Zip... ...zoom!

A clever fellow in Germany, Till Kredner, who co-authors the great website All the Sky, has a a great clip of the Jules Verne transport vehicle and the space station passing over Hohenzollern Castle.

It's greatly sped up, and the smaller, dimmer Jules Verne ATV is in front of the International Space Station (ISS). You can just catch an airplane as it passes 'near' the departing and much brighter ISS.

The ATV is now docked to the ISS, and will remain there for many weeks. It's used to take supplies up, boost the orbit of the ISS, and take garbage away.

Sputnik 1 +50

The Space Age began fifty years ago today, but those involved at the time had little idea of how significant the event was to be.

Both the Russian and American teams involved in rocketry at the time were consumed by one overarching goal: to develop an ICBM capable of delivering an atomic bomb to enemy territory. The idea of orbiting a satellite was completely secondary, and the public reaction to the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Russians took both teams by surprise (listen to Sputnik 1).

In fact, the idea of orbiting something was only barely tolerated by the military commands in both countries. The declaration of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) for 1957-1958 was the event that stimulated sufficient political interest in the gains of being first, and was what permitted the orbital programs to go ahead.

(Click on any of the graphics to go to a page with a larger version.)

After the fall of Nazi Germany, both the USA and the USSR took as much of the V-2 rocket program home with them as they could. The USA got the cream of the crop from the test range at Peenemuende: Wernher von Braun and most of his designers, while the Soviets took much of the hardware and plans from the East at Mittelwerke, as well as von Braun's assistant, Helmut Groettrup. The photo shows the Soviet-built rocket R-2A, clearly showing its V-2 heritage, and probably composed of many parts brought from Germany. This was the first methyl alcohol fueled rocket, changed from the V-2 and R-1 ethyl alcohol motor (one reason for this shift was said to be to stop the guards from stealing the ethyl fuel to drink). The R-2A variant was used for science, rather than the military version which carried a radiological liquid dispersal weapon known as Geran. The R-2 was also the first rocket technology exported to China by the Soviets, and formed the basis of the Chinese Long March program, combined with the information from the deported US researcher and JPL co-founder Tsien Hsue-shen.

This is the "Chief Designer," Sergei Korolev, lionized posthumously by the Soviets as the father of the early successes in the Soviet space program, at the Kapustin Yar launch site in 1953. Having suffered for many years in a Siberian Gulag during Stalin's Great Terror, he was rescuscitated in the late 1940's and held great sway in the Soviet space effort until changes in the Politburo and disputes with the military led to the ascendancy of his arch-rivals, Valentin Glushko and Vladimir Chelomei. Today's Russian rocket fleet owe a great debt to the efforts of these engineers: the Soyuz to Korolev via the R-series, the Proton to Chelomei via the UR-series, and the efforts of Glushko, who provided engine designs for both families of rockets. Only with the lifting of secrecy in Russia have the efforts of the many many people involved in the program come to light, allowing many others to claim credit for their work. Korolev died early, and was never publicly recognized for his efforts.

Close-up of the 80cm aluminum alloy spherical portion of Sputnik 1. The four antennae were actually two sets of two, differing in length by a few centimeters, probably to accommodate the more efficient radiation of the two frequencies used by the on-board radio transmitter. Sputnik 1 was actually a rush job, prepared within one month because the original payloads for the R-7 were way behind schedule. The Sputnik was scoffed at by many as "Korolev's toy." The original scientific IGY payload was eventually launched as Sputnik 3.

This shot shows the scale of Sputnik as it was covered with the fairing cone of the R-7 rocket.

Frame grab from a Soviet animation of the separation of the fairing and the launch of Sputnik 1 from the booster. The small fairing can be seen on the second rocket from the left in the diagram of the multiple boosters that came from the R-7 line:

This graphic shows the evolution of the boosters from Korolev's design bureau. The R-7 was the first ICBM, launched on August 21 1957, virtually unnoticed by the world. It was at this point that the rocket lifting power (or throw weight) was sufficiently high, and the weight of the latest nuclear weapons had been decreased enough for the two to form an effective weapon and delivery system. The Vostok and Voskhod boosters carried the first man in orbit, as well as the first multiple-man crew capsules. The modern Soyuz system has clear design lines reaching back to the earliest of the R-series, and this heritage is part of the reason for the system's extremely high success rate (760 launches to date with 740 successes, per Space Launch Report), as well as its extremely low cost.

A mosaic in the main hall at the Korolev Control Centre in Moscow, showing the 'Holy Trinity' of Soviet space efforts: On the left, Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, inventor of modern rocket theory; on the right, Chief Designer Sergei Korolev; and in the centre, Yuri Gagarin, first man in space. Spectator is Mohammed Masri, from Saudi Arabia.

