LUNAR’clips
2003
Volume 10, Number 1
LUNAR’clips
2003
Volume 10, Number 1
Livermore Unit of the National Association of Rocketry January/February 2003
Copyright © 2003 by LUNAR, All rights reserved.
I had lots of things to put in this column, but nearly all of them seem impossibly trivial after the events of February 1. Geoff has a much more extensive article on the event, but here are a few thoughts of my own.
I saw Columbia land at Edwards AFB after STS 1 in April 1981. Everyone standing around in the desert that morning was wondering if we would even have something to watch. Many people predicted that what happened last Saturday would be its fate then. It is sad and tragic end to a magnificent craft.
It's interesting to note that all of NASA's loss-of-life accidents involving spacecraft have taken place on this week; the Apollo 1 fire (January 27, 1967), the Challenger (January 28, 1986) and now Columbia.
I would like to have some sort of tribute at our next launch. Originally, I thought of flying some shuttle models, but unless you're George Gassaway, models of the Shuttle are notorious for following flight profiles that would be more of a harsh reminder than a tribute. Instead, I think we should take two good quality models and place them all day on pads 10 and 7 (the flight was STS 107).
Our hobby's founder, G. Harry Stine, also wrote science fiction. One of his stories was eerily close to the Columbia tragedy. In 1953, he wrote a short story (under his "Lee Correy" pen name) called The Day the Rocket Blew Up, which was published in the August 15, 1953 edition of The Saturday Evening Post. He describes a piloted shuttle named Athena that launches from New Mexico (White Sands) but has technical problems and doesn't pitch. The pilot rides it straight up to 400 miles but, even though there's an escape system, decides to sacrifice himself and stay with the ship on the way down to try and steer it away from Las Cruces, where its predicted impact point is in the center of town. The frightening thing is his description of the ship when it came apart. It's all I could think of when watching the endless replays of Saturday's tragedy. It's incredible how Stine managed to make the description both technically accurate and heart wrenchingly emotional. See if this quote doesn't remind you exactly what we watched over and over:
"The kinetic energy of several tons of spaceship dropping 400 miles out of the sky is not easily transferred. At 10,000 feet per second, the atmosphere is as hard as and unyielding as solid granite. Nothing can be built which will withstand it.
"The Athena came to pieces; slowly at first then all at once. It looked as though someone had thrown a huge basket full of flaming confetti into the sky.
"It doesn't often rain on the Jornada del Muerto, but when it does, it comes down in torrents. It rained that afternoon on the Jornada del Muerto.
"It rained Spaceship."
As a footnote, Columbia passed over the Jornada del Muerto desert (that's Spanish for "Journey of Death," so called because so many westbound immigrants died trying to cross it), and was only a few hundred miles east of it when it, too, rained spaceship on Texas and Louisiana.
Incidentally, I cover this story starting on page 263 of my book Spaceship Handbook. This is not a commercial plug; I'm just including it as a reference since I know so many of you have the book, and the story was never, to my knowledge, reprinted.
It's no secret that our last two launches were cancelled in a very frustrating manner. It was due to "wet fields" even though it wasn't actually raining during the morning period that our launch should have been going on. The reason is that the Livermore Recreation & Park District has a mission to provide recreational facilities to the people of Livermore and surrounding areas, and part of that mission is to protect the fields from too much wear and tear, such as when large groups of people stomp around on really wet fields, churning up the turf. After a day or two of rain, they want to give the fields a chance to dry out. Before going home on Friday afternoon, they decide whether to close the fields for the weekend. Since our launches are on weekend days, we're stuck with that decision, even if it doesn't rain.
For those of you who might want to check on your own, their "Turf Hotline" is (925) 373-5702, which gives you a recorded message of field closures. This is the one I use, although access is also available through the web at http://www.larpd.dst.ca.us/turf.html.
I've got our calendar for the year tentatively approved by LARPD. It's a little complicated this year, so pay attention. Notice that there are some split months where we plan to be flying from our new L1 field just over the Altimont towards Tracy. The launches labeled "Low Power" are still from Robertson Park. Also, for reasons known only to themselves, they've moved us back to the Carnegie building for our meetings starting in March. I'm not sure why since the Rec Center where we've met for the past year isn't that heavily booked (and the rental is the same for both).
Launch, Saturday 2/15
Meeting, Wednesday 3/12
Launch, Saturday 3/15
Launch, Saturday 4/19 (night launch)
Meeting, Wednesday 5/14
Launch, Saturday 5/17
Note: LARPD has scheduled "Fitness Day" the next day, which, requires some setup Saturday afternoon. We may have to vacate the field a little early if they want to start before 2 PM.
Low Power Launch, Saturday 6/7
Low Power Launch backup date, Sunday 6/8
High Power Launch, Saturday 6/28
The LP launch has a backup because June is horse month, and LARPD warned me that if something comes up in the next few months, we might have to move the date.
Meeting, Wednesday 7/9
Low Power Launch, Saturday 7/12
Low Power Launch backup date, 7/13
High Power Launch, Saturday 7/26
Even though they had earlier given us the July 12 date, that day now has a horse event booked across the street so I've requested two replacement dates. The easiest would be the next day (the 13th), and second easiest would be to swap with the planned High Power launch scheduled for the 28th. I haven't heard back as of the deadline for this issue, and until I do it's still "officially" the 12th.
Combined Launch, Saturday 8/26, Tracy site
Note: There's no Robertson Park launch this month. August is soccer season, and last year we got moved three times before finally being squeezed out all together.
Low Power Launch, Saturday 9/6
Meeting, Wednesday 9/11 (yes, the launch is before the meeting)
High Power Launch, Saturday 9/27
The last three months of the year are scheduled only at Robertson Park for now. This is due to the uncertainty of how the Tracy field will work out. If everything is still going well, we will continue to schedule HP launches there. The calendar will be updated and everyone informed by e-mail and the Hotline.
Launch, Saturday 10/18 (night launch)
Meeting, Wednesday 11/12 (annual planning meeting)
Launch, Saturday 11/15
Launch, Saturday 12/20
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