Very Short Introductions

The Eye of the World. The Beatles. At Dawn We Slept. When China Rules the World. Napoleon: A Life. Five books I’ve read over the past year – numbering 832, 992, 912, 848, and 976 pages respectively. All together it took me 160 days to get through those five diverse books, those 4,560 pages. That’s over a month a book.

That’s also unacceptable. While I enjoyed each read, and each read taught me new and different and even exciting stuff, that’s just too much precious time devoted to very specific, very narrow topics. If I was a poli sci major, then that China read is justifiable. If I taught high school history, then the Pearl Harbor and Napoleon books would be essential. But I am not a political science major or a history teacher. Nor am I a fantasy novelist or a musician, at least professionally.

I read for relaxation and to mollify an almost insatiable curiosity. And if you find yourself sharing this predilection with me, I’d like to share a very interesting discovery:

Very Short Introductions.

I became aware of these at my local library a few years back, when I read Kierkegaard: A Very Short Introduction, and then completely forgot about it. “Very Short Introductions” are small paperback books, usually between a 100 and 150 pages, aimed at an educated general readership, each about a specific topic, topics that range all across the spectrum. Begun in 1995, there are currently over 600 titles. From biographies to philosophy to religion to science to history to literature – you name it, there’s a Very Short Introduction out there on it.

Next week the family is doing its annual pilgrimage down to Hilton Head, South Carolina. Instead of bringing one or two clunky doorstops to bog me down on the beach, I’m going to bring a dozen of these books and read whichever ones jump out at me in the moment. I’ll wager I can put away three, maybe four during the vacation, completely satiating that annoying curiosity that keeps me jumping hither and thither.

From the library, based on what was available, I borrowed “Very Short Introductions” on:

Cosmology

Film

Galaxies

Goethe

Hinduism

Kabbalah

Kafka

The Laws of Thermodynamics

Mormonism

The New Testament as Literature

The Old Testament

Thomas Aquinas

A nice, wide swath of the Dewey Decimal System. Enough for whatever mood might strike me at any given moment over the seven days we’ll spend down south. And, as always, I will report back any interesting discoveries hidden betwixt those very short pages …

Soar

Patch, not quite eleven, is an aspiring writer, but she also has a poet’s soul. A few weeks back we had a power outage one night, and she cranked out four poems. Some time before that, I came across a half-dozen or so others scratched on loose leaf paper. She may have more in notebooks not privy to her father’s (proud) eyes. When I first heard this poem on that candle-fueled night (and it was a hot one in early July), I figured this would be a good way to personally conclude my Apollo scribblings on this blog.

However, once she allowed me to peruse the text, I realized it was not so much about rockets launching astronauts as it was rockets launching nuclear payloads. Bombs. Oh well. Seems someone must have read a little bit about the 50s paranoia of bombs raining down overhead. But, ironically, isn’t that what started this whole Space Race thing, way way back in October of 1957, a race that culminated in twelve men walking the lunar surface twelve years later?

“Soar”

   by Patch

Rockets fly on

Soaring up till dawn

Those glassy eyes stare through the cracks

Seeing the rockets fly on makes them relax

Their terror of the bombs disappear

The bombs’ sorrow echoes still leer

But the rockets fly on

Soaring up till dawn

They know they’re okay

But in whispers they still say

Independence is theirs

The bombs were their cares

The bombs are gone

Their ugly, silent song

Rocket fly on

Soaring up till dawn

(A long, long way from “Creepy Bat” …)

Next Moon Walkers Will Speak Mandarin

China, it seems to me, will be the next country to land men on the Moon, at least how things stand geopolitically right now. The United States is not serious about returning, and Russia does not have the resources.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) was formed in the murky depths of late 1950s Cold War communism. Focusing primarily on missile launch capability, it was not until the 90s that the agency turned to manned space exploration. That goal was not fully realized until October of 2003, when China launched her first manned flight, Shenzhou 5.

Over the next decade, eleven Chinese men and women have traveled out into space.