As Boris Chertok, one of Korolev's deputy designers, noted in a BBC interview, if it had not been for the cold war, the space race would never had occurred, and the space age would have started much later.

One other interesting feature of the Soviet first was that since the US did not object to the passage of a foreign capsule crossing over its territory, this established the principle of international uses of outer space. However a skeptic might observe that the US Corona and Midas spy satellite programs were well into their design stages, and overflight of enemy territory was a necessary condition for this first remote sensing spy program to work. In fact, this space overflight principle probably kept the Cold War from becoming 'hot' at many different points in the subsequent decades because of the ability of both powers to monitor and verify each other's treaty commitments.

Return to Flight:

Much anxiety surrounded the return to space for the Shuttle today. I watched the launch on a Mac desktop widget linked to the KSC NASA TV transmission over a wireless connection while sitting in a meeting at the Brazilian Space Research Institute, INPE. Of course the NASA TV server was getting hammered pretty hard, so I only got a screen refresh every minute or so. But it was enough to do a series of frame grabs, and see the view from the camera placed on the External Tank (ET). Despite the stuttering video, an impressive display of what today's communications technology can do.

The sequence I was able to capture shows the changes in vehicle attitude throughout the ascent quite nicely. There was no on-screen countdown, so I am not sure exactly where in the sequence these scenes occur, but a lot can be deduced from what is in sight, what angles they appear at, sun angle, etc.

The first two shots are simply the required shot of the shuttle just after clearing the gantry on LC-39B, and a view from one of the off-track spotting scopes (which gives you an idea of the poor visual resolution we generally have of launches) ...


Sequence 1


Sequence 2

Now to the feedline fairing camera on the ET, which gives a very nice view of the underside of the orbiter, the ET and right SRB. At his point in the ascent, there are several things to note in the scene: the Florida shoreline is just above the elevon line, reflecting the shuttle-down attitude used on ascent. The SRB exhaust flames are visible, as are their reflections off the aft tile acreage.

Sequence 3

In this next scene, the main change is the ascent attitude, with the shoreline creeping up the tail, as the shuttle's velocity vector slowly shifts from vertical to horizontal, in order to give it enough speed to achieve orbit. That may be a glimpse of LC-39A or B visible between the bipod:

Sequence 4

In this next scene, the main change in the sun angle, which is causing saturation of the image.

Sequence 5

In this next scene several things have already happened: the SRBs have already separated (so we are beyond 127 seconds into the mission), and the horizon is in view. The shuttle is now using the main engines to stabilize and circularize its orbit, probably over Europe and Northern Asia by this point. This is more or less the time when the largest piece of foam was seen drifting off. There was more lost at various points in the ascent, some earlier, some later.

The largest piece, about 3 feet by 1 foot, came off the LH2 Protuberance Air Load Ramp, which is just outboard of the piping and ducting that can be seen on the left running along the ET. This apparently occurred about 127 secs into mission, which is coincident with the SRB jettison. I have not heard any analysis of this yet (an interesting read is the Return To Flight Task Force Report, large PDF).

Sequence 6

As the nose dips toward the horizon, the tail comes up...

Sequence 7

Big attitudinal changes now - The shuttle has executed a roll, so the Earth is below the belly now, rather than above.

Sequence 8

And finally, ... jettisoning of the ET. In comparison with the previous scene, we can see that the orbiter is actually the part that has changed attitude most - the horizon has not moved much from the ET's point of view. Nice view of the orbiter underbelly, I wish I had been able to see more of this. NASA does not have any of this footage easily available.

Sequence 9

...and now, a view from the orbiter of the ET.

Sequence 10

Here is a gallery of photos of the ET from this flight, including some nice close-ups of the foam loss locations. Here's some video of the ET from previous missions.

I did find a link to footage from a camera in the SRBs on this launch - several things to note: just before SRB separation, you can see pitting occur in the ET insulation; after the separation, the opposing SRB is visible tumbling at almost the same rate - it stays at a constant angle in the field of view; nice views of the Florida coast, and all the way to splashdown. Mac-hostile links: Left SRB footage. Right SRB footage.

Trip to Cape Canaveral, er, no, Kennedy, um well Canaveral:

While at a NASA conference in Orlando this week, a group of us got the opportunity to go to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). It certainly is a lot better now than it used to be... I remember touring the KSC Visitor's Center just after Apollo had ended, and being astonished, embarrassed even, by how shoddy, dirty, and pathetic the whole place looked. Knowing how slick the PR machine is at NASA HQ in Washington, I'm amazed that KSC let it go so long without doing something about it.

We were able to get to a few places the regular tour does not go, including a drive around Launch Pad 39A - Discovery was undergoing a tank pressure test on 39B, and so we could not get very near that.


