The ill-fated Challenger, the second space shuttle to be built was the first to conduct a spacewalk. Unfortunately 3 years later in January of 1986, disaster struck when a seal on a rocket booster failed, leading to the shuttle’s destruction 72 seconds into its mission. It was a disaster on many levels for NASA, because not only did it lose seven astronauts and a very expensive shuttle that day but the event showed the world that this was a dangerous business to be in. On this particular launch, media attention was at an all time high, because of the presence of crew member Christa McAulliffe, who was to be the first teacher in space.
The tragedy led to a 32-months hiatus in the shuttle program, and President Ronald Reagan setting up the Rogers Commission, which was to investigate the accident. Not only that, but the Air Force decided to launch its classified military satellites using the Titan IV rockets instead.
The program bounced back however, and saw several highlights in a row in between the launch of a range of science probes and telescopes… in May of 1989, Magellan was the first planetary mission to be launched by an orbiter, despatched to Venus to make a radar map of its surface. Even more important as it would turn out was the launch of the Hubble space telescope (HST) in April of 1990 – the two would have an ongoing affair for quite some time as it turned out because the HST would need quite some maintenance.
However, looking at the results of what Hubble gave us, no one could argue with its importance in NASA’s history. The most important of those re-visits was made by Endeavour, the shuttle which was built to replace Challenger using structural spare parts originally intended for the other orbiters. In December 1993, the shuttle carried up the equipment that would correct Hubble’s flawed vision. The telescope became one of the best showcases for the shuttle as it transformed our knowledge of the cosmos by showing us the most dazzling places in the universe like we had never seen them before.
Stay tuned for part 3 where we take it away starting from the Mir missions!
Nearly 2 years ago, NASA retired its fleet of space shuttles, which started operating 30 years before. Several companies have thrown their hat in the ring to be its successor in different ways, so let us have a look back at the program that gave us the Magellan spacecraft, the Hubble telescope, and the International Space Station to name a few.
It was in the late sixties that the Space Transportation System program was devised, as a means of reducing the cost of spaceflight by introducing a reusable spacecraft. The final agreed design would feature three main components: the orbiter (the reusable spaceplane most people refer to as the shuttle), a disposable external tank and two reusable solid-fuel rocket boosters. The contract to build this triumph of human engineering would end up going to North American Aviation (later becoming part of Rockwell International, which now is a part of Boeing). When the prototype shuttle Enterprise (named after the Star Trek ship of the same name flown by Captain James T. Kirk) was ready it started a series of tests, the first of which were ground-based and then from 1977 included multiple flights to analyze the behaviour and characteristics of the orbiter.
It was humanity’s first reusable spacecraft, pushing the boundaries of technology while requiring the tremendous effort of a vast workforce that showed an unwavering commitment to mission success. Looking back on it now, the shuttles carried people into orbit repeatedly, launched, recovered and repaired satellites, conducted cutting-edge research and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station. It would be hard to imagine a NASA history without them.
When the first space shuttle Columbia launched in April of 1981 flown by astronauts John Young and Bob Crippen, these two men truly boldly went where no man had gone before as they took off in a craft that had not first been sent on an unmanned test mission.
When Challenger, the second shuttle became operational in April of 1983, NASA now had a fleet of reusable spaceplanes. They would indeed change the way we humans would live and work in space. Large payloads could now be taken into or retreived from orbit, which opened a world of new possibilities. As the years advanced, three more shuttles joined the program: Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour but more on that next time, so be sure to check in again soon!
They say that some events inspire a generation… Well, let us go back in time to July 1969 when millions were glued to their TVs and radios during the Apollo moon landing. Amongst them, a 9-year old boy called Chris Hadfield. Forward the clock to 2012 and this boy had already become the first Canadian to walk in space. And he was about to make the history books…
Hadfield, who in 1992 was accepted into the Canadian astronaut program by the Canadia Space Agency (CSA), first flew into space as a mission specialist in November 1995, visiting Mir in the process (the ISS would not exist yet for another few years). Six years later he would fly again on STS-100 and visited the International Space Station (ISS). And in December of last year, Hadfield set of on his third and what was to be his final mission, when he flew aboard Soyuz to, and in March this year took command of the International Space Station, the place he would call home for the next five months. We can only wonder if NASA and CSA realised at the time what an impact this man would have upon their reputation. The organisations became world news, not because of anything but Hadfield‘s personality. Check out the Canadian Space Agency’s YouTube channel, and it will be clear that they were firmly behind this all the way with most recent videos all promoting their most precious asset in space.
So here you have an astronaut, veteran test pilot of over 70 different aircraft, who flew combat missions for NORAD, suddenly becoming an internet sensation because of the way he interacted with the people below him on planet Earth. As he started to take pictures of Earth and tweet them, he quickly gathered several hundreds of thousands of followers who were all amazed by these stunning photographs. While in space Hadfield also appeared in several interviews including one with William Shatner, and science shows talking about how astronauts sleep, what happens when you cry in space and even an episode where kids picked the topic, of which you can see the result in the below ‘wash cloth’ episode:
Pure marketing genius, and surely few could have pulled it off like Hadfield did. It proved that helping to run dozens of scientific experiments dealing with the impact of low gravity on human biology is one thing, but getting an entire new generation of kids glued to their monitors and mobile screens (TV is so 20th century?) might pay off more than anyone could currently predict. The video that made world news he released just before leaving the ISS in May this year. It is Hadfield’s version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, which at the current count already has an astonishing 16.3 million views! Absolutely incredible, and the man’s singing talents are ok, but a lesser known video which we wouldn’t want to hold from you was released in February of this year and is titled I.S.S. – this time it did not stand for “International Space Station” but for “Is Somebody Singing”. In the catchy tune, Hadfield collaborated with Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies and the Wexford Gleeks:
Soon after Hadfield came back to Earth, he announced his retirement, quoting a promise to his wife 30 years ago which he was making good on. And so, this larger than life character who put the Canadian Space Agency firmly on the map, will bow out next week Wednesday 3 July to make way for the next generation to step forward.
When talking about rockets, shuttles, satellites, space telescopes, etc. one would undoubtly stumble upon NASA somewhere in that conversation, and truly, books could be (and have been) written about NASA but let us start at the beginning. They have been so prominent in the 2nd half of the 20th century, that it would be hard to imagine a world without them. The organisation’s Twitter account describes is beautifully:
“NASA’s mission is the pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”
This year, 2013, NASA will be celebrating their 55th anniversary which is pretty incredible. NASA actually started out as the National Advisory Committee for Astronautics, NACA (founded in 1916 to be the civilian government organization performing research into aviation) before turning into the National Aeronautics and Space Agency or NASA we know today. Who can remember a PC from back in those days? No one – that’s right, cause PCs weren’t for the mass market yet for over another decade! The pioneers of those days truly were on the cutting edge of what was technologically possible at the time, and it’s hard to imagine that your smartphone now will have multiple times more processing power than the entire Apollo 11 program put together.
Founded under President Eisenhower, it was President Kennedy who made the speech that would go into history as the “moon speech” – you can watch the highlights here. But let us not forget that one of the main reasons for NASA‘s existence was the arms race between the United States and Russia. For it was during Russia’s Sputnik I and II missions – which caught the world’s attention and the American public off-guard – in November 1957, that Eisenhower appointed the president of MIT as his special advisor on science and technology. It was feared that the successful launch of these satellites meant that intercontinental ballistic missiles would not be too far off. Less than a year later, NASA was born, and so the space race between the US and the U.S.S.R. started.
