Recollections from a Child of the Space Program

The Space Shuttle Atlantis has just landed as I type this, the twin sonic booms announcing her arrival. It’s the end of an era, a sad end that came too soon, thanks to politicians who have no imagination, no vision, and no commitment to the betterment of mankind, despite their meddlesome efforts to engineer society into their idea of Utopia.

As is typical with the Obama administration, we’re wasting an incalculable fortune in lost opportunities and human capital. There’s just no reason for us not to continue being the world’s leading space power. The Shuttles still have many flights left on their airframes and many Americans want us to maintain our lead in spaceflight. But do our politicians reflect our will and do as we the people wish?

Sorry if I’m bitter, but I grew up in the shadow of the space program.

I’m going to see how much I can remember of my experiences growing up in Huntsville, Alabama. I’m sure some of you also have ties to the space program and have your own memories. I’d like to hear about them in the comments, if you’re so inclined. Ima, that’s your cue…

The private military school I attended in Mobile gathered the student body in the gym in front of a TV so we could all see Alan Shepard’s first flight, as it did also for John Glenn’s flight. That was the time when I started dreaming of exploring space. I didn’t think, however, that we’d get to the moon in my lifetime.

I’m glad I was wrong. Of course, I was a young’un and didn’t read the newspapers except for the comics, so I was surprised to learn that we were indeed, going to the moon. President Kennedy’s announcement woke me right up. I started finding out anything and everything I could about the Mercury and Gemini programs. I remember having a favorite astronaut, Wally Schirra, for reasons that had nothing at all to do with my real name, really (wink).

I remember crying when Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died aboard Apollo 1 in the tragic launch pad fire. The city of Huntsville named the next three schools after them, so their noble sacrifice could be an inspiration to future generations. That was when reality set in, sobering but not diminishing our national mission to reach the Moon before the end of the decade of the ‘60’s.

One day, not long after Mom and I had moved to Huntsville, I was in our apartment when I heard something that sounded like a tornado. Since it was a nice day outside with no storms, I couldn’t figure out what that sound was. Soon, the walls began to shake, and the pictures with them. The phone rang. It was one of my buddies who was hollering, “Hey, do you hear that? That’s one of the Saturn V engines they’re testing down by the river!” Whew. For many of the later tests, a few of us would gather in the front yard of a friends’ house on a hill where we had a good view of the exhaust plume which would hang in the Alabama air for what seemed like hours. We’d try to see shapes in it like a cloud. Good times.

Did I mention that somebody named Werner von Braun was a local hero?

On the night of the Moon landing, a bunch of us junior high schoolers gathered at a friends’ house to watch it on TV. As I walked home afterwards, I remember looking up at the Moon and thinking, “We did it, we finally did it. Dreams really can come true.”

My introduction to politics came when I heard that we were cancelling Moon missions. Why? Wasn’t there so much more to do? We were just getting started, and I wanted to go, too. Who are these people who would prevent us from reaching for the stars?

The next year, in my first year of Machine Shop school, we took a field trip to Marshall Space Flight Center where I saw my first computer controlled milling machine, which a buddy’s dad operated. That’s when I knew I could still contribute in some way to our space effort. Thus began my career in manufacturing.

I remember seeing the Shuttle Enterprise flying around Huntsville on the back of the jumbo jet, and later took a picture of BackwardsBoyBoy under her wing in a stroller at the public event.

I would later work at Marshall for a fellow named Charlie Yeager, Chuck’s second cousin, in the old Gemini vehicle assembly building. He was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet, and I was honored to work with him and get to know him. Charlie, if you’re still here, I think about you, Cecil, Mike, and all the other guys with great fondness. And I still remember our flights to Talladega to watch the NASCAR race and qualifying. More good times.

Charlie had “NASA in his pocket.” He had done just about every little behind-the-scenes job that you could imagine at Marshall. One day, I was looking for some special screws, 100-degree pan-heads, stainless steel, one and a half inches long, not your standard shop item. I’d looked everywhere in the shop, and when I couldn’t find any, I finally asked Charlie if we had any. He looked at me while he dug in his pocket. “How many do you need?” he asked. I said six, and he pulled six of them out of his pants pocket.

That was Charlie.

