climate change activist and science communicator; photographer; mapmaker — advocate for a stable global climate, reduced nuclear weapon risks, and safe human-AI interaction
Posts about flying in atmospheres, or outside of them
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has been returning some exciting data, after a long flight through the solar system:
This documentary provides illuminating background on the mission: The Year of Pluto.
It is much to be hoped that the New Horizons craft will be able to observe other Kuiper belt objects.
I have had so much fun with my $17 Toys ‘R Us DC Sport 60 delta wing kite that I am thinking about getting something more sophisticated to play with: the Quantum two-line kite from Prism Designs. It’s another delta wing, so the basics of control will be similar. It’s tough enough to let other people crash, and has enough power to lift a light still or video camera.
I considered parasail-style kites, but while they may offer a great deal of power, they seem to have a narrower range of acrobatic possibilities.
I basically want something that I can fly in a range of wind conditions, let total amateurs learn on, and possibly use for some aerial photography. I will start setting aside a fraction of what I earn in commercial photography as a kite fund.
It even seems possible that regular kite-flying could have a therapeutic effect on the chronic pain from my collarbone injury. It’s plausible that it could help with both strength and range of movement.
I fear that my list of project ideas, which I assemble out of an optimistic hope that the future will bring a long span of free time for such undertakings, includes an idea for a screenplay.
It would be a film in the style of Apollo 13 (technically and historically accurate, and developed with lots of research in collaboration with the people involved) based on the STS-27 and STS-107 Space Shuttle missions.
I have a bunch of ideas, but I definitely don’t have time to write such a script, given my work with Toronto350.org, photography, and being on strike as a TA at U of T.
Still, I think it could be a powerful story. Ultimately, it’s a sadder story than Apollo 13, which may limit its aesthetic and commercial appeal. Still, like any story about crewed spaceflight, this is a story of courage and dedication applied in the pursuit of scientific understanding. Twelve amazing people: 5 who lived and 7 who died.
I can provide a more detailed breakdown of the screenplay idea, if someone wants to try working on it a bit.
The category ‘Geek stuff‘ doesn’t begin to cover this one. At the same time, I am grateful when ‘Bombs and rockets‘ isn’t about killing real people.
I used to take breaks from academic work by playing Starcraft II, but I haven’t loaded that game once since I got the demo and eventually the full version of Kerbal Space Program (KSP). It’s unambiguously one of my favourite games of all time. Nonetheless, there are several steep learning curves. Each stage of your development in KSP roughly approximates an area of knowledge necessary for real rocket science: maneuvering, orbital mechanics, rocket design, the understanding that a lot of your astronauts will die because of your mistakes (especially if you tinker with spaceplanes).
The full version of the game doesn’t come with a craft that has a decent chance of landing on the Mun and returning safely to Kerbin. I have modified the Kerbal X to be able to do this with amateur piloting skills.
This craft relies on a couple of plugins: MechJeb (fly to the Mun, land, and return home without using it at all for major geek points) and Kerbal Joint Reinforcement (your rocket may shake apart and explode without it).
Here it is: Modified Kerbal X with more fuel and engines and extras to help you land on the Mun (version IV)
With the last Space Shuttle mission ongoing, people are naturally asking what the future of space exploration is going to be. It seems clear that ambitious plans like a manned mission to Mars are a non-starter in the current fiscal climate. That being said, one of the major reasons why such missions are basically off the table is because they are not very useful. It would be very difficult to get human beings to Mars and then return them alive to Earth, but it wouldn’t teach us much about the universe.
By contrast, the James Webb Space Telescope is designed to be the successor to Hubble: one of the most successful scientific instruments of all time. Much of what we know about the universe has been established, confirmed, or refined using data from that instrument. As such, it is saddening to hear rumours that the Webb telescope may be scrapped fur budgetary reasons, if NASA experiences funding cuts of a certain magnitude.
It seems to me that would be a great shame. While the Webb will cost billions of dollars, it will also actively push forward the boundary of human knowledge and give us a better sense of what the universe is like. Launching it is something that humanity ought to do, even if we are experiencing economically difficult times. Basic science is something that builds upon itself, as new data is collected and new experiments are carried out. It is impossible to know in advance what the consequences of some seemingly obscure bit of cosmology or astronomy or physics will be. For instance, who would have predicted that special relativity would one day permit the precise geographic location of inexpensive receivers, using coordinated time signals from satellites (GPS).
For the sake of the important human undertaking of understanding our universe, we should find the money for the Webb.
This year, after 29 years in operation and two catastrophes, the American Space Shuttle program is shutting down. The Shuttle was always a hacked-together prototype vehicle, never the cheap and dependable satellite-launching workhorse that NASA seemed to promise Congress. Lots of effort and brilliance went into the thing – make no mistake – but trips to space have never been safe or routine.
The Wikipedia entry on the Shuttle details just how costly the thing was, as a way of putting objects 300 or so kilometres above the Earth:
When all design and maintenance costs are taken into account, the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or whopping $60,000/kg to LEO [low Earth orbit]
There are things that are worth putting into orbit at those prices – chiefly communication satellites and others designed to observe our planet and the wider universe. Human beings probably aren’t worth it, for now at least. The process of getting out of the atmosphere is perilous and costly, and there is nowhere remotely habitable to go, once you get up there.