In the early years of this century, the CNSA began work on the CLEP – the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. Much like the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs of the 60s and 70s, CLEP is using incremental goals to get the Chinese to the Moon, with a deadline of 2029.

The first step were lunar orbiters. Chang’e 1 was launched in October of 2007 and made China the third nation to successfully send hardware to orbit the Moon. Chang’e 2, also successful, followed three years later.

Chang’e is the name of the Chinese moon goddess.

In December of 2013, Chang’e 3 launched and successfully soft-landed on the moon thirteen days later. Five years after that Chang’e 4 lifted off and landed at the south pole of the far side of the Moon on January 3 of this year. Chang’e 4 contains a lander and a rover and has been exploring the lunar surface since that time. In fact, Chinese engineers expect it to operate for several years, though the mission has been planned out to last twelve months.

Chang’e 5, a sample return mission, is slated for launch in December of 2019.

Chang’e 6, 7, and 8 will be orbiters and rovers looking to scout out the Moon for manned exploration. They are scheduled for lift-off at intervals between 2023 and 2027. And, if that’s not enough to keep Beijing busy, the CNSA is also planning to complete its Earth orbiting space station between 2020 and 2023. (China’s first prototype station, Tiangong-1, was intentionally burnt up on re-entry in April of 2018, after seven years in orbit serving as practice for docking with Shenzhou spacecraft.)

And once Chinese feet step on the moon, an outpost will possibly be built, perhaps with international cooperation, perhaps not.

Now, China is a closed society, and how much of this should be viewed as Pollyanna-ish or with massive grains of salt remains to be seen. But she has sent eleven people into space and has orbited and landed on the Moon. The momentum seems to be there.

The question remains, will the United States wake up at some point in the next decade?

Communion

A repost from ten years ago …

Here’s something you did not know.

Go back fifty years ago, to July 20, 1969.

Go up about 240,000 miles or so, to the surface of the Moon.

Yes, I’m talking about Apollo 11, the first manned landing on the Moon.

Two hours and forty minutes after the Lunar Module landed at the Sea of Tranquility, after a lengthy powering-down procedure and various check lists to make sure all systems were okay, Buzz Aldrin found a rare moment of quiet. Since Neil Armstrong had been chosen to take the first step onto the lunar surface and had the whole “what are you going to say?” thing weighing on his shoulders, Aldrin wondered how best he could celebrate the moment, and spent a decent amount of time searching for the perfect gesture. A few weeks before the launch, he came to a decision.

Eight months prior Apollo 8 became the first manned craft to fly around the Moon. On Christmas Eve, 1968, rounding the lunar far side, the three astronauts in the Command Module, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, took turns reading the opening verses of the Book of Genesis. NASA was still coping with the “controversy,” and Deke Slayton, head of the astronaut office, warned Aldrin against any overt broadcast of religious observance over the air.

While Armstrong was finishing up his tasks in the LM, Aldrin brought out a plastic bag from his personal pouch and removed a small flask of wine, a chalice, and some wafers, and set them down on a small ledge. In the one-sixth gravity the wine poured smoothly into the chalice; over the mike Aldrin asked for anyone listening to pause for a moment and give thanks in his or her own way. Then, reading his printed handwriting on a card he prepared on Earth, he spoke a few words from the Book of John:

I am the wine and you are the branches

Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit

For you can do nothing without me

Aldrin then took the wine and the wafer. I do not know if Armstrong partook or not. I do not know if Aldrin suffered any repercussions for ignoring Slayton’s warning. I do not know if Aldrin is a Catholic and if the communion was liturgically valid. Nor do I care, really. What I really find amazing is that it was even done at all, whether considered a mere gesture or a valid sacrament. It gives me a certain, odd type of hope in mankind, it gives me what I suppose is a glimpse into that tiny and fragile part of us that is so cherished by God.

