Manned Spaceflight

51 years ago today, the Atlas rocket boosters that John Glenn, inside his Friendship 7 capsule, was strapped to the top of ignited. Millions of Americans watched as the resulting 350,000 pounds of thrust vibrated the vehicle that was about to take the first American into orbit around the Earth.

CAPCOM (Capsule Communicator): 3… 2… 1… 0.
John Glenn: Roger. The clock is operating. We’re underway.

Minutes later, John Glenn became the fifth human in space and the first American to enter Earth orbit. Previously, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom became the first and second, respectively, Americans in space; however, John Glenn was the first American to reach the important milestone of completing orbits of the Earth.

For the next 4 hours and 55 minutes, John Glenn completed three orbits of the Earth, reaching speeds greater than 17,000 miles per hour. NASA was still concerned about the effects of spaceflight on humans and this was the longest one an American astronaut had been subjected to yet. John Glenn remarked a number of times during the mission that he felt just fine, and was rather enjoying himself.

Five minutes into the mission:

John Glenn: Oh, that view is tremendous!

John Glenn witnessed three sunsets from space during the flight.

John Glenn: The sky above is absolutely black, completely black. I can see stars though up above.

John Glenn: This is Friendship Seven. At this, MARK, at this present time, I still have some clouds visible below me, the sunset was beautiful. It went down very rapidly. I still have a brilliant blue band clear across the horizon almost covering my whole window. The redness of the sunset I can still see through some of the clouds way over to the left of my course. Over.

From his fantastic vantage point, he observed dust storms and fires in Africa and the lights of Perth, Australia.

And then there was his “fireflies”, which he first noticed at about 1 hour and 15 minutes into the flight:

John Glenn: This is Friendship Seven. I’ll try to describe what I’m in here. I am in a big mass of some very small particles, that are brilliantly lit up like they’re luminescent. I never saw anything like it. They round a little: they’re coming by the capsule, and they look like little stars. A whole shower of them coming by.

They swirl around the capsule and go in front of the window and they’re all brilliantly lighted. They probably average maybe 7 or 8 feet apart., but I can see them all down below me, also.

CAPCOM: Roger, Friendship Seven. Can you hear any impact with the capsule? Over.

John Glenn: Negative, negative. They’re very slow; they’re not going away from me more than maybe 3 or 4 miles per hour. They’re going at the same speed I am approximately. They’re only very slightly under my speed. Over.

They do, they do have a different motion, though, from me because they swirl around the capsule and then depart back the way I am looking.

Are you receiving? Over.

There are literally thousands of them.

These “fireflies”, as Glenn called them after the mission, were later determined to be ice crystals that would accumulate on the craft on the dark side of the Earth and then begin to break off of the capsule when the Sun’s heat returned.

Back on the ground, serious considerations were being made. A flight controller received a warning from a sensor on Friendship, indicating a loose heat shield. If the sensor was correct in its reading, the only thing holding the heat shield in place was the straps from the retrorocket package. After debate, a decision was made; Glenn was instructed to refrain from jettisoning the retropack — a normal procedure for re-entry — in hopes that it would hold the heat shield in place during re-entry; the alternative was the craft and Glenn disintegrating in the Earth’s atmosphere. Control offered no explanation for the procedure until after successful re-entry. Glenn suspected a problem with the heat shield, but remained focused on the parts of the craft he could control.

CAPCOM: This is Texas Cap Com, Friendship Seven. We are recommending that you leave the retropackage on through the entire reentry.

John Glenn: This is Friendship Seven. What is the reason for this? Do you have any reason? Over.

CAPCOM: Not at this time; this is the judgment of Cape Flight.

The sensor ultimately proved to be faulty and the heat shield remained securely attached to Friendship.

Aside from using more fuel than expected for attitude corrections, a hot spacesuit that had to be regularly adjusted for cooling, and excess cabin humidity, the rest of the flight was essentially flawless.

Glenn fired his retrorockets and descended back to Earth. He splashed down in the Atlantic, 40 miles downrange from the expected landing site. The USS Noa reached Friendship seventeen minutes later and hoisted it onto the ship. Glenn was supposed to exit the capsule from the top hatch, but instead decided to blow the side hatch instead. With a loud bang, the hatch blew open and Glenn emerged and jumped to the deck of the Noa. With a smile, his first words were: “It was hot in there.”

Glenn returned to a hero’s welcome and a ecstatic ticker-tape parade in New York City. Americans were energized with the progress in the race with the Soviets. And with John Glenn’s help, America — and mankind itself — took another step forward into the uncharted heavens above.

*This post was originally published February 20, 2011. Small updates have been made since then.

Ever wondered about the track’s humanity has left on other worlds? If so, you’ll probably appreciate this infographic from Karl Tate and Space.com.

Source Space.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

It’s a fairly intuitive image, so there’s not a lot I need to say. I’m jealous of the miles of tracks that were laid down by the Apollo astronauts in their moon buggies. Could you imagine?

