Two Years Ago Today

Posted on February 24, 2013 by The National Air and Space Museum

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!

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.

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!

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Reflections on the Loss of STS-107, the Space Shuttle Columbia: Ten Years Ago

Posted on February 1, 2013 by The National Air and Space Museum

STS-107 crew members lost when space shuttle “Columbia” broke up during reentry on February 1, 2003. STS-107 crew members included astronauts Rick D. Husband (left), mission commander; Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist; and William C. McCool, pilot. Standing are (from the left) astronauts David M. Brown, Laurel B. Clark, and Michael P. Anderson, all mission specialists; and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist representing the Israeli Space Agency.

NASA staffers and leaders had a celebration planned on February 1, 2003 for the return of Columbia and its crew after the successful completion of STS-107. STS-107 had been launched from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on January 16 on a science mission that was dedicated to research in physical, life, and space sciences. It held the SPACEHAB Research Double Module and involved the execution of approximately 80 separate experiments, comprised of hundreds of samples and test points. The seven astronauts aboard had worked 24 hours a day, in two alternating shifts, to complete these experiments.

Unfortunately, STS-107 never made it home; both the vehicle and crew were lost during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. NASA lost communication with Columbia a little before 9:00 a.m. EST on February 1, and when the shuttle failed to land at its appointed time of 9:16 a.m. at the Kennedy Space Center, NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe knew something was wrong. He said:

I immediately advised the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, at the point after landing was due to have occurred at 9:16 a.m., and spoke to them very briefly to advise them that we had lost contact with the Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, and STS-107 crew. They offered, the President specifically offered, full and immediate support to determine the appropriate steps to be taken. We then spent the next hour and a half working through the details and information of what we have received [concerning]…operational and technical issues.

Lost in the accident was the STS-107 crew of seven astronauts. These included Mission Commander Rick Husband; Pilot William “Willie” McCool; Mission Specialists Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, and Laurel Clark; Payload Commander Michael Anderson; and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon. Sad as this loss was, NASA personnel vowed that the astronauts had not died in vain and that space exploration would continue. Moreover, this accident taught harsh lessons of the risk of exploring a new frontier and allowed humanity to learn lessons that would make space travel safer into the future.

President G.W. Bush offered these comments at the memorial service for the crew:

The loss was sudden and terrible, and for their families, the grief is heavy. Our nation shares in your sorrow and in your pride. And today we remember not only one moment of tragedy, but seven lives of great purpose and achievement. To leave behind Earth and air and gravity is an ancient dream of humanity. For these seven, it was a dream fulfilled. Each of these astronauts had the daring and discipline required of their calling. Each of them knew that great endeavors are inseparable from great risks. And each of them accepted those risks willingly, even joyfully, in the cause of discovery.

Columbia was the first orbiter built and flown in space, having undertaken 28 successful missions. In February 2001, Columbia had received a major overhaul and update of its systems but it was still an aging vehicle. The STS-107 mission where it was lost was Columbia’s second flight following its overhaul, with the first one a successful servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in March 2002.

The process of initiating a Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) began almost immediately. Its first meeting, under the direction of retired U.S. Navy Admiral Harold W. Gehman Jr.—who co-chaired the commission that investigated the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Aden, Yemen, on October 12, 2000—was scheduled for February 3. “While the NASA family and the entire world mourn the loss of our colleagues, we have a responsibility to quickly move forward with an external assessment to determine exactly what happened and why,” said Administrator O’Keefe. “We’re honored to have such a distinguished panel of experts, led by Admiral Gehman.”

At the same time, with debris scattered over Texas, Louisiana, and other parts of the south-central United States, teams of investigators scoured the countryside for as much of Columbia as they could find. Within 24 hours of the accident, a large group was on the ground and working with local officials in Texas and Louisiana. The State of Texas activated 800 members of the Texas National Guard to assist with the retrieval of debris. By February 4, more than 2,000 people from Federal Emergency Management Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, U.S. Forest Service, Texas National Guard, and state and local authorities were working to locate, document, and collect debris.

