Telstar Logistics

The Joy of Space Travel at SFO

 

Telstar Logistics flew to Chicago this week to meet with a new client, but as we were departing from San Francisco International Airport we took note of yet another superb museum display curated by the airport's museum staff. We've written about them before, so as you may recall: SFO is not just a transportation hub — the airport is also a fully accredited museum, which helps explain why the displays there are so consistently excellent.

The show currently on display in the United Airlines concourse at Terminal 3 is called Out of this World! The Twentieth-Century Space Invasion of American Pop Culture. As the exhibit summary explains:

From elaborate toy play sets and space operas of the 1930s and 1940s, to robots and rocket ships of the space age and beyond, each generation presented its own notions about what the future would bring, both here on Earth and in the mysterious worlds beyond our atmosphere. The artifacts exhibited in Out of this World! The Twentieth-Century Space Invasion of American Pop Culture are reminders of a period when our collective infatuation with space resulted in products that ranged from fantastically silly to truly visionary, objects that may have inspired the conquest of space as much as they reflected it.

Count us among the infatuated. The show is up through through March 2009 (we think), so if you happen to find yourself flying United in or out of SFO, take a few minutes and enjoy a little bit of retro-futuristic space appreciation. It's worth the trip.

LINKS:
Out of this World! The Twentieth-Century Space Invasion of American Pop Culture (Official exhibition page)

Out of this World exhibition brochure (Downloadable pdf file)

PREVIOUSLY:
Backstage at the San Francisco Airport Museum

Countdown: Telstar 11N Ready for Liftoff

As those of you who have been following along at home no doubt know, Telstar Logistics is named in honor of Telstar 1, the worlds first telecommunications satellite, launched in 1962.  But Telstar 1 was not the last of the orbital Telstars, not at all. Many more satellites in the Telstar series have been launched during the last 45+ years, and if all goes according to plan, the newest Telstar satellite, Telstar 11N, will hurl into space at 10:30 am Pacific Time (18:30 GMT) today, February 26, 2009, from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan. Here are the details of about Telstar 11N's mission:

Preparations are underway for the launch of the Telstar 11N satellite on the Land Launch system on February 26, at 18:30 GMT. Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) built this satellite for Telesat, one of the world's leading fixed satellite services operators, to provide high powered, state-of-the-art satellite capacity for a broad range of video and data applications. With 39 high-power Ku-band transponders, Telstar 11N, weighing about 4,012 kg (8,845 lb), is based on the SS/L 1300 platform which provides flexibility for a broad range of applications. The spacecraft also has a unique Atlantic Ocean beam, which will support growing demand for mobile broadband from maritime and aeronautical markets. Following launch, Telstar 11N will operate from 37.5 degrees West Longitude and will connect the continents of North America, Europe and Africa.

 

Want to watch the launch live? Pour yourself a cup of coffee, put on your pocket protector and horn-rim glasses, and tune into the live webcast from Baikonur, here.

UPDATE 26 Feb, 2009, 20:55

Liftoff! Trajectory! Orbit! Today's launch of Telstar 11N was at rocket-fueled success. Spaceflight Now reports:

The Zenit 3SLB booster launched at 1830 GMT (1:30 p.m. EST) Thursday from pad 45 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, beginning the second mission of a Sea Launch spinoff program aimed serving the market for medium-class communications satellites.

Propelled by a four-nozzle RD-171 engine, the 192-foot-tall launcher darted into the night sky and flew to an altitude of 52 miles before jettisoning the first stage about two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.

The Zenit's second stage ignited for a six-minute firing, during which the rocket shed its nose cone after it transited the dense lower layers of the atmosphere.

The Block DM-SLB upper stage continued the push toward orbit moments after separating from the second stage. The kerosene-fueled stage first placed the rocket and the Telstar 11N satellite into a temporary low-altitude parking orbit, then gradually raised the craft's altitude and lowered its inclination.

The upper stage released the 8,840-pound satellite a few seconds before 0026 GMT Friday (7:26 p.m. EST Thursday), completing the Land Launch consortium's second mission since beginning services in April 2008.

A ground station in Australia acquired radio signals from Telstar 11N a few minutes later, confirming the craft survived the trip to space.

LINK:

Telstar 11 Mission Page (by Sea Launch)

PREVIOUSLY:

A Brief History of All Telstars

Happy 45th Anniversary, Telstar 1!

NASA Boss to Obama: "Red Alert! Set Shields to Maximum!"