I hope to live long enough to see just as many human-driven miles on Mars.

27 years ago today, seven explorers gave their lives in the pursuit of scientific understanding. 73 seconds after lift-off, Challenger broke apart and disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean.

We remember Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair; (back row) Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik.

We thank them for assisting in this planet’s quest to reach for the stars.

*This post originally published on January 28, 2011.

What do professional (American) football players and astronauts have in common? Their “office” is about the same size:

(Image credit: NASA / Click for larger version)

They both require intensive training and the use of helmets too.

Today marks the 51st anniversary of one of the most historic moments in human history. It was on this day in 1961, that Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to take a journey into outer space. Aboard his Vostok spacecraft, not only did Gagarin become the first person in space, he also was the first to orbit the Earth — something NASA didn’t accomplish until its third manned Mercury mission, some nine months later.

While strapped to the top of a Soviet Vostok-K rocket, Gagarin hummed and whistled “Lilies of the Valley”, cracked jokes, and found plenty of time to laugh, all the while waiting for the ignition below to send him where no man had gone before.

“Poyekhali! (Off we go!)”

Gagarin : Thank you. Goodbye. See you soon, dear friends. Goodbye, see you soon.

Gagarin spent 108 minutes from launch to landing, completing a single orbit of the Earth. It took 25 minutes for ground controllers to be sure he had successfully reached orbit. Gagarin remained calm through the whole ordeal and seemed to rather enjoy himself. He described weightlessness as an unusual, yet enjoyable, experience and radioed back the things he could see out of the windows in his capsule.

A 42-second retrofire burn took place over Angola, approximately 5,000 miles from his landing site. When the commands were initiated to separate the service module from the reentry module, a bundle of wires unexpectedly kept them attached. The two components began reentry together, but finally separated following some extreme gyrations. The gyrations continued after separation, but Gagarin radioed that “Everything is OK”, reasoning that the gyrations could be expected from the spherical shape of the craft and didn’t want to “make noise” about it. At 7km above the ground, Gagarin was ejected — as planned — from the Vostok and his parachute immediately deployed. Vostok fell until about 2.5km (8,200 feet) before its main parachute deployed. A couple of schoolgirls witnessed Vostok’s landing and described the situation: “It was a huge ball, about two or three metres high. It fell, then it bounced and then it fell again. There was a huge hole where it hit the first time.”

Gagarin landed on the ground as a world hero. The Soviets were emboldened by their great accomplishment, and you could be certain that the early American space program had to pick their collective jaws off the floor and wonder how they would catch up.

So today, we tip our hats to Yuri Gagarin and the bold first step he took to get us to where we are now — 51 years later.

To learn more about Yuri Gagarin and his historic flight, check out: YuriGagarin50.org

*This post originally published April 12, 2011. It has been slightly modified from its original version.

They took rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen, and turned it into 1.5 million pounds of thrust, 32 million horsepower, and made it possible to take the Apollo astronauts to the Moon. I’m talking about the Rocketdyne F-1 rocket engines used in the first stage of Saturn V — the only vehicle to take humans outside of low-Earth orbit.

Following launch, five F-1 engines would burn for about 2-and-one-half minutes, boosting the Saturn V and its payload to an altitude of nearly forty miles, and 55 miles downrange from Cape Kennedy. At that point, the first stage (S-1C) containing the F1 engines would separate from the rest of the Saturn V and fall back to Earth, crashing into the Atlantic Ocean where they would rest forever.

(Image Credit: NASA)

At least, forever was how long we thought they would sit there….

Amazon.com founder, Jeff Bezos, recently announced that a “team of undersea pros” that he funded had found the most famous F-1 engines of all; the ones from Apollo 11 that launched humanity to the Moon, where the first humans would walk on another world. But finding them is just the start, Bezos Expeditions is planning on actually recovering one or more of the F-1s.

“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”, Bezos said in the announcement. He also pointed out that regardless of how long the engines have spent 14,000 feet below the surface of the Atlantic, they are still the sole property of NASA. He also stated that he had requested that NASA make available for display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, the second F-1 his group manages to salvage (the first presumably would go to the Smithsonian).

NASA followed the announcement with a press release of their own, in which NASA Administrator Charles Bolden expressed his support for the project, and acknowledged the request to house a second (or the first, if the Smithsonian declines it) F-1 at Bezos’ requested facility.

“NASA does retain ownership of any artifacts recovered and would likely offer one of the Saturn V F-1 engines to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington under long-standing arrangements with the institution as the holder of the national collection of aerospace artifacts.

“If the Smithsonian declines or if a second engine is recovered, we will work to ensure an engine or other artifacts are available for display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, as Jeff requested in his correspondence with my office.”

As of yet, there hasn’t been an announced timeline, cost, or specific details released about the project; however, I personally suspect Bezos will have no problem pulling together the resources needed to tackle the feat.