39B wide shot

There was some construction work going on, apparently some modifications to the gantry - you can see the crane looming over the complex here, and the water tower that is used to douse the exhaust from the Main Engines and SRBs.

Lightning rod on 39A gantry

Here's a close up of the lighting rod on the top of the gantry - I learned that these gantries are still the Apollo gantries, only they have been shortened considerably. And of course the launchpad crawlers are still the originals, so we don't build everything from scratch again for each new mission series...

Swing-away gantry clean room

I knew that the new gantries include a swing-away section that encloses the shuttles' cargo bays, but I did not realize that these are able to provide a clean-room environment to work in. Impressive. You can see the general shape of the shuttle in the swing-away from this angle.

Hydrogen tank

Here's a shot of the liquid hydrogen storage tank - you can see the liquid oxygen tank on the right in the distance. For obvious reasons, these two are kept separated until the last possible hours of launch preparations. We had to empty our pockets of all matches and lighters to get onto the site.

After the 39A tour, we went to see the ISS payload processing facility. They had just reopened it after the 9/11 clamp-down, and we were one of the first groups to go through. For the general public, part of the increased security consists of having to pay an extra $50 for that part of the tour. Apparently, terrorists are so poorly financed they can't afford US$50. Well, to be fair, they put in a whole lot more plexiglass. Here's one of the logistics modules being loaded:

MPLM in SSPF

The loading arm is covered in fabric bellows to keep lubricant and dust from dropping into the module, and every move is being videotaped. Cataloging all that still and video footage must be a nightmare.

From there we went to the major change at the KSC visitor facilities: the Saturn V 'museum.' Well worth the visit, and a worthy display for this piece of historic hardware. Much more so that the rusting hulk that used to sit outside, a full Saturn V sits on its side, and a 400 foot long stroll gives you the full effect. Here's the business end of the first stage, which greets you as you enter the hall:

Five F-1 engines

Several stages later, you get to the Command and Service Modules. Continuing my engine fetish, here's the business end of the Service Module:

SM Propulsion System

Finally, we ended up at the outdoors section (the old "rocket garden"), and the astronaut memorial.

I shot a lot of pictures there, but will only post this one, even if it is slightly corrupted... argh. The larger version is better. Rather than another engine shot, I figured this was the real 'business end' of the shuttle, since it has to nose its way back into the atmosphere at several thousand miles an hour...

Shuttle schnozz

Return to Flight:

On this anniversary of the first shuttle flight, and the forty-fifth of Gagarin's flight as first man, I decided to focus on one aspect of the upcoming STS-114 mission to which I have a (tenuous) link.

I have posted previously about another workhorse in the U.S. research aircraft fleet, the WB-57. For some time now, the two NASA birds have been used to photograph shuttle launches. For the upcoming launch they were tasked with acquiring high-quality video from lift-off to just past the solid rocket booster (SRB) separation.


926 and 928...

These are the two NASA WBs - known from their fleet numbers as simply 926 and 928. They are modified B-57 Canberras, made by Martin based on the original English Electric design. Both were originally made in 1963, and their wings were modified in 1967 by General Dynamics for high-altitude reconnaisance missions. 926 was RB-57D 53-3974 while in the USAF, and 928 was RB-57B 52-1536, and they most probably did high altitude sampling over US and Chinese nuclear tests. Lately they have flown through the exhaust plumes left by the shuttle's SRBs and main engines.

HDTV!

To provide high-quality imaging of the shuttle, SRBs and the external tank (ET) during ascent, both 926 and 928 will be carrying specially manufactured imaging systems. NASA contracted the Aerospace Corporation and the Southern Research Institute to put together the equipment and plan the mission for the WBs. This is a shot of the imaging package - a Celestron telescope lens provides an aperture for near infra-red (NIR) and HDTV imaging, and an NTSC system provides the initial sighting for the tracking software.

nose job

In order to track the shuttle's ascent, a turret and gimbal system will be attached to the nose of the aircraft. This is the hangar at JSC where they are doing the first mods to attach the turret.

flankers

During the actual launch, the WBs will fly at 60,000 feet along tracks on either side of the ascent path, giving views of the orbiter, ET and SRBs through SRB separation+10. The technical constraint areas for the position of the WBs during a particular ascent moment are the blue boxes.

RTF!

These are simulations done by the Aerospace Corp. for what the HDTV FOV should be from both aircraft, at different times during the ascent. WAVE stands for WB-57 Ascent Video Experiment.

Of course, since the data will be in HDTV, I am sure that NASA's PR Office is already salivating. But no, it will not be shown live - the data is being recorded on board, and will have to be downloaded at Patrick AFB when the birds return. Time to release, probably about launch + 30 hours. I can't wait. I hope to be in Orlando during the launch window, and will keep my eyes glued to the East.