Source: A Man on the Moon (1994) by Andrew Chaikin, 204-205

Mission Accomplished

A re-post from eight years back from some notes from a project I was working on …

A half-century ago today … 

APOLLO 11

CDR Neil Armstrong, LMP Buzz Aldrin, CMP Michael Collins

CM: CSM-107 Columbia

LM: LM-5 Eagle

Launch: 7/16/69 from Pad 39A on Saturn V at 9:32 am

Launch Vehicle: SA-506

Lunar landing: 7/20/69

Location: Sea of Tranquility (maria)

Lunar stay: 21:36:21

Splashdown: 7/24/69 in the Pacific; retrieved by USS Hornet and welcomed there by Nixon.

Mission duration: 195:18:35

Returned to LM with 48.5 lbs of carefully selected Moon rocks and soil samples.

Destination: Apollo Landing Site 2 (one of three considered for first lunar landing). Located at the southwestern edge of Sea of Tranquility, just right of center of the Moon viewed from Earth. Surveyor 5 landing site just 15 miles northwest. Landing planned during lunar morning, when temperatures outside would range 40-50 degrees F, with shadows being about 150 degrees below zero.

* * *

Early afternoon of July 16th, after leaving Earth orbit, Collins pulled ahead of S-IVB, docked with LM, and extracted it from third stage.

Two days later, 48,000 miles from the Moon, astronauts gave a televised tour of the LM.

On July 19th they fired the CM’s SPS engine, braking them into lunar orbit.

On the morning of July 20th Armstrong and Aldrin entered the LM and powered it up. A few hours later they separated from the CM. “The Eagle has wings!” – Aldrin. At 3:08 pm EST Armstrong fired the LM’s descent engine, descending to 50,000 feet.

At 6,000 feet above the lunar surface, and again at 3,000 feet, a warning light flashed (1201 alarm – computer overload) in the Eagle. Houston advised to continue, despite four more warnings over the next four minutes. Armstrong had to override the LM’s automatic pilot, which was steering them into a boulder field.

At 4:18 pm EDT, Armstrong radioed Mission Control: “Houston … Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Six-and-a-half hours later they left the LM to explore the lunar surface. At 10:56 pm, Armstrong stepped on lunar soil: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

The astronauts were allocated 2.5 hours for their Moonwalk. They unveiled the American flag, laid a commemorative plaque, accepted a congratulatory phone call from President Nixon.

Most of the time dedicated to collecting rock and soil samples, taking photos, setting up three experiments:

- Passive Seismic Experiments Package (PSEP) – to record/measure Moonquakes and meteorite impacts

- Laser Ranging Retro-Reflector (LRRR) – to precisely measure Earth-Moon distances

- Solar Wind Experiment – sheet of aluminum foil to collect particles of solar wind. Referred to as the Swiss Flag because it was sponsored by Swiss government and looked like a flag.

All experiments (EASEP – Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package) powered by solar panels.

They rested in the LM that night; Aldrin slept on the floor; Armstrong on the ascent engine cover. Next morning the Eagle ascended at redocked with the CM.

Quarantined for three weeks upon their return.

The Saturn V

At least five different rockets were used in the Space Race to get to the Moon. You had the Redstone and Atlas rockets for the Mercury program’s single-man suborbital and orbital flights. You had the Titan which lift the two-seated Gemini capsules into orbit. Then there was the Saturn IB to send the Command Module and Lunar Module into low Earth orbit. And finally, the giant Saturn V to send man to the Moon.

Didn’t note the source on this, but I like this handy metaphor:

Mercury Redstone – a bicycle

Mercury Atlas – a motorcycle

Gemini Titan – a Volkswagen Beetle

Saturn IB – a pickup truck

Saturn V – a Ford F-350 heavy-duty truck

The majestic Saturn V stood 363 feet high, nearly fifty feet taller than the Statue of Liberty from the ground to the torch tip. When fully fueled and with the Apollo spacecraft atop, it weighed in at over six million pounds. Each rocket consisted of over a million separate, individual parts.

The rocket came in three stages: Boeing built the first, North American the second, and McDonnell Douglas the third. There were two types of engines to provide the thrust. Five F-1 engines sat at the bottom of the first stage, five smaller J-2 engines powered the second stage, and a single J-2 provided for the third. All F-1 and J-2 engines were manufactured by the Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation.

