Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Celebrating Independence Day in Space

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: July 3, 2016 at 10:27:03 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Celebrating Independence Day in Space

AmericaSpace
For a nation that explores
July 2nd, 2016
'Those Are Beautiful Shoes': Celebrating Independence Day in Space (Part 1)
By Ben Evans

On 4 July 1982, the crew of STS-4 became the first U.S. astronauts to spend Independence Day in space. It also marked the date of their spectacular return to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Photo Credit: NASA
On the morning of 4 July 1982, a rapidly moving, black and white speck appeared on the horizon at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., bringing a pair of U.S. space explorers back to Earth after a week in orbit. Minutes later, at 12:09 p.m. EDT (9:09 a.m. PDT), Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew of Commander Ken Mattingly and Pilot Hank Hartsfield alighted on the 15,000-foot-long (4,600-meter) concrete expanse of Runway 22, becoming the first American piloted space mission to be in progress on Independence Day. It was true that several key voyages of U.S. space endeavor—not least humanity's first manned lunar landing and the joint Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP)—had occurred in July, but until STS-4 and the flight of Mattingly and Hartsfield, no American had ever been in space on this quintessentially "American" holiday.
Many other Americans would follow in their footsteps, aboard five more shuttle missions between 1992 and 2006, and Americans have also observed the holiday from the lofty perch afforded by Russia's Mir space station in 1995-1997 and, since 2001, by the International Space Station (ISS). Only one U.S. piloted mission has actually launched on Independence Day and only one has ever landed on Independence Day, but for more than a decade the holiday has been marked by a succession of Americans—and Russians and Germans, Japanese and Belgians, Canadians and Italians—from a location far higher than the members of the Second Continental Congress could possibly have conceived when they drafted the language of separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain, way back in 1776.
On Monday, 240 years since that separation, one U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts will mark the occasion from the ISS. Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams—the first American to participate in as many as three long-duration space station increments—has been in orbit since March, together with Alexei Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka.
STS-4 Flight Director Charles Lewis is congratulated by an unidentified colleague in the Mission Control Center (MCC) at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, on 4 July 1982. Photo Credit: NASA
The first Independence Day spent in orbit by U.S. astronauts began in a rather comical fashion. On 4 July 1982, Mattingly and Hartsfield were in the process of packing away much of their research hardware, after seven days in orbit aboard Columbia. It had been a highly successful mission and the last of four Orbital Flight Tests (OFTs), before the shuttle was declared fully operational and tasked with its first commercial payloads on STS-5. Among the research performed by Mattingly and Hartsfield were the first classified payload, flown on behalf of the Department of Defense. "On one experiment, they had a classified checklist [and] because we didn't have a secure comm link, we had the checklist divided up in sections that just had letter-names, like Bravo-Charlie, Tab-Charlie, Tab-Bravo, that they would call out," recalled Hartsfield in his NASA oral history interview. Whenever the astronauts spoke to U.S. Air Force controllers at the Satellite Control Facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., they would be told, for example, to "Do Tab-Charlie."
"We had a locker that we kept all the classified material," continued Hartsfield, "and it was padlocked, so once we got on orbit, we unlocked it and did what we had to do." As the end of the mission neared, Hartsfield packed away the remainder of the classified materials and secured the locker. He told Mattingly. "I got all the classified stuff put away. It's all locked up."
"Great!" replied Mattingly.
Half an hour later, the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston, Texas, called and told them that the military staff at Sunnyvale wanted to talk to them. The Air Force controller asked them, cryptically, to "do Tab-November." The two astronauts looked at each other, bewildered. What the hell was Tab-November? Neither of them could remember. The secretive nature of the military instruction and the lack of a secure communications link also meant they could not ask over the radio. The only option was to reopen the classified locker, dig through all the materials, and find the checklist. Eventually, after much searching, Hartsfield finally found the glossary entry for Tab-November.
It read: Put everything away and secure it!
Shortly afterwards, the STS-4 crew commenced their hypersonic descent back through the "sensible" atmosphere, bound for a touchdown at Edwards. Their arrival in the California desert was being watched closely by President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan, and Mattingly and Hartsfield had already been briefed by NASA Administrator Jim Beggs and asked to think of some memorable words to mark the occasion. "We knew they had hyped-up the STS-4 mission, so that they wanted to make sure we landed on the Fourth of July," Mattingly recalled in his NASA oral history. "It was in no uncertain terms that we were going to land on the Fourth of July, no matter what day we took off. Even if it was the Fifth, we were going to land on the Fourth! That meant, if you didn't do any of your test mission, that's okay, as long as you land on the Fourth … because the President is going to be there. We thought that was kinda interesting!"
Hartsfield (left) and Mattingly are greeted by President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan after STS-4. Photo Credit: NASA
