Lynda Oschin with students from the Science Center School. Students unfurled a banner displaying the newly named Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, future permanent home of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Photo Credit: Leroy Hamilton (used with permission)
Jeffrey N. Rudolph, President of the California Science Center in Los Angeles, announced today a name for space shuttle Endeavour’s future home – the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. The name was chosen in recognition of a ‘transformational gift’ from the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation, an organization which has generously supported a variety of causes in areas of astronomy, medicine, advocacy, the arts and education since 1981. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lynda Oschin, widow of Samuel Oschin and Chair of the Board and Secretary of the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation, were present for today’s special event.
Continue reading California Science Center Names Shuttle Endeavour’s Future Home
The south pole of Vesta as seen by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
In 2007, NASA launched the Dawn spacecraft towards the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to study the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn arrived at the former target last July and has already made some astounding discoveries. Not only does the small body have surface features and signs of differentiation, it doesn’t really seem to be an asteroid at all. Dawn went to study Vesta the asteroid but it arrived to find Vesta the protoplanet.
Continue reading Vesta: Small World, Big Surprises
There is building interest by Senator Chuck Grassley’s office in the arrangement that Google has with NASA and its Ames Research Center. Of the many questions raised by the Senator, one in particular concerns why Google, which houses an air fleet consisting of several jets at Ames, including but not limited to a Boeing 767, a Boeing 757, and a couple of Gulfstream 550′s, may be paying discounted fuel taxes for its jets.
To be sure, currently it’s a bit unclear as to what Google is paying to fuel its air fleet. It could be that Google is exempt from the fuel tax, which for Jet-A was 21.9¢ per gallon in 2007. But one report indicates that Google is paying as low as half-price, or 50¢ on the dollar, for Jet-A. Just to put this into perspective, Jet-A fuel retails for between $5.95 at Palo Alto Airport (PAO) and $8.09 at San Francisco International (SFO).
Continue reading Senator Grassley To NASA: What’s Going On At Ames?
Artist's impression of the Galileo-Centaur deployment on Mission 61G in May 1986. Image Credit: NASA
When Challenger exploded on 28 January 1986, it crushed many dreams of America’s space programme. The Shuttle was expected to open new frontiers and deliver people into orbit with unrivalled frequency and reliability…but herein was one of its fatal flaws. Fifteen missions were planned in 1986, followed by 24 in 1987, and it was long feared that this monstrous launch rate would push the Shuttle’s workforce beyond its limits and drive the fleet to its knees. The Rogers Commission would harshly criticise not only the technical causes of Challenger, but also the managerial cancers that enabled it to happen. Schedule pressure was one such cancer and in few other areas was its oppressive breath more acutely felt than in NASA’s plan to launch two Shuttles, within five days, in May 1986.
Continue reading Two Shuttles, Two Launches, One Planet…and a Five-Day Goal
SpaceX launching their Dragon spacecraft for the first time on the COTS-1 demo flight in December 2010. Photo Credit: Mike Killian
Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX, is scheduled to launch their Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 4:55am EDT on May 19th from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40). The mission aims to send the company’s Dragon spacecraft into orbit, becoming the first commercial spacecraft to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA announced yesterday that as part of its Launch Services contract (NLS II) with SpaceX it will add an additional configuration of the Falcon 9 rocket to its fleet. The new SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 launch service will be available for future missions in accordance with the on-ramp provision of NLS II contract.
Continue reading NASA’s Makes Room for SpaceX Falcon 9 in NLS II Contract
Atop a converted Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile, America launches its fourth man into orbit on 15 May 1963. Gordon Cooper's 34-hour, 22-orbit voyage aboard Faith 7 would be NASA's most challenging space mission to date. Photo Credit: NASA
Early on 14 May 1963, a hotshot pilot lay on his back in a tiny capsule, atop a converted ballistic missile, and steeled himself to be blasted into space. On Project Mercury’s final mission, Gordon Cooper would spend 34 hours in space, circle the globe 22 times and establish NASA’s first real baseline of long-duration experience as the space agency and the nation prepared to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. To be fair, the flight would last barely a quarter as long as the Soviet Union’s four-day Vostok 3 mission, a year earlier, but for NASA it would mark an important step forward. Yet there were many senior managers who doubted that Cooper was the right man for the job. Two days earlier, he had buzzed the administration building at Cape Canaveral in his F-106 jet, sparking a flurry of frantic emergency calls and maddening Project Mercury’s operations director, Walt Williams, to the extent that he almost grounded Cooper in favour of his backup, Alan Shepard. Cooper had much ground to make up in order to restore faith in his abilities.
Continue reading “The Right Guy”: A Restoration of Faith
NASA has often been given low marks for presenting the wonder of what it does in a timely fashion that speaks to the soul. A recent video by the U.S. space agency highlights that the space agency is getting better at telling its story in ways everyone can understand.
Gordon Cooper is extracted from the Faith 7 capsule, on the deck of the USS Kearsarge on 16 May 1963. The astronaut's 34-hour, 22-orbit mission proved as colourful as Cooper himself. Photo Credit: NASA
Fifty years ago, in 1962, America began to take strides toward meeting President John Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon. The humiliation of Yuri Gagarin’s orbital flight had been met by two suborbital missions and three Earth-circling voyages. When Wally Schirra ended his nine-hour, six-orbit flight in October 1962, it was considered so successful that some voices within NASA advised ending Project Mercury immediately and pressing on with the two-man Project Gemini. Others countered that one of Mercury’s goals was to fly an astronaut for more than a day and long-duration experience was highly desirable in the run-up to Gemini. By the end of the year, the space agency was thus hard at work preparing to close out Mercury in style with a ‘Manned One-Day Mission’ (MODM). To history, it would be known as ‘Faith 7’ and around the colourful man who flew it would grow a legend which endures to this very day.
Continue reading “How About Now?” The Faith in Gordon Cooper
Wearing the 'horse's collar', Alan Shepard is winched to the recovery helicopter, minutes after splashdown. Freedom 7 can be clearly seen in the ocean beneath him. Photo Credit: NASA
In the half-hour between 9:30 and 10:00 am Eastern Standard Time on 5 May 1961, the United States came, quite literally, to a standstill. A Philadelphia appeals court judge interrupted all proceedings to make an announcement, whilst free champagne – even at this hour – flowing freely in taverns, and traffic slowed in Californian freeways and people danced and sang in Times Square. Even the new President, John Kennedy, barely four months into his new job as one of the most powerful men in the world, could only watch, dumbstruck, as he beheld the view on a TV screen. Standing there in his secretary’s office, after having just broken up a meeting of the National Security Council, Kennedy’s hands were shoved deep into his pockets as he witnessed real history in the making. On the screen, the camera panned upwards to trace the trajectory of a rocket, heading into space, bearing the first American ever to break the bonds of Earth and venture into the ethereal blackness of space beyond.
Continue reading “What a Beautiful View”: The Minutes of Freedom 7
Composite of a Series of Images Taken From Space Aboard the Space Station
This is a composite of a series of images photographed from a mounted camera on the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit said of the about photographic techniques used to achieve the images: "My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure." A total of 18 images photographed by the astronaut-monitored stationary camera were combined to create this composite. Image Credit: NASA Read More