NASA administrator Mike Griffin is so worried that Barack Obama might cut funding for the Constellation moon/Mars program that he's put America's space agency on red alert and raised the deflector shields to maximum — all in hopes of preventing the new administration from reconsidering NASA's funding priorities. The Orlando Sentinel's blog reports the whole story in superb detail, but here's a condensed snippet:

In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.

In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said. [...]

The tensions are due to the fact that NASA’s human space flight program is facing its biggest crossroads since the end of the Apollo era in the 1970s. The space shuttle is scheduled to be retired in 2010, and the next-generation Constellation rockets won’t fly before 2015.

Nearly four years ago, President Bush brought in Griffin to implement a plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 as a prelude to going to Mars. Griffin and his team selected Constellation, with its NASA-designed Ares I rocket and Orion capsule, as cheaper and safer than existing rockets. Constellation – especially Ares 1 -- is the center of what Griffin sees as his legacy to return humans to the frontiers of space.

LINK:

NASA Has Become a Transition Problem for Obama (Orlando Sentinel blog post)

PREVIOUSLY:

Tomorrow's Astronauts Will Fly Economy Class to the Moon

NASA's Moon Truck Goes for a Test Drive

How to Turn Old NASA Space Shuttles into New Modern Artwork

Is Barack Obama a Borg "Manchurian Candidate?"

Video: Disney's 1956 Voyage Around the Moon

And now for a refreshing dose of retrofuturism.... 

Filmed in 1956, the following video is part of a Walt Disney series called "Man and the Moon" that envisioned the technology that would enable human space travel.  As is so often the case with these sorts of things, the imagined future turned out to significantly more gee-whiz than the subsequent reality, but that's just part of the fun.  No less fun is the narrator, the eminent scientist Werner von Braun, who describes the rockets and space stations of tomorrow in a parody-perfect German accent.  Buckle up your space suit, and enjoy the ride:

Wasn't that fun? There are several other episodes in the series available for your viewing pleasure, here.

(Tip of the space visor to the Angry Pirate)

PREVIOUSLY:

Tomorrow's Astronauts Will Fly Economy Class to the Moon

Virgin Galactic Unveils the Mothership in Mojave

Alas, we couldn't be there.  But all day today we were tuning in to our Twitter box as our friend Xeni Jardin attended the unveiling of White Knight Two, the privately built mothership that Virgin Galactic will use to offer passenger rides into space. Sir Richard Branson was on hand too, as the four-engine, twin-hulled aircraft was rolled out to  an adoring public at Mojave Airport, in Mojave, California. 

One of Xeni's Tweets today read:

My blogger buddy, who shall remain nameless: "I kissed the spaceship. I walked right up and hugged it and kissed it." I did too.

Frankly, we'd have kissed it too. Although, properly speaking, WN2 isn't a spaceship. It's actually a launch platform for the smaller craft which will carry passengers — briefly — into orbit. You can see the spacecraft tucked between the hulls of White Knight 2 in these artist renderings:

Wired News carries some more of the particulars:

After Scaled Composites put the rocket plane SpaceShipOne (SS1) into suborbital spaceflight twice in 2004, thus winning the Ansari X-Prize, Virgin Galactic placed an order for 12 similar spacecraft capable of carrying six passengers and two crew members into space. Before those ships can get into space, however, they will need a lift up -- which is what WhiteKnightTwo will provide.

The original WhiteKnight carried SS1 into the upper atmosphere before releasing it at 48,000 feet. The SS1 then fired its booster and flew to an altitude of over 110,000 meters (69 miles), well past the Kármán line, which is commonly used to define the edge of space.

WhiteKnightTwo is a dual-hull quad-engine aircraft roughly three times larger than the original WhiteKnight. WK2 employs a different tail construction, using a cruciform instead of the WK's "T" style. The engines and cockpits are also located in different areas compared to the original WhiteKnight.

WK2 is the world's first all-composite full-sized aircraft. Everything apart from the engines and landing gear is constructed from ultra-lightweight composite materials. Even the newly patented flight control cables are made from carbon fiber.

And finally, for those of you who were wondering, "What exactly should one wear when attending the unveiling of a revolutionary new spacecraft system?"

In the above photo, Xeni provides the answer: A stylish jacket in Moonbase Control Purple, of course!

