The Refined Geek

It’s getting close to 2 years ago now that I was waiting in Orlando desperately hoping that I’d get to see the Space Shuttle Discovery launch in person, only to have it ripped away from me. I take solace in the fact that it was one of the longest launch delays in the Shuttle’s long history and whilst I didn’t get to go and see it when it did launch all those months later I did watch the online stream and my heart was renewed. Ever since then I’ve wanted to know what the experience would have been like and today it looks like I got my wish.

An enterprising  YouTube user has set out to accomplish just that, and it’s magnificent:

Playing it back on my meagre Logitech speakers was impressive enough so I can only imagine how it will go with a proper sound system. I’ve scared the cat enough today with just the first play through so I’ll probably lay off it for a little bit but suffice to say it’s an impressive recreation of what it would be like to be at a shuttle launch. I certainly got nerd chills listening to it.

I don’t pretend to be all up on American politics, I look to much more intelligent people than I for understanding of those matters, but if there’s one thing that I know inside and out its space and the industry that surrounds it in the USA. As it’s campaign time now in the USA presidential hopefuls turn to high rhetoric and sweeping promises in order to win votes for their elections and the space program is not immune to this. Indeed it seems that NASA is most often used as a rhetorical tool that ends up under-delivering on its promises, mostly because those promises aren’t backed up with the appropriate funding.

Jumping back a presidency you can see why this was so, with George Bush’s vision for space exploration that had us returning to the moon by 2020. Instead of adding additional funding to complete those goals and all of those already set out for NASA much of the vision was funded out of cancelling other projects, like the Shuttle and their involvement with the International Space Station. What this resulted in was a program that was under-funded and ultimately impinged heavily on NASA’s ability to conduct many of their other core directives. The VSE was then replaced by the Obama administration which had a larger focus on building core space exploration infrastructure whilst out-sourcing rudimentary activities to the private sector, a much better direction for NASA to head in.

Newt Gingrich, current candidate for the Republican nomination, made some sweeping statements about how he’d reform NASA and see Bush’s original vision achieved. He would see a permanent moon base by 2020, a good chunk of NASA’s budget allocated for private incentives and a culling of some of the bureaucracy. They’re ambitious goals, especially considering that Bush made similar ones almost a decade prior that are no where close to being achieved. Still there are some good ideas contained within his vision, but a whole lot more that just show a total lack of understanding.

As always Neil deGrasse Tyson does a much better job of tearing it down than I ever could:

Neil hits on a point that I’ve long held true: NASA should be charged with advancing space frontiers and the private sector should be tasked with the things that are now routine. We’re already seeing that kind of industry develop what with companies like SpaceX gearing up to resupply the ISS with several others developing along the same lines. This is where the private industry does well but it does not do well in pushing the frontier forward. That’s an inherently risky venture, one that’s very unlikely to be undertaken by any private agency. Advancing the frontier is the realm of the government and NASA is the agency to do it.

Where I do agree with Newt though is the slimming down of the NASA bureaucracy. Much of the costs incurred by the Shuttle program was the standing army of people it had, not the actual launches themselves. The original plan of launching often, up to 50 missions per year, would have drastically reduced the impact this standing army had on the cost per launch of the Shuttle. With the cancellation of the shuttle program much of that will have already been cut but NASA is still quite a large agency. How that would be achieved  is left as an exercise to the reader.

Extraordinary ideas require extraordinary amounts of support and whilst I’d love to believe that Gingrich would follow through with this idea I’ve seen how ideas like this have panned out in the past. Thankfully, with or without Gingrich’s interference, the private space industry is setting itself up as being a viable replacement for the rudimentary activities that NASA needs not bother themselves with any more. What I’d like to see now is Obama’s vision for NASA has changed since he cancelled constellation and whether or not he falls victim to the same high rhetoric trap of over-promising and then not support the vision.

The retirement of the Shuttle, whilst leaving the USA without any means with which to deliver humans or cargo to the International Space Station, was necessary to bring about the next evolution in the space industry. In the lead up to its retirement many entrepreneurs saw this as an opportunity to crack into a market that was once only for government superpowers and the contractors that serviced them. Today the private space industry can count dozens of companies vying for a piece of the final frontier and the coming decade is looking ever more bright for those of us who have aspirations that reach past the comforts of our home world.

