September 2000
Life
in space is starting to grow. The 99th Space Shuttle flight
delivered a load of fittings and furnishings to the International Space
Station (ISS) and all seems to be going reasonably well. I say reasonably
because they're still having problems with the batteries: One is still
dead, and another wouldn't fit in the rack due to a misplaced bracket.
The latter problem was solved - believe it or not - with a hammer and chisel,
presumably because metallic sawdust in space is not a healthy thing to
inhale. The battery problem is going to wait until the first permanent
crew go up on the 1st November this year. The ISS has plenty
of batteries, and the loss of a couple more is not going to be a show stopper.
The next visit though will be by October's 100th Shuttle flight.
As well as the supplies on Atlantis, the crew unpacked over half a
ton of goods sent up on August's Progress robotic spacecraft.The
crew doing the moveing and chiseling were a very experienced bunch, including
ex-Mir crewmember Yuri Malenchenko. The ISS at 265 cubic metres of living-space
(with a 2.5m ceiling that'd be bigger than my place) is much like Mir's.
He spent over 4 months on Mir, where he spacewalked for a total of 12 hours.
If you watched them all go into the ISS on telly, you'll have seen them
wearing masks and goggles. This is because previous crews have encountered
floating objects. Now while the most unsavoury floating thing you inhale
on Earth is a feather, leaf or unlucky mayfly, it's somewhat different
if the floating objects are M6 bolts, bits of wire, or those paperclips
Vladimir could have sworn he'd picked up after the spillage.
An ex-X33
The replacement for the Shuttle is not doing so well. The novel "aerospike"
engines are doing well enough, although they were a bit harder to make
than originally anticipated. Tests should soon be carried out with two
engines operating side by side, as they will be operating in the envisaged
final "Venture Star" spacecraft. The experimental craft that is planned
to use the engines, the X33, is
not ready yet. It has in fact broken.
The craft is basically designed around a flying frozen fuel tank (nice
picture from NASA on the left), which holds hydrogen gas frozen so cold
that it turns to slush. This fuel is a very sexy development if you're
a rocket designer, and as the prime aim of the project seems to be to show
off American technology rather than to achieve a cheap lauch vehicle, they
decided to use it. Unfortunately, the tank material is a very high-tech
carbon fibre composite affair, and it had a little crack in it. During
tests, cold hydrogen got in, warmed up, swelled up, blocked the crack and
then burst the walls of the tank apart. Depending on who you believe, the
resulting "delamination" may or may not be fixed. It is possible that the
tank will have to be redesigned, and the weight of the tank can make or
break the project. Current rumour has it that ithe X33 will be quietly
shelved after the next US election.
Mir Minor
Setback
Mir is having financial troubles again. Despite having secured US$40 million
for booking Dennis Tito's place in the history books, there is still not
enough money in the kitty for MirCorp to leave the station manned after
Tito comes back down. So the station will be evacuated after he's gone,
and left for the next visit. One hopes they'll raise enough money to keep
it in orbit for the prizewinner in the survivor-style TV program.
Looking
At The Sun
The sun has been the focus of attention recently. First there was an absolutely
huge sunspot, the largest in the last 50 years or so. Sunspots are slightly
cooler areas of the sun's surface caused by the sun's magnetic field interfering
with the way heat is generated at the sun's surface. Their magnetic fields
can spew out sun stuff in our direction causing the Northern and Southern
lights, and also blowing the sensitive bits of electricity sub-stations,
satellites, telephone networks etc. here on Earth. The nice picture from
NASA on the right shows a flare photo taken by NASA's
Transition
Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) spacecraft. The little dot in the
middle is how big Earth would be. The images from this craft have recently
upset all the nice theories scientists had over the construction of these
looping solar flares, or "coronal loops".
Mars
Attacks
The Poms are readying their latest assault on the altitude record for amateur
rockets. The beast on the right (courtesy of http://www.mars.org.uk)
is now in the Black Rock desert in Nevada, where the Mars Advanced Rocketry
Society hope their new Phobos-EAV design will reach an altitude of over
15,000 metres, going supersonic within the first 300 metres or so.
Unfortunately it doesn't look like their on-board camera will be ready
in time, which is a shame because they won't be able to capture a picture
of the great view at the top. However, they hope to shatter the UK rocketry
height record which currently stands at about 15,000 feet.
The launch should have happened by the 30th September, and best of
luck to them. Other rockets in the same area will be going much higher,
as they attempt to capture the coveted CATS prise, which offers US$250,000
to the first amateur group to launch a 2kg weight 200km straight up by
the 8th November 2000.
JP Aerospace,
HARC and the
Danish
Space Challenge are all set to go up in October. It's a shame there's
no Kiwi team out there; it'd be fun to watch the launch of a rocket using
roofing iron, 4x2 and No.8 wire as construction materials!
This edition is also on the web, just point
your web browser to http://olliver.family.gen.nz. vik@olliver.family.gen.nz.
"Nothing endures but change." -
Heratclitus, Ancient Greek dude.
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main page http://olliver.family.gen.nz/launchpad