures exceeded Apollo 1’s design limits and the capsule ruptured at 6:31:19 pm, filling the Pad 34 white room with thick smoke. By now, the poisonous fumes had asphyxiated the three astronauts to death. A few metres away, pad leader Don Babbitt sprang from his desk and barked at lead technician Jim Greaves to get the men out of the command module. But it was hopeless. The waves of heat and pressure were so intense that the would-be rescuers were repeatedly driven back. “The smoke was extremely heavy,” Babbitt later recalled. “It appeared to me to be a heavy thick grey smoke, very billowing, but very thick.” None of the pad crew could see far beyond the end of their noses and they had to run their hands over the outside of the boost cover to find holes into which they could insert tools to open the hatch.
No less than 27 technicians were treated that evening by the Cape’s dispensary for the effects of inhalation. Don Babbitt had to order Jim Greaves outside at one point, lest he pass out. Firefighters eventually opened the hatch and the would-be saviours beheld a hellish scene of destruction: by the flickering glimmer of a flashlight, they could see little but burnt wiring and an incinerated interior. According to firefighter Jim Burch, it took a few seconds before the ethereal calmness convinced them that Grissom, White and Chaffee were gone. It was 6:37 pm, five and a half minutes since Chaffee’s initial shout. America’s dream of landing on the Moon was in tatters. Choking over the phone to Deke Slayton, Babbitt could not find the words to describe what he saw.
Slayton and flight surgeon Fred Kelly arrived at the base of Pad 34 minutes later. They realised that it would take hours to remove the dead men from Apollo 1, because the heat had caused everything to melt and fuse together. Moreover, there remained a very real risk that the heat could accidentally trigger the Saturn IB’s escape tower and the pad was cleared of all personnel. Not until the early hours of the 28th were the bodies removed. None of them had suffered life-threatening burns and all had died from asphyxia when their oxygen hoses burned and their suits rapidly filled with poisonous smoke.
In his autobiography, Slayton described it the “worst day” of his career and even the normally teetotal astronaut Frank Borman – who would have commanded Apollo 3 on a high-Earth-orbit mission, later in 1967 – admitted that he went out and got drunk after the accident. “I’m not proud to admit it,” Borman once said, “but…we ended up throwing glasses, like a scene out of an old World War One movie.” The wives of the three dead men, Betty Grissom, Pat White and Martha Chaffee, later sued North American for its shoddy spacecraft. Each received hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation in 1972.
Pad 34’s first launch should have begun the first Earth-orbital test of the spacecraft which would someday transport men to the Moon. Instead, it had become the scene for the worst tragedy yet to hit America’s human space programme. The pad itself had been built in 1960 and saw the first launch of the Saturn I rocket on 27 October of the following year, in which a dummy upper stage had been lofted on a suborbital trajectory into the Atlantic. Three more Saturn I launches and two unmanned Saturn IB launches followed, with Apollo 1 scheduled to be the seventh overall. As circumstances transpired, the actual seventh launch from Pad 34 would not come until the last quarter of 1968…and would be the last mission and the only manned mission ever despatched from this site.
By the summer of 1968, after many safety improvements, Apollo was ready to fly with men aboard. Astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham had spent more than 600 hours in the command module simulator and in early October they arrived at Pad 34 for their launch into orbit. The countdown proceeded without incident until ten minutes before liftoff on the 11th, whereupon thrust-chamber jacket chilldown was initiated for the Saturn’s S-IVB second stage. It took slightly longer than expected and demanded a halt of almost three minutes. At length, the countdown resumed at 10:56 am and Apollo 7 speared for the heavens at 11:02 am.
If the early stages of ascent seemed slow and laborious, Time magazine told its readers, it was unsurprising: for the Saturn IB weighed 590,000 kg, only a little less than the 725,750 kg thrust of the first stage. Inside the command module, only Eisele had a good view of the commotion that was going on outside. “We had a boost protective cover over the command module,” Cunningham told the NASA oral historian. “There’s an escape rocket that you can use any time until you get rid of it, and that’s a little after a minute into the flight. Because that rocket puts out a plume, you had to have a cover over the command module so that you wouldn’t coat the windows. The only place you can see out is over Donn’s head in the centre seat.” Eleven minutes after launch, the Saturn IB achieved orbit.
And on its last-ever launch, Pad 34 had exorcised the demons of the Block 1 Apollo spacecraft and had laid the ghosts of Grissom, White and Chaffee to rest. Yet today, as it steadily rusts in the salty Atlantic air, the eerie silence of the Pad 34 site cannot fail to convince the casual visitor that this is place of reverence; reverence not only in honour of the brave souls who lost their lives here, all those years ago, but reverence in that this place was the spot from which humanity’s first tentative steps to reach the Moon were taken.
END
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