Oh no, a physics post! It even has... formulas!

Our day-to-day experience with weights and speeds is limited to a small range. We don't expect the behaviour of objects to change very much, even when the object is far outside this limited range of weight or speed.

We know very well that a small piece of lead (between 2 and 30 grams), travelling very fast (between 300 and 1,000 meters per second), can do a great deal of damage - i.e. a bullet.

However, when we think of a large piece of polystyrene foam (about 30 cm across), then all bets are off. After all, it's hard to think of being able to hurl a large piece of foam fast enough to do damage to anything, right?

I went to a lecture the other day by Doug Osheroff that demonstrated this very clearly, using some high-school level physics.

Doug has a Nobel Prize. He's a low-temperature physicist who works at Stanford, and who recently served on NASA's Columbia Accident Investigation Board. So I paid attention to what he was saying.

He outlined the basic calculations behind the conclusion that a 0.75 kg chunk of foam from the Shuttle's external tank (ET) had irreparably damaged the leading edge of Columbia's left wing.

Video of the launch taken from various angles shows the foam breaking off and striking the wing - this allows an estimation of the source of the foam (the -Y bipod ramp, and therefore its size & weight, +/- 30cm radius, 0.75 kg), and also the amount of time it took to travel the distance from the ramp to the leading edge (19 meters in about 0.16 seconds).

The key here is to realize that since the foam fell off the external tank, it was decelerating relative to the air rushing by at Mach 2.5, and accelerating relative to the shuttle (and its onrushing wing).

So:
d0 = ½at02

Where d0 is the distance travelled, a is the acceleration of the foam, and t0 is the time between the foam breaking off and the wing strike.

Substituting the values:

19 m = ½ a (0.16 sec)2

gives

a = 1,480 m/s2

or about 150 g's.

How fast was that foam travelling when it got to the wing?

v0 = a t0

substituting values:

v0 = 1,480 m/s2 · 0.16 sec

gives

v0 = 238 m/s

Converting to something we understand better: 855 km/h or 530 mph. Pretty fast.

But it's still hard to comprehend a chunk of foam doing such tremendous damage.

In terms of kinetic energy,

Ek = ½ m v02

plugging in our values:

Ek = ½ 0.75 kg· (238 m/s)2

gives

Ek = 21,240 N·m (or J)

Say we had a bullet with equivalent kinetic energy - how fast would it have to be going? Let's choose the a fairly standard .22 bullet of about 40 grains weight, or about .0026 kg

Then:

21,240 J = ½ 0.0026 kg · v12

gives

v1 = 4,040 m/s

or about 13,260 fps, which is about five times faster than a bullet coming out of a rifle - or about twenty-five times the energy a regular 0.22 bullet would pack.

OK, obviously were talking something serious here.

And what was it crashing against? Aren't those wings tough? After all, they can take flying through plasma, right?

Umm, well, no. In fact, the leading edge material is really fragile. The RCC panels on the shuttle have to be covered with protective padding when the shuttle is being serviced to avoid damage from dropped tools or even dropped bolts.

The plasma-resistant wing never stood a chance against a chunk of foam.

#35 & #43:

Besides dooming the U.S. hatmaking industry with his bareheaded 'viggah,' John F Kennedy set NASA on its course to the Moon with his Message to Congress in May of 1961 and his more famous 1962 Moon speech at Rice University.

At NASA Headquarters, on January 14, President Bush made a speech about new directions for the U.S. space program, including a return to the Moon with the ultimate goal of putting a man on Mars. Perhaps significantly, this initiative was missing from his January 20th State of the Union Address.

First, it is interesting to compare these speeches. Now, I don't want to get into a Texas vs. Massachusetts debate, Yale vs. Harvard, or even 'jocks and geeks,' but my end conclusion was that unfortunately Dubya's speech writers have not been putting out their best.

The next few days after the Moon/Mars announcement we of course saw inevitable sniping about how could the nation afford this given the present budget climate, etc. etc. I have had to endure some pretty fierce ribbing from European counterparts at recent meetings about this issue.

My questions have been: What did the NASA budget look like in 1962? What has the NASA budget done since? What about science in general? What about other major pieces of the budget pie?

So, given my penchant for posting horribly long tables, here is the Federal budget history, from 1962 onwards.