By May 2003 the CAIB released their working scenario for the accident. The Board commented that at approximately 81 seconds after a 10:39 a.m. EST launch on January 16, 2003, post-launch photographic analysis determined that foam from the External Tank (ET) left bipod ramp area impacted Columbia in the vicinity of the lower left wing reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panels 5-9. While on orbit for 16 days, neither the Columbia crew nor controllers on the ground had any indication of damage based on orbiter telemetry, crew downlinked video, still photography, or crew reports. When the vehicle began reentry this damaged section of the wing according to the CAIB, “was subjected to extreme entry heating over a long period of time, leading to RCC rib erosion, severely slumped carrier panel tiles, and substantial metallic slag deposition on the RCC panels nearest the damaged area.” The destruction of the wing from overheating caused the breakup and crash of Columbia. It was a tragedy that cost the lives of seven astronauts and the spacecraft.

The loss of both Columbia and its crew signaled the beginning of an important policy debate about the future of human spaceflight. NASA grounded the shuttle fleet, appropriately so, at the time of the accident, but wanted to return to flight by the fall of 2003. Others, some of them members of Congress, thought that the shuttle fleet should not only be grounded but immediately retired. Still others announced that America must find the technical problem that caused the loss of Columbia, fix that problem on all of the remaining orbiters, determine the appropriate organizational and management issues that allowed the technical problem to go unresolved, and only then return to flight.

A decade has passed since this accident. The crew deserves honor and respect for their sacrifice, to be sure, but also for their commitment and dedication to the cause of pushing back the frontiers of knowledge about space. The space shuttle has been retired. The policy debate about how best to continue human spaceflight still rages. NASA is presently pursuing a program designed to foster private sector solutions to support International Space Station operations in low-Earth orbit. The intention is that the space agency will be able to contract with outside providers of launch services to orbit rather than build its own vehicle for that purpose.

That strategy may free NASA up to pursue technologies opening up cis-lunar and perhaps trans-lunar space activities. Turning low-Earth orbit over to commercial entities—as in the classic 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey—could empower NASA to focus its attention on deep space exploration, making possible a return to the Moon and perhaps explorations beyond sooner rather than later. That would be an exceedingly appropriate remembrance for the crew of Space Shuttle Columbia.

Roger Launius is a curator in the Space History Department of the National Air and Space Museum.

Packing for Spaceflight

Posted on August 13, 2012 by The National Air and Space Museum

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.

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.

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 August 8, 2012 by The National Air and Space Museum

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.

Sally Ride (1951-2012)

Posted on July 24, 2012 by The National Air and Space Museum

Sally Ride was the first American woman in space.

Unlike many astronauts, Sally Kristen Ride did not dream of going into space since childhood. She was already in her mid-twenties, completing her Ph.D. in physics, when the idea dawned. NASA was recruiting women to apply to become astronauts for a spacecraft that had not yet flown: the Space Shuttle. She was well prepared to seize the opportunity to become a scientist-astronaut in a new role called Mission Specialist. She had the academic credentials and the spirit to decide to apply, and the rest is history.

Selected with five other women scientists in 1978, Sally Ride soon became the first U.S. woman to fly in space in 1983, on the seventh shuttle mission. The Soviets had sent a woman into orbit twenty years earlier during the Space Race to claim the first, but Sally Ride’s flight was the start of something different—a steady queue of women going to work in space. She made her second flight in 1984 with the first U.S. woman to do a spacewalk. Since those historic missions, women have performed all roles in space as scientists, engineers, operators of the robotic arm (she was the first), spacewalkers, pilots, and commanders.

Sally Ride’s career and legacy extended well beyond her missions in space. Twice she served on the commissions appointed to investigate the causes and recommend remedies after the tragic losses of the Challenger and Columbia crews. She led a strategic planning effort for NASA that yielded the 1987 report Leadership and America’s Future in Space, and she served as the first chief of the new NASA Office of Exploration.

After leaving NASA in 1987, Dr. Sally Ride became a full-time educator, first at the University of California and California Space Institute in San Diego, and later through her independent initiatives as an author and founder of Sally Ride Science, an organization dedicated to improving science education and encouraging young people, especially girls, to study science.

Sally Ride became a national icon of women’s achievement in science and space in 1983. Her flight suit from that historic mission is on display in the Moving Beyond Earth exhibition gallery.

Astronaut Sally K. Ride wore these clothes during the six-day STS-7 Space Shuttle mission aboard Challenger in June 1983, when she became the first U.S. woman in space.