It's not rocket science
A really nice photo essay from astronaut Don Pettit, who blogs for Air & Space Smithsonian when he’s not busy on the International Space Station. This is a shot of the cupola, which I used as a focal point for action on the ISS in Perigee.
SpaceX has got it goin’ on, ya’ll. This is just the second orbital flight of their Dragon capsule, and darned if they didn’t berth with the Space Station!
As our illustrious Vice President Jar-Jar Biden might say: “This is a big #@$&%! deal”. Just another example of what private citizens can do when they’re allowed to make money and follow their passions.
Viva Capitalism!
UPDATE: Archive videos from NASA TV here.
UPDATED UPDATE: Really, really excited about this? You can take a class in space hotel design this summer. Beats Medieval French Poetry or Transgender Victim Studies…
Congratulations to SpaceX!
After a last-half-second abort on Saturday, they fixed their little problem and lit the candle early this morning. Their launch window to ISS was instantaneous, so this is quite a big deal that they could pull it off on just the second try. It also speaks well of Falcon 9’s reliability (and repair ability).
They have a lot of on-orbit tests to do before NASA will let it anywhere near the space station, but this is a very good start.
I’m saving up $$ for my ticket!
From the LA Times comes an update on that Defense Department hypersonic flight test last year. Short version: it went really fast.
No news on when passenger service might be available.
The Atlantic recently posted a couple of really nice photo essays on the space program. The piece on decommissioning the space shuttles isn’t too surprising; that’s a big and fairly recent deal. The Gemini story is more surprising, as it happened nearly 50 years ago and is generally only thought about by space geeks like me.
Gemini was the gateway drug that hooked me on the space program, maybe because they were the first missions I was conscious of. I remember being fascinated by the big silver rocket with the little two-man tin can on top. And spacemen were cool. How could I not be drawn to something that looked just like my favorite G.I. Joe? Continue reading “Once and Future Past”
From the USA Today of space news, space.com, a nicely illustrated story on the (non) evolution of space plane designs. I say “non” because precious dadgum few of them have ever made it to the cutting-metal stage.
Come to think of it, we’re going to need a new expression, being in the age of composites. But “baking plastic” just doesn’t have the same cachet, does it? Continue reading “Wings in Spaaace!”
Via space.com, another story about cool goings-on in commercial spaceflight: Skydiver Leaps from Stratosphere in “Space Jump” Practice.
Baumgartner is gearing up for an even bigger leap — his so-called “space jump” — from 120,000 feet (36,576 m) this summer. The current record for highest-altitude skydive is 102,800 feet (31,333 m), set in 1960 by U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger.
Baumgartner hopes his attempt will also set several other marks. He is chasing the record for longest freefall (estimated to be about 5 minutes and 30 seconds from 120,000 feet), and he hopes to become the first person to break the speed of sound during freefall.
Not that I have any desire to skydive – much less space jump – but this looks cool as all get-out. It’s been speculated as one potential adventure-tourist possibility for suborbital spaceflight (pretty sure Armadillo Aerospace‘s project specifically has that in mind).
A couple of good stories appeared today in anticipation of some major milestones expected in the commercial spaceflight business this year. This has perpetually been “two years away” for a long time, but it looks like big things are finally about to start happening.
At least not in this kind of style. Not yet. 
We obviously have a long way to go before the kind of technology speculated about in Perigee comes to fruition. Aerospace geeks might remember the X-30 “National Aerospace Plane” project from the Eighties; it never got off the ground (literally) but still led to ways around some important technological barriers. Roger Launius writes about it here.
And just for grins, he also speculates about going a little ways beyond low Earth orbit. Hang on to your seats. Continue reading “Can’t Get There From Here”
Yet another awe-inspiring time lapse video from the International Space Station. It’s about 1 frame per second, which is apparently close to a real-time view.
So watch, and imagine you’re chillin’ in the observation cupola of the ISS. Which, by the way, looks an awful lot like the windows on a Star Wars TIE fighter: 
Or, you can imagine you’re watching this from the flight deck of the Austral Clipper. And by the way, the hard-copy proof of Perigee finally arrived in the mail today. If I can’t find any problems with it, look for it to be on sale this weekend…wOOt!
The Chiles Files 