Sep 1999

Well, that's it for the human population in space. After over 10 years of living up there, the money ran out and the last person out switched off the lights before bailing out (image on right). Some time next year this irreplaceable piece of human history will be left to burn up over the Pacific Ocean as a 130 tonne fireball. During it's life, while the rest of the world only dreamed of space stations, Mir played host to over 100 people over the last 13 1/2 years and orbited our globe 77,000 times.  It has survived ramming with a cargo ship, a major fire and broke down 1,600 times, but money killed it off in the end. There may be one more crew if finance can be found, but don't hold your breath.

With most of its systems turned off, Mir (floating here on the left) no longer needs to keep its battered solar panels pointing directly at the sun for maximum performance. Now that it can be left pointing any way up, the problems that plagued the station's navigation and control systems are no longer so important to the rest of it's expected life.

The International Space Station (ISS) , Mir's replacement if you will, is coming along nicely with the first occupation scheduled for next March. The batteries are behaving a little strangely, but nothing that a real, live human couldn't sort out when they get inside. The next big step is to test the nitrogen-powered fuel pumps, and those will be used this October in preparation for the November docking of the Service Module.  According to NASA, the station continues to orbit at 374 x 390 Km every 92 minutes without major incident.
Martian Invasion Stopped
The Mars Climate orbiter spacecraft (shown on the right, before disintegration) continued the run of jinxes that have plagued recent missions to Mars. What exactly happened and whose arse is for a good kicking will probably never be properly explained, but it is suspected that the last rocket burn was a little over-enthusiastic and pushed the spacecraft too close to the martian atmosphere. It's a spacecraft, not a glider - or was at any rate, until the forces of reentry ripped off its solar panels, antennae and anything else not welded to the main structure. What's left will soon fall down, and for all we know there's a martian with a hole in his roof, looking at a tangled mess of metal in his living room saying "Where on Mars did that come from?"

It managed to return this solitary and rather pathetic image of Mars from about 4 million Km away. Let's hope that the Mars Polar Lander has more success when it tries to touch down in December. If it doesn't, I'm going to get ever so slightly paranoid about Mars. Maybe The Mysterons are real?
The X-files
No, not Gillian Anderson again. This is all about NASA's X-planes, where X is for eXperimental (I love this American spelling thing). It all started with the X-1, which was the first plane to break the sound barrier with Mr. Chuck Yeager at the controls. The series reached its peak - in my humble opinion anyway - with the X-15 rocket plane, which is the nearest we've seen to a real spacecraft (the shuttle doesn't count as it needs rebuilding after every flight). Anyway, the X-33 is due to be tested in the middle of next year in NASA's attempt to produce the next generation of reusable spacecraft. In theory this should lower the cost of putting things in orbit, but the practice is a little different.
What NASA will end up with is yet another version of the shuttle, because it will be built as a showcase for American technology rather than as a workhorse for space. Unfortunately for NASA (but not the rest of us) a lot of other companies have caught up with technology and are applying it practically to the problem of cheap spaceflight. They are competing to do a job, not spend taxpayers dollars and so will end up with a usable system. NASA will get lumbered with an expensive flop, no better than the current shuttle. NASA actually discarded promising alternatives to the X-33 because they were not technologically sophisticated. They would have worked and been built quickly, but would not show off any fancy new technology - bureaucracy in action.
In 2000 NASA will test a follow-on craft called the X-34, and eventually a third model in the series which has ended up with the designation X-37 might just make it into space some time in 2004. NASA will then have the technology to orbit cargo for US$2,200 per kilo; about a fifth of the cost of the cheapest current launcher. Hopefully, private spacecraft like Kistler and Roton will have leapfrogged NASA by then, doing the same thing for less money and earlier. NASA had the option of going that route when it selected the X-33 prototype design, but passed on it.
Great Balls Of Fire
The Chandra X-ray Telescope (insert left) has produced its first image. The blossoming ball of flame is in fact the  of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant - visible from Laingholm skies.  To the experienced astronomer, it reveals a fast outer shock wave and slower inner shock wave. The inner wave is believed to come from the stuff thrown out by the explosion hitting gasses lurking around the star. The outer explosion is similar to a sonic boom - at 10 million degrees. The tiny little dot right in the middle is either a neutron star or matter falling into a black hole - exactly which of those is one of the things that Chandra may help us find out.
A Nick In Time
And finally, from our "How the hell did we get away with that?" department, the goss on the last shuttle flight cancellation. Last July, the computers mysteriously reset during takeoff, and the fault was traced to a wire that had been stomped into a screw. So, the safety guys decided to inspect both the Endeavour and Discovery shuttles before their next flights. The results were staggering: 38 wiring defects were found on Endeavour, while Discovery - the one that John Glenn flew on - only managed 26. This wasn't even a full inspection; each shuttle has another 100 miles of wiring in the cargo bays and they've decided that it's worth checking that lot too. Not surprisingly, no shuttle is going anywhere until mid-October. Still, it gives me time to get the next Launchpad together, eh?

This edition is also on the web, just point your web browser to http://family.gen.nz/launchpad.