Tag: nasa

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Space

Jeff Bezos’s Team Found Apollo 11’s F-1 Engines

Saturn V F-1 Rockets

Saturn V F-1 Rockets

The Saturn V was perhaps the greatest rocket ever built. Quoting Wikipedia:

It remains the tallest, heaviest and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status and still holds the record for the heaviest launch vehicle payload.

The first stage (S-IC) was made of several F-1 rockets. Check out an old video to get an idea of how powerful they really were. The last launched in 1973, and there are a few (shell’s at least) as museum exhibits. We’ve got little left to remember them by. Unlike the Shuttle SRB’s they weren’t reusable. They just went to the bottom of the ocean. The most famous of them all are the ones that sent Apollo 11 on their way to the moon.

Jeff Bezos announced:

I’m excited to report that, using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface, and we’re making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor. We don’t know yet what condition these engines might be in – they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years. On the other hand, they’re made of tough stuff, so we’ll see.

They are still property of NASA, so lets hope they are willing to let them go to a museum. If Bezos’s suggestion for The Museum of Flight isn’t suitable, perhaps The Smithsonian would be. They have the Command Module (CM) already in the National Air and Space Museum.

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Space

Listen To The Space Shuttle Takeoff

Space Shuttle SRB During Takeoff

Space Shuttle SRB During Takeoff

This is an amazing video. You’ve likely seen video of the Space Shuttle takeoff. You’ve likely even seen video of takeoff from the view of the camera’s on the Space Shuttle’s 2 solid rocket boosters. This one is slightly different. Turn up your speakers and listen to this one. The folks at the legendary Skywalker Sound mixed and enhanced this one.

Via Bad Astronomy

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Space

So Long Shuttle

Shuttle Atlantis Landing Final Flight

Shuttle Atlantis Landing Final Flight

I’m still young enough to say the shuttle program is older than me, yet I’m old enough to say I’ve lived through the vast majority of it’s 30 year run. I suspect it will be many years before we’re able to create something of nearly that quality again.

There is a very reasonable chance that nobody of my generation will every enter earths orbit on a NASA spacecraft. By the time NASA gets funding, develops a program and gets to the point of manned flight, they may be too old. Kennedy in 1961 challenged the US to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. By 1969 they were strolling on the moon. That was the entire programs length. It’s unlikely that NASA’s current roadmap to Mars by the mid-2030’s won’t be modified/scrapped by a future president. Even 2015 to start construction of a new heavy-lift vehicle is somewhat unlikely.

An amazing program despite it’s failures. Hopefully at some point we’ll get a successor together. 30 years is a long time. Technology has come a long way. If applied correctly, space exploration could be light years ahead of where it is today.

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Space Tech (General)

Space Shuttle’s Y2K-like Problem

Here’s curious tidbit from someone on reddit.com who identifies themselves as a Johnson Space Center Employee:

The Shuttle suffers from its own Y2K problem. The system computers run clocks that are set for GMT days: I think today is GMT 49. Anyway, when it gets to December 31, it’s GMT day 365. When it moves to January 1, it goes to GMT 001. This screws up the flight computer. I don’t believe there has ever been a Shuttle flight over a new year. A software fix is possible, but it has never been worth the millions of dollars necessary to fix it.

This actually seems very believable. For a little background, the Space Shuttle originally flew a set of 5 IBM AP-101‘s. In 1991 they upgraded to AP-101S, which has about 1 MB of semiconductor memory (as opposed to the core memory on the AP-101) and 3X the CPU speed. 4 run in sync, and 1 runs a separate set of software written independently for the ultimate in redundancy. They sit in two separate places in the orbiter and are quite rugged and power-hungry at 550W. That’s substantial considering the processing power. Since they mainly handle number crunching for the orbiter’s thrusters and run through things like the launch sequence. They just need to be reliable. They are programmed using HAL/S. The original memory limitations are likely why it uses GMT dates, and the reason to avoid upgrading the software is because of the complexity of the environment.

While a software upgrade would likely fix this issue, upgrading something that needs to be this well-tested would be insanely expensive.

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Audio/Video Space

Ares I Rocket Test

Ares I Rocket Test

Ares I Rocket Test

NASA posted some video of the first stage of the Ares I rocket being test fired out in the desert. 22 million horse power. As powerful as this rocket is, it doesn’t compare to Ares IV and of course the Saturn V.

I get the impression you don’t want to be anywhere near the business end of this thing when it’s lit:

During the test the flame exited the rocket motor out of a nozzle at about mach 3 and burned for approx. 123 seconds and the temperature of that flame approached approx. 4500 F. This is approx two-thirds the temperature of the sun’s surface. At this temperature steel does more than melt, it boils. And sand that was placed around just aft of the rocket motor got hot enough to actually turn to glass

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Space

We Choose To Go To The Moon

Moon Landing 40th Anniversary
Moon Landing 40th Anniversary

Moon Landing 40th Anniversary

It started during a Joint Session of Congress on May 25, 1961 with John F. Kennedy challenging the United States to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. 1969, 6 years after JFK was assassinated Apollo 11 landed on the moon and this famous newscast with the late Walter Cronkite who coincidentally passed away on Friday.

For the 40th anniversary NASA restored some of the old video of the landing, now available in H.264 to view. It’s not true HD in today’s terms but still impressive to see. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) also manged to snap a few pictures of the landing sites of the Apollo missions just in time. I believe this is the first time they have ever been identified since the actual landings. 2-3X higher resolution images are under way.

Lastly The John F. Kennedy Library launched “We Choose the Moon” a clever “live” broadcast of the Apollo 11 mission in its entirety with exactly a 40 year delay.

Now 40 years later NASA is embarking on Constellation which even in vehicle design parallels what was done in Apollo. We may be back on the moon by 2020 assuming Constellation, Aries IV or DIRECT succeed.

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Funny Space

Attach Orbiter Here

Attach Orbiter Here Note: Black Side Down

Attach Orbiter Here Note: Black Side Down

Attach Orbiter Here
Note: Black Side Down

NASA is known as a pretty bureaucratic organization with lots of CYA procedures. But this is just a great little joke hidden up above one of the Boeing 747’s used to ferry the Shuttles when they land somewhere other than Kennedy Space Center.

It’s not just software engineers embedding Easter eggs in their work.

[Via: Wikipedia]

Categories
Space

Godspeed Hubble

Hubble Released Atlantis STS 125

Hubble Released Atlantis STS 125

This video is the actual release of Hubble as well as the shuttle backing away from the Hubble telescope. It is best watched in HQ and Full Screen. It’s slightly shaky at times and a little long, but it’s got some great shots of Hubble up close. The Big Picture Blog also has a great set of pictures from the mission.

Humans likely will never again approach Hubble. At some point in the future a robotic mission will likely attach to the newly installed Soft Capture Mechanism and safely de-orbit Hubble guiding it into the Pacific away from any humans. That’s not likely until at least 2014, hopefully longer. Hubble has already outlived it’s original life expectancy thanks to previous shuttle visits. With the latest servicing hopefully there are still some great years ahead.

[Via: Bad Astronomy]

Categories
Audio/Video Space

Tour The International Space Station

There is a very cool tour of the International Space Station available on YouTube as a set of four videos:

There’s no award to be won for camera work as it’s pretty shaky and quick moving not to mention occasionally hard to follow but it’s a very good tour of something you rarely see more than a snapshot of. It also gives you a chance to appreciate the size of the whole thing. Noteworthy is you can see some of the design differences between modules built by different countries. The Russian built parts look pretty retro compared to the rest of the station. Also interesting is the use of all wall space since there’s no floor or ceiling. It’s packed in there.