The building itself was a museum of space. There were old spacesuits just lying around, along with a section of the first Space Station, wrapped up in a corner. While I was there, we built a full-scale mock-up of the laboratory module of the new Space Station, as did every other NASA facility. The design team then toured and viewed all the mock-ups and finalized their design from our ideas. That module is on the NASA tour, so you can see some of my work. So, yeah, there’s a little bit of me flying in low Earth orbit right now.

Challenger, and later, Columbia. We don’t often witness noble death. For those of us who Believe, they’re still flying, only with different and better wings.

So, I’m sad today. I can only hope that the pause will be as short as possible while we work on new and exciting missions once again and regain our lead in space.

We still have the Right Stuff. I wish our politicians did.

Friday Bits of Tid - End of the Shuttle Era Edition

It's about three hours until liftoff as I type this and I have the NASA channel on in the background. Shuttle launches are always interesting for a space geek like me, but this one is sad as it's the last Shuttle flight ever. Living where I do, I can walk out the front door and see it live. But it's really cloudy, so I might not be able to see today's launch.

It's unfortunate that what was once a vital area of federally funded research and development has been fundamentally transformed into something far less than it was originally intended. It's one of the few government programs that has earned its keep, so to speak, as the tax money that was generated from the spinoffs paid for the costs many times over. Also sad is that the agency which once pursued the best and brightest engineers and technicians in America has been reduced to a muslim outreach agency by this most anti-American administration.

So much for dancing on my soapbox this morning. I wish the crew Godspeed and His Protection.

Someone remind me to recall for you my adolescence spent in Huntsville, AL and later working at Marshall Space Flight Center. Good geeky times.

Oh, well, it's time for some Low Earth Orbit tidding.

While we're on the subject of flight, this is a welcome development. It's about time we finally got our flying car after all these years. Dear Santa, I've been a really good Boy this year...

And on the other end of the technological spectrum, there's this: Mother Nature's lawnmowers.

Halt! Or I'll shoot a fade shot over these trees and onto the fairway.

A boob on wheels. And, no, it's not the guy behind you in traffic.

Duckling tape.

From David Thompson comes this fascinating video. I hope your computer has the display capacity to enjoy all the high definition goodness. The music is also pretty cool.


Team Ghost - High Hopes from 16ar on Vimeo.


David's Friday Ephemera is full of interesting links, from which I filched these also...

Who knew Marlon Brando was a conga player and also worked on a unique way to tune the head?

So this is what happens when I hit my cymbals, huh?



And this is what happens when I play my bass...

And finally, here's Halo, the pool playing dog.



Now go fetch me a beer. Good dog!

Y'all have a good weekend, y'all.

Sports in Space? Why Not?

Growing up, I had dreams of becoming an astronaut. If you’re of a certain age, you probably had those same dreams, too. You looked up to those magnificent men in their flying machines and wanted to be one of them.

You knew you had to do: study the hard sciences, be disciplined physically, emotionally, and mentally, be the best person you could become and then, maybe, you could join the ranks of the most technically advanced pioneers the world has ever known. Shepard, Glenn, Armstrong, Aldrin, and many others were names you knew and revered.

You wanted to be like them and boldly go where no one had ever gone before.

Today’s final launch of Shuttle Endeavor is sad for many reasons, not the least among them is the fact that we’ve seemingly lost our national zeal for exploration. Not us as a people, or a race. Humans have an inner thirst for new and untried things to do and places to explore.

That was once an integral part of what made us Americans. We did new things. We proposed new ideas and new ways of doing them. We had leadership that embraced true technological progress, progress that resulted in the greatest elevation of mankind the world has ever known. The technological advancements from our space program gave us new products and innovative ways of looking at the world. Satellites, computers and Tang were but small part of the Space Age. Science fiction became facts of everyday life.

Alas, we no longer have that type of leadership in Washington today. It’s not that our national quest for adventure has waned; those we send to Washington today seem more enamored with petty things through which to gain power and control, not a grand vision of mankind elevated. We are diminished as a result of sending such small-minded people to act on our behalf.

Speaking of our space program in the past tense is depressing as hell.

We must now depend on our biggest competitor for our access to low Earth orbit. Russia will now assume the duties that we once did, servicing the Space Station that we developed, financed and put into orbit. They recently raised their price for their services, unsurprisingly. A lack of competition will do that.