PREVIOUSLY:

Burt Rutan's White Knight is "like flying inside a giant whiffle ball"

(IMAGES: WK2 photos by Virgin Galactic. Xeni's photo from her Flickrstream)

Iran's Fake Missile Launch Yields Real "Intelligence Bonanza"

Remember Iran's much-hyped test of it's missile systems last week?  The one in which Iran's official press agency released photos of the launch which were later revealed to have been heavily Photoshopped?  Ah yes... funny stuff. The photos may have been fakes, but according to our friends at Aviation Week, the Iranian missile tests yielded a very real trove of valuable data for US and Israeli intelligence agencies. Aviation Week reports:

While a “feel-good fireworks display for the Iranians,” it was an intelligence bonanza for the U.S. and Israel, according to some high-level defense officials.             

Such displays help the U.S. match timing and infrared signatures differences that occur, characteristics U.S. missile-warning spacecraft need to pinpoint multiple missile launches, Northrop Grumman’s Edward Tagliaferri, a key missile warning signature expert.

At least two, and perhaps three, Defense Support Program (DSP) missile-warning spacecraft observed the Iranian barrage. And it is possible that one or two of the new SBIRS sensors aloft on National Reconnaissance Office host satellites also monitored the ripple fire exercise.

U.S. electronic and signals intelligence spacecraft and aircraft provided technical data to the National Security Agency and also acquired new information about the often chaotic Iranian command-and-control procedures involved in such launch propaganda exercises.     

DSP scanning infrared telescopes have difficulty discriminating the number of missiles launched when two or more are fired from the same location at almost the same time, as were one Scud-C and one or two of the Shahab-3As on July 9.

They were spaced about 500 ft. apart with liftoffs separated by 2-3 sec. But since the Iranians released high-quality video of the firings for propaganda purposes, that also gives the U.S. excellent ground truth data with which to match space sensor data to fine-tune the software for better characterization of the threats from missile-barrage firings.

If international geopolitics were "The Simpsons," this is probably the part where Nelson Muntz would say "Ha-ha!"

NASA's Moon Truck Goes for a Test Drive

No, this photo wasn't taken last year at Burning Man.  And no, it's not an ArtCar. This wild ride is the genuine article -- a prototype of a NASA lunar rover undergoing testing last week at the Moses Lake Sand Dunes in eastern Washington state. 

In an apparent nod to the vehicle used by the Robinson family in the 1960s "Lost in Space" TV series, this lunar truck is called Chariot, and it appeared at Moses Lake because the area's terrain is similar to the stuff astronauts will find when NASA returns to the surface of the moon in 2020.  Reporting from Moses Lake, the Seattle Times says:

With room for two astronauts, the 12-wheeled lunar truck called Chariot is a leading candidate for the moon rover of the future. Each set of wheels pivots independently. The pilots stand, strapped into turrets that eliminate the need to sit down — something very tough to do in a spacesuit. The gold and white truck can move forward, backward and sideways like a crab. Top speed is about 15 mph.

The vehicle was originally equipped with knobby tires, [project coordinator Bill] Bluethmann said. But the scientists swapped them out for smooth versions at the suggestion of a local farmer familiar with the sandy terrain.

"We bought them here," said Bluethmann, who works on the Chariot project at Johnson Space Center in Houston. "They've performed very well."

Also making an appearance at Moses Lake was a kind of lunar RV, called ATHLETE (All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestial Explorer), intended to allow astronauts to go on extended forays across the lunar surface without having to return to the (relative) safety and comfort of their space capsule:

And where lunar trucks and campers go, other forms of development are likely to follow.  Perhaps someday soon in the sands of eastern Washington we will soon see prototype versions of NASA's first Lunar Truck Stop, to be followed shortly thereafter by a Space KOA Kampground, with full hookups, free WiFi, and a swimmy pool for the astrokids. To Infinity... and Beyond!

(Tip of the space-visor: Stare808)

LINKS:
NASA Testst Moon Robots, Rovers, Spacesuits at Moses Lake (Seattle Times, June 17, 2008)

NASA Tests Lunar Robots and Spacesuits on Earthen Moonscape (NASA website)

PREVIOUSLY:

Tomorrow's Astronauts Will Fly Economy Class to the Moon

A Self-Guided Tour at NASA Ames Research Center

How to Turn Old NASA Space Shuttles into New Modern Artwork

(IMAGES: All photos above by Jim Bates of the Seattle Times.)

