Tag Archives: Discovery

Two Years Ago Today

Posted on by
6

Two years ago today, the space shuttle Discovery was launched for the last time.  My friend Nicole Gugliucci scored a quartet of tickets for the launch and shared them with me, along with our friends and classmates Joleen Carlberg and Gail Zasowski.  Facing an overwhelming load of graduate school work, we decided that a road trip from Virginia to Florida was exactly what we needed!

Kennedy Space Center

Joleen, Gail (with Buzznaut), Nicole, and myself (with Meteor Shower), at the Kennedy Space Center.

Many hours later, the six of us found ourselves in sunny Florida.  Yes, six.  The other two road trippers were the mascots for an astronomy outreach club that we helped found in Virginia.  Nicole was the only one among us who had witnessed a launch before.

Our tickets let us watch from the Visitor Center, seven miles from the launch pad.  We spent the day exploring the Visitor Center, and found a spot in the rocket garden to watch the launch.  We couldn’t see the launch pad itself from there, but we could watch final preparations on a big screen showing a close-up view.

Rock Garden

Waiting for launch in the rocket garden.

Due to a computer problem on the ground, the launch was delayed.  We knew we could still see it if it were postponed one day, but if there were further delays, we would probably have to abandon the effort and drive home.  The tension in the crowd built until the countdown clock started again, with just three seconds to spare in the launch window. The audience erupted into cheers.

The experience didn’t start to feel real to me until I saw the cap lift off the shuttle’s nose cone, leaving it free to launch.  Sparks were fired around the main engines to burn up any stray fuel, preventing accidental fires.  Then, on the screen, we saw the engines light!

launch

Ignition of main engines, as seen on a big screen from the Visitor Center. Video of Discovery’s last launch can be seen in the Moving Beyond Earth gallery or online.

The red flames from the engines focused in to sharp white points, causing the shuttle to “twang,” rocking forward a bit.  When it rocked back to a vertical position, the more powerful solid-fuel rocket boosters (SRBs) lit off.  I was expecting that, but it still made me jump.

Moments later, we felt the ground shake, and then the shuttle rose into view, the flame from its SRBs shining nearly as brightly as the Sun. It hurt to look at it.  A few moments later, as we jumped around and cheered, the rumble and roar of the launch reached us.

Discovery

My first glimpse of Discovery. The white strips are the solid-fuel rocket boosters.

It was awesome to see this feat of engineering with my own eyes, and to think that there were six people in that shuttle, with an incredible amount of flame and power below them.  As Discovery arcked out of sight into a clear blue sky, I found myself crying.

Discovery

Discovery reappears from behind its own contrail, on the last gasps of power from the SRBs. Moments later, the empty SRBs detached and fell back to the ocean.

But that was not the last flight of Discovery that I got to witness.  More than a year later, on April 17, 2012, I was working as an astronomy educator at the National Air and Space Museum. The whole city of Washington, DC was buzzing with excitement about Discovery, which was en route to its final home with us.

Riding piggyback atop a modified Boeing 747, Discovery cruised the DC area, making three loops around the National Mall before heading to Virginia.  From the top of the National Museum of American History, I was lucky enough to watch its final flight.

Discovery

Flying above the Smithsonian Castle, Discovery acquires an extra honor guard.

Anyone can now visit Discovery at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.  When I visit, what impresses me most is how beaten up it looks, compared to the pristine Enterprise which used to reside there. Discovery is a well-used workhorse of a space vehicle, the one that took the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit for us.

Discovery

Visiting Discovery at its new home.

I’m not sad that the space shuttle program is over.  I believe that ferrying people and equipment from Earth to low orbit is now a routine (if still astonishing!) task, one that private industry will excel at. I can’t wait to see where scientists and engineers will take us next. What would you like to see in the future of space exploration?

Geneviève de Messières is an Astronomy educator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. All photographs by Geneviève de Messières.