Fortunately, Columbia's landing—the first on Edwards' concrete Runway 22—occurred precisely on time on Independence Day, wrapping up a textbook flight. The shuttle's landing gear was deployed at an altitude of 400 feet (120 meters). The vehicle alighted on the runway and Mattingly applied the brakes for 20 seconds to come to a smooth halt. Now came his biggest challenge: How to welcome the Reagans inside the shuttle. He and Hartsfield considered putting up a notice, worded to the effect of Welcome to Columbia: Thirty minutes ago, this was in space. As circumstances transpired, Mattingly actually greeted his commander-in-chief with a very painful head. …
Immediately after wheelstop, he turned to Hartsfield and spoke. "I am not going to have somebody come up here and pull me outta this chair! I'm going to give every ounce of strength I've got and get up on my own!" Previous crews had come back to Earth, some feeling fine, others feeling nauseous, and still others required a gurney to carry them off the spacecraft for medical attention. That would not happen with the president in attendance. Mentally and physically set up to meet the chief, Mattingly pushed himself upward out of his seat…and smashed his head sharply on the overhead instrument panel! "Oh, did I have a headache," he recalled later.
"That's very graceful," Hartsfield quipped.
Nevertheless, the two returning space heroes composed themselves and Mattingly wiped away the few spots of blood. In the minutes before Columbia's hatch was opened, they walked around the middeck, to get themselves acclimated, before descending the steps to meet Reagan. Hartsfield—well known for his merciless sense of humor—was on top form that day. "Well, let's see. If you do it like you did gettin' out of your chair, you'll go down the stairs and you're going to fall down, so you need to have something to say," he told Mattingly. "Why don't you just look up at the president and say 'Mr. President, those are beautiful shoes? Think you can get that right?"
Meanwhile, atop a modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), Challenger—the second spaceworthy orbiter—was ready to take off from Edwards on a cross-country journey to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, in anticipation of her maiden launch in the spring of 1983. Reagan paid tribute to both vehicles in his speech; Columbia as having cleared the shuttle for operational service and Challenger for being a vision of the future. "Way out there at the end of the runway," he told his Edwards audience, "the Space Shuttle Challenger … is about to start the first leg of a journey that will eventually put it into space. It's headed for Florida, now, and they're about to take off." And with co-ordinated precision, and careful timing, Reagan gave the ceremonial go-ahead: "Challenger, you are free to take off, now!" Without further ado, the SCA and its cumbersome rooftop passenger roared down the runway and into the clear California skies.
On Independence Day in 1995, Atlantis undocked for the first time from Russia's Mir space station. Photo Credit: NASA
Reagan loved it, and even Mattingly's voice cracked with emotion as he spoke of his pride in the mission and in Hartsfield, whom he labeled "the finest pilot." With a second shuttle now complete, the future for NASA and the space program seemed bright.
Indeed, that Fourth of July in 1982 represented a time when perhaps anything was possible. The calamity that befell Challenger was over three years away and by the time a shuttle crew next spent Independence Day in orbit it would be with a totally new awareness of the reusable spacecraft's frailties. In 1992, the crew of STS-50 was midway through a record-setting 14-day mission with the first U.S. Microgravity Laboratory (USML-1), when they celebrated the holiday in orbit. STS-50 also trialed the Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) hardware, which enabled longer shuttle missions and supported 14 flights between June 1992 and the loss of Columbia in February 2003.
A further three years passed before another shuttle crew—that of STS-71, which performed the first docking with Russia's Mir space station—spent Independence Day in orbit on 4 July 1995. That morning took on particular resonance, for it was also the day that Atlantis undocked from Mir after five days of joint operations. The crew was awakened, unsurprisingly, to America the Beautiful, and at 7:10 a.m. EDT STS-71 Commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson undocked smoothly from Mir. They were preceded by Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov and Nikolai Budarin, aboard the Soyuz TM-21 spacecraft, who acquired stunning imagery of the shuttle's separation. From the windows of Atlantis, Gibson described the Fourth of July extravaganza as a "cosmic ballet."
Twelve months later, as the movie Independence Day hit theaters around the globe, the crew of STS-78 was approaching the conclusion of their record-setting 17-day Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) mission aboard Columbia. Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA and Lee Greenwood's I'm Proud to be an American greeted the crew as their wake-up music, to which STS-78 Commander Tom Henricks responded that the five U.S.-born crew members were proud to be Americans on what was the 220th anniversary of independence. Later that same day, Henricks showed his terrestrial audience a view of the United States from space, complete with patriotic background music, and paid tribute to 19 U.S. service personnel recently killed earlier in the Khoban Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.
A further dozen months passed before another Columbia crew—that of STS-94, reflying the Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL)-1—celebrated the historic date in orbit. The astronauts were awakened on 4 July 1997 to the tune of Kate Smith's God Bless America, as well as the news that NASA's Sojourner rover had successfully touched down on the surface of Mars, becoming the first wheeled vehicle ever to land on the Red Planet.
It would be a further nine years after STS-94 before another shuttle crew celebrated Independence Day in orbit, by which time the program would have changed markedly in the aftermath of the tragic loss of Columbia. Yet STS-121 would carve its own niche in history as the only U.S. piloted space mission to actually launch on 4 July. By that time, of course, Americans would have long since celebrated many Independence Days aloft, aboard Mir and the ISS, and several key U.S. planetary and science missions would have marked the date with profound new discoveries about the Solar System and the Universe around us.