A Self-Guided Tour at NASA Ames Research Center

NASA Ames Research Center is a research facility operated by America's space agency on the grounds of the fomer Moffett Naval Air Station (Now known as Moffett Federal Airfield) in Silicon Valley, California. Most of the NASA infrastructure is clustered around the northwest corner of the airfield, in the shadow of the gigantic Hangar One. Ames has been a research center since 1939, when it was founded under the auspices of NASA's predecessor agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Some of the surviving buildings still recall that history:

Today, Ames does a lot of work on far-out disciplines such as astrobiology, robotics, airborne astronomy, and information technology. Ames is also home to the world's largest wind tunnel, so the center is also active in materials and aerodynamic research.

No rockets depart from Ames, however, and it's not used for Mission Control, so the facility normally has the air of a sedate university campus.  But in April, Ames hosts a trippy science fair, called Yuri's Night, to honor Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's 1961 spaceflight — the first time a human reached orbit. Sociologically, Yuri's Night feels a lot like Burning Man or the Maker's Faire, with more of a space-hippie vibe. Consider: Former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh performed at Yuri's Night in a band called... wait for it... Telstar! (If we had lawyers, they'd have something to say about this.)

But never mind all that. For this Telstar, Telstar Logistics, the big attraction of Yuri's Night is the opportunity it affords to explore parts of Ames that are normally off-limits, such as Hangar 211, which will soon be home to the Boeing 747SP-based SOFIA airborne observatory. Here's the interior of Hangar 211:

Far less sexxxy is the area where the SOFIA team works. It looks sort of like a nightmare from The Matrix:

NASA also puts some of its more tasty bits of hardware on display, such as SOFIA's predecessor, the C-141 Starlifter-based Kuiper Airborne Observatory, which was retired in 1995.  You can see the hatch for the airborne telescope, just forward of the wing root, in the top photo:

Aircraft 846, one of NASA's still-active F-18 Hornet chase planes, was also on display. As you may recall, No. 846 made a cameo while flying wingman for the X-45A, a prototype unmanned combat air vehicle.

Want more photos? Follow the links below.

LINKS:
Moffett Field and NASA Ames (Photos by Telstar Logistics)

Yuri’s Night Bay Area 2008, A World Space Party at NASA (Excellent crowd photos of Yuri's Night by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

Tour of NASA Ames Research Center (Excellent 2007 Ames photos from Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

PREVIOUSLY:
The Fight to Save Hangar One, Silicon Valley's Monument to the Age of the Airships

Former Pan Am 747SP Becomes NASA's Newest Airborne Telescope

Larry and Sergey Cleared to Land at Uncle Sam's Private Airport in Silicon Valley

Over Silicon Valley in a B-17 Flying Fortress

(IMAGES: All photos above by Telstar Logistics)

A New Monument for Laika, Russia's Heroic Space Dog

Woof woof!  Have you ever heard the story of Laika, the Soviet Space Dog? In 1957, Laika (shown above) became the first living creature to orbit the Earth, when Soviet scientists launched the 13 lb. canine into orbit aboard a hastily built Sputnik 2 space capsule.  A former stray found on the streets of Moscow, Laika perished when the thermal control systems failed and the capsule overheated, killing the dog in orbit.

Laika sailed into the final frontier wearing a spacesuit like this one on display at the Moscow Space Museum:

Fortunately, Laika's legend has lived on.  There is, of course, a semi-famous surf rock band from Finland called Laika and the Cosmonauts, whom we love dearly. Laika also makes a cameo on the Monument to the Conquerors of Space, which was erected in 1964. But now Russia has decided to give Laika a permanent statue of her very own, near Moscow's Military Medicine Institute:

LINKS:
Russia fetes dog Laika, first earthling in space (Reuters, April 11, 2008)

Laika (Wikipedia page)

Laika (Flickr photoset of Laika photos and memorabilia, by dezown)

PREVIOUSLY:
Happy 50th Birthday Sputnik: We Wouldn't Be Us Without You

Happy 45th Anniversary, Telstar 1!

A Brief History of All Telstars

(IMAGE: Doggie spacesuit photo by James Duncan. Laika monument, AP Photo by Alexei Nikolsky)

Is Barack Obama a Borg "Manchurian Candidate?"

Although Telstar Logistics endeavors always to remain nonpartisan, an urgent matter has come to our attention that may have significant bearing upon the future of the American republic — and indeed the very survival of the entire human race. Fellow citizens, there is reason to believe that Barack Obama may be an instrument of a hostile foreign power. Specifically, Barack Obama could be a sleeper agent for the Borg.