Packing for Spaceflight

Posted on by
5

Museum staffers are busy outfitting our new shuttle middeck for spaceflight. No, not the actual crew compartment of Discovery, now on display at the Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. This middeck is a reproduction recently installed in the Moving Beyond Earth gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

middeck

View into the middeck reproduction as if entering from the shuttle payload bay

The middeck is an immersive feature that brings “living and working in space” to life. Visitors are invited into the middeck to see and feel for themselves the room that shuttle crews occupied during much of their time in orbit. Without the benefit of weightlessness to permit use of the overhead volume, it is easy, and surprising, to see what close quarters a seven-person crew shared.

The Museum is actively engaged in acquiring from NASA a variety of crew equipment—hundreds of small artifacts—typically used on shuttle missions. We are displaying many of these items in the middeck lockers where they would be stowed during flight. Visitors are welcome to open the lockers to see what is inside, safely installed behind glass. The contents range from ordinary (toothpaste and toothbrush) to extraordinary (gold and silver commemorative coins) flown-in-space items.

middeck lockers

Bank of lockers to be filled with crew equipment and other artifacts

To date, lockers have been loaded with some of the normal “stuff” of life in space—food, a portable computer and microcassette recorder, a digital camera and lenses.  Still to come: clothing, personal hygiene supplies, in-flight maintenance tools, experiment equipment, checklists, more cameras, and some shuttle housekeeping supplies. Some lockers ask tempting questions to encourage opening: What movie star is on board? (Buzz Lightyear!) Is soda fizzy in space? (Check out the modified Coke and Pepsi cans tried on the shuttle.) What’s for dinner? (Can you identify these processed foods?)

Besides the lockers, a reproduction shuttle toilet is perched just where it should be in orbit but can be wheeled out for a demonstration. Coming soon, we will add a sleep restraint, exercise cycle, and galley in their appropriate locations and other paraphernalia from shuttle missions, including the IMAX camera.

Apart from the pleasure of outfitting the middeck to give visitors insight into life in orbit, staff have paid careful attention to the actual middeck layout and sought to match locker locations to a real shuttle mission. We have selected items that suggest the full range of crew activities in orbit. Each item chosen for display undergoes an incoming inspection and condition report by our conservators, careful documentation and temporary storage by our collections managers, measurement and trial layout by the combined curatorial-exhibit design-collections care team, design and fabrication of a custom-mount to display it properly and securely without damage, and finally transport and installation into the designated locker. At the same time the artifacts are moving through this process, the exhibit team is drafting, designing, fit-checking, revising, and producing the labels that appear on or inside the locker doors. The team for the middeck project alone numbers about 20 people.

The Space Shuttle era has come to an end with the retirement of the orbiters, but the practical realities of living and working in space will be accessible for some time through the Moving Beyond Earth exhibition and especially the shuttle middeck. The next time you visit the Museum in Washington, DC, stop by and explore the middeck, all packed up for spaceflight. You may find some surprises there.

Valerie Neal is a curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum. She is space shuttle curator and co-lead curator for the Moving Beyond Earth exhibition.

Alan G. Poindexter (1961–2012)

Posted on by
Reply
Poindexter

Alan G. Poindexter

Astronaut Alan “Dex” Poindexter joined fellow Space Shuttle commanders and crewmembers at the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center recently to welcome Discovery to its new home in the Smithsonian. Poindexter commanded the next-to-last Discovery mission, STS-131, in 2010. He also served as pilot on Atlantis for the STS-122 mission in 2008. Both shuttle crews delivered equipment for construction of the International Space Station.

Poindexter joined the astronaut corps in 1998 in the midst of a distinguished career as a naval aviator, first as a fighter pilot, then as a test pilot. He served two deployments in the Arabian Gulf during operations Desert Storm and Southern Watch in the early 1990s. Afterward he attended the Naval Postgraduate School and U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, graduating and serving first as a test pilot at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, and then at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia.

Poindexter accumulated more than 4,000 hours in more than 30 types of aircraft and logged more than 450 carrier landings. He also tallied almost 28 days and more than 11 million miles in space, orbiting the Earth 443 times.