In the aftermath of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986, a Presidential Commission was established to determine what went wrong. The most unusual member of the panel was almost certainly the physicist Richard Feynman, some of who’s books I have reviewed. Ultimately, his contribution proved to be controversial and was shifted into an annex of the official report. To me, it seems like a remarkably clear-sighted piece of analysis, with wide-ranging importance for complex organizations in which important things might go wrong.
The full text is available online: Appendix F – Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle
He makes some important points about dealing with models and statistics, as well as about the bureaucratic pressures that exist in large organizations. For instance, he repeatedly points out how the fact that something didn’t fail last time isn’t necessarily good evidence that it won’t fail again. Specifically, he points this out with reference to the eroded O-ring that was determined to be the cause of the fatal accident:
But erosion and blow-by are not what the design expected. They are warnings that something is wrong. The equipment is not operating as expected, and therefore there is a danger that it can operate with even wider deviations in this unexpected and not thoroughly understood way. The fact that this danger did not lead to a catastrophe before is no guarantee that it will not the next time, unless it is completely understood. When playing Russian roulette the fact that the first shot got off safely is little comfort for the next. The origin and consequences of the erosion and blow-by were not understood. They did not occur equally on all flights and all joints; sometimes more, and sometimes less. Why not sometime, when whatever conditions determined it were right, still more leading to catastrophe?
In his overall analysis, Feynman certainly doesn’t pull his punches, saying:
Since 1 part in 100,000 would imply that one could put a Shuttle up each day for 300 years expecting to lose only one, we could properly ask “What is the cause of management’s fantastic faith in the machinery?”
and:
It would appear that, for whatever purpose, be it for internal or external consumption, the management of NASA exaggerates the reliability of its product, to the point of fantasy.
It certainly seems plausible that similar exaggerations have been made by the managers in charge of other complex systems, on the basis of similar dubious analysis.
Feynman also singles out one thing NASA was doing especially well – computer hardware and software design and testing – to highlight the differences between a cautious approach where objectives are set within capabilities and a reckless one where capabilities are stretched to try to reach over-ambitious cost or time goals.
Of course, the fact that the Space Shuttle was more dangerous than advertised doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth the risk to launch them. Surely, astronauts were especially well equipped to understand and accept the risks they were facing. Still, if NASA had had a few people like Feyman in positions of influence in the organization, the Shuttle and the program surrounding it would probably have included fewer major risks.
Apparently, Barack Obama is thinking of curtailing NASA’s future manned spaceflight activities. Specifically, there has been talk of canceling the Ares 1 rocket and scaling back the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. If true, the news is welcome. There is very little evidence that ongoing manned programs – including the Space Shuttle and International Space Station – are generating useful science or providing other benefits. There is even greater doubt about the usefulness of returning to the moon.
Space exploration is an activity best undertaken by robots. They are cheaper to send up than humans and more capable. Given the very limited value provided by sending live people into space, it is something the United States should discontinue. At the very least, it is something that should be sharply scaled back while the government works to address America’s severe debts and other problems.
This sequel to Richard Feynman’s Surely You’re Joking covers some of the same ground as the prior book, though it is focused on the inquiry conducted after the Challenger space shuttle disaster. The book includes an appendix to that report, written by Feynman exclusively. Apparently, he was going to remove his name from the findings on account of his section being censored. Eventually, they printed something largely identical to his final copy.
As he explains it, the solid rocket booster failure that destroyed Challenger was largely the result of disjointed and poor communication between layers of administration at NASA and its supplier companies. The statistical modeling of the behaviour of the O-rings in the boosters was very poorly done. Information on the vulnerabilities of the shuttle either did not reach the most senior levels or was paid insufficient heed there. In any case, it seems likely that even if cold weather and design problems hadn’t caused this specific failure, something would have eventually gone wrong anyhow. For example, Feynman describes in detail some technical and procedural issues associated with the main engines. Such problems are not really surprising, given the overall complexity of the vehicle, the ‘top-down’ manner in which it was constructed (designing whole systems before testing individual components), and its fundamentally experimental nature. That being said, Feynman’s assessment probably has continuing relevance for other projects with similar associated risks and management structures. In particular, the contrast he draws between the strong protocols used in programming the shuttle’s computer – as compared with the protocols for sensors and engines – demonstrates that it is possible to do things well, provided sufficient attention and resources are devoted to the task.
Overall, the previous book is more entertaining and shows more of Feynman’s character. Aside from a section on Feynman’s first marriage, as well as the illness and death of his first wife, this book focuses on the details of Feynman’s investigation, including his famous demonstration with the O-ring and glass of ice water. All told, I found the earlier book more diverse and interesting. This book may be more useful for those whose professional work involves dangerous machines.
I never appreciated just how hazardous spaceflight really was. Everyone knows about the Challenger, Columbia, and Apollo 13 disasters. Many people know about Apollo 1. I doubt anyone reading this is aware of all of these. Soyuz 23, for instance, crashed through the ice of Lake Tengiz and had the crew saved only through an elaborate underwater rescue. Apollo 12 was struck by lightning during launch and would have been destroyed if disabled computers in the crew compartment hadn’t had backups in the rocket itself.
Of the 439 people who have been strapped into a vehicle intended to eventually go into space, 22 (5%) have died as a result. American astronauts were statistically about four times as likely to die as their Soviet counterparts, though that is partly a result of how the large crew of the Space Shuttle means a catastrophic accident kills seven people. The Space Mirror Memorial in Florida commemorates Americans who have died in the space program; their cosmonaut contemporaries are buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. No Russian has died in relation to space travel since the fall of the Soviet Union, so it is unclear how they would be memorialized now.