Discovery took off last night, and a beautiful sight it was too.
My final exam topic in the program management course I’m taking this quarter – and from which I am currently taking a break by chatting with you – is all about the Challenger disaster. Given NASA’s internal organization at the time, the austere fiscal enviroment they operated under and technological risk involved in pushing against the frontiers of human knowlege, the mishap seems almost inevitable in retrospect.
The STS is hideously complex of course – the disposable external fuel cannister between the two solid-fuel boosters carries liquid fuel for the shuttle’s main engines, for example – 143,000 gallons of liquid oxygen cooled to -297 degrees farenheit and 383,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen cooled to -423 degs F. Just think about the mechanical complexity involved in manually mating those systems to the shuttle engine controls through a hull that is designed to withstand re-entry temperature conditions – from 2,750 degs F on the leading edge of the wing to “only” 600 degs F on the upper fuselage, the coolest area and you’ll have some small notion of the challenges entailed in operationalizing the notion of “routine, economic space flight.”
Three of the Discovery astronauts on this mission are naval officers: the pilot is Commander William Oefeline, who is accompanied by mission specialists Captain Robert Curbeam and CDR Sunita Williams. Curbeam was a Tomcat RIO, while Oefeline flew Hornets out of Lemoore and Williams was an H-46 pilot. A quick scan of their biographies once again leaves your humble scribe with the simultaneous feelings that 1) he is proud to have shared service with such extraordinary people, and 2) that he was left holding the door when gifts were being passed out.
Godspeed, Discovery.
Two of them are boat school grads… Just sayin, Lex.
See, John Kerry was right. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the military is only a choice for no-prospect simpletons.
Er, uh, not exactly Senator. Here are 3 “rocket scientists” who would beg to differ.
From John Glenn and others among the pioneers of space flight, to the current crop of our best and brightest, Naval Aviators have consistently demonstrated the “Right Stuff”.
Great pic, Cap’n. Thanks for the post and the link to these very impressive individuals.
Go Navy!
Who was the first helo pilot in space? And how did it happen?
Re: 2) that he was left holding the door when gifts were being passed out.
Beg to differ, Cap’n. You’ve done more than most, and you aren’t even half-way there yet, given as how there is life after the service…
And since when have fighter pilots been given over to modesty attacks?
You have something in common with the STS-116 Commander also Lex……Mark “Roman” Polanski was an F-5 Agressor pilot once-upon-a-time.Great guy too.Billy “O” is the first Alaskan in space.
We’ve had several Helo drivers in the program.Heck, we’ve even had Coasties.
Cap’n, an examination of their bio’s has led me to the conclusion that you sir, are crying in your Cuervo. None of these stellar Naval officers have EVER held command. You sir, had that most precious of combat arms assignments, a squadron command. I’ve read enough to know that it does not get any better than this for a professional warrior. You, sir, are by far the lucky one. And if you don’t believe me, squirt off an email to the Hornet driver and ask him if he had the choice, which would he rather have: NASA, or squadron command? He’ll lie, of course, but you already know what the answer really is
Roachman – you are so right! Of the original 7, there was 1 USMC & 3 USN pilots.Shepard graduated from USNA became a RADM, Schirra a CAPT, and Carpenter garnered 7 honarary degrees + the one he earned.COL Gelnn needs no introduction.All were decorated combat veteran pilots…indeed THE RIGHT STUFF.
GO NAVY
Although they’re all terrific, the night launches are eerily beautiful to me. Since I was working (at Redstone) in the space program when John Glenn made his first flight, and later on the Saturn program, I still feel connected enough to tear up when those babies go. The men and women who fly in them are mighty gutsy!
Lex, you’re a modest guy. Or you have the ability to see things in the Bio’s for the people you mentioned that I don’t understand.
Granted these are bright people – real “rocket scientists”, to put a point on it. But the one guy has 200 arrested carrier landings? (Which month?) I mean, if that kind of expreience has you singing his praises, it must be because you also know that he came aboard another 1000 times and figured how to land without needing the arresting wires.
Anyway: Notable, smart, and brave are all the shuttle crewmen and women. Best wishes to them.
Your right – it is always fabulous and riveting to watch one of these things take off. I’ve only seen one – from northern Florida at the time. But the “hideously complex” comment caught my eye. I think we see such complicated processes go so well so often that we become nonchalant about success. When tragedies like the Challenger hit we hear inane comments and wait for the blame game to start. Never realizing that the focus on getting the mission to complete has thousands of small objectives, nearly all of them critical.
I’ve always been proud of NASA. I think that whatever scrum they found themselves in over Challenger had them on the ropes but it’s been great to see such professional character and resolve to get to this latest success.
Besides, night launches are really bitchin.
One of my sci-fi authors (might have been Pournelle) called up it “ridin’ the G up on God’s Candle”
Any way you slice it, it takes a ton of faith to ride a few hundred tons of high explosive into NEO
#3 Craig, no one will ever know. As everyone knows, helos don’t fly; the Earth repels them for being too ugly. So any number were probably cast off into space by now.
And I say this despite a tangential business relationship to the late Igor Sikorsky…
Dave
MissBirdlegs you are to be envied -what an amazing experience you must have had at Redstone. Did you know von Braun?
I’m a huge fan of rocket porn, I have all the Saturn V launches on DVD, and they are beyond words.
I saw a spent Redstone stage last year at the Woomera missile museum in South Australia, the only one I think ever recovered.
MissBirdlegs and Ozwitch – I’m with you both, I’ve always been a fanatic about space anything – rockets, launches, shuttles, “pr0n”…The Hubble images always give me goosebumps. And to further “out myself” as a total geek – I’m an original, legacy subscriber to SLOOH (www.slooh.com), which is a hosted nightly telescopic experience using some of the world’s most sophisticated scopes, including the one on Mt. Tieded in the Canary Islands. Depending on the weather, you can see nebulas, planets, galaxies, star clusters, etc…
Oops – that should be Mt. Tiede…preview is my friend, preview is my friend…
ozwitch, I met Dr. Von Braun, but I didn’t KNOW him. I was a lowly procurement clerk working for GE at the Saturn Test Lab. AW1Tim, I was working for Thiokol when John Glenn made his 1st flight. To really show my age, I was also working for the Army, procuring spare parts for the Redstone and Jupiter missiles (all this on Redstone Arsenal) when MSFC was formed and dedicated and Pres. Eisenhower made the dedication speech. We all walked over to the new HQ building so as to participate.
I began working at age 4
Dang, Miss Bl, I’d love to sit you down and pick yer brains sometime. I was a co-op at Marshall, ’71-73, but by that time most of the major RIFs had already gone down. I did meet Eberhard Rees once in the 4200 cafeteria, by the condiment stand. He spoke to me! As I recall, he asked me, “Who schtole ze vinegar!”
Hey, Jack Aubrey was always bragging that Horatio Nelson asked him to pass the salt, once!
Ever meet Irmgard Burose?
justthisguy, The last year I worked for GE was ’65 or ’66. My group was Cryogenics, which consisted of engineers from GE, Boeing, RCA and a NASA (do-nothing) head guy. They all eventually went to Mississippi Test Facility at Pass Christian. They asked me to move with them, but that was unheard of in those days. With 20/20 hindsight, it might have been a good thing, for me and for my kids.
I’m racking my brain trying to think what my bldg. numbers were…I worked in 5 different bldgs in my few years at Redstone.
Just as well, MissBl. You might have been swept away by Camille, which went through that part of the Gulf coast like a dose of salts. Not to mention Katrina…
Wow, MissBirdlegs! I knew you were a cool lady, but now I know why!