Thanksgiving greeting from Space

"We wanted to say happy Thanksgiving to all our NASA viewers,"
Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson, an Iowa native, said. "We feel particularly privileged and thankful to be up here on board the International Space Station this Thanksgiving, and we're looking forward to our activities this week. We have a busy week with spacewalks, and we hope that you also are having a great
Thanksgiving."

"My family, we gather for Thanksgiving, and we spend a minute just thinking about the things we're thankful for and, of course, I'm thankful for the continued health of my family and my loved ones," Flight Engineer DanTani, an Illinois native, said. "Also this year,I'm thankful that I'm safely on the space station, conducting our
mission successfully and having a great time doing it."

Update: Here's an article from Space Review on the Women commanders meeting in space.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to shuttle commander Pam Melroy and station commander Peggy Whitson, and to their ground-breaking (perhaps we should say space-breaking?) predecessors such as Sally Ride, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, Eileen Collins, and three dozen others, is that an examination of their technical credentials—their education, experience, and career achievements—couldn’t give a clue as to their gender. Their ultimate “firsts” were logical step-by-step progressions from their solid professional competence.

Comet Holmes

From Hubble site here.

Hubble first observed Comet 17P/Holmes on June 15, 1999, when there was virtually no dusty shroud around the nucleus. From that observation, astronomers deduced that the nucleus had a diameter of approximately 2.1 miles (3.4 kilometers), about the length of New York City's Central Park. Astronomers hope to use the new Hubble images to determine the size of the comet's nucleus to see how much of it was blasted away during the outburst.

Hubble's two earlier snapshots of Comet Holmes also showed some interesting features. On Oct. 29, the telescope spied three "spurs" of dust emanating from the nucleus, while the Hubble images taken on Oct. 31 revealed an outburst of dust just west of the nucleus.

The Hubble images, however, do not show any large fragments near the nucleus of Comet Holmes, unlike the case of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (SW3). In the spring of 2006 Hubble observations revealed a multitude of "mini-comets" ejected by SW3 after the comet increased dramatically in brightness.

Ground-based images of Comet Holmes show a large, spherically symmetrical cloud of dust that is offset from the nucleus, suggesting that a large fragment did break off and subsequently disintegrated into tiny dust particles after moving away from the main nucleus.

From NASA here.

Harmony's hooked up

From CNN here.

Commander Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani spent hours hooking up power and heater cables and fluid lines between the space station and the Harmony compartment that was delivered by the shuttle last month. It was tedious, hand-intensive work.

"Yay! Got it," Whitson exclaimed after making a particularly difficult connection. "Those were hard."

Not long afterward, Tani commented on how strong Whitson looked.

"She's the king of the world," Tani shouted. "Queen," replied the space station's first female skipper, sparking laughter between the two.

Smelling smoke in a suit

Late last week a Russian astronaut trainee, working at Johnson Space Center, smelled smoke in his spacesuit and felt heat on his neck during a test in a pressure chamber.

NASA feels the problem will be cleared up and is examining CO2 scrub cans, which have not functioned properly in the past, said NASA spokesman Lynette Madison at Johnson Space Center.

"There is no evidence of a combustion source," said Madison. "They feel like this is going to be cleared up and there won't be any issue for the spacewalks." Late today, Mission Control radioed to tell the crew they expect to clear the spacesuits soon.

From Flame Trench here.

A fire in a spacesuit would be fatal to the astronaut. The Oxygen would ignite and instantly kill the occupant of the spacesuit.

Delta IV Heavy

I watched the launch Saturday night. It took half a minute to clear the launch pad. Great night launch. HT Florida Today.

The payload:

Weighing 5,200 pounds, the DSP-23 satellite completed a 6 hour, 20 minute mission and was deployed into its proper orbit at 3:10 a.m., today. The DSP-23 launch completes the deployment of this important constellation of satellites. DSP satellites provide early warning for intercontinental ballistic missile launches and have been used by the military for more than 30 years.

The United Launch Alliance site is here.

Happy 40th '501'!

HT Florida Today Here.

Ready Houston, here we come!