IBM produced the rocket’s guidance system, called the IU, a basketball-sized device containing high-speed computers located just below the spacecraft. The IU monitored, guided, and adjusted, if need be, the rocket’s engines for orbital and velocity precision. Five seconds before liftoff this “brain” began “thinking” for itself – given its freedom to control the flight.

At liftoff, the first stage burned 1,250 gallons of RP-1 kerosene fuel and 2,083 gallons of liquid oxygen every second. The liquid oxygen – kept at cryogenic temperatures – was responsible for the white clouds of condensed water vapor billowing off the rocket’s cold hull just before ignition. Each of the five F-1 engines produced 1.5 million pounds of thrust (for a total of 7.5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff). This is almost 40 times more powerful as the Mercury Redstone that lifted the first American into space just a few scant years earlier.

Temperatures reached 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit and flames shot out at speeds near Mach 4 at the base of the rocket.

As soon as the first stage dropped away, about two-and-a-half minutes into the flight, the five second-stage J-2 rockets ignited. These engines, smaller than the powerful F-1s, burned high-energy liquid hydrogen for about six-and-a-half minutes.

The third stage of the Saturn rocket was powered by a single J-2 engine, and it was lit for only two minutes to carry the spacecraft to the required parking orbit around Earth. After three orbits, while Houston reviewed all the telemetry data and the astronauts checked out the Apollo spacecraft, the J-2 fired up again to accelerate the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and on a path to the Moon at a speed of nearly 24,000 miles per hour.

In trans-lunar space, the astronauts performed a maneuver where the Command Module docks with the Lunar Module. Once this was successfully completed, the third stage was discarded. In early Apollo flights the third stage went into orbit around the Sun. Later flights had it strategically crash into the Moon to measure seismic activity via the sensors left on the lunar surface.

In tests and manned flight, not one single Saturn V ever failed. 

Liftoff!

The countdown does not start with the famous “10 … 9 … 8 … 7” etc. The official countdown for an Apollo mission launch actually begins the day before.

Countdown starts 28 hours before the scheduled launch time with the announcement: “T-minus 28 hours and counting.” From this moment on, every man involved in operations at Cape Kennedy is on highest alert.

The massive service structure withdraws to a parking area a mile and a quarter away from the launch pad by T-11 hours. The Saturn rocket capped with the Apollo spacecraft sits on the pad, monitored by sixty TV cameras sending data back to 15 display screens at the Launch Control Center, overseen by technicians sitting at 150 consoles.

By T-minus 2 hours 10 minutes the crew has been strapped into the command module, three abreast. The hatch is closed and sealed thirty minutes later. The LES – Launch Escape System – is armed.

T-minus 3 minutes 10 seconds:

   A firing command initiates the automatic launch sequencer.

T-minus 50 seconds:

   The Saturn V rocket is now under its own internal power.

T-minus 10 seconds:

   Thousands of gallons of water splash into the flame trench below the rocket.

T-minus 9 seconds:

   The Saturn’s five F-1 engines ignite.

T-minus 5 seconds:

   The IU (Instrument Unit, the rocket’s guidance system) assumes control.

T-minus zero:

   The hold-down arms release and the engine thrust reaches maximum.

LIFTOFF!

T-plus 12 seconds:

   The rocket clears the tower.

   At this moment, Houston takes over from the Cape.

T-plus 2 minutes 30 seconds:

   The rocket is approximately 40 miles above the surface, traveling at over 6,000 miles per hours – almost Mach 9, nine times the speed of sound. Now the second stage ignites.

T-plus 9 minutes:

   The rocket is approximately 110 miles up, racing up at 16,000 miles per hour – about Mach 22. Now the third stage ignites.

T-plus 11 minutes:

   The spacecraft reaches Earth orbit.