So, while we ponder our next national move towards space, what will we do in the meantime? The moon is still waiting to be explored, as is Mars. We have the technology (to coin a phrase), but not the foresight or political will to continue our trek to the stars.

I have an idea.

Let’s create a sport for space. SpaceSport, we’ll call it for now. There could even be more than one of them.

It’s new, exciting, and would generate quite a bit of money and open up low Earth orbit to fans as space tourists. This would be all kinds of good.

And, it’s doable without any government money.

Just think of the possibilities. A worldwide television market. Merchandising on a truly grand scale. A permanent, private presence in space. Technological innovations that would truly make space flight as routine and inexpensive as jet travel. There’s more, the only limit would be our imagination.

Already, several private companies are poised to capitalize on space tourism with short-duration flights. Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson, Burt Rutan and others are leading the way in the privatization of space. Expectations are that businesses will start offering rides within a couple of years, perhaps sooner.

What could accelerate that better than SpaceSport? The absence of gravity will present its own challenge. Initial plans could be for a small, well-cushioned court for the players, a uniform with strategically placed patches of Velcro with which to remain stationary if desired (or maybe stay attached to a fellow player). A ball similar to a soft type of kickball could be used (although there’s no weight in space, there’s still mass – if you hit your head on something, it still hurts). Perhaps a large cylindrical tube with round goals at either end into which a ball could be thrown or banked to score. TV cameras could be placed in players’ helmets to show the action. Advancements in virtual reality could enable fans to see what players see, much like in-car cameras in motorsports, only better. The market for video games alone would be enormous. Possibilities abound.

Eventually, there could even be an arena with live spectators, who knows?

This could be the next step in space travel and exploration – sports.

Friday Bits of Tid, Challenger Edition

This is a somber Friday.

Do you remember where you were when the crew of Challenger slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God? Bing has a collection of videos from that fateful day in 1986 here. If your children weren't born yet, you could use them as a teaching tool, much as I would imagine Christa McAuliffe would have wanted.

If you do, tell them that we don't often witness noble death.

Carrying on...

Time capsule found.

They came for the Green Bay Packers neckties, and yet I did nothing.

 Major in Walrus, minor in Eggmen. British school award degree in Beatles.

Is riding a horse while drunk legal in Montana? I'd prefer to ride a sober one.

Hey, did anyone lose a penguin?

A memorial for Paul, the Psychic Octopus. What, no calamari?

Duude, like, has anyone seen Paco? He was here just a minute ago...

And finally, who among us hasn't felt like doing this?



And on that note, have a good weekend, y'all.

Obama Kills NASA

Here's something else to be added to the list of things our country used to have in the era BO, "Before Obama": a strong and vibrant space program that led the world in innovation.

In case you haven't yet heard, NASA Administrator John Bolden, in an interview with AL-Jazeera, outlined his duties as given to him by President Obama.

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview.

Notice that not one of these directives from Obama mentions that NASA is to succeeed, or excel, or lead us back into space. No, there's none of that. In fact, these directives are specifically designed to reduce and diminish our role in space exploration and research and to make us no more relevant in mankinds' reach for the stars than the Muslim nations he wants to make "feel good".

Someone will have to refresh my memory. What is it that Muslim nations have done to elevate mankind in the past few centuries? Which Muslim nation now has an active and peaceful space program that employs the best and brightest engineers and technicians? Which Muslim nation is it that has contributed one thing in the area of engineering that has led to any advances in medicine, or any other discipline that has helped anyone live longer, or to toil less, or saved a sick child?

That's what I thought.

Psychologically, this is yet another manifestation of Obama's eagerness to punish America. It seems that one trait despots have in common is to remove any hope for the populace. Obama certainly shares this goal for America. Why else would he kill the Space Shuttle program without a replacement vehicle ready to service the Space Station? Why else would he hand over our responsibilities to the Russians, who clearly aren't capable of even the most rudimentary of tasks like safely docking with the Station, as last weeks' failure showed? We must still pay for access into low Earth orbit, only now it is far less reliable and safe, thus putting our astronauts in unecessary danger. In addition, that money goes to help a country that isn't our friend, as last weeks' discovery of a Russian spy ring reminds us.

Having once proudly worked for a NASA subcontractor some twenty years ago, I feel sad for the agency and for the country. It will take many years to undo the damage wrought by this most un-American president ever.