Discovery is getting ready for re-entry burn. Weather is clear enough at KSC to land. I will be live blogging as much as I can.

Discovery will be coming over British Columbia, Flying over the heartland of America! And landing at KSC.

-- 9:00 AM PST Good Burn No trim required

-- 9:30 AM PST Discovery is near atmosphere re-entry. It's about a half hour to touch down at the cape.

Discovery is beginning to encounter the effects of the atmosphere, a point called "entry interface." Now flying at about 16,000 miles per hour, the orbiter is angled upward with wings level. The shuttle is set to touch down in just over 30 minutes.

HT from NASA Landing Blog here.

-- 9:36 AM PST Discovery is closing in on the coast of Canada. They will be the first to hear the double sonic booms.

What causes the booms?
Air pressure. As the shuttle cuts through the atmosphere flying faster than the speed of sound, air molecules get pushed aisde (like water around a fast-moving boat). The air molecules form a shock wave around the nose and the tail of an aircraft. The rapidly increasing air pressure can be heard as a loud boom.

Why two sonic booms?
The space shuttle is big for a supersonic aircraft. A typical aircraft capable of this kind of speed would be a fighter jet, something about 50 feet or so long. For those small fighters, the shock waves generated at the nose and the tail of the aircraft happen less than one-tenth of a second apart. On the ground, people would hear what sounds like one boom. The orbiter is 122 feet long. The time between the nose and tail shock waves is half of a second, just long enough for us to hear both of the booms.

HT from Flame Trench here
-- 9:40 AM PST Right over Montana. 22 minutes to Florida coast!
-- 9:42 AM PST Right over Nebraska with 18 minutes to go to landing.
-- 9:44 AM PST Right over Kansas TODO! 16 minutes to go.
-- 9:46 AM PST Right over Missuiori with 14 minutes to go.
-- 9:47 AM PST Right over Mississippi and Alabama! 13 minutes to go.
-- 9:49 AM PST Right over Alabama toward Georgia. Florida here we come! 12 Minutes.
-- 9:50 AM PST Merrius Island tracking station has Discovery on site. Less then 11 minutes to go. GPS and tracking a-go.
-- 10:01 AM PST TOUCH DOWN! Great landing! Photos of banking and landing were fantastic! Good Job Pam!

15 days in space

Were did the time go? This mission was a great accomplishment in space. The space walk to repair the solar wings was phenomenal. Placing an astronaut on a boom then extending the station arm as far as it could reach. The station commander was worried it would not reach the proper place to fix it. But with a hockey stick in one hand ( to avoid electrocution) and home made cuff links (materials found on the ISS) in the other the repair was done. Well done!

I wish I could have spend more time space blogging on the mission but my life has been busy with kids, getting the flu and cars breaking down, etc. But I did keep an eye on Space Trench and NASA TV. It was a wonderful mission getting the ISS fitted to Harmony and ready for other modules to come.

View from EV1

Women Commanders meet in Space

Its great day for America and the space program. Space is a great place to meet!
From Flame Trench here:

With the shuttle and the station linked 220 miles above Earth, Discovery mission commander Pam Melroy floated through the hatch of the U.S. Destiny laboratory around 10:39 a.m. as the spacecraft flew over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Carolina.

Melroy immediately embraced station skipper Peggy Whitson, the first woman to command the outpost. It was the first time two female space mission commanders have met in low Earth orbit.

T Minus 9 and counting!

All go for Discovery to launch!

God bless and God Speed!

Discovery is in space and launch is a success.

Update on Discovery

NASA managers are getting together today to discuss launch readiness of Discovery. One topic will be the cracks in the coating of the leading wing edge panels:

While the astronauts practiced for launch, shuttle program managers held two days of meetings in advance of today's review. One of the topics discussed before the conclusion of last week's program review involved the reinforced carbon-carbon, or RCC, on Discovery's wing leading edge panels. In the past, there have been post-flight indications that the edges of a couple of panels have lost small amounts of their upper-level coating. Thermography, or thermal imagery, has been used to inspect the panels in order to identify any internal defects that could lead to coating loss.

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center has been working with shuttle engineers to better understand the potential causes of coating loss. At last Wednesday's meeting, the center recommended replacing three of Discovery's 44 panels.