Although born in California and a graduate of Georgia Tech, Poindexter considered Rockville, Maryland, his hometown. At the time of his death, Captain Poindexter had retired from NASA and returned to active duty in the Navy to serve as dean of students at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California.

Valerie Neal is a curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Shuttle Service to DC

Posted on by
5

Much to the delight of large crowds below, Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), made several passes over the Washington, DC area yesterday. Discovery, the first orbiter retired from NASA’s shuttle fleet, completed 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited the Earth 5,830 times, and traveled 148,221,675 miles. NASA will transfer Discovery to the National Air and Space Museum to begin its new mission to commemorate past achievements in space and to educate and inspire future generations of explorers. The ceremony will take place tomorrow, Thursday, April 19th at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.

Here is a selection of photographs from yesterday’s fly-over:

 

shuttle

The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft takes off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying Space Shuttle Discovery.

Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery makes a low pass over a crowd at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.

Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, flies near the U.S. Capitol.

Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery, mounted on the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, flies near the Smithsonian Castle.

Discovery

A young spectator holds a model of space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), as the actual shuttle flies overhead.


shuttle

Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), making a low pass over spectators in Virginia.

Discovery

Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) approaches the runway at Washington Dulles International Airport.

 

Spectators from across the Washington, DC area, NASA employees and Museum staff have contributed thousands of images to the Museum’s Space Shuttle Discovery Flickr group. If you took pictures of Discovery yesterday, please share them with us!

Ivey Doyal is web content manager for the National Air and Space Museum.

Bringing Spaceflight Down to Earth

Posted on by
Reply

Having grown up less than 90 minutes away from the famous Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, I got the chance at least a few times each summer to see an IMAX movie. I remember the packed seats for the pre-show, everyone clamoring for the best seats right in the middle, but everyone was usually just happy to be escaping the heat for the air conditioned theater. When The Dream Is Alive was released in June 1985, I was just old enough to ride those massive roller coasters, but seeing IMAX films at Cedar Point really left an impression on me: a big impression. Seeing those sweeping views of Earth and space on a gigantic screen made spaceflight seem so real, and utterly amazing.

 

hubble

Figure 1 - The release of the Hubble Space Telescope as seen from the IMAX payload bay camera on STS-31, April 25, 1990.

Perhaps it comes as no surprise then that as soon as I became the Museum’s curator for space cameras about seven years ago, I distinctly remember asking about the chance IMAX cameras might join our collection. Valerie Neal, our curator for the space shuttle, was my target, and her enthusiasm for that possibility mirrored my own. During her time at the Museum, a number of the films premiered here, and she had gotten to know IMAX co-inventor/director/producer Graeme Ferguson and Toni Myers, another IMAX writer/director/producer. She had already started planting the idea of an eventual donation, suggesting to them at each opportunity that the Museum would be really interested in acquiring one of the cameras when they were no longer needed. I even remember anxiously waiting to hear from her the day after Hubble 3D premiered at the Museum in 2010, hoping she had put in another good word for National Air and Space Museum with Toni or Graeme. Valerie’s hard work paid off, and just a last year, we finalized arrangements to bring not one but two IMAX cameras — the two-dimensional in-cabin and payload bay units — into the National Collection.

Carl Walz

Figure 2 - Astronaut Carl Walz with the IMAX in-cabin camera during STS-79, September 1996.

Astronaut Michael Collins, the founding director of the National Air and Space Museum when it opened to the public in 1976, first suggested putting an IMAX camera on the shuttle five years before the first launch. He and Graeme Ferguson, and then Collins’ successor as Museum director Walter Boyne, nurtured the idea along until NASA granted approval in 1983. The partnership between IMAX Corporation, the Museum, NASA, and sponsor Lockheed Corporation was so successful that five more jointly-produced films followed The Dream is Alive. These films effectively brought spaceflight down to Earth as an immersive experience for audiences around the world.

Jennifer Levasseur is a museum specialist in the Division of Space History and curator for the Museum’s collection of space cameras and astronaut personal equipment.

Valerie Neal, also in the Division of Space History, is the space shuttle curator.