It seems to be a common thread amongst many entrepreneurs that whilst they may have made their fortunes here on terra firma their eyes were always gazing heavenward. Just off the top of my head I can name Elon Musk (SpaceX, made his fortunes through PayPal), Robert Bigelow (Bigelow Aerospace, chain hotel giant) and now we can also count Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) amongst their ranks as he’s founded a new space company called Stratolaunch:

Stratolaunch Systems will bring airport-like operations to the launch of commercial and government payloads and, eventually, human
missions. Plans call for a first flight within five years. The air-launch-to-orbit system will mean lower costs, greater safety, and more
flexibility and responsiveness than is possible today with ground-based systems. Stratolaunch’s quick turnaround between launches
will enable new orbital missions as well as break the logjam of missions queued up for launch facilities and a chance at space.

Stratolaunch isn’t like your traditional private space company who’s out to develop their own launch system in order to bring costs down. No, instead they’re more of a systems integrator combining technology from (in my opinion) all the right places. Their booster will be made by SpaceX, their carrier plane will be made by Scaled Composites (of SpaceShipOne fame) and the systems integration will be done Dynetics. It’s a very Microsofty way of doing things and all of the companies they’ve selected have a good history of delivering on the capabilities they set out to achieve, so this is definitely a recipe for success.

Their launch system is intriguing as well and not just because its another iconic Rutan design. Just like SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnightOne the Stratolaunch system is made up of a carrier craft and a rocket with the payload attached. Now long time readers will know that whilst air launched rockets are a good way to get into sub-orbital trajectories the rule of 6 (Mach 6 and 60,000 feet is 6% of the required energy to get to orbit) means that they’re not terribly effective for larger payloads. However the scale of the Stratolaunch system is quite phenomenal and is beyond anything that’s been attempted with this kind of system previously.

For starters the carrier craft will be the largest aircraft that’s ever flown. Now that’s quite a claim to fame as the largest aircraft ever built (barring the Spruce Goose, which is actually smaller despite its larger wingspan) is the Antonov An225. The An225 is a Russian craft designed to carry oversized payloads and there’s a brilliant shot in the link that shows it carrying Russia’s Buran Shuttle to give you an idea just how massive the thing is. The Stratolaunch carrier will dwarf that craft considerably weighing almost twice as much with well over double the thrust from the more modern engines. Combining this all together nets you a plane capable of carrying a staggering 490,000 pounds (~222,260 kgs) of payload. For it’s intended purpose that makes the Stratolaunch system capable of delivering some significant payloads.

Since SpaceX will be designing the booster we can assume it will be a middle of the road rocket between the Falcon 1 and the Falcon 9. My back of the envelope calculations using the Falcon 9 and scaling it back to the maximum payload of the Stratolaunch system puts the payload capability to LEO at 15,333lbs or about 7 tons. Considering the launch system is a reusable craft its conceivable that Stratolaunch could drive costs down considerably through economies of scale thanks to the (I assume) quick turn around times for launching from the carrier craft. I’ll also bet that the USA military will have a keen eye on this entire system as well since it’s capabilities could be quite useful to them.

I think Allen is onto a winner here with this kind of design and it has a lot of potential to change the small to medium payload game. Some of the technical feats they’re out to accomplish are truly inspiring and I’ll be waiting anxiously for them to come to fruition.

Whilst the Space Shuttle will always be one of the most iconic spacecraft that humanity has created it’s design was one of compromises and competing objectives. One of the design features, which influenced nearly every characteristic of the Shuttle, was the requirement from the Department of Defense that stipulated that the Shuttle needed to be able to launch into a polar orbit and return after a single trip around the earth. This is the primary reason for the Shuttle being so aeroplane like in its design, requiring those large wings so it has a long downrange capability so that it could return to its launch site after that single orbit. The Shuttle never flew such a mission, but now I know why the DoD required this capability.

It was speculated that that particular requirement was spawned out of a need to capture spy satellites, both their own and possibly enemy reconnaissance craft. At the time digital photography was still very much in its infancy and high resolution imagery was still film based so any satellite based spying would be carrying film on board. The Shuttle then could easily serve as the retrieval vehicle for the spy craft as well as functioning as a counter intelligence device. It never flew a mission like this for a couple reasons, mostly that a Shuttle launch was far more expensive than simply deorbiting a satellite and sending another one up there. There was also the rumour that Russia had started arming its spacecraft and sending humans up there to retrieve them would be an unnecessary risk.