Discovery has flown at least twice with these panels in the current condition, and with no indications of degradation based on thermography. At this point, the Space Shuttle Program has determined that Discovery's astronauts can safely carry out their mission without having to replace the panels.

Gray on ALGORE

Dr. William Gray spoke to 300 Meteorology students at University of North Carolina on the day AL GORE got his Nobel Peace Prize. His take on AL Gore and his peace prize here:

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."

Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.

HT to Powerline.

First Female commander for ISS

Discovery Launch might be delayed

From NASA here:

One of the topics discussed before the conclusion of the program review Wednesday involved the reinforced carbon carbon, or RCC, on Discovery’s wing leading edge panels. In the past, there have been post-flight indications that the edges of a couple of panels have lost small amounts of their upper-level coating. Thermography, or thermal imagery, has been used to inspect the panels in order to identify any internal defects that could lead to coating loss.

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) has been working with shuttle engineers to better understand the potential causes of coating loss. At Wednesday's meeting, NESC recommended replacing three of Discovery's 44 panels.

Discovery has flown at least twice with these panels in the current condition, and with no indications of degradation based on thermography. At this point, the Space Shuttle Program has determined that Discovery's astronauts can safely carry out their mission without having to replace the panels.

More over here at Flame Trench. Shuttle engineers say that the small cracks should not be a major problem. They have had those coating cracks on other shuttles without major damage during re-entry. (Correction: No other cracks have been found on other shuttles on their leading wing edges. Discovery has flown twice with the cracks in the coating and based on the thermography no degradation has occurred.)

Discovery Crew at the Cape

Space Age 50th anniversary

Tomorrow will be the 50th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik.

Here's Sputnik's beep.

On October 4 at 10:28 p.m. Moscow time, a brilliant and deafening detonation of smoke and flame illuminated the Soviet Union's rocket test site near Tyuratam, Kazkhistan, as the 32 nozzles announced the rise of the Russian R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile. 295 seconds and 142 miles later, the last of the R-7's engines shut down for good. Soon after, pneumatic locks were activated, a nosecone fairing separated, and an antenna spike was released. Then, in one final act that signaled the dawn of the space age, a pushrod connected to a bulkhead of the R-7 was activated, shoving a 183-pound beach ball-sized aluminum sphere into the cold, harsh blackness of space. Sputnik had arrived.

New moon buggy

NASA wants the next astronauts visiting the moon to be driving a pressurized rover they could ride in like it was a motor home. If the crew spotted something intriguing outside, they'd climb into attached spacesuits and go explore.

"It's not much bigger than the Apollo rover. I call it a cross between a sports car and a spacesuit," said NASA astronaut Mike Gernhardt, who is working with engineers to develop more capable moon buggies.

The ice-shielded rover would protect the astronauts inside from solar storm radiation. The crew could spend most of its time in the comfort of shirtsleeves during trips from lasting hours to more than a week. If they need to go out, they can hop through a porthole into the ready-to-go spacesuits.

"It would only take 10 minutes to get in the suit and be boots on the surface," Gernhardt said.

HT Flame Trench.

Yemeni Eruption

A NATO fleet passing nearby reported seeing a "catastrophic volcanic eruption" at 7 p.m. local time Sunday on the island, about 70 miles off the Yemeni coast, said Ken Allan, a Navy Public Affairs with the Canadian Armed Forces.

"At this time, the entire island is aglow with lava and magma as it pours down into the sea," Allan said in an e-mail Sunday evening. "The lava is spewing hundreds of feet into the air, with the volcanic ash also (rising) a thousand feet in the air."

The NATO fleet was sailing toward the Suez Canal when it spotted the eruption. The government of Yemen asked NATO to assist in the search for survivors and the closet ship, the HMCS Toronto, was heading toward the island. The Canadian Armed Forces said they are trying to locate nine people believed to be at sea after the Yemen coast guard requested help. It is unclear why there was a discrepancy with the SABA report on the number of missing.

SkyCast.com -- Star Wars v Star Trek

Long live and prosper or May the Force be with you?