Yes, you read that correctly. You probably know that during this presidential campaign, allegations have been raised — falsely —that Barack Obama is an Islamist who once attended a madrassa. Other whispers have charged — again, falsely —that Obama refuses to recite the American Pledge of Allegiance. Likewise, investigations into his youthful drug use have found little smoke and no fire. Still unanswered, however, is the question of whether Barack Obama is a puppet of the Borg, a collectivist hive of cybernetically enhanced humanoids from a distant galaxy.

How is this possible? Back up to 2004, when Barack Obama first emerged on the national stage. He was a member of the Illinois state legislature at the time, until he decided to make a run for the United States Senate. Obama secured the Democratic nomination, but heading into the general election, he faced a formidable opponent in the form of Republican nominee Jack Ryan, a millionaire investment banker.

Now, back up again to 1997. That was the year when a new character joined the cast of Star Trek: Voyager. The new member of the Voyager crew was a human woman named Seven of Nine who had previously been assimilated by the Borg. Following her rescue by Voyager, Seven regained her human individuality, although she also retained some Borg cybernetic implants — as well as latent sympathies for the Borg's radical collectivist ideology. This composite photo shows Seven as she looked while she was a member of the Borg collective (left) and her appearance after she regained her human individuality (right):

And who was Seven of Nine? She was played by none other than Jeri Ryan, Jack Ryan's wife until the couple divorced in 1999.

Pay attention here, because this is where things get interesting. Jeri Ryan's Wikipedia page explains:

Although [Jeri] Ryan mentioned that the frequent separations had been difficult for the marriage, the reasons for the divorce were kept sealed at their mutual request.

Five years later, when Jack Ryan's Senate campaign began, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have the records released. Both Jeri and Jack agreed to make their divorce records public, but not the custody records, claiming that their release could be harmful to their son.

On June 22, 2004, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider agreed to release the custody files; the decision generated much controversy because it went against both parents' direct request and because it generally reversed the early decision to seal the papers in the best interest of the child. It was revealed that, six years previously, Jeri had accused Jack Ryan of asking her to perform sexual acts with him in public, and in adult clubs in New York, New Orleans, and Paris. Jeri Ryan described one as "a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling." Jack Ryan denied these allegations. Although Jeri Ryan refused to comment on the matter during the campaign, the document disclosure led Jack Ryan to withdraw his Republican candidacy for an open United States Senate seat in Illinois (which was eventually won by Barack Obama). [emphasis added]

Convenient, isn't it?  The candidacy of Barack Obama's leading opponent implodes thanks to a tawdry sex scandal involving a former Borg drone... which makes Obama a shoe-in for the Illinois Senate seat... which catapults him into the national spotlight... which sets up his bid for the presidency of the United States of America. It's all so simple.  So very elegant. So very much like the kind of conspiracy one might expect to come from an alien hive-mind motivated by the quest for total perfection.

It's unknown if Barack Obama is aware of his potential role as an agent of Borg domination. Yet his consciousness of these circumstances does nothing to diminish the danger we all may face should this alien plot reach its full fruition. (Full disclosure: Telstar Logistics contributed cash-money to Obama's campaign, and he assimilated our vote during the recent California primaries.) We only hope that representatives from the mainstream media will properly investigate these facts to ascertain the scope and magnitude of any intergalactic threat we may soon face.

Resistance is futile.

We report.

You decide.

UPDATE, 24 November, 2008:

Wow.  It happened.  Barack Obama will be our next president.  We're thrilled, although it's bizarre to consider that were it not for the Borg, he might never have landed his first major job on the national political stage. Perfection, indeed.

PREVIOUSLY:
Does Life Imitate "Star Trek" in the Cabin of Boeing's New 787?

Star Trek vs. Star Wars

Tomorrow's Astronauts Will Fly Economy Class to the Moon

Inside the Orion mockup (NASA photo via Aviation Week)

Bummer for America's astronaut corps: They'll get a downgrade to economy class when NASA begins flying its next-generation spacecraft to the International Space Station and (eventually) the moon.

Rocketing into orbit on the space shuttle is a relatively deluxe affair: There are three decks in the shuttle, which means astronauts have a little bit of room to stretch out once the craft reaches space. But when shuttle fleet is retired in 2010, it will be replaced by an all-new spacecraft called Orion, and Orion will be rather cramped inside.  Indeed, if the interior of the shuttle is sort of like a futuristic motorhome, the interior of Orion will be a lot like an Apollo-era space capsule. Because that's precisely what Orion is: an Apollo-style space capsule, made slightly larger. Here's Orion's basic configuration, and if you look closely, you can see the seats for the crew lined up at the center:

And here's how Orion will look in orbit around the moon:

Oh sure, Orion has more than twice as much interior volume as  Apollo, but that's not saying much. It's still just a capsule, and NASA plans to stuff as many as six spacesuit-clad astronauts inside for rides to the ISS, and four for week-long trips to the moon. It will be a tight fit.