Federal Finances, 1962-present

| Year |	NASA Budget |	Total Gov't Outlays |	NASA % |	National Defense % |	General science % |
1962	$1,257	$106,821	1.18	49.00	1.61
1963	$2,552	$111,316	2.29	47.97	2.74
1964	$4,171	$118,528	3.52	46.20	4.13
1965	$5,092	$118,228	4.31	42.82	4.93
1966	$5,933	$134,532	4.41	43.19	4.99
1967	$5,425	$157,464	3.45	45.35	3.96
1968	$4,722	$178,134	2.65	45.99	3.10
1969	$4,251	$183,640	2.31	44.92	2.73
1970	$3,752	$195,649	1.92	41.75	2.31
1971	$3,382	$210,172	1.61	37.53	1.99
1972	$3,423	$230,681	1.48	34.32	1.81
1973	$3,312	$245,707	1.35	31.21	1.64
1974	$3,255	$269,359	1.21	29.46	1.48
1975	$3,269	$332,332	0.98	26.03	1.20
1976	$3,671	$371,792	0.99	24.10	1.18
TQ*	$953	$95,975	0.99	23.20	1.21
1977	$4,002	$409,218	0.98	23.76	1.16
1978	$4,164	$458,746	0.91	22.78	1.07
1979	$4,380	$504,032	0.87	23.08	1.04
1980	$4,959	$590,947	0.84	22.67	0.99
1981	$5,537	$678,249	0.82	23.22	0.95
1982	$6,155	$745,755	0.83	24.85	0.97
1983	$6,853	$808,385	0.85	25.97	0.98
1984	$7,055	$851,874	0.83	26.70	0.98
1985	$7,251	$946,423	0.77	26.71	0.91
1986	$7,403	$990,460	0.75	27.60	0.91
1987	$7,591	$1,004,122	0.76	28.09	0.92
1988	$9,092	$1,064,489	0.85	27.28	1.02
1989	$11,036	$1,143,683	0.96	26.54	1.12
1990	$12,429	$1,253,198	0.99	23.89	1.15
1991	$13,878	$1,324,403	1.05	20.64	1.22
1992	$13,961	$1,381,684	1.01	21.59	1.19
1993	$14,305	$1,409,512	1.01	20.65	1.21
1994	$13,695	$1,461,902	0.94	19.27	1.11
1995	$13,378	$1,515,837	0.88	17.95	1.10
1996	$13,881	$1,560,572	0.89	17.03	1.07
1997	$14,360	$1,601,282	0.90	16.89	1.07
1998	$14,206	$1,652,619	0.86	16.24	1.10
1999	$13,664	$1,701,932	0.80	16.15	1.06
2000	$13,442	$1,788,826	0.75	16.46	1.04
2001	$14,199	$1,863,926	0.76	16.39	1.06
2002	$14,484	$2,010,975	0.72	17.33	1.03
2003	$14,885	$2,140,377	0.70	17.58	1.01
2004	$15,305	$2,229,425	0.69	17.51	1.02
2005	$15,854	$2,343,399	0.68	17.50	1.02
2006	$16,511	$2,463,663	0.67	17.18	1.00
2007	$16,954	$2,576,203	0.66	16.94	0.99
2008	$17,531	$2,710,517	0.65	16.99	0.97

Some points to note about the table:
(*) 1. TQ stands for the 'transition quarter' of July through September of 1976, which bridged the change from July-June Federal fiscal years to October-September.
2. Figures are not in constant dollars (a MAJOR fault with the above table).
3. All data are from historical tables of the US Federal Budget

Some additional data that I stripped from the table to avoid clutter:
- the interest on the debt in 1962 took up 8.54% of the total outlays. By 2003, the interest took up 16.59% of the budget, down from a high of 22.22% in 1997 during the Clinton administration. Basically, we have twice the amount of proportional debt, in non-constant dollars. Note also that the Federal spending on science as a whole has declined in proportional terms.

Here is the diagram on the projected budget for the new NASA objectives presented by the President during his January 14 NASA HQ speech (click on it for a larger, readable, version).

Of note is the definite horizon/end of the Shuttle and ISS programs. This also means the end of non-"human spaceflight" experiments aboard the ISS. For years NASA has trumpeted space as a place for new manufacturing technology and as a source of new materials, and justifications for the Shuttle and ISS were written in those terms. Unfortunately, even routine scientific research is extremely difficult to do in a test vehicle, and that is what these platforms are - the risk of catastrophic failure on launch or re-entry was always very real.

The budget presented shows that there really is little new money to be devoted to this re-ignited mission of exploration. Of special note is that after 2009, there is no projected increase in the budget - it simply keeps pace with inflation. What is clear is that this mission will eat away at most every other aspect of NASA science - aeronautics, remote sensing, astronomy, etc. - very much as the ISS and Shuttle budgets did.