Is there no end to the destruction of a once-great nation under the Obama regime? Is there no institution that will be left intact? Must America sit idly and watch as a sitting president tears down the fabric of everything that we once revered?

If this is what passes for vision under the Obama regime, then let's just go ahead and dissolve NASA. The agency hasn't enjoyed the support of the Dems in Congress for nearly a generation, given that the funding and direction of the agency have been perverted to things like studying "global climate research" and other such nonsense instead of eveloping new technology to help us maintain the lead we've earned as the world's spacefarers.

Perhaps in the future, when we elect a real President, we can resume the course that we originally set upon, to lead the world.

Then we can resurrect NASA to build our pathway to the stars.

Neil Armstrong Blasts Obama's Lack of Vision in Space

This is what real heroes do.

The first man to walk on the moon has made public a letter in which he rightfully berates president Obama's startling and embarassing lack of national vision in his decision to drastically scale back America's space program. He, along with fellow astronauts James Lovell and Eugene Cernan, signed this letter expressing their disapproval of Obama's weakening of our hard-earned lead in space.

The letter begins with a bit of history,

"The United States entered into the challenge of space exploration under President Eisenhower’s first term, however, it was the Soviet Union who excelled in those early years," the letter begins."Under the bold vision of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and with the overwhelming approval of the American people, we rapidly closed the gap in the final third of the 20th century, and became the world leader in space exploration. ...

He then gets to the core of the problem,

"America’s only path to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station will now be subject to an agreement with Russia to purchase space on their Soyuz (at a price of over 50 million dollars per seat with significant increases expected in the near future) until we have the capacity to provide transportation for ourselves. The availability of a commercial transport to orbit as envisioned in the President’s proposal cannot be predicted with any certainty, but is likely to take substantially longer and be more expensive than we would hope."

Commander Armstrong isn't alone in his criticism of Obama. Even the Times of London thinks we should have a robust space program. And they're correct. We belong in space.

All of this criticism from former astronauts, not known to seek publicity, seems to have gotten Obama's attention. He's scheduled to speak here in Florida today to outline his new plans for America's space program. We'll see what he proposes, but in light of his overall anti-American sentiments, this blog doesn't expect much.

Perhaps someone will ask him why he thinks it alright to pay Russians to ferry American astronauts to the space Station but not Americans.

Obama's Startling Lack of Vision: "We Certainly Don't Need to Go Back to the Moon"

Progress - noun - 1. Positive development. development, usually of a gradual kind, toward achieving a goal or reaching a higher standard.

2. Advancement of human society. the general advance of human society and industry over time toward a state of greater civilization.

3. A concept that the Obama administration cannot grasp.

If you wondered, even for a moment, that all of the wrong-headed decisions made in just one year by our rookie president were at all the result of inexperience, wonder no more. The Obama administration announced that it plans to drastically reduce the technological edge in space that America has worked so hard to achieve over the last half-century by killing the Constellation program, the Ares cargo rocket, and cancelling plans to return to the Moon.

Dr. Werner Von Braun once said that research and development was the steam that made our economic engine move. While that quote sounds quaint in today's world, his point remains a salient one. Presidents from Eisenhower forward have appreciated the unique role of America's space program in society. The innovation and scientific advancements fuel our free market system and generate new jobs. New products generate new sources of tax revenue, offsetting their initial cost to the taxpayers. Thus, NASA is one of the few, if not the only, government program that shows a return to the investor/taxpayer.

Space exploration has other intangible benefits in addition to an economic boost. Countless youngsters have been captivated by the idea of exploring the heavens. The unleashing of curiousity in a young mind has great potential for good. Who knows what great discoveries lie ahead for a child watching his or her first live Shuttle launch?

Obama has stripped young Americans of a very big dream. He’s done a disservice to every science teacher in the country. He’s robbed the Treasury of untold mountains of tax revenue. He is single-handedly responsible for the loss of thousands more jobs in the middle of the worst recession the country has seen in decades. In one fell swoop, Obama has proven that he’s of a small mind, void of vision. He is determined to bring America down as the worlds’ innovator, reducing our technological edge over other countries at a time when we need to be more competitive in the global marketplace.

Progress. I don't think the word means what you think it means, Mr. Obama.