Plenty of Nothing

Two At Once

This month Canada became the seventh country to have two of its nationals in space at once. The Soviets were the first in August 1962 when Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 flew simultaneously. The Soviet Union then put three cosmonauts together in Voskhod 1 in October 1964. The Americans, still playing catch-up in the space race at that point, launched Grisson and Young aboard Gemini 3 in March 1965. The Soviets began lofting representatives of its eastern bloc allies in 1978, beginning with Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Bulgaria, but never two at once. Once its space shuttle program got going the US began to free up seats for its friends, beginning with West Germany in 1983 and Canada in 1984. By then the Soviets had taken up Hungarian, Vietnamese, Cuban, Mongolian, Romanian, Indian and French cosmonauts. The Americans launched their own Frenchman in 1985. West Germany became the third country to have two of its nationals in orbit at once when Reinhard Furrer and Ernst Messerschmid flew aboard Challenger in October 1985. Another pair of Germans, this time from the reunited country, flew in Columbia in April 1993. Italy came in fourth when a pair of Italians flew aboard Columbia in February 1996. France's strategy of making nice with both Russia and America paid off in July 1999 when it became the fifth country to have two its people in space, one aboard the Mir space station and the other on Columbia, though they did not meet to shake hands. In October 2006 China launched Shenzhou 6 with two astronauts on board, becoming the sixth country, but only the third to use its own spacecraft. And this year Canada came in seventh, taking a page from France's book.  Robert Thirsk boarded the International Space Station from a Soyuz ferry in May, and Julie Payette from Endeavour last week. Thirsk should also meet Canadian space tourist Guy Laliberté in October, if things go on schedule.

Man On Moon

Apollo Owner's Manual

Already got the '69 Camaro, and the '69 Mustang?  How about the '69 Apollo 11? Haynes, the publisher of automotive manuals, has produced an Apollo owner's manual.  (Via Baldric's Blog.)

Tranquility Base As A Baseball Diamond

It's Apollo 11 Week at Plenty of Nothing.  Here we have a US Geological Survey map comparing of the Tranquility Base landing site to a baseball diamond.  As you can see, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin pretty much stuck to the infield, except for that one ramble into centre field by Armstrong.  In addition to the first walk by humans on the moon, 1969 saw the Mets win.  Source: Talcott Mountain Science Centre.

A Thirsk For Tnowledge

Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk boarded the International Space Station today to begin a six-month stint as a member of its newly expanded crew of six.  With him are two Russians, an American, a Belgian and a Japanese.  When Julie Payette visits the station aboard Endeavour this summer it'll mark the first time that two Canadians have been together on the station, or in space, at the same time.  

For the first time there are three Soyuz spacecraft docked at the station. Once NASA retires its space shuttles next year the Soyuz will be the only way up or down, until Orion starts flying in 2015 or 2016.  NASA is due to fire off its first Ares 1-X suborbital test flight this fall, putting the agency at the point it was at in 1961 with Saturn/Apollo.  The Europeans are talking about designing a new manned space capsule too, but at this point they're behind the Americans in developing one.  It would be based on their Automated Transfer Vehicle cargo ferry, which has flown once.  Once the space shuttle program is done, the Russians will also be the main cargo supplier to the station, with their unmanned Progress spacecraft. The Japanese are also developing a smaller, less independent cargo hauler to service the station, but as yet don't have the rocket to fly it.

Snoopy Still Flying

It's the fortieth anniversary of Apollo X, the moon landing rehearsal flight.  In 1969 the US space program and Charles Schulz's Peanuts were both in their heyday and about equal in cultural sway, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Apollo X command module was named Charlie Brown, and the Lunar Module Snoopy.  Apollo X did everything Apollo XI did later in July 1969 except touch down on the moon, but a significant difference is the fate of the two lunar modules.  Apollo XI's lunar module is in two pieces on the lunar surface, the descent stage at the Sea of Tranquility landing site, and the ascent stage someplace else, smashed to bits after having been jettisoned prior to the crew's return to earth.  In the case of Snoopy, it's the descent module that crashed into the surface.  The ascent module was fired away from the command module and now orbits the sun, the last inhabited Apollo spacecraft still flying.  The reentry capsule Charlie Brown resides in the Science Museum in London, England.

Thirteen People in Space

Today, March 26, 2009, there are thirteen people in earth orbit at the one time, as many as the Mercury and Vostok programmes combined.  They are: 1) on board Space Shuttle Discovery, Americans Lee Archambault, Tony Antonelli, Joseph Acaba, John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold, and Sandra Magnus who is returning from a stint on the International Space Station; 2) on the space station, American Mike Fincke, Russian Yury Lonchakov, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata; and 3) in Soyuz TMA-14, heading up to the station, Russian Gennady Padalka, American Michael Barratt, and two-time space tourist Charles Simonyi.

Tiangong

Now that the Chinese have flown their Shenzhou spacecraft with crews of one, two and three astronauts, the next thing, as revealed on state TV last Chinese New Year, will be to hoist this space station module named Tiangong into orbit and have the next three Shenzhou missions dock with it.  The Shenzhou spacecraft is built with an orbital module that can be left to fly in orbit independently, or maybe even serve as an add-on to Tiangong.  If the orbital modules have been designed to join together in series Tiangong could become a mini alternative to the International Space Station.  In less than a decade the Chinese will have progressed from Mercury to Mir.

When Satellites Collide

Iridium.
Two communication satellites have collided.  They are Kosmos 2251, a Russian Strela military satellite launched in 1993, probably out of service for the past fifteen years, and Iridium 33, one of the many commercial satellites launched by Motorola around 1997 as part of the Iridium satellite phone network.  The two wrecks have produced a pair of debris clouds which will constitute navigational hazards in orbit for decades to come.  Considering that each satellite was part of a network (there are 65 Iridium orbiters and hundreds of Russian spy satellites) , and that dozens more orbiters go up each year, this is certainly only the first of many smash-ups to come.

The Manitobans Reached Space in 1959

Bristol Aerospace of Winnipeg have been constructing versions of their reliable Black Brant rocket since 1959 and are presently up to the Black Brant XII.  NASA fires off about a dozen of the suborbital sounding rockets per year from Wallops Island, White Sands, Poker Flats in Alaska, or Andoya in northern Norway, oftentimes with the Black Brant as part of a three or four stage launch vehicle.  In September 1959 the Canadian Armament Research and Development Establishment began to test the Black Brant at Fort Churchill, Manitoba, on Hudson Bay, and quickly exceeded an altitude of 100 km, the unofficial edge of space.  Hence the fury in 1989 when the new Canadian Space Agency was headquartered in Montreal.