The Shuttle’s payload bay was also quite massive in comparison to the spy satellites of the time which put further into question the DoD’s requirements. It seems however that a recently declassified spy satellite, called HEXAGON, was actually the perfect fit and could have influenced the Shuttle’s design:

CHANTILLY, Va. – Twenty-five years after their top-secret, Cold War-era missions ended, two clandestine American satellite programs were declassified Saturday (Sept. 17) with the unveiling of three of the United States’ most closely guarded assets: the KH-7 GAMBIT, the KH-8 GAMBIT 3 and the KH-9 HEXAGON spy satellites.

…

“I see a lot of Hubble heritage in this spacecraft, most notably in terms of spacecraft size,” Landis said. “Once the space shuttle design was settled upon, the design of Hubble — at the time it was called the Large Space Telescope — was set upon. I can imagine that there may have been a convergence or confluence of the designs. The Hubble’s primary mirror is 2.4 meters [7.9 feet] in diameter and the spacecraft is 14 feet in diameter. Both vehicles (KH-9 and Hubble) would fit into the shuttle’s cargo bay lengthwise, the KH-9 being longer than Hubble [60 feet]; both would also fit on a Titan-class launch vehicle.”

HEXAGON is an amazing piece of cold war era technology. It was equipped with two medium format cameras that would sweep back and forth to image an area, capturing an area 370 nautical miles wide. Each HEXAGON satellite carried with it some 60 miles worth of film in 4 separate film buckets which would detach from the craft when used and return to earth where they would be snagged by a capture craft. They were hardy little canisters too with one of them ending up on the bottom of an ocean but was retrieved by one of the navy’s Deep Submergence Vehicles. There were around 20 launches of the HEXAGON series of craft with only a single failure towards the end of the program.

What really surprised me about HEXAGON though was the resolution they were able to achieve some 30+ years ago. HEXAGON’s resolution was improved throughout its lifetime but later missions had a resolution of some 60cm, more than enough to make out people and very detailed images of say cars and other craft. For comparison GeoEye-1, which had the highest resolution camera on an earth imaging craft at the time of launch, is only just capable of a 40cm per pixel resolution (and that imagery is property of the USA government). Taking that into consideration I’m wondering what kind of imaging satellite the USA is using now, considering that the DoD appears to be a couple decades ahead of the commercial curve.

It’s always interesting when pieces of a larger puzzle like the Shuttle’s design start falling into place. Whilst it’s debatable whether or not HEXAGON (and it’s sister craft) were a direct influence on the Shuttle there’s enough coincidences to give the theory a bit of credence. I can see why the USA kept HEXAGON a secret for so long, that kind of capability would’ve been down right scary back in the 80′s and its reveal makes you wonder what they’re flying now. It’s stuff like this that keeps me obsessed about space and what we, as a species, are capable of.

10 days after Atlantis blasted off on its final trip into space for STS-135 the last ever space shuttle mission has finally returned to earth, signalling an end to the 30 year program and marking the end of an era for space. For many of us young star gazers the space shuttle is an icon, something that embodied the human spirit ever searching for new frontiers to explore. For me personally it symbolized something I felt truly passionate about, a feeling that I had not been familiar with for a very long time. Many will lament its loss but it has come time for NASA to reinvent itself, leaving the routine of low earth orbit for new frontiers that eagerly await them.

 Atlantis’ final firey return back to earth, as seen from the International Space Station.

Image credit: NASA/Johnson Space Center (via @NASA_Johnson) 

The shuttle was, from a technical point of view, too much of a compromise between government agencies for it to be able to achieve the goals set out for it. There’s no denying it was an extremely versatile craft but many of the design decisions made were at odds with the end goals of making a reusable craft that could cater to all of the USA’s launch needs for the next 30 years. Constellation then would look like a step in the right direction however whilst it was a far more appropriate craft for NASA’s current needs their money is better spent on pushing their capability envelope, rather than designing yet another launch system.

NASA, to their credit, appears to be in favour of offloading their launch capabilities to private industry. They already have contracts with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences to provide both launch capabilities and crew/cargo capsules however attempts to fully privatize their more rudimentary activities have been routinely blocked by congress. It’s no secret that much of the shuttle’s manufacturing process is split up across states for purely political purposes (it made no sense to build the external tank so far away that it needed a barge to ship it back) and the resistance from congress for private launch systems is indicative of that. Still they have their foot in the door now and this opens up the opportunity for NASA to get back to its roots and begin exploring the final frontier.

There’s no denying that we’ve made great progress with robotic space exploration, reaching out to almost every section of our solar system and exploring their vast wonders. However not since 1972 has a human left low earth orbit, something people of the time wouldn’t believe if you told them so. Whilst it might not be the most efficient way of exploring the universe it’s by far the best for inspiring the next generation:

It’s a historic day and it will mark a turning point for NASA and space flight in the USA one way or another. It’s my fervent hope that NASA uses this as an opportunity to refocus on its core goals of pushing the envelope of what’s possible for humanity through exploring that vast black frontier of space. It won’t be an easy journey for NASA, especially considering the greater economic environment they’re working in right now, but I know the people there are more than capable of doing it and the USA needs them in order to inspire the next generation.

The time has finally arrived, 30 years after the space shuttle Columbia blasted off into space her sister ship Atlantis roared into orbit just 2 days ago. It is estimated that near 1 million people flocked to the areas surrounding the Kennedy Space Center to watch the final ever launch with millions more tuning in from around the world to witness it online. I have to be honest and say that I missed the live event myself, blame goes to the sources that cited a 70% chance for no-go weather on the day, but I quickly caught up with the events spending hours pouring over the details of the last ever space shuttle mission over my morning coffee the day after.

STS-135 is a very unique mission in many ways. It began as STS-335 a Launch on Need mission designed to be launched if STS-134 had any problems on orbit and was unable to return to earth safely. For such missions a fully stacked orbiter has to be ready to launch within a very short time frame, usually on the order of a couple months. This means the usual shuttle preparations have to already be done in order to launch that quickly and with the shuttle program retiring that meant there would be one fully loaded orbiter that would essentially go to waste. Last year saw the proposal to turn STS-335 into STS-135 approved although without any specific funding for the additional mission. NASA announced in February that the mission would go ahead with funding approval or not, setting the stage for STS-135 to be the last shuttle mission in history.

The final mission of the space shuttle also shares the record of taking up the smallest crew with one of Challenger’s early missions STS-6, bringing only 4 astronauts into space. The reason for this is simple, since there are no other shuttles available to act as rescue boats should Atlantis not be able to return from orbit those stranded astronauts will have to come back down in the regular Soyuz missions. Whilst the International Space Station is quite capable of handling the extra load for a while it will still take almost a year just to ferry those 4 astronauts back down and many of the ISS contingency plans are based around having no more than 6 astronauts on the station at any one time (without additional craft docked). STS-135 then only brings the bare minimum crew required to complete the mission and all signs are pointing to them being able to return safely so far. 

The payload of this mission is focused solely on keeping the ISS functioning for the rest of its intended lifetime, another 9 years or so. Atlantis carries in its payload bay one multi-purpose logistics module (named Raffaello) load with 16 resupply racks, the maximum it can carry, with an additional lightweight multi-purpose carrier that will be used to return some failed components back to earth for analysis. The failed components in question are a pump module for the external thermal cooling system and a ammonia pump module, both of which have already been replaced in orbit. STS-135 also carriers with an additional piece of equipment for the ISS, a proof of concept device for on-orbit refueling of satellites. For the demonstration it will be attached to the Dextre robot and should it prove successful the technology could make its way into the commercial sector. There will also be 2 iPhone 4s and 2 Nexus S’s carried up to be used with the ISS’s SPHEREs, basically small satellites that reside inside the space station. 

It’s a historic time as this mission marks the beginning of the end to a 30 year endeavor that NASA has undertaken. It might not be the most glamorous end to the program, being basically a supply mission to keep the ISS going, but it’s an important one none the less ensuring that the gap between the shuttle’s retirement and the availability of other craft doesn’t impact on NASA’s goals in space. For youngsters like me it marks the end of the iconic craft that we grew up with and I know its going to be a long time before another one will be able to take its place. For that simple fact the shuttle will always have a special place in my heart, just like I know it does in so many others.

The time is fast approaching when one of the most iconic spacecraft in history will no longer be soaring off into the blackness of space. Long time readers of this blog will know it’s been a bit of a roller coaster for me emotionally and every bit of shuttle news always feels bittersweet as I know we’re not far away from never seeing these birds flying again. Still NASA has been working incredibly hard to make sure that not only do the shuttles continue to perform as expected they’ve also managed to jam a heck of a lot of cargo into what was supposed to be the final flight of the shuttle but that honor is now reserved for STS-135. That doesn’t detract from this last mission at all, however.

STS-134 is the final flight of the space shuttle Endeavour and it launched late last night at around midnight AEST. I managed to catch some of the action as it was happening on Twitter having forgotten that the flight had been scheduled for Monday after experiencing several delays thanks to trajectory conflicts (in essence traffic problems in space) and problems with the APU heaters which form part of the shuttles hydraulics. The launch went without a hitch however and the shuttle lifted off in its usual spectacular glory.

Amongst the giant payload list that’s currently in orbit with the space shuttle Endeavour is the main reason why this mission is being flown, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. About 13 years ago a prototype AMS was sent up with STS-91 to test a wide array of particle physics experiments like dark matter, anti-matter and cosmic rays. It also happened to be flying on the last ever shuttle mission to the Mir space station. It’s sucessor, the AMS-2, faced the axe thanks to a lack of shuttle flights in the wake of the Columbia disaster. This and the cancellation of a lot of other International Space Station components lead to quite a controversy over whether the ISS was worth the expense and eventually the AMS-2 was reinstated and is currently en-route to the ISS now.

Apart from the usual affair of spare and replacement parts for the ISS STS-134 also carriers with it parts for upgrading the docking mechanisms for the upcoming Orion space capsule. They’re not just installing it either, part of the mission objectives is to also test the new docking hardware to make sure it functions as expected. This means that the STS-134 crew will be performing a series of maneuvers including docking, undocking, fly around and a full separation. It’s quite a bit of flying around for the shuttle which usually just sits docked to the side of the ISS for the entire time and I’m sure there will be some amazing footage of its on-orbit aerobatics when the tests are completed.

Endeavour will also be leaving behind part of itself, namely the Orbital Boom Sensor System. It’s become a standard piece of equipment on every flight since the Columbia disaster and is used to inspect the shuttle whilst in orbit to look for signs of damage to the space craft. It has also been used once to aid in a repair operation back in STS-120 and proved an invaluable aid in that task. It was such a help during that operation that NASA decided that one of the arms should have a permanent home on the ISS and Endeavour’s was chosen.

There are also numerous smaller payloads that make up the rest of Endeavour’s manifest. It is carrying 4 payloads for the Department of Defence, all of which require some use of the boosters whilst in orbit. Endeavour will also be bringing up another materials experiment, MISSE 8, and will be returning the previous one back down to earth for analysis. A new Glacier unit, basically a freezer for science experiments on the ISS, is being brought up and the old one returned as well. Finally Endeavour will carry with it some Lego kits with it as part of an educational program as well as some specialized nutrition bars created by a pair of high school sisters to encourage students to get into the fields of science, technology, education and math.

The final mission of Endeavour is set to be an exciting time for all of those involved and the massive payload it is going to deliver will make sure of that. Whilst it may have been stripped of the title of the final shuttle flight ever it will still be remembered for a long time to come, especially since it will leave behind a critical piece of itself once it departs. It does hit me with a twinge of sadness however as I now know there’s only one more flight to go and then the world will be without this iconic craft soaring high above its atmosphere. Still they have given us so much that I can’t help but also feel a sense of pride which makes my heart soar like nothing else.

Godspeed Endeavour.

It was almost 4 months ago that I woke up in Orlando Florida, eagerly awaiting my trip to the fabled Kennedy Space Center and a day to be filled with all manner of space related fun. It was that same day that I had a dream torn from me, leaving my heart broken and me wanting to get as far away from that place as possible. Reading over the post today brought the whole day flooding back, along with the emotions that came with it. Still despite the pain of a dream not realized I couldn’t pull myself away from Twitter and the NASA TV stream, eagerly devouring each and every little detail of Discovery’s final launch into outer space.

And less than 30 minutes ago STS-133 launched from the Kennedy Space Center launch complex 39A.

Discovery’s final flight has been marred by a multitude of technical problems. The first 2 initial scrubs where due to leaks in the Orbital Maneuvering System which is used to control the space shuttle whilst its in orbit. The system consists of two pods at the rear of the orbiter that have a low thrust engine that uses hypergolic propellant and a leak in these would mean the shuttle would be unable to dock with the International Space Station. The leak was thought to be fixed and the launch was good to go on that faithful day, but Discovery wasn’t going without a fight.

The next launch window was scrubbed due to a problem with the backup main engine controller. Initial diagnostics showed that there was some transient contamination and that a reboot brought everything back into line. However after troubleshooting further, finding nothing wrong again, they did notice an unexpected voltage drop was observed. This lead them to delay the launch for 24 hours in order to find the issue. The next day was delayed due to weather and since I was there on the day I could see why they did. The final day for this launch window saw a hydrogen leak from the main tank that was outside acceptable mission limits, and the mission was scrubbed until today.

The external tank on Discovery had multiple issues. The first was the connector used to vent off excess hydrogen during fueling which was what caused the final delay before Discovery’s final launch. During the investigation into why there was such a substantial leak  cracks were discovered in some of the external tanks insulation and upon further inspection it was found that many parts of the external tank had cracks through them. The construction of these particular parts of the external tank was different that from what was used previously and NASA has stated that this contributed to the cracking found in the external tank. Extensive repairs were carried out on the tank and it was only declared flight ready earlier this year. This meant that the turnaround time for Discovery was the longest of any shuttle bar STS-35 at 170 days.

What’s so special about STS-133 however is the sheer amount of payload it will be delivering to the ISS. The first will be the Permanent Multipurpose Module which is a modified version of one of the Multi-Purpose Logistics modules that have flown in many previous shuttle missions. Not only will this deliver almost 8 tons worth of cargo to the space station it will also add a significant amount of livable space to the ISS, rivaling that of the Kibo module. Many future crew missions are dedicated to configuring the PMM and it’s sure to prove valuable to the ISS.

Another interesting bit of cargo that’s making its way to the ISS is Robonaut2, the first humanoid robot ever to visit the station. The idea behind it is that a humanoid robot could be capable of performing many tasks that an astronaut does such as space station maintenance. Initially it will be housed inside the ISS and will undergo strict testing to see how it copes in the harsh environment of space. After a while its capabilities could be expanded and it might not be long before you see Robonaut working along side astronauts on EVAs. This could be quite a boon for the astronauts on the ISS as planning repairs can be quite time consuming and Robonaut could provide a speedy alternative in the event of an emergency.

The last, but certainly not least, bit of Discovery’s final payload is the SpaceX DragonEye sensor. This isn’t the first time that NASA has flown something for SpaceX, having taken the same sensor up on board STS-127 and STS-129, but it is likely to be the last time the sensor is flown before a real Dragon capsule attempts to use it to dock with the space station. The DragonEye sensor is an incredibly sophisticated bit of kit. It provides a 3D image based on LIDAR readings and can determine range and bearing information. The whole system went from concept to implementation in just on 10 months, showing the skill that the SpaceX guys have went it comes to getting things done.

To be honest I was going to put off doing this post for a couple days just because I didn’t want to think about STS-133 anymore than I needed to. But the second I saw that the NASA TV steam was up I couldn’t help but be glued to it for the entire time it was up. Sure I might not be there to see it in person but I’ve finally remembered why I became so enamored with space in the first place: it’s just so damned exciting and inspiring. I may have had my heart broken in the past but when a simple video stream of something I’ve seen dozens of times in the past can erase all that hurt I know that I’m a space nut at heart and I’ll keep coming back to it no matter what.

Forewarning: This will probably be a rather sad/emo/ranty post so if you want to save yourself 5 minutes reading it, I won’t judge you. But for those who want to hear my thoughts, I thank you.

I rolled over a looked at my alarm clock, it stared back at me with it’s dim orange display reading 7:30 indicating I had woken up 30 minutes before the alarm was set to go off. I was pretty awake already by the time I had rolled over but I continued to lay there with my eyes closed enjoying the first night where the temperature in my room was just right. I had packaged up everything the night before so I could make a swift get away in the morning, ensuring that nothing would be left to chance on this fateful day. Today I was to see a space shuttle launch its mighty self into the darkness of space and realise a dream that I had only had for a couple years.

The ground was drenched everywhere with the near constant drizzle that had been coming down since the day before. I was hopeful though since the sky was mostly clear with only a hint of clouds on the horizon. If the launch was going to be cancelled by weather it would have to be a rather sudden occurrence and in my research the night before the KSC Visitor Complex had still stated that the launch was still on for today, bolstering my hopes that everything would be ok. I set about driving out there with the instructions I had taken down off my computer before I left, the excitement started to build with every mile that I got closer to the KSC.

Something didn’t feel right however. In the documentation I had with me from NASA they stated that the entire island would be closed off to anyone who didn’t have a vehicle placard but there were many people right behind me who weren’t displaying theirs. In fact none of them were but I wrote it off, thinking that the blockades would come somewhere further down the line. Then I saw it, the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex with mock ups of all of the kinds of rockets that NASA used for its manned exploration missions. The site was impressive but those uneasy feelings just weren’t going away, I still hadn’t seen any form of a blockade. Then it hit me.

A sign read “Discovery is scheduled to launch Thursday, November 4 3:52PM”.

At first I simply ignored it, thinking that they had just gotten the date wrong. To prove to myself that I wasn’t seeing things I drove past it again, the same fateful message scrolling across the red LED screen. Suddenly I felt an ache spreading across my entire upper body, a pain that came from no where and took away my ability to focus on anything else. I drove back into the parking lot and idly looked at the launch pack I had received from NASA all those months ago. Throwing it aside I drove out of there not wanting to be near the place that had done me any wrong. I drove just up the road and turned around again, going back for no particular reason. After wallowing in this state for a while I resolved myself to finding out why this happened and promptly headed for Cocoa Beach.

I came across a McDonalds long before I hit my destination so I pulled in and hit up their free wifi. The articles I found on the various sites confirmed that it had been delayed due various minor reasons, but enough to have them push the flight back a day. It was no comfort but by this time I had resolved myself to at least see the visitor centre, salvaging what I could from these dim prospects. I headed back over there and put on my best game face, hiding the torment I was feeling from having so many months of planning and time away from my beloved wife to all be for nothing. I got right up to the ticket booth when I froze, I just couldn’t go in there. I was meant to be visiting this place as something special, a part of a larger experience of immersing myself in the reality that is pinnacle of human spaceflight. With that taken away from me all I saw was a tourist trap, a place that would bilk money away from people giving them little in return. I couldn’t stand being near all those people there either, I had to get away.

I found solitude in another McDonald’s back in Orlando. I sat there for a while eating my lunch, drinking the iced tea and trying to console myself with my social networks. It didn’t work, all I could think about was the experience that had been taken from me, the almost 2 weeks I spent by myself here in Florida with only a tenuous connection to those who I really wanted to share it with. Driving around for a while I eventually found a shady place where I could sit down to read and I did so for the next 4 hours, until I was able to check into my hotel for the night.

It took me a while to come to terms with the emotions I was feeling, having not been like this for the better part of a decade. You see for most of my teenage life I was depressed, although I didn’t really figure it was a problem since, as far as I knew, that’s how I always felt. Today being ripped from the heights of elation to those dark depths shocked me in ways I didn’t think were possible anymore. I had thought myself above these emotions, completely able to control myself in any situation that was thrown at me. This proved however that I am in no way capable of that, especially when ramming my rental car into the raised draw bridge seemed like a good idea, in some messed up way that I told myself was logical.

Whilst writing this post has brought some of those emotions back to the surface I simply had to write it. Sure I could’ve made a footnote in an otherwise regular post that I was somewhat disappointed with what happened and glossed over the whole emotional roller-coaster, but that’s not what happened. Today was all about having a dream ripped from you by no means you could have controlled. I weighed up the possibility of ringing my travel agent, rebooking all the shit and trying for just one more day but unfortunately the damage was done. My hail mary was done a couple days ago when I was certain that it would only be delayed one more day. To attempt to reschedule again without the certainty of the launch happening opens myself up to a world of hurt that I’m not quite ready to deal with just yet. It’s the reverse of the beaten wife’s syndrome, I’ve been hit once and I don’t have any inclination to stick around to see if he comes good or if he will just hit me again.

Tomorrow I’ll leave this forsaken place behind me and hopefully I can soon forget this black mark on what had otherwise been a good holiday thus far. I have no idea what’s in store for me in Canada but it wouldn’t have to be much to beat the shit of a day I’ve lived through. For those of you that read this far just let me say thank you once again. You’re the people I enjoy writing to since you’re more than just a pageview, you actually care about what I have to say.

No matter which way you cut it space is still the playground of governments, large corporations and the worlds wealthy. The reasons behind this are obvious, the amount of effort required to get someone or something into space is enormous and past applications that result in either scientific or monetary gain there’s little interest to take the everyman up there. That has rapidly changed over the past few years with several companies now making serious investment in the private spaceflight sector. Now nearly anyone who wishes to make the journey out of Earth’s atmosphere can very well do so, a privilege that until today has been reserved for mere hundreds of people. Still we’re far off from space being just another part of everyday life like flying has become but that doesn’t mean the seeds of such things aren’t already taking hold. In fact I believe with the right investment we could well see the Model T Ford equivalent of space within the next few decades.

Right now all commercial and governmental space endeavours use some form of chemical rocket. They generate thrust by throwing their fuel out the back of them at extremely high speeds and whilst they’re by far the most energy efficient jet engines you can create they’re also one of the most fuel hungry and also require that the craft being propelled by them carry their oxidiser¹ with them. Putting this into perspective the Space Shuttle’s external tank (the giant rust coloured cylinder) carries around 6 times more oxidiser than it does fuel with it, to the tune of 630 tonnes. That’s about 30% of the total launch mass of a completed Space Shuttle launch system and this has caused many to look for alternatives that draw their oxidiser directly from the atmosphere, much like the engine in your car does today.

Most solutions I’ve seen that use the atmosphere to achieve orbital speeds rely on a technology called scramjets. From a design standpoint they look a lot simpler than it’s turbojet/turbofan predecessors as there’s no moving parts used to compress the air. Scramjets rely on extremely high speeds to do the compression for them, meaning that they can’t be operated at lower speeds, somewhere in the realm of Mach 6 for a pure scramjet design. This means that they need some kind of supplementary thrust for them to be able to function.

One such solution is a that of an aeropsike engine. Apart from looking like something straight out of science fiction aerospike engines differ from regular rocket engines in that they don’t use the traditional bell shaped exhaust nozzles that adorn nearly every rocket today. Instead they use a concave spike shape that in essence forms a bell with outside air pressure. This has the effect of levelling off the performance of the engine at all altitudes although they suffer at lower mach numbers due to the reduced pressure. Still they compliment scramjets quite well in that they can be used in both situations where the scramjet can’t function (vacuum and low speed) whilst still remaining more efficient than current rocket designs.

Both of these ideas have been proposed as base technologies that would be used in a single stage to orbit (SSTO) launch system. All orbital capable launch systems today are done in stages whereby part of the rocket is discarded when it is no longer required. The Space Shuttle for example is a two stage rocket shedding the SRBs whilst it is still within earth’s atmosphere. A SSTO solution would not shed any weight as it climbed its way into space and the main driver for doing so would be to make the craft fully reusable. As it stands right now there are no true reusable launch systems available as the only one that’s close (the Space Shuttle) requires a new tank and complete refurbishment between flights. A fully reusable craft has the potential to drastically reduce the cost and turnaround time of putting payloads into orbit, a kind of holy grail for space flight.

SSTO isn’t without its share of problems however. Due to the lack of staging any dead weight (like empty fuel tanks) are carried with you for the full duration of the flight. Nearly every SSTO design carries with it some form of traditional chemical rocket and that means that the oxidiser tanks can’t be elminated, even though they’re not required for the full flight. Additionally much of the technology that a SSTO solution relies on is either still highly experimental or has not yet entered into commercial use. This means anyone attempting to develop such a solution faces huge unknown risks and not many are willing to make that jump.

Despite all this there are those who are working on including these principals into up and coming designs. NASA recently announced a plan to develop a horizontal launcher that would use maglev based track to accelerate a scramjet plane up to the required mach number before launching it, after which it could launch small payloads into space:

As NASA studies possibilities for the next launcher to the stars, a team of engineers from Kennedy Space Center and several other field centers are looking for a system that turns a host of existing cutting-edge technologies into the next giant leap spaceward.

An early proposal has emerged that calls for a wedge-shaped aircraft with scramjets to be launched horizontally on an electrified track or gas-powered sled. The aircraft would fly up to Mach 10, using the scramjets and wings to lift it to the upper reaches of the atmosphere where a small payload canister or capsule similar to a rocket’s second stage would fire off the back of the aircraft and into orbit. The aircraft would come back and land on a runway by the launch site.

Such a system would significantly reduce the costs of getting payloads into orbit and would pave the way for larger vehicles for bigger payloads, like us humans. Whilst a fully working system is still a decade or so away it does show that there’s being work done to bring the cost of orbital transport down to more reasonable levels.

A SSTO system would be the beginnings of every sci-fi geek’s dream of being able to fly their own spaceship into space. The idea of making our spacecraft reusable is what will bring the costs down to levels that will make them commercially viable. After that point it’s a race to the bottom as to who can provide the spacecrafts for the cheapest and with several companies already competing in the sub-orbital space I know that competition would be fierce. We’re still a long way from seeing the first mass produced space craft but it no longer feels like a whimsical dream, more like an inevitability that will come to pass in our lifetimes. Doesn’t that just excite you?

¹As any boy scout will tell you a fire needs 3 things to burn: fuel, oxygen and a spark. Rockets are basically giant flames and require oxygen to burn. Thus oxidiser just means oxygen which also lets rocket engines operate in a vacuum.