Copyright © 2016 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

AmericaSpace
For a nation that explores
July 3rd, 2016

'Some Serious Fireworks': Celebrating Independence Day in Space (Part 2)
By Ben Evans

Commander Ken Mattingly and Pilot Hank Hartsfield salute President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan on Edwards' concrete Runway 22 on Independence Day in 1982. Columbia is clearly visible in the background. Photo Credit: NASA
"Eight, seven, six … Go for Main Engine Start … "
It was a familiar preamble from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) launch commentator which closely mirrored the final seconds before each of the previous 114 space shuttle missions. Ever since the maiden voyage of the first of this reusable fleet of orbiters in April 1981, the trio of Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) roared to life, producing a noticeable "twang" effect, as the vehicle structurally flexed upward, before the ignition of the twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) at T-0. "And liftoff of the Space Shuttle Discovery," came the call, as six American astronauts and one German spacefarer speared into a crystal clear Florida sky, "returning to the space station, paving the way for future missions beyond." It was 2:37:55 p.m. EDT. It was also 4 July 2006, and particular poignancy accompanied the launch of STS-121, which became the first—and so far only—occasion on which U.S. astronauts have rocketed into space on Independence Day.
To history, STS-121 would carry its own significance, as the "second" Return to Flight (RTF) mission in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, serving not only to deliver critical equipment and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), but also to demonstrate procedures and tools for inspecting the integrity of the shuttle's heat shield. The seven-strong STS-121 crew—Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly, Mission Specialists Mike Fossum, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, and Piers Sellers, together with Germany's Thomas Reiter—had departed the Operations & Checkout (O&C) Building at the Cape, earlier that morning, waving their respective national flags. "I don't know if it was the German Fourth of July or not!" Lindsey later quipped at the post-flight press conference.
Throughout the 30-year space shuttle era, six missions were in orbit on Independence Day. Of those six, just one (STS-121) launched on the holiday and another (STS-4) landed on the holiday. Photo Credit: NASA
Yet an Independence Day launch was not originally on the cards, for Discovery and her crew had already weathered a pair of scrubbed attempts on 1 and 2 July, the most recent of which prompted a 48-hour delay.
Fittingly, 2006 marked 230 years since the members of the Second Continental Congress drafted the language of separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain. "On the nation's 230th birthday, Discovery rocketed into the Florida sky this afternoon," NASA reported after the successful launch, noting that this was "the first human spacecraft to launch on an Independence Day holiday." As described in yesterday's AmericaSpace history article, five previous shuttle missions had already observed the Fourth of July holiday whilst in space, with Columbia's STS-4 crew of Commander Ken Mattingly and Pilot Hank Hartsfield having actually landed on Independence Day, to be greeted by then-President Ronald Reagan, back in 1982.
Among the STS-121 crew was Mark Kelly, who tweeted last year of his memories of launching on Independence Day. "9 yrs ago today, I celebrated July 4th w/some serious fireworks," he tweeted, "leaving the planet as the pilot of Discovery." In response, Kelly's former shuttle crewmate Mike Fossum added: "Great to share the ride with you on STS-121! Can't believe it's been 9 years!!"
Of course, by 2006, numerous Americans had also celebrated Independence Day in orbit, aboard both Russia's Mir space station and aboard the ISS. On the Fourth of July in 1995, six U.S. astronauts—including long-duration crewman Norm Thagard—and four Russian cosmonauts were aboard the shuttle-Mir complex during STS-71, the first docking mission between the two former superpowers. For the next two years, U.S. astronauts would be in residence aboard Mir as part of long-duration missions, with Shannon Lucid witnessing Independence Day in 1996 and British-born Mike Foale gazing down on the Home Planet exactly 12 months later. Interestingly, at the time of Foale's experience, seven other Americans also observed the holiday from aboard Shuttle Columbia on the STS-94 mission, marking the first occasion that U.S. astronauts had been in space on the Fourth of July, aboard two separate spacecraft, which were not docked together at the time.