One remaining point. When the U.S. went from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo to Shuttle, we built each successive generation of booster/capsule systems from scratch. Based on previous experience, of course, but any engineer knows that systems as complex as these need extensive testing before using them for human flight. Why does the U.S. do this? Because we put the prime contracts out to bid. Sometimes Boeing would win, sometimes Lockheed, sometimes others. Each of these had submitted a proposal that had to be different enough to catch the selector's eye. The Russians, in contrast, have stuck with the basic RK-7 Soyuz rocket configuration for over 40 years. They have of course modified the boosters and capsules over the years, but the stability in the core program gave them one tremendous advantage: low cost. It is very probable that Russia could launch a manned mission to Mars for about one quarter of what it will cost the U.S. -- however, they currently lack the political will and financial power to do it. And that is, in the end analysis, what counts.

Having people in space is always much more expensive than simply launching metal. It's certainly much more exciting too, but we always have to be ready to face a catastrophe. And there will almost certainly be another disaster somewhere in this Moon/Mars series. I am not sure the U.S. has the political courage to face another space catastrophe so soon.

Sadovskiy, Kolyako & Tsybin:

Fifteen years ago today, the Soviet space shuttle "Buran" was launched from Baikonur on an Energiya booster. Derided at the time for being a copy of the U.S. Space Shuttle, the actual technical accomplishments of this flight have been glossed over. The similarities in aerodynamic design disappear once you look at the details.

The decision to avoid solid rocket boosters and cryogenic engine technology used on the U.S. Shuttle led to the development of the Energiya booster, capable of putting 88,000kg into low Earth orbit, and 22,000kg to geosynchronous orbit (in comparison, Ariane-V can lift 18,000kg to LEO and 6,800kg to geosynchronous; the Shuttle can lift 24,400kg to LEO, 5,900kg to geosynchronous transfer orbit; and the Saturn-V got 118,000kg to LEO, 47,000kg to translunar trajectory).

This configuration allowed Buran to actually have a larger payload capacity than the Shuttle (30,000kg vs. 25,000kg), despite its smaller physical orbiter size (105,000kg vs. 123,000kg).

The launch was carried out despite a 4°C temperature, with snow flurries and 72km/hr winds (appropriately, since 'Buran' means blizzard in Russian). Control was maintained through radio link with several Gorizont, Luch and Molniya comsats and tracking ships (interestingly, one of the ships off Chile was named the "Marshall Nedelin"...). Two orbits later, the spacecraft landed on complete auto pilot, less than 2m off the runway center-line at Baikonur, even after battling a 65km/hr crosswind at 30 degrees off-runway. Five tiles were lost on re-entry (I actually have one of the replacement tiles sitting on my desk!). Exhaustive pre-flight testing with many scale versions and six full size mockups contributed to this first orbital test's success.

Buran on final approach, and on roll-out:

All above photos (c) NPO Molniya

Here is a link to a short MPEG (5.1Mb) video of the Buran on final approach shot by Igor Volk, head of the Buran Cosmonaut team, from the MiG-25 chase plane seen above.

Technical accomplishments aside, the logistical, economic and political requirements necessary to carry out this mission doomed it to failure within the Soviet system. In fact, it is probable that the vast investment in the Energiya and Buran programs themselves contributed to the implosion of the Soviet system ($20 billion rubles in Buran alone). The Energiya only ever flew twice. One other Energiya launch had been carried out previous to Buran, but the payload, the military "battle station" Polyus malfunctioned, and never reached orbit.

Buran was to have flown in December of 1994 to Mir and delivered another module, but the entire Energiya/Buranprogram was cancelled by Boris Yeltsin on June 30, 1993. It didn't help that one of the 1991 coup plotters was the Buran project manager.

In the end, all the Energiyas that had been produced were cannibalized, with their engines used on Zenit and U.S. Atlas vehicles. The Buran flyers were mothballed, and suffered various fates - museums, scrap heaps, and one as part of the amusement section of Gorky park in Moscow. The original idea was to set it up as a space-food restaurant, but it now serves as a slightly dilapidated theatre/vehicle for simulated space rides, as seen below.

Above photos (c) 2000 Jane Skorina

In all, a very Russian ending to the story.

Kudryavka Laika:

A quick bark for Laika or "little barker" in Russian, who was launched into space on Sputnik 2 on this day in 1957. The technical feat was that this second sputnik was six times heavier than Sputnik 1, and was less than one month later -- a fact not lost on the U.S. rocket effort.

Here she is:

What is little known is that this launch was done by Korolev as a response to a special request by Khruschev to "do something special for the upcoming anniversary of the Revolution." ...and that there was no way down for the scrappy little Moscow street dog, who lived up to her name, forlornly barking until her oxygen ran out two days later. Sniff.

(A later note: documents released only lately have revealed that Laika died within hours of launch because the cooling system failed. I also found out that she was sealed in the capsule four days before launch! Poor girl.)

Tyuratam, Alcântara:

Today was to have been the launch date for Brazil's VLS-3 (Veiculo Lançador de Satelites), or satellite launch vehicle, a new entry into the commercial satellite launch market.

On Saturday, during pre-launch testing, one of the motors apparently ignited prematurely on the pad, while technicians were still surrounding the vehicle. In the ensuing explosion and fire, twenty-one people were killed.

We easily forget that rockets are simply slightly well controlled bombs. Brazil's two previous attempts at the VLS have also failed, fortunately with no fatalities, as they were destroyed by the range safety officer after launch.

This accident is reminescent of the October 26, 1960 accident at Tyuratam, known as the Nedelin Incident, after Mitrofan Nedelin, the Commander of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces. Nedelin was under great pressure from Kruschev to deliver a successful launch, and his presence interfered greatly with normal operations where a Soviet R-16 was being hurriedly prepared for launch. Personnel was not evacuated from the area after fueling, as was required by safety regulations, and a series of compounding errors led to a horrendous event. The fully-fueled rocket exploded with about 250 people still near the launch pad, including Nedelin himself. A film of the event shows people in burning clothing trying to flee over a melting tar road. Truly horrific. Estimates of the death toll vary, ranging from 92 to 165. What is certain is that some of the very best technicians in the Soviet program were killed that day.

In the Brazilian case, at least the failure was immediately announced. It took 40 years for the Nedelin story to come out. Also, at least the hospitals in the area of the Alcântara launch facility in Brazil knew what they were dealing with for the incoming injured -- in the Soviet case, the military would not identify what chemicals the victims were covered with, which may have caused some deaths among hospital staff, due to the propellants' toxicity.

In an interesting footnote, it turns out that Leonid Brezhnev was the chairman of the investigating committee for this incident. There was no punishment recommended by the committee report - it simply noted that the guilty had been punished already.

Apollo LM mad science:

Asked by a non-science university graduate:

What happened to the Apollo LEMs after docking with the CSMs? (I Suppose the crashed back onto the Moon's surface. At what velocity did they crash?)

Yes, they crashed back on to the Moon, and it was done on purpose, to provide noise for the seismometers to be able to get data on the Moon's deep interior.

You got me curious, so I went and found out what happened to all the Lunar Modules.

Grumman Aerospace built 16 LMs of human-flight-ratable quality, and several additional modules (also known as "lunar test articles," or LTAs) that were used for unmanned flights and ground testing (including test-to-failure).

By the way, the early name for this spacecraft was Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), but NASA felt that the word "Excursion" gave it a frivolous feel, so they got rid of it, and the official name for the spacecraft became Lunar Module (LM) -- but by that point the pronunciation was fixed, and LM was pronounced "lem" and that has confused everybody ever since (including you and me!). (Reference: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4205/ch14-6.html).

I'm sure you know, but for completeness I should state that the LM was actually composed of two stages; the descent stage, which carried the motor that slowed the LM on its landing (basically the lower part with the legs), and the ascent stage which was the strange looking upper part in which the astronauts actually stayed, and which carried them back to the CSM in lunar orbit. Your question refers specifically to the fate of the ascent stages of the LMs except in the cases of Apollo 10 and 13 (see below).

In chronological order of LTA and LM flights (or scheduled flights), this is what I found for you:

1. Apollo 4 - launched 9 November 1967. The first all-up launch of Saturn V rocket (unmanned) carried LTA-10R into orbit, which was completely destroyed on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

2. Apollo 5 - launched 22 January 1968. First test of LM1 in space (unmanned). This LM had no legs. The LM's orbit later decayed and LM1 re-entered atmosphere several hundred kilometers SW of Guam on February 12 1968. (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4205/ch10-3.html)

3. Apollo 6 - launched 4 April 1968. LTA-2R carried into orbit, and was destroyed on re-entry into the atmosphere. This flight was to have carried LM2, but due to the success of Apollo 5 LM testing, LM2 was never flown, and LM2 now sits in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

Apollo 7 and Apollo 8 did not carry LMs, despite having LM Pilots along in their crews.

4. Apollo 9 - launched March 3, 1969. Extensive manned flight-testing of LM3 "Spider" in Earth orbit, carrying out in-space engine tests and maneuvers equivalent to those that would be needed for lunar orbit rendezvous. LM3 becomes the first non-re-entry capable spacecraft to carry humans (i.e. if something went wrong with the CSM, there was no way home). The LM was jettisoned into a highly elliptical orbit (237 km perigee, 6900+ km apogee) that later decayed. LM destroyed on re-entry into atmosphere.

OK, now I finally get to answering your exact question...