The December 10, 2007 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology featured a cover story about the design of the Orion capsule, and here's what they had to say about it (subscription only):

The first thing you notice is how small it is inside—more spacious than Apollo, they say, but tighter than the shuttle.

After watching gangs of astronauts doing back flips in the pressurized modules on the International Space Station, the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle mockup here seems cramped and even claustrophobic.

“In microgravity, the volume does expand for you because you have more surfaces you can use,” says astronaut Lee Morin, who heads the Orion cockpit working group here. “You don’t just have a floor, so that helps to some extent, but it is going to be a limited volume.”

Making the most of the 5-meter (16.4-ft.)-wide Orion cockpit—the exact habitable volume remains in flux—is getting a lot of attention in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility [at the Johnson Space Center]. Morin’s group is using low-fidelity seats, spacesuits and equipment lockers to figure out how to squeeze as many as six astronauts inside and keep them relatively happy until they get to the ISS, Orion’s first destination.

The simulations begin on the launch pad, where astronauts stacked like cordwood might one day have to get out quickly in an emergency through a single hatch.

There you have it: astronauts "stacked like cordwood." And if you think those astronauts will be bumping elbows a lot on the way up, rest assured it'll be even more hairy on the way down.  As we all know, the space shuttle lands smoothly on a runway, much like any fixed-wing aircraft. But Orion will not. Again like Apollo, Orion will parachute back to Earth. Where on Earth? That remains unclear. AWST says:

NASA’s top managers still haven’t decided whether Orion will land in the water or on dry land, in part because the crew-safety factors of off-nominal landing sites and the life-cycle costs of recovery forces haven’t been completely worked out. But for the crew in the capsule, one thing is clear—it’s going to be rough. “It’s Apollo; it’s Soyuz,” says Fox. “You’re going to hit the ground pretty hard.” [...]

Right now the thinking is to develop an airbag kit that will allow Orion capsules to be tailored for specific missions. Most lunar missions would return to a water landing near San Clemente Island off the coast of Southern California. Missions to the ISS would land at Edwards AFB, Calif., or some other spacious military reservation in the western U.S., using the bolt-on airbag kit to attenuate the impact.

It's a safe bet that Orion passengers won't be sipping champagne or munching on canapés in preparation for landing. And that raises a fair question: What kind of a giant leap for mankind is this, anyway? We have seen the future, and alas, it looks a lot like a zero-g version of flying coach from LaGuardia to Chicago.

LINKS:
Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (NASA multimedia image page)

Orion (Wikipedia page)

PREVIOUSLY:
How to Turn Old NASA Space Shuttles into New Modern Artwork

Burt Rutan's White Knight is "like flying inside a giant whiffle ball"

(IMAGES: All Orion images via NASA)

Video: See the World from the Telstar Logistics RocketCam

We bring news from the frontiers of backyard rocketry. Telstar Logistics is pleased to report that last weekend, Steve Jurvetson, our Director of Space Operations, successfully completed the maiden voyage of the Telstar Logistics "Expediter," a robust platform for high-g amateur videography.

Launched from a remote mountain base near Farmington, California, the Telstar Logistics Expediter is a 4-foot rocketcraft powered by a Aerotech J315 Redline motor. In addition, the Expediter includes a strap-on video unit, which sounds smutty, but really isn't.  Rather, the video pod is simply an off-the-shelf Oregon Scientific camera mounted inside a streamlined housing epoxied to the rocket body.

The successful deployment of the Expediter comes on the heels of the sad failure of the Telstar Logistics V2.0, which, after several successful launches, crashed to the ground due to a catastrophic parachute failure. Undaunted, the Telstar Logistics "Night Ops" rocket was used to map several essential entertainment curves, and after extensive laboratory experimentation, the Telstar Logistics Expediter was born.

