galacticjourney

Did you ever eagerly wait for Christmas only to be disappointed by what you found under the tree (or, for my fellow Jews, under the menorah)? That's what this month must feel like for fans of the American space program. While the Soviets achieved a huge success in August with the multiple orbiting of Gherman Titov, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had a lousy 31 days.

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June was a busy month for space travel buffs, especially those who live in the Free World. Here's an omnibus edition covering all of the missions I caught wind of in the papers or the magazines:



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February is definitely making up for January's relative paucity of space flights; this week, in particular, has been noteworthy.

I'd held off reporting on NASA's February 16 launch of Explorer 9 since, well, NASA lost it. You see, the satellite's beacon was tracked through half an orbit, but then the signal was lost, and no one could confirm that the thing was still up there. Yesterday, the vehicle was tracked optically, and it looks as if the probe will be able to fulfill its mission.



(read more at Galactic Journey!)

Here's some exciting news: NASA has launched number eight in its Explorer series of small science satellites, the first in over a year.

The 41kg probe has a brand-new type of mission, to explore the atmospheric layer where the sun's merciless energy strips atoms of their electrons, thus ionizing them. This so-called Ionosphere has some fascinating properties, most significant of which is its ability to reflect radio waves. This is why you can pick up shortwave broadcasts from around the globe. From a purely scientific standpoint, knowing about the mechanics of the ionosphere allows you to learn more about atmospheric electricity and the base of our planet's magnetosphere. It is, essentially, our first sea wall against the ocean of space.

(see the rest at Galactic Journey!)

Here's a couple of interesting space news items:

Firstly, a new Explorer (#7) has soared into the sky. This one was launched at the tip of the Juno II rocket, the one that sent Pioneer 4 past the Moon and into solar orbit. Whereas Explorer 6 was known as "The Windmill," the quite different Explorer 7 has been nicknamed "The Gyroscope." Though the craft bears the same Explorer designation as its predecessor, it was actually made by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the (somehwhat) friendly rival of Space Technology Laboratories, darling of the U.S. Air Force.



Explorer 7 is a lovely, complex satellite, with a battery of scientific instrumentation. Not only will it probe the radiation and micrometeoric environment of space, as prior spacecraft have done, it also wields a new experiment designed to measure the heat budget of the Earth. Simply, it will help determine how much of the sun's energy is absorbed and reflected by our planet, measuring quantitatively the sun's effect on the Earth. Pretty neat stuff! I will definitely report on the science as it is published.

Secondly, Explorer 6 has finally gone silent, but even mute, it has proven useful. On October 13, the Air Force shot a plane-launched Bold Orion anti-missile rocket at it to test our ability to intercept Soviet missiles in flight. I can't get exact figures, but it got pretty close, apparently. Probably close enough that, if the rocket had a little nuclear bomb on it, it could destroy an enemy missile.



Meanwhile, in the "why bother" department, a piece in the Miami News caught my attention. The first, titled Space Science Called Foolish, has Brown University Professor Emeritus Dr. Charles A. Krause humbugging all over the space program. "There's a lot of nonsense going on in the field of space science," the esteemed doctor opined. "I'm for forgetting this nonsense and keeping our earth science up to date." He went on to say, "Space is a vacuum, void of matter or gas. There is nothing to be gotten out of a vacuum. We can get a lot out of the Earth."

Apparently, Dr. Krause is not aware that the Earth's upper atmosphere and magnetic field, integral parts of this planet, can only be surveyed from space. Moreover, he is blissfully ignorant that there is plenty to be gotten from a vacuum, one far better than any that can be manufactured on Earth. In any event, the Sun, the Moon, the planets, the asteroids, meteors, comets, micrometeoroids, charged particles, solar wind, etc. all exist in space. It is hardly devoid of matter or gas. Understanding how they move and interact perfects our knowledge of Earth-bound physics.

In short, Dr. Krause is a schmuck. And so are the editors of the Miami News.

Oh, and here's another one: Rockets too Puny for Moon. It's less inflammatory, but it is already out of date. The seminal quote is, "U.S. guidance systems are on par with those of Russia. The weight-carrying capacity of our moon rockets is not." The unknown author's point is that, until we get beefier rockets, we can't send guidance good enough to get a probe on the moon.

Given that the new Atlas Able will be launching before the end of the year, this defeatism seems misplaced. I guess we'll see.


Footage from a new TV show, Destination Space


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Note: I love comments (you can do so anonymously), and I always try to reply.

P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!








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We are now in the second phase of the Space Race.

Decades from now, people will debate over the exact date of the turning point. Some will argue that it started when countries started sending rockets to the moon, leaving the shackles of Earth's orbit. Others will say that spaceflight didn't leave its infancy until humans had been sent into space.

But, I contend that a whole new ballgame opened up yesterday with the launching of Explorer VI.



This latest satellite is, in some ways, just an evolutionary step. Its payload of experiments is little different from the slew of instruments carried by its predecessors, the Air Force Pioneers. It's got geiger tubes and scintillators for measuring cosmic rays, magnetometers for mapping Earth's magnetic fields, a micrometeroid detector, and a crude TV camera--all devices that went up on the ill-fated Pioneer II.

But, the probe also has an impressive array of solar cells affixed to four paddle wheels that make Explorer look like a little windmill. Moreover, the satellite is equipped with two communications systems. One of them is analog, like those employed by all previous satellites, in which information is communicated by modulating the amplitude and/or frequency of transmissions, like your AM or newfangled FM radio. The other is digital using nothing but streams of ones and zeroes. This method is far less prone to error and noise, and it uses bandwidth more efficienctly, requiring less power.

A digital system is above and beyond the needs of an orbital probe, so why bother including it? Because Explorer VI is a test-bed. A spacecraft very much like it will be launched to Venus some time in the near future, and it will need a digital system to communicate from that vast 25 million mile distance.

Until Explorer VI, we were launching little experiment packages. Now, we have a bonafide orbital scientific and engineering laboratory in space, the results of which will revolutionize where spaceflight goes from here.



A natural extension of this is that I don't have this satellite's results for you yet. Unlike my other columns, where I've been able to sum up a mission and its findings generally in one article, Explorer VI is going to collect mountains of data, and it will take time to sort it out.

So stay tuned!

P.S. The October 1959 issue of Galaxy has come out. I'm half-way through and will be telling you all about it next week. Come join me in my journey (but try not to send me letters about it until I publish the articles).

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These are exciting times we live in. The drop in published science fiction is (almost) made up for by the increase in space-related articles in my newspaper. I read an Associated Press piece yesterday that I thought was particularly interesting:

"NEW YORK (AP) Colonies of Earthmen will occupy the Moon, Mars and Venus. Rockets will be burning their way toward the outer planets, more than three billion miles from Earth. Engineers will fashion huge space transports, capable of carrying hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people on space expeditions that may last most of a lifetime.

These are among the predictions for the next 25 years -- the coming generation -- made yesterday at a panel of nine space experts in astronautics, the journal of the American Rocket Society.

These experts were agreed that the Earth would soon be ringed with satellites and space stations... Huge rockets would roar between continents carrying cargo and passengers in minutes."

The panelists included Dr. York, chief scientist for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Dr. Hugh Dryden, deputy administrator at the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, formerly NACA), Dr, Si Ramo, President of Space Technology Laboratories, and Dr. Wehrner von Braun, who had a minor rocketry position during the War and has since gone on to greater things with the U.S. Army.

Now is this a mainstream recognition that science fiction is becoming science fact? Or is this merely the wishful thinking of a bunch of folks whose business, frankly, is making a living off space travel?

Are they the same thing?

Either way, there is no question that bigger and better things are just around the corner. Dr. Dryden opines that there will be people in orbit in just a few years. Von Braun outlined a 2nd and 3rd generation of rockets in development that will ultimately throw up to 50,000 pounds into orbit at once!

I know that the Redstone-based Juno I, the famous booster that launched America's first satellite (Explorer I), was retired last week after failing to launch Explorer VI. Its replacement will have the same upper stages but will be based on the much-larger Jupiter missile. I don't know if that rocket will be big enough to put a person in orbit, but I'll bet something based on the new Atlas ICBM could do it.

And it's pretty clear that the Soviet rocket that put the ton-and-a-half Sputnik III into space could do it. Of course, I'm not sure where they'll get the volunteers to fly in the thing if its anywhere near as balky as our rockets have been. If the first Russian satellite was Sputnik, and the second was Muttnik (because it carried a dog cosmonaut), I'm guessing the first manned ship will be called "Nutnik."



It may well be that the first person in space won't ride a cannonball but a spaceplane. I clipped from the paper on October 16th a picture of the Air Force's new aircraft, the X-15. It's a beautiful ship made by the same people who built the P-51 and the F-86. It's supposed to fly at Mach 6 or 7 and go up as high as 50 miles above the ground. Vice President Nixon (remember him?) said of the craft, "We have moved into first place in the race to enter outer space."

We'll see how long we stay there.

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