T-plus 3 hours (approximately):

   After extensive checkout, the spacecraft receives a “GO!” for TLI – Trans-lunar injection, and from now it is three day trip to the Moon ….

Apollo 8

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

The three men circling the Moon, the first men in history to do so, recited these opening lines from the book of Genesis in what, in today’s post-Christian world, seem unthinkable. But what better way to respond to the void, to Creation itself, as humanity took its first halting steps out of the cradle, to voyage, as has been said elsewhere, where no man has gone before?

It was not originally intended to be so.

Apollo 8’s scheduled mission was to be the first manned test of the lunar module in earth orbit. Two things changed this and made Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders the first humans to step into the translunar space, the vast emptiness between Earth orbit and the Moon, 238,000 miles away.

On a smaller, more practical note, lunar module deliveries were two months behind schedule.

From a larger, geo-political angle, the C.I.A. had credible intelligence that the Soviet Union was planning to throw a last-ditch effort into what looked like a United States victory in the space race: a manned circumlunar flight with a Soyuz space capsule. Seeing an opportunity for a major propaganda coup, NASA announced, on November 12, 1968, that Apollo 8 would be the first spacecraft to send men to orbit the Moon.

Mission objectives were rewritten:

   - Put Apollo’s navigation systems to the test

   - Prove out long-test communication and tracking systems

   - Photograph potential lunar landing sites

   - Obtain additional data on gravitational anomalies for future landings

Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968 at 7:51 am. Eleven minutes later the third stage entered Earth orbit. After three revolutions around the globe, and after everything checked out from NASA and within the capsule, the third stage ignited for trans-lunar injection, a never-before done feat.

For 66 hours the command module (there was no lunar module on this flight) crossed the silent vacuum of translunar space, cruising at something like 3,500 miles an hour if my own rough calculations are correct. Then the lonely spacecraft orbited the Moon a leisurely ten times, at an altitude of some 70 miles above the gray silicate surface, and the astronauts read from the Word of God.

Three days after Apollo 8 splashed down into the Pacific and was rescued by the U.S.S. Yorktown. The first manned orbit of the Moon was complete; the flight time was 147 hours and 42 seconds, a couple hours over six days.

The Fire

It happened on January 27, 1967, at Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy.

Astronauts Gus Grissom, the command pilot, and Ed White and Roger Chaffee were fully suited up in the command module, performing what was known as a “plugs out test” – a full dress rehearsal for the planned February lift-off.

This command module was known as a Block I spacecraft. It was an early model command module, not intended for docking, only for orbital test missions. This specific module, Spacecraft 012, had arrived at the Kennedy Space Center five months earlier with a history of problems. Most revolved around the Environmental Control Systems. Grissom had even hung a large lemon on it while visiting the plant where it was being built.

Once the astronauts were in the module, the hatch was sealed. It could not be opened quickly or easily in an emergency. Pure oxygen at 16 PSI was pumped into the cabin. The men went through their checklists in the live module.

At 6:31 pm a spark ignited the oxygen, transforming the cabin into an inferno. Pressure quickly built and exceeded design limits, rupturing the block. Thick black smoke and flames poured out. The astronauts had no chance, succumbing to asphyxiation in seconds.

NASA and the nation were stunned and the Apollo space program ground to a complete halt in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.

An investigation labeled the Apollo 204 Review Board convened. (NASA designated the flight as “Apollo 204”, even though Grissom, White and Chaffee were to be the Apollo 6 crew.) Astronaut Frank Borman was a member of the panel. It ultimately concluded that, while a specific source of the spark could not be determined, an electrical circuit in or near the Environmental Control Unit was the likely culprit. The pure oxygen within the cabin mixed with a preponderance of flammable material contributed to the accident, the first direct loss of life the space agency had to face.

Several recommendations followed, amounting to over 1,300 capsule design modifications:

- fireproof materials were to be used in the redesigned Block II command module

- fireproof materials were to be used in newly designed astronaut spacesuits

- all components and electrical wiring were to be carefully insulated

- a new hatch designed for quick opening replaced the old unit

  

NASA renamed the mission Apollo 1 in the spring of 1967. There were no Apollo 2 and Apollo 3 missions. The Apollo 2 capsule was dismantled during the attempt to isolate the cause of the fire. The Apollo 3 command module was scrapped in favor of the newer, redesigned capsule.

The ultimate sacrifice borne by Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee was not in vain; it no doubt brought twelve men to the Moon and back safely, without any further loss of life.

Mission Designations

There were, in total, fourteen Apollo missions, beginning with Apollo 4 and ending with Apollo 17. The first three were unmanned flight tests. The next three were manned tests in low Earth orbit, with the exception that the fifth mission, Apollo 8, which was rerouted to circumnavigate the Moon to put the final nail in the coffin of any Soviet aspirations. The remaining eight missions went to the Moon itself; and of those eight, six landed men on its surface.

Each mission had a designation letter, A through J. Each letter stood for a mission objective, and each mission objective progressed logically and sequentially to the next up to the final goal, which was not just a lunar landing, but maximized lunar exploration.

Here are the designations:

A – Unmanned tests of the Saturn V and the Command Module

   These missions were Apollo 4 and Apollo 6.

B – Unmanned tests of the Saturn V with the Lunar Module

   This was done once, with Apollo 5.

C – Manned tests of the Command Module in low Earth orbit

   This was done once, Apollo 7.

D – Manned tests of the Lunar Module in low Earth orbit

   Done once, Apollo 9.

E – Further D missions in high Earth altitude

   These were never done.

F – Scouting landing area and a dress rehearsal for landing

   This was the Apollo 10 mission.

G – Lunar landing

   Accomplished by Armstrong and Aldrin in Apollo 11.

H – Missions using the same basic equipment as G but landing in new areas and exploring farther

   These were the Apollo 12 and 14 missions (and what 13 was supposed to be).

I – Lunar orbital missions – via a Command Module but without a Lunar Module

   These missions were skipped due to time and budgetary constraints.

J – Extended missions with modifications to double the amount of surface time

   The Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions. For the J missions, the Lunar Module was different. It held more equipment, had bigger tanks and improved landing engines. More fuel and more water and oxygen – enough to double the lunar stay from about 36 hours to 68 hours. Astronauts could remove their spacesuits in the Lunar Module, something the men on Apollo 12 and 14 could not.

   Additionally, for the Command Module Pilot astronaut, who stayed in lunar orbit while his two associates descended to the Moon’s surface, there was something new to look forward to: retrieval of film from the SIM (Scientific Instrument Module), which required an EVA – an extra-vehicular activity, in this case, a space-walk – in trans-lunar space.

What about Apollos 1, 2, and 3 – why aren’t they listed above? And what was the scoop with Apollo 8? Well, check back, I’ll get to all that in the next couple of days …

Skylab

Today is the 40th anniversary of Skylab’s demise.

I can still recall vividly that creepy, anxious hot summer week four decades back, when, as a young lad eleven years of age, I’d race home every afternoon after art school, nervously scanning through the New York Daily News that was delivered to our house to see when Armageddon would happen. No one knew where or when it would it, the headlines screamed. One in one-fifty chance of being hit by space debris. Death from the skies!

Well, it was somewhat anticlimactic when it finally did crash down, half a world away over the sparsely inhabited Australian outback.

I didn’t know it back then, but Skylab is directly connected to the Apollo space program. The first manned United States space station was created from an unused third-stage of a Saturn rocket, hardware that had been set aside for the Apollo 20 mission before runaway costs and diminishing public relations returns canceled it. The man who sprung the Skylab idea on NASA was Dr. Werner von Braun.

There would obviously be no command module or lunar excursion module on this flight. Instead, all the weight load would be re-allocated for equipment for the space station: three decks containing sleeping quarters, a galley, a bathroom with a low-g shower, scientific labs, an exercise area, and walls and walls of storage lockers. The interior of the station was slightly larger than a 23 x 23 x 23 foot box. Which is probably bigger than the interior of my house.

Outside Skylab, several pairs of large solar panel wings provided power. Five telescopes hung from several appendages, along with various other Earth observation devices. There was also an exterior multiple docking adapter, so more than one command module could link up with the space station at any given time.

Aerospace giant McDonnell Douglas (of which I did a detailed analysis for an Organizational Management college class way back in the late-90s) won the Skylab contract. Two space stations were built, plus a third to be used as a training facility on the ground.

The station was launched on a Saturn V rocket in May of 1973, but was damaged during its ascent to orbit: large sections of the outer shielding tore away, one large wing fell off completely, another failed to fully extend once in orbit. This delayed the launch of the first crew (to be lifted to the station in the smaller Saturn IB rockets) by ten days as NASA assessed the full extent of the damage and how to respond.

Pete Conrad, who commanded the Apollo 12 mission and was the third man to walk on the moon, led the first crew up to the damaged Skylab. Breathable air was found inside though the station baked at a sultry hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The first order of business was to reapply and reseal the outer shielding using gold foil and several EVAs. Conrad himself went out to repair one of the wings. Maintenance and repair work continued for thirty days.

Over the next eight months two more crews went up. The first mission, headed by Conrad’s associate on Apollo 12, Alan Bean, stayed aboard for 54 days, and another mission lasted 84 days. This last mission ended in February of 1974. Each mission, including Conrad’s, consisted of three astronauts, so altogether Skylab hosted nine men over the course of 171 days. The station itself orbited for 2,249 days before its unscheduled stopover in central Australia. The three missions performed over 2,400 scientific experiments, and greatly contributed to our understanding of human existence in low-gravity environments.

A second Skylab, creatively named Skylab II, was to have been launched in late 1975 or early 1976, and was to have docked with a Soviet spacecraft. This mission was canceled (along with so much of the Apollo space program) sometime in the early 70s, though the US-Soviet docking event would occur in July of 1975. And since over-budgeting and other mismanagement delayed the space shuttle from flying until 1981, Skylab’s deteriorating orbit could not be corrected and its life extended.

Skylab – May 14, 1973 to July 12, 1979, NASA’s first manned space station, carved from the third-stage hull of a unused Saturn V rocket ...

Men on the Moon

A slightly-edited repost from January 2017 to launch my Apollo musings …

Here is the list, in chronological order, of the twelve men who walked on the moon:

Neil Armstrong

Buzz Aldrin

Pete Conrad

Alan Bean

Alan Shepard

Edgar Mitchell

David Scott

James Irwin

John Young

Charles Duke

Eugene Cernan

Harrison Schmitt

Apollo 11 through Apollo 17, with the famous exception of Apollo 13, made successful lunar landings over a span just shy of three-and-a-half years. Six successful missions, averaging a landing every seven months or so. Armstrong and Aldrin, on Apollo 11, walked on the moon for two hours. Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, on the final run, stayed for three days and motored the hell out of the lunar sand in that buggy for a distance of over 22 miles.

Each Apollo mission was crewed by three men. One remained in lunar orbit while the other two descended to the surface to explore and complete mission objectives. Six missions, twelve men.

Last year, 2018, saw the passing of two astronauts, John Young in January and Alan Bean in May, Young from complications with pneumonia and Bean from a sudden illness while traveling. Eugene Cernan, the last man to touch the lunar surface, died in 2017 from an undisclosed illness. The first lunar explorer to journey on was Jim Irwin, back in ’91, who died from a heart attack. Alan Shepard, the first American in space and commander of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, died in ’98 after battling leukemia. Pete Conrad passed away the next year of injuries sustained in a motorcycle crash. Iconic Neil Armstrong died after complications from heart surgery in 2012. Then Edgar Mitchell, in 2016, under hospice care.

Rest in Peace, noble men.

Now but four human beings remain who walked upon the moon. The oldest are Buzz Aldrin, 89, and David Scott, 87, the youngest Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmitt, both 84.

Now – fully privatize Space, and let’s get back to the moon before the Chinese start colonizing it!