With the conclusion of the shuttle-Mir program in mid-1998, and with the first long-duration ISS expeditions not due to commence until the fall of 2000, it was several years before Americans again celebrated the occasion in orbit. At length, on 4 July 2001, U.S. astronauts Jim Voss and Susan Helms were in residence aboard the fledgling ISS as members of Expedition 2. "The Nation's largest Independence Day celebration will be joined by visitors from outer space—not aliens, but NASA's International Space Station crew," it was reported, as the United States marked 225 years of political existence. "The two NASA members of the space station crew will send their 'out of this world' birthday message, reflecting on the birth of America, during the Fourth of July gala concert beginning at 8 p.m. EDT from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C."
STS-121, the first and so far only U.S. piloted space mission ever to launch on Independence Day, roars aloft on 4 July 2006. Photo Credit: NASA
The following Independence Days were times of triumph and sadness, as Expedition 5's Peggy Whitson welcomed the holiday in 2002, followed—in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster—by Expedition 7's Ed Lu in 2003. For Whitson and her crewmates, the day "was essentially a holiday in space … although they did some work off a generic task list," whilst that of Lu and his companion, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, their schedule comprised "light activities interspersed with time off." A year later, Expedition 9's Mike Fincke and his Russian commander, Gennadi Padalka, enjoyed a three-day weekend to enjoy the holiday period, whilst the following Fourth of July fell just shy of the Return to Flight (RTF) of the shuttle fleet after Columbia. Aboard the ISS for the 2005 celebration was the Expedition 11 crew, including U.S. astronaut John Phillips, whilst the following year NASA's Jeff Williams of Expedition 13 was watching via a monitor in the station's Destiny laboratory as Shuttle Discovery rocketed into orbit.
Interestingly, Williams is also aboard the ISS for 2016's Independence Day, in his capacity as Commander of Expedition 48. He is one of just five Americans—joining Ellen Baker, Bonnie Dunbar, Susan Helms, and Mike Fossum—to have spent as many as two Independence Days in space.
Subsequent years have seen increased crew sizes, from three to six, with U.S. astronauts Clay Anderson, Greg Chamitoff, Mike Barratt, Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, Doug Wheelock, Shannon Walker, Ron Garan, Mike Fossum, Joe Acaba, Chris Cassidy, Karen Nyberg, Steve Swanson, and Reid Wiseman having celebrated Independence Day in orbit between 2007 and 2014. On one of these occasions, in 2008, Chamitoff and his Expedition 17 crewmates were required to work through the Fourth of July, due to plans for an impending EVA by cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko.
By the time the 2009 holidays came around, the ISS had grown so large—having seen all four of its U.S.-built solar array modules installed, deployed, and activated—that it was clearly visible across the continental United States throughout the Fourth of July weekend. "Many locations will have unusually long sighting opportunities of as much as five minutes, weather permitting, as the station flies almost directly overhead," NASA reported, describing the station as "brighter than most stars at dawn and dusk, appearing as a solid, glowing light, slowly traversing the pre-dawn or evening sky."
Poignantly, on 4 July 2010, Expedition 24's Doug Wheelock—joined by fellow NASA astronauts Tracy Caldwell-Dyson and Shannon Walker, marking the first occasion that as many as three Americans were physically present aboard the ISS on Independence Day—delivered a personal message of reflection. Wheelock also displayed the Congressional Medal of Honor, awarded to the late U.S. Army Sgt. Lester Stone, who was killed in March 1969, during the Vietnam War. Together with their Russian comrades, Aleksandr Skvortsov, Mikhail Kornienko, and Fyodor Yurchikhin, they also supervised the arrival of a Russian Progress cargo ship.
Three years later, Expedition 36's Chris Cassidy observed the holiday by running the "Four on the Fourth Road Race" on the station's treadmill and issued an inspirational message to 1,200 runners from his hometown of York, Me. "I'm envious of the scenic view that you guys are about to enjoy," a red-white-and-blue-shirted Cassidy—who today serves as Chief of the Astronaut Office—told them, "as you run through our town." His efforts produced a welcome surprise, for his parents and brother were visible at mile markers along the York route, holding up signs of encouragement.
As Americans celebrated their nation's 239th birthday on 4 July 2015, only one of their living countrymen was missing from the Home Planet. "I'd like to wish everybody a Happy Independence Day," Expedition 44's Scott Kelly began in a video message. "It's a great holiday, a great tradition." At the time, Kelly and his Russian crewmate Mikhail Kornienko were 99 days into their (almost) year-long mission, which concluded with a safe landing in Kazakhstan on 1 March 2016. As circumstances transpired, Kelly tweeted some stunning imagery of "fireworks" of his own, then added: "Hoping for a happy and safe #FourthofJuly for everyone in #USA and around the world. Goodnight from @Space_Station."

Copyright © 2016 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved