Category Archives: Space

February 5, 2018 · 23:30

Go SpaceX! Go Falcon Heavy!

Tomorrow SpaceX will attempt to launch the first Falcon Heavy, which will be the biggest currently flying launch vehicle. The Saturn V was bigger, as was the Space Shuttle – but they’re not flying any more. (Don’t get me started…)

You can watch it online – I might have to have some “executive time” about then to go sit in the car and scream a lot. (It freaks out the office mates.)

What’s SpaceX been up to recently, besides this?

Last week they launched a satellite. Normally these days the recover the first stage booster, but this time they weren’t going to try because the barge they use to land on out in the mid-Atlantic Ocean needed to be used to land one of the three boosters on the Falcon Heavy launch.

Oh, did I forget to mention that they’re going to try to land ALL THREE BOOSTERS from the Falcon Heavy launch tomorrow?

Anyway, because of that they decided to not land the booster last week from the satellite launch. But not ones to waste an opportunity, they experimented with the “landing” anyway. Normally the landing is done by re-lighting one of the nine engines. But what happens if that engine doesn’t re-light correctly? You’re falling like an arrow at a couple thousand miles an hour and you have only seconds before you make a smoking hole.

Maybe you could make up for the delay and the extra speed and the fewer extra seconds by, say, lighting three of the other engines and really freakin’ stomping on the brakes? It’s a high-G maneuver and timing is critical, but on paper it works.

So why not try it when there’s nothing to lose? This booster’s going to be tossed away one way or the other, right? Let’s get the data and fly that profile and have it “land” on the ocean’s surface (no barge) and if we can make it non-violent enough to work if you’re forced to use that method as a backup when there IS a landing spot under you, be it a chunk of Florida coastline or a robot barge.

It landed so gently that it simply tipped over and floated on the surface of the ocean. (Makes sense. If it didn’t crack open it’s 99% empty fuel tanks that that point.)

Even when these folks are deliberately trying to “fail” to get the test data, they still do shit that the rest of us can’t even dream of trying.

Good luck tomorrow, SpaceX! I’ve got an alarm set to try to sneak out of the office.

Give ’em hell.

I’ll be the guy screaming in his car down on the bottom level of the garage.

Again.

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December 22, 2017 · 18:52

Leaving The Planet

Tonight, SpaceX was launching a Falcon 9 rocket with ten Iridium satellites. The launch was out of Vandenberg AFB on the coast a hundred miles or so north of Los Angeles.

We got off work a bit early today and I had thought about trying to drive up to see the launch. But it would have been iffy at best on the timing, especially on a “get out of town” day for the holiday weekend, with the fires still burning up the coast as a bonus traffic problem. I figured the launch might be visible from our front yard.

Holy cow! Wow! Jeez, Louise! Oh my God! What a freaking amazing site!

Flying from the lower right toward the upper left, here’s what it looked like just after first stage separation. That “puffball” in the contrail right about in the middle of the image is where the first stage separation occurred.

The bright light in the upper left is the moon – the bright spot just off the left edge is the first stage, heading toward the Pacific Ocean. (They did not recover this first stage. Why? They’ve gotten so successful at recovering them apparently that they’re overstocked.)

Just a second later, a slightly different angle, you see the second stage to the left of the first stage and the moon. It’s heading toward orbit. (The ten Iridium satellites just finished deploying successfully about five minutes ago.)

After the second stage disappears over the horizon to the south and the first stage has gone down to the Pacific Ocean off of Mexico, the contrail remains, high up in the atmosphere, still lit by the sun.

This was also TOTALLY FREAKING OUT EVERYONE in Los Angeles.

Up close, the detail and filigree of this dispersing cloud is just beautiful.

Download this picture to your computer…

…and this one. Then flip back and forth between them. They were taken four seconds apart, but you can see how the cloud is spreading and flowing.

Finally, as the Earth kept rotating (as planets do) and the sun moved further beyond the horizon (as suns do), the cloud started to dim…

…and disperse.

We got a LOT of folks driving by stopping and asking what it was.

It was SPECTACULAR, that’s what it was!

 

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Filed under Los Angeles, Photography, Space

November 10, 2017 · 23:40

Spooky Explained?

A few days ago I posted pictures of “Spooky Finger Clouds“:

Some speculated that it might be contrails or something, but the explanation turns out to be more exotic.

See a day or so later:

Hey, you can see our house from here!

While they’re referred to as “gravity wave clouds,” they’re not in fact (much to my disappointment!) caused by gravity waves like those produced by colliding black holes. They’re caused by oscillations in the atmosphere where a disturbance of some sort causes moist air to rise and fall (due to gravity) much like ripples spreading out from a stone dropped into a pond.

The end result is that you get these rows of linear clouds. They can be extremely spectacular – they’ve even been seen on Mars!

Science! For The Win!

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November 8, 2017 · 23:45

Do Yourself A Big Favor Today

Watch this video:

I do so dearly love Disturbed version of this song, and I’ve raved about their original video, which is spectacular. But their music and the accompanying video of our planet from space – I could just wallow in that combination of sounds and sights for hours.

Thank you, NASA Johnson! And Disturbed! And Paul Simon!

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September 28, 2017 · 23:20

I Want A BFR!!

Tonight Elon Musk of SpaceX gave a speech about SpaceX’s vision of their next generation of rockets, the ones that can not only launch satellites ten times larger than the current ones, but which can also let us build a moon base and start going to Mars as early as 2024. (Which might be just a touch aggressively optimistic, but at least they’re trying.)

This next generation, bigger than the Falcon Heavy, bigger than the Saturn V, but 100% reusable an a 100 times cheaper than current rockets, is being referred to as the “BFR.” I’ll leave figuring out what that stands for as an exercise to the student.

I want one. Now. Really, really badly.

I urge you to find the full speech when it’s put up on YouTube later tonight or tomorrow. Meanwhile, here are SpaceX’s tweets that accompanied the speech:

I’m ready to go!

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September 23, 2017 · 23:34

Heading Off-Planet

The first thought I had, which I was actually writing as a stand-alone thing for tonight, revolves around this from the @GeekxGirls Twitter and FaceBook account:

I love this a lot, but after sharing it on both Twitter and Facebook, it occurred to me – maybe we ARE on a career path toward Starfleet. If we believe that it (or its equivalent in the real world, whatever it will be or be called) will exist and exist in our lifetimes, someone is going to have to be involved in starting it and being the first faculty and/or students.

Why can’t that be us?

Then, just before 23:00 tonight, ULA launched an Atlas 5 (big freakin’ rocket) out of Vandenberg AFB up the coast. I knew of the launch and had thought about driving up to see it, but just have too many other things to do.

I was watching the launch online on my phone, and it occurred to me about 30 seconds into launch that there might be a tiny chance of maybe seeing something of the launch from outside. Vandenberg is over 100 miles to our WNW and I’ve got a big hill to my west, but maybe.

Oh. My. Freakin’. God!

Just as I got out the rocket started to clear the hill with a bright red and orange flame that stretched at least as far as the moon is wide. It was bright enough so that even with the city lights all around and the street lights and security lights at the school up on the corner, people driving down the street were seeing it and stopping to look.

Over the next minute or more, as the rocket climbed out of the atmosphere it also climbed more overhead, directly to our west. The flame trail grew less visible, but the exhaust cone, sort of a bright, curved V-shape, got very bright and spread out. Lots of blue and orange color, just a spectacular sight.

As the rocket kept climbing toward the south I crossed the street to keep it in view over the neighbor’s house. I could clearly see the first stage dim, flash, and cut off, followed by the flash of the second stage ignition. Another few seconds after that and it faded into the haze on the southern horizon.

I need to remember this. If seeing a launch is this moving and emotional and full of elation even when seen from this far away with none of the noise or smoke or other phenomenon present, I can’t wait to see one from a much better and much closer viewpoint.

Heading off-planet, the Earth in our rear-view mirror. Today a display on the horizon, tomorrow an addicting up-close experience, soon to be a career path for all of those waiting to go exploring and working. It would be neat if they named it “Starfleet” just like they named the first Space Shuttle “Enterprise,” but I don’t care what they name it as long as I get to go!

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September 14, 2017 · 23:37

For Cassini

Tough night. As they say, let’s not be sad because she’s leaving us, let’s be joyful because of all she showed us and taught us.

And when you’ve sworn that you’re going to put on your big boy pants and make it through the vigil, you get this thread:

Then of course you have to watch the Cassini “Grand Finale” video:

Tomorrow, maybe it would be a good thing to start working a little harder to try to figure out how to get the powers that be in Washington to fund the next mission to Saturn. Maybe a Titan explorer, a boat to sail those methane seas or a balloon to soar over those petrocarbon pinnacles. Or an Enceladus orbiter to taste the plumes coming out of the polar tiger stripes.

Or both.

But for tonight, hail and farewell Cassini. You will always be Queen of the ringed planet in our hearts.

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Filed under Astronomy, Music, Space

July 13, 2017 · 21:33

No Joy For Cassini

I had mentioned a couple of weeks back that I had applied for another NASA Social, this one at JPL in September for the Cassini finale. I had also mentioned that there were 25 spots available and I wouldn’t be surprised if they would get 2,500 or 25,000 applications and I thought my odds of being accepted were small.

I was correct!

I’ve gotten the “thanks so much for applying, but…” email and while I’m disappointed, I’m neither crushed nor surprised. But if you don’t apply, they can’t tell you “no,” correct? At least they didn’t say, “HELL, NO!”

Meanwhile, I’m one or two steps closer to getting my FAA flight physical renewed, which is the next big step to getting back into the left seat in the cockpit. While I’ve been flying (commercial doesn’t count) a handful of times in the past few years (here, here, here, and here for example), I haven’t been PIC (Pilot in Command) in almost four years.