Bezos ended the announcement with a quote that echoes my own heart when it comes to NASA’s ability to inspire:

NASA is one of the few institutions I know that can inspire five-year-olds. It sure inspired me, and with this endeavor, maybe we can inspire a few more youth to invent and explore.

Good luck, Bezos Industries. Thanks for taking the public treasure that NASA is and multiplying its inspiration for generations to come.

Today marks the anniversary of one of NASA’s more “corny” moments. It was on this day in 1965 that… well, let me explain:

Project Gemini was the bridge between the Mercury and Apollo NASA space programs. Mercury proved NASA had the capability to put man into Earth orbit, and Gemini set out with a new set of goals, including: putting multiple astronauts into orbit aboard the same craft, learning how to walk in space, practicing rendezvous and docking between crafts, and testing the influence of long-term spaceflights. All of these were necessary to begin the Apollo program and its goal to put a man on the Moon (and bring him back home safely!) before the end of the decade.

Following two unmanned Gemini missions, Gemini III was the first manned mission in the program and carried Command Pilot Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom and Pilot John W. Young. Gus Grissom became the first human to fly into space twice, while John Young took his rookie flight.

The Gemini III capsule orbited the Earth three times on March 23, 1965, over the course of just under five hours.

Then, at 1 hour, 52 minutes, and 26 seconds into the mission… it happened.

Grissom: What is it?
Young: Corn beef sandwich.
Grissom: Where did that come from?
Young: I brought it with me. Let’s see how it tastes. Smells, doesn’t it?
Grissom: Yes, it’s breaking up. I’m going to stick it in my pocket.
Young: Is it?
Young: It was a thought, anyway.
Grissom: Yep.
Young: Not a very good one.
Grissom: Pretty good, though, if it would just hold together.

John Young, through the aid of fellow astronaut Wally Schirra, had smuggled aboard a corned beef sandwich. Young and Grissom shared a few bites, but it began to crumble and little bits of it began to float around inside the capsule. It was quickly stowed away, to prevent the pieces from shorting out any sensitive electronic equipment.

Young, Grissom, and Schirra caught flack for the incident after Gemini III returned to on Earth — as did NASA, by members of Congress that were looking for an excuse to cut agency funding. A Congressional Committee even held a hearing over the ordeal, prompting NASA administrators to promise to Congress and the nation, that they had taken steps to prevent the recurrence of corned beef sandwiches on future flights!

And that’s the story of the first corned beef sandwich in space.

(This post was originally published on March 23, 2011. It has been slightly modified from its original version.)

It was on this day in 1965, that cosmonaut Alexey Leonov crawled out of his Voskhod 3KD spacecraft and performed humankind’s first spacewalk.

Alexey Leonov stepped into uncharted territory on that historic day, marking a milestone in human exploration. While it wasn’t immediately publicized , Leonov’s 12-minute-9-second spacewalk skirted on the edge of disaster.

Once Leonov entered the vacuum of space, his spacesuit become inflated and maneuverability suffered. The real trouble began as Leonov tried re-entering the Voskhod 2 craft, and became stuck in the the hatch due to the inflated suit. He was forced to partially depressurize his suit in order to fit through the hatch, putting himself at great risk of suffering decompression sickness, known as ‘the bends’.

While the spacewalk and a number of other elements of the mission lingered on the verge of catastrophe, this was a time when survival equated to success.

American astronauts followed suit soon after, as they crawled out of their Gemini capsules to experience the same joy and danger Leonov experienced (Gene Cernan’s Gemini spacewalk was also a close-call). We’ve come a long way since those baby-steps into space, with now over 200 humans having walked in space.

So, to General Leonov, I offer a belated congratulations and thank you for pushing against the boundaries of the final frontier.

*This post originally published on March 18, 2011.*

It was on this day in 1965, that cosmonaut Alexey Leonov crawled out of his Voskhod 3KD spacecraft and performed humankind’s first spacewalk.

Alexey Leonov stepped into uncharted territory on that historic day, marking a milestone in human exploration. While it wasn’t immediately publicized , Leonov’s 12-minute-9-second spacewalk skirted on the edge of disaster.

Once Leonov entered the vacuum of space, his spacesuit become inflated and maneuverability suffered. The real trouble began as Leonov tried re-entering the Voskhod 2 craft, and became stuck in the the hatch due to the inflated suit. He was forced to partially depressurize his suit in order to fit through the hatch, putting himself at great risk of suffering decompression sickness, known as ‘the bends’.

While the spacewalk and a number of other elements of the mission lingered on the verge of catastrophe, this was a time when survival equated to success.

American astronauts followed suit soon after, as they crawled out of their Gemini capsules to experience the same joy and danger Leonov experienced (Gene Cernan’s Gemini spacewalk was also a close-call). We’ve come a long way since those baby-steps into space, with now over 200 humans having walked in space.

So, to General Leonov, I offer a belated congratulations and thank you for pushing against the boundaries of the final frontier.

*This post originally published on March 18, 2011.*