whose is biggest?

I was looking up some information on the new Ares V launch vehicle today, and I ran across an intersting page listing heavy-lift launch vehicles of the world. "Heavy Lift" here is defined as being able to life more than 20,000 kg into low orbit.

It's interesting to see the whole list. For some reason I'd thought that the Soviets had a rocket that could lift more than the Saturn V, but apparently not. The big Soviet/Russian workhorse is the Proton at 21,600 kg to orbit (The shuttle is 24,400 kg, but I presume part of that is people). The Soyuz-FG rocket that launches the Soyuz spacecraft is a smaller vehicle and thus isn't on this list.

So the Saturn V rocket built for Apollo stands as the largest launch vehicle ever made, at 118,000 kg to low orbit, and it was retired with a perfect launch record, 12 out of 12 successful. Here's hoping the Ares rockets are as successful.

you must think in Russian

I ran across a great web site last night, a web essay on "Information Display Systems for Russian Spacecraft: An Overview", which has lots of photos of instrument panels of Soviet/Russian spacecraft, which I think are fun to look at.

Looking at Some of these panel diagrams led me down an interesting line of thought. I can't read the button labels, because they're in Russian. It occured to me that that might be a reason to learn to read Russian. Since from 2010 to 2014, the only viable person-rated spacecraft will be the Soviet Soyuz and whatever succeeds it. I would be able to read stuff in the original language. I've always wanted to learn a foreign language. I've thought that Japanese would be neat, and I took some in college, but I just haven't had any reason to pursue it. Maybe this could be a reason to get that second language.

Here's a Soyuz-T panel photo from Astronautix.com:


this photo is © Mark Wade and used according to their use terms.

I've always been facinated by the globe instrument in the panel. I presume it indicates current position in orbit and maybe where you'd land if you fired the retro-rockets right now. Is this an actual, active navigation device? Is it a clockwork globe that just turns? Is it controlled by computer, or something else?

Star City, and help wanted at NASA

There's a nice article about the Russian space launch site (it's apparently physically located in Kazakstan and is "rented" by Russia).

On a completely different note, NASA has opened the application period for a new class of astronauts. There's an official job listing and NASA has an explanatory page. Interestingly, this job listing has visit requirements, but they allow for "correctable to" and allow for laser eye surgery. Given the very strict vision requirements for air force pilots, this is very cool.

long commute

The Expedition 16 crew launches to the International Space Station this morning. Coverage is available on the NASA channel.

gentlemen, start your engines

Fifty years ago today, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, into orbit. This action heightened the tensions of the Cold War and launched the technological space race betweeen the two countries. The United States won the first incarnation of that race by putting six two-man crews on the surface of the moon and returning them to the earth. Since then, the Soviets (now Russians) have had many more successes with orbital space stations than the US. However, the societal implications of the space race (including the creation of NASA) cannot be underestimated. Time has a "Top 50 highs and lows" in the space race, which provides an interesting overview of space events.

A recent interview with Boris Chertok, aide to the father of Soviet space flight Sergei Korolov, brings up some interesting points, including the claim that the whole exercise was put together at the last minute. He also points out that the "object" that people on the ground could see wasn't Sputnik I at all, but its upper booster stage, which was in roughly the same orbit.

The Houston Chronicle has an interesting article about the buildup to the space race. It points out that the US under President Eisenhower had been sending bombers into Soviet air space for years, and the ICBM buildup that led to the Sputnik launch was started to counter that threat.

everyone and their dog

Apparently, putting the charlesinspace.com URL on all the national news channels was too much for their server:

The multimedia version of CharlesinSpace.com is undergoing temporary maintenance due to the out-of-this-world traffic generated by the international news coverage. It will be back online shortly. In the meantime, you can read the latest blog and Ask Charles content here. -ed.

It's been fun catching on his blog as he went through training for the flight in Russia. I've heard in vague terms before about some of the training there, but it's fun to read about some of the exercises in detail.

in space, no one cares about vi vs emacs

Charles Simonyi is about to launch to the ISS from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. His web site has coverage. You need Flash 9.

[Update: As of the afternoon of April 7, www.charlesinspace.com appeared to have been replaced (maliciously?) with a page that just showed this:

pool::take a swim::
3547 5845 3956 3024
5680 9852 5743 9420
3889 7739 7255 1244
5528 8787 5599 6397
6659 6613 7948 4673
8971 9374 4294 7059
3878 6357 6196 2490
2398 5544 1143 4946
1060 0000 0000 fini

I hope it gets fixed soon; I'd hate to want to blog for orbit and have my site down.]

[7pm Eastern time: And now there's something back; not the full site, but a normal looking blog.]

luggage surcharge

I ran across some interesting numbers in Soyuz: A Universal Spacecraft (a recent birthday present). In its section on the Progress supply spacecraft (which is an uncrewed variant of the Soyuz) it mentions that it takes 15-30 kg to sustain a person in orbit for a day. I suppose that includes food, oxygen, air handling consumables and clothes. Elsewhere in the book, it says that a Progress costs $23 million to build and launch. The Progress has a dry cargo capacity of 2500 kg.

Using the lower limit of 15 kg per day per person, that works out to be about $140,000 per person per day in orbit. That's the sustained cost, which does not count the cost of getting the space station/vehicle in orbit or getting the person there in the first place.

a long, leisurely drive

I picked up the paperback Roving Mars last weekend, and I ended up reading it in less than 24 hours. The book talks about the current two-rover exploration mission to Mars that was launched in the summer of 2003 and reached Mars in early 2004. The mission was conservatively specced for 90 days, but the twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still going three years later. It's written by Stephen Squyres, the PI for the science part of the mission, who is an astronomy professor at Cornell.

If you're interested in space exploration at all, run, don't walk, and pick up this book. But don't start reading it until you have several hours to dedicate to it. The only drawback of the book is that it was written in late 2005, so the book only covers the first 1/2 of the missions so far. I hope that sometime this year he writes another one with more updates.

There is, apparently, an IMAX film about the rovers that was circulating at the time the book was released. I can't seem to find any reference to it currently, though.

Houston, we have a problem

I spent the latter part of the evening burning DVD-Rs and listening to Ron Howard's commentary track on the Apollo 13 Special edition.

Early in the ascent to Earth orbit, one of the engines in the first stage of the Saturn 5 rocket shut down unexpectedly. The guidance experts on the ground said that the mission could continue, as long as the other four engines continued running. Jim Lovell (commander, played in the movie by Tom Hanks) says "Well that was the glitch for this mission".

I had assumed that line was added as dramatic irony. As it turns out, that was directly from a transcript of the flight tapes.

[I should probably admit here and now that in addition to spending way too much time thinking about airplanes, I'm a little bit of a space nut, particularly about the Apollo program. Be sure to watch this space for a long rambling post about the AGC, the guidance and control computer used in the Apollo spacecraft.]