Time to fix that.

We’re getting closer. Get the FAA medical, get a few hours of training back in and get my BFR (Bi-annual Flight Review) recorded, then start building up some hours. We’ve got that Navion that needs flying out at the CAF, and with a tailwheel endorsement, the PT-19. A few hundred hours there and a complex endorsement and the SNJ’s await.

Watch the skies. That’s me aiming to come to your town for that “$100 hamburger!”

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Filed under CAF, Flying, Paul, Space

June 27, 2017 · 22:57

55 Days And Counting

Unless you’ve been in a cave without internet, television, radio, newspapers, or any kind of contact with the outside world…

Well, first of all, if you have and you’ve just come out, STAY OFF OF TWITTER, FACEBOOK, and whatever you do, DON’T WATCH THE NEWS!

Trust me on this one.

But aside from THAT, there’s this celestial event coming up on August 21st that you might want to think about finding a way to see. There will be a total solar eclipse, one of the singular most fantastic and astonishing sights to be seen by citizens of this planet. This particular total solar eclipse will be huge in terms of the number of people able to see it and the number of major metropolitan areas it will pass over or near. From Oregon to South Carolina, the path of totality will cover fourteen states. (THIS is an excellent site to see where totality will be, for how long, at what time, and so on. For more general questions, go here.)

As the big date approaches, you’ll be bombarded with news and articles. Not allowing for people not able to see the most spectacular parts of totality due to cloud cover, there are more than 12,000,000 people who be able to see the eclipse without leaving home. Counting people from major metropolitan areas (such as Atlanta) who are only a couple hours’ drive from the path of totality, it could easily be 40,000,000 watching.

It could be the biggest traffic jam in the history of the world. And totally worth it.

Not only will you be seeing a gazillion words from the mainstream media and online folks, you’ll be seeing quite a bit from me as well. We’ll be in the Kansas City area. Our hotel is already in the path of totality, so if it’s clear we can just go out into the parking lot and get 1:52 of totality. With a little driving out onto the back country roads of Missouri and Kansas so that we end up closer to the center line of the totality path, we’ll get 2:38 or so, near the maximum amount.

Weather will be the joker in the deck. We’ll spend Sunday watching the weather forecast and planning. If the Kansas/Missouri area is going to be totally socked in, we’ll start driving, either northwest into Nebraska or southeast toward Nashville.

If you’ve got questions, ask ’em! If you’ve got plans, share ’em!

Where will you be on August 21, 2017?

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June 25, 2017 · 23:58

Not A Once In A Lifetime Thing Any More

As mentioned yesterday, Space X just launched out of Florida on Friday and  then was going to try to launch out of California today, an unprecedented feat for a private space company, and one which even NASA the Air Force and their subcontractors don’t try.

So yeah, they succeeded. Brilliantly. Ten new Iridium satellites were delivered perfectly into their proper orbits – and the booster was recovered safely, landing on the Pacific Ocean based barge, “Just Read The Instructions.” Go ahead, watch the video that Mr. Musk links to and tell me that it’s not impressive as hell.

Going out of Vandenberg, a two-hour drive north of us, on a Sunday afternoon, one would think it would be a perfect opportunity to go see a launch. You can’t get on the base, but there are viewing spots in the Lompoc area where you can get a pretty good view.

Here’s a video that my friend Kate Squires posted on FaceBook. I just love the “ripping” sound you get at about 1:05 as the noise hits you:

I had commitments that kept me from going, but it’s not even a bad thing – BECAUSE THEY’RE GOING TO DO IT AGAIN. Soon. And then do it again. And again.

A launch used to be something that was almost unique unless you worked for NASA or the Air Force or a subcontractor or lived in the area. For guys like me with a “normal” job and a need to travel to see a launch, it was a destination and something to be planned out. It was a big freakin’ deal. A given launch might not be a true “once in a lifetime” opportunity (well, maybe Apollo 11, or the first shuttle flight, or the last shuttle flight…) but it was definitely not an every day occurrence.

SpaceX is well on the way to changing that. We might be a few years away from them having daily launches – but that’s what they’re aiming for.

They’re already talking about landing some of the boosters not back at a big, open landing site a mile or two from the launch pad, but back on the launch pad itself. They’re serious. They’re talking about a day when they have so little refurbishment necessary that they launch, land back on the pad, load the next payload on top, refuel, and launch the same rocket again within 24-hours. At which point they presumably would do it again.

That may be a ways off, simply because the market isn’t there for that yet. But it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. The market isn’t there because no one is designing projects that require hundreds or even thousands of launches because there was no conceivable way to get a thousand launches. But if you could, and if you could get those thousand launches for what it used to cost to get ten launches, and you could use those thousand launches to…

Look at the time! It’s late – we’ll have to continue that thought tomorrow or the next day. But you get the idea.

As for true “once in a lifetime” events, there’s one of those coming up in two months, which we also should talk about in the next day or two.

(I’m such a tease!)

 

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