Following the recovery of the Expediter, Steve filed a flight report with our Space Operations Bureau. In it he said:

Well, ground control was elated to see the structural and electronic elements of the TL Expediter withstand this test flight.  As an added precaution, we wrapped the joint in a slow-cure JB Weld epoxy (this stuff is strong enough to repair tractor engine blocks) and wrapped it in fiberglass, like a tight ace bandage.  The battery leads were soldered together, and  nose cone made from a half an easter egg was fiberglassed to the camera for better retention.

The Aerotech J315 Redline motor that I built right before launch worked like a charm.  Parachute deployment was triggered 1g of black powder ignited by a low-current DaveyFire igniter triggered by the on-board computer.

We also captured these readings from the G-Wiz LCX on-board computer with accelerometer and  barometric pressure sensors:

Acceleration: 455.6 f/s/s = 14 g’s
Max Speed: 567.3 ft/s = 387 MPH
Max Alt: 5,186 ft.

The strap on video worked without a hitch, recording video all the way up and down.  (You can see the cars and the launch area as the rocket comes spinning back to earth dangling by parachute.)  The on-board computer recorded a max speed of 387MPH as it pulled 14 g’s. Jurvetson out.

Indeed, we've reviewed the video footage back at Mission Control, and it came out great. See for yourself!  Click the image below to watch the onboard video captured as the Expediter soared into the sky:

And what did the Expediter look like as it left the ground? Apparently, Kim Jong Il wondered the same thing, so he monitored the flight from his Pyongyang observation post. That's how he captured this video, which was later leaked to YouTube:

PREVIOUSLY:
Press Release: The Launch of the Telstar Logistics V2.0 Rocket

Will Steve Jurvetson's Rocket Go Supersonic?

This is How We Conquer the Galaxy

How to Turn Old NASA Space Shuttles into New Modern Artwork

NASA researchers at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida have made a remarkable discovery: When you hang a well-traveled space shuttle from the ceiling of a very large building, the shuttle becomes a sophisticated piece of contemporary art.

In the vein of Richard Serra perhaps?

Combined with a twist of Damien Hirst?

NASA's artistic discovery was described recently by Craig Couvault from Aviation Week and Space Technology.  Couvault visited the shuttle Atlantis as it was being prepared for its next flight, STS-122, inside the 525-foot tall Kennedy Vehicle Assembly Building. Along the way, he was able to see the scorched bellty of Atlantis as the ship was being stacked onto its rocket boosters. Couvault writes:

Processing the space shuttle for launch enables one to see it as much as art form as flight hardware. Sadly, scenes like this at the Kennedy Space Center will occur for only the next three years, as the shuttle program flies into history in 2010. Atlantis (left and above) first flew in 1985 and has perhaps only 2-3 more missions before retirement. But on STS-122, as early as Dec. 6, it is to launch the much-anticipated European Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station. Atlantis has been the space shuttle’s bridge between the Cold War and international space operations. It first flew secret military space missions in the late 1980s, but also performed the first U.S. docking with the Soviet Mir space station (1995) and has been heavily involved in [International Space Station] assembly. Atlantis has been a bridge to deep space as well, launching the Magellan imaging radar to Venus and the Galileo orbiter to Jupiter (both in 1989) as well as the Gamma Ray Observatory (1991) to probe the most powerful explosions in the ancient universe.

And what will become of Atlantis after she is retired? Telstar Logistics can't say for sure. But if Damien Hirst is reading this, might he be persuaded to try encasing Atlantis in a really, really, really big tank of formaldehyde? Or perhaps he knows someone at the Tate Modern?

(PHOTOS: Space shuttle photos by Carleton Bailie, AWST. Serra and Hirst photos from the Wikipedia.)

Happy 50th Birthday Sputnik: We Wouldn't Be Us Without You

As steadfast Darwinists and wannabe titans of global industry, Telstar Logistics firmly believes in the creative power of free-market competition. The scope of this power is vast and transformative — even when the competition itself is provided by an authoritarian regime animated by romantic fantasies about  the collectivist march of history and proletarian dominance of the means of production. We're talking here about Communism as practiced in the former Soviet Union, of course, but let us not forget that even Karl Marx was a big believer in dialectics — and what are dialectics, really, but a confident faith in the revolutionary power of sustained competition?

Sorry. We digress. But this is a topic that strikes close to home. You see, today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Sputnik satellite, and if it weren't for Sputnik, its entirely possible that Telstar I -- the telecommunications satellite that is also our corporate namesake -- wouldn't exist either.

Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957. It was an extremely crude satellite — an aluminum sphere the size of a medicine ball, with four whip antennas connected to two battery-powered transmitters. The transmitters broadcast a simple "beeping" signal to the Earth's surface for 23 days. Then the batteries died, the signal stopped, and Sputnik 1 burned up upon reentering the atmosphere in Janurary, 1958.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal this week, physicist Peter D. Zimmerman captures how the launch of Sputnik gave America's determination to master the technology of space flight a firm kick in the butt:

Fifty years ago this week Sputnik 1 entered space, and the history books, as the first man-made satellite of Earth. It was a Soviet, and not an American, achievement.

Indeed, weighing 184 pounds and being 23 inches in diameter, Sputnik 1 seemed gigantic. It was almost nine times heavier than the still unfinished Vanguard satellite, which President Dwight D. Eisenhower had promised would be America's flagship contribution to the International Geophysical Year. The IGY was an 18-month period in which the nations of the world would make intense efforts to learn about our planet.

Because it was to be purely scientific, Vanguard was to be launched by a new rocket built without using stages and motors from long-range missiles. It was constructed entirely from rockets adapted from those built for science. In contrast, Sputnik was hurled into space by the Soviets' very large R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile.

We all know what happened next, of course.  Although it orbited the Earth for just a short time, the launch of Sputnik was the starting gun that marked the beginning of the Space Race.

That the Soviet Union had orbited a satellite first was a slap in the face that got America's competitive juices flowing — and it's no exaggeration at all to say that the successful landing of Apollo 11 on the moon's surface in 1969 was the culmination of a national effort to purge the sting of the Sputnik humilation. The launch of Telstar 1 in 1962 was one of the small steps taken in the run-up to the giant leap of Apollo 11.

So it's a paradox, really. As much as Telstar Logistics is committed to celebrating the can-do spirit of free enterprise epitomized by Telstar 1, Telstar 1 might not have come into being if the Commie pinko Soviets hadn't orbited Sputnik in 1957.  So does that mean that the original mantle of can-do optimism rightfully belongs to the dour Leninists who once prowled the halls of the Kremlin? And if that's the case, should our firm actually be called Sputnik Logistics?

The mind reels! It's like "Mirror, Mirror", that old Star Trek episode where the "evil Spock" from a parallel universe sports a sinister goatee and behaves like a ruthless scoundrel! So very disorienting.

But there is one big consolation: those godless Soviets may have gotten there first, but Telstar ended up with the better theme song.

LINKS:
Sputnik (NASA history pages)

Telemetry from Sputnik 1 (Audio .wav file recording of Sputnik 1's "beep")

Soviet Fires Earth Satellite Into Space (Full text of New York Times article, October 5, 1957)

PREVIOUSLY:
Happy 45th Anniversary, Telstar 1!

A Brief History of All Telstars

Joe Meek and That Telstar Sound

UPDATE: Opportunity Rover Enters Giant Martian Crater

Not long ago we posted an appreciation of Spirit and Opportunity, the twin rovers that have been dutifully exploring the surface of Mars since 2004.  We also noted that after surviving a brutal Martian dust storm, Opportunity was poised on the edge of the giant Victoria Crater in hopes of entering the crater in the days ahead. Now the time has come for Opportunity to boldly go where no rover has gone before.  The AP reports:

Two months after surviving a giant dust storm, one of NASA's robotic rovers on Mars began a risky drive Tuesday into a crater blasted open by a meteor eons ago.

Scientists want the rover Opportunity to travel 40 feet down toward a bright band of rocks in the Victoria Crater. They believe the rocks represent the ancient surface of Mars and that studying them could shed clues on the planet's early climate.

On Tuesday morning, engineers sent commands to Opportunity to begin its journey, and the robot signaled a confirmation. It will be several hours before scientists know how well the drive is going, and the trek itself will take several days.

Opportunity can get in to the crater, but can it get out? NASA has decided that the scientific potential of Victoria Crater is so great that it's worth running the risk that the little rover might never be able to leave. Opportunity's biggest adventure may also be its last.

LINKS:
Opportunity Takes A Dip Into Victoria Crater (NASA press release, September 11, 2007)

Mars Exploration Rover Mission (NASA blog with latest status updates on Opportunity and Spirit)

Victoria Crater (Wikipedia page on the Martian crater Opportunity will explore)

PREVIOUSLY:
Opportunity and Spirit: The Little Rovers That Still Can

(Photo above: Opportunity's view from the rim of Mars' Victoria Crater, released by NASA on September 11, 2007. The rover will enter the crater from a point roughly 100 feet from this location.)