5. Apollo 10 - launched May 18 1969. LM4 "Snoopy" goes to the Moon, and descends to within 14,447 meters altitude of the lunar surface, where the descent stage was jettisoned. The descent stage simply fell to the surface, so it impacted at approximately lunar free-fall from this height, 152 m/s or 547 km/hr. The ascent module, on the other hand, was jettisoned after re-docking with the CSM in lunar orbit, and then its engines were fired, injecting it into a solar orbit where it still exists! People often ask if this crew was tempted to land, but it should be pointed out that the ascent module was incapable of climbing back all the way from the surface (insufficient fuel), so the crew knew it would have been stranded had they actually landed.

6. Apollo 11 - launched July 16 1969 LM5 "Eagle" left the descent stage on the Sea of Tranquillity, and the ascent stage was jettisoned 2 hours after docking with the CSM. This orbit decayed, and it crashed onto Moon, but we are unsure where. This impact velocity was much much greater, not only because it was in free-fall from a much higher altitude (the CSM orbited at about 111 km above the surface), but because the forward velocity was at least 600 km/hr as well. My estimate for a minimum speed at impact is 1,600 km/hr. The seismometers left on the Moon by the crew registered the impact of the ascent module. (But note also that all the Saturn IV-B translunar injection stages also crashed onto the Moon before their respective LM's arrival -- this velocity had to be staggering, since the stage was basically accelerating all the way from the Lagrange point inwards!)

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4205/ch14-6.html for mission details

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/images/a11lmreturn.jpg for a photo of Eagle after being jettisoned.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/ap15fj/loressay.htm for a GREAT page on the physics of getting the LM to get back to the CSM, which was actually more difficult than getting to the Moon itself!

7. Apollo 12 - launched November 14, 1969 LM6 "Intrepid" also left the descent stage on the Moon, on the Sea of Storms. The ascent stage was jettisoned and crashed at the lunar coordinates 3.94 S, 21.21 W, probably at a very similar velocity to LM5.

8. Apollo 13 - launched April 11, 1970 LM7 "Aquarius" was the famous lifeboat that saved Lovell, Swigert and Haise after an explosion on the SM. The LM descent stage was used to insert the LM-CSM into a trans-Earth injection orbit, a task for which it was never designed. LM7 burned up in Earth's atmosphere after it was jettisoned just prior to CM re-entry procedures began.

For great info on the orbit used by the Apollo program, go to http://www.christa.org/lunar.htm, and especially the diagram at http://www.christa.org/lor.htm which shows the various orbits very clearly.

9. Apollo 14 - launched January 31, 1971. LM8 "Antares" also left the descent stage on the Moon, on the Fra Mauro highlands. The ascent stage was jettisoned and crashed at the lunar coordinates 3.42 S, 19.67 W, probably at a very similar velocity to LM5.

10. LM9 was originally scheduled to fly on Apollo 15, but the J-series redesign of the LM to include the rover and extended stay capability made it obsolete. It now sits at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Center.

11. Apollo 15 - launched July 26 1971. LM10 "Falcon" was the first of the J-series, heavier LMs. The descent stage was also left on the Moon, in the Hadley Rille area of the Apennines. The ascent stage was jettisoned and crashed at the lunar coordinates 26.36 N, 0.25 E, probably at a very similar velocity to LM5, despite a much higher orbital inclination.

12. Apollo 16 - launched April 16 1972. LM11 "Orion" - descent stage was also left on the Moon, in the Descartes highlands. The ascent stage began to tumble immediately after being jettisoned, so the lunar impact site is unknown.

13. Apollo 17 - launched December 7 1972. LM12 "Challenger" was the final LM to reach the Moon. . The descent stage was also left on the Moon, in the Taurus-Littrow area of the Sea of Serenity. The ascent stage was jettisoned and crashed at the lunar coordinates 19.96 N, 30.50 E, probably at a very similar velocity to LM5

14. Apollo 18 - this mission to Copernicus Crater was cancelled in September of 1970, so LM13 was not used. It now belongs to the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island, and was used by HBO for filming "From the Earth to the Moon"

15. Apollo 19 was also cancelled in September of 1970, so LM 14 was not used. It now belongs to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

16. Apollo 20 was cancelled earlier, on January 4, 1970, along with the manned mission to Mars. LM15 was scrapped by Grumman before making it off the assembly line.

A final module, MSC-16, now sits at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, IL. -- this is a LTA, and served only as a training vehicle.

If you want to find out where many components of the American program are now housed, a great resource is the following page: http://aesp.nasa.okstate.edu/fieldguide/frames.html -- you will probably find some piece of American space history is housed nearby.

James McDivitt (Commander, Apollo 9) to Grumman Aerospace workers: "Thanks for the funny-looking spacecraft - It sure flies better than it looks!"