Feb 24 2009
Bad Month for Space
This hasn’t been the best month for space doings. I’ve put off mentioning and discussing the February 10 Iridium-Kosmos 2251 collision because, well, I was hoping to wait until we got a better picture of the real implications of this space catastrophe (and yes, that’s how I see it). It’s a huge deal, partially because both satellites were fairly large, partially because, since they hit at right angles, the relative velocity was very high (~11.7 km/s – note that’s *per second* not per hour; a rifle bullet is more on the order of 0.5-1.1 km/s for reference) and partially because it’s up on the high side of an already crowded low earth orbit. Everything, of course, will be coming down and spending time (of relative lengths) at all the altitudes below, including Hubble’s altitude and the Space Station. So far, they’ve counted upwards of 500 trackable pieces of debris from this, which means there are many thousand of smaller untrackable pieces. Because there is no atmosphere where the collision happened, there’s no friction to speed their reentry, so we’ll be living with that debris a long time.
Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the bad news. Last night/this morning, the much-touted Orbiting Carbon Observatory launch failed, when a fairing failed to release (on the clamshell casing that held the satellite). The added mass of the enclosure made it too massive for the existing fuel to propel it to orbit so the hapless satellite dropped into the drink near Antarctica. The NASA program manager John Brunschwyler said, “We could not make orbit.… Initial indications are the vehicle did not have enough [thrust] to reach orbit and landed just short of Antarctica in the ocean.… Certainly for the science community, it’s a huge disappointment.” *Sigh* It was the first flight for NASA with the Taurus XL, built by Orbital Science Corp.
It’s a timely, but costly, reminder that, as hard as it is to get something to function in space, getting something to space is still a nontrivial problem.
As someone deeply concerned about global warming and a scientist, I can’t help but be disheartened, but it’s not all bad news. After all, the Japanese have already successfully launched their own Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite that is performing a similar function now (launched in January). This satellite was designed to measure methane and CO2 in the atmosphere and this data will be shared with NASA and other space and scientific organizations around the world. Kudos to JAXA (the Japanese Space Agency).
On the one hand, as a human being and a rocket scientist, I can’t help but be gratified at the worldwide interest in space activities, from Shenzhou in China to the reliable workhorse rockets in Russia to the many and varied ESA activities to those activities by Japan and India to join in the space fraternity. Still, I’m a little saddened that the US is not always at the forefront any more and that, in this country, that drive to explore and that dedication to our space efforts does not seem widespread among the populace. Unfortunately, events like this failed launch will hardly make that better.
More links on the OCO launch failure:
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20090224/49a38ce0_3ca6_1552620090224-458764158
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Satellite_mission_to_monitor_carbon_dioxide_fails_NASA_999.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/oco/main/index.html
Note that my sister, Shakespeare, has added another writing exercise today . Check it out!
This is how much you’ve gotten into my head.
As I was driving home from work, NPR was discussing this story about the failed satellite launch. All I could wonder was what Stephanie thinks about this.
I then wondered how you felt about the general US attitude towards space travel/exploration (or the lack thereof of any attitude), and you anticipated my curiosity!!!
Seriously…get out of my head.
When I look up at the moon with my son, we love to talk about how he might get to go there someday. Maybe by the time he gets to be my age, he could be living or working there.
But isn’t that the same thing our parents said to us as they watched that historical event unfold when Armstrong first walked on the moon? It seems we’re father away from the moon then we were even then.
It makes me sad that my hopes for him may not come to fruition.
True to a long history of media stories, America only seems to be interested in tragedy, or evidence that our tax dollars might be wasted. One has to look rather hard for stories about potential evidence of life on Mars or some of the Jupiter/Saturn moons, but when a satellite comes crashing down, everyone talks about it.
Perhaps it’s because we don’t really have competition to stay ahead of anymore.
It sounds to me like back in the days of the space race, one of the big reasons for us to do everything we did was so we could do it first. Only we’ve lost a lot of things since then, including a hefty chunk of our national unity (I think) and an opponent everyone can get behind trying to beat.
…it’s a thought, anyway. Competition does seem to bring out the intensity in people.
definitely not a good week …. and a very expensive one too ….
you’ll want to check out the forum.. they’ve given us a way of adding social networking icons again …they are little…but better than nothing
Hmmm… Now alluva sudden they’re making me sign up as a member to post comments. I already belong to too many things online! Anyhow…
I heard about the failure of the OCO this morning and immediately thought of you. Didn’t you just do a blog post about it, with diagrams and all?
And I think the “space race” has calmed down not because of a lack of competition - now we have China and India getting ready to send their own people out there, and I wouldn’t doubt that the Japanese are well on their way, too - but because competition is no longer a factor. Everybody seems to be trading the technology back and forth (well, maybe not the Chinese, but I think I heard that they are sharing with India). It seems as though we’re shifting from individual nations racing to get space technology to a united effort to get humankind into space. And for me, that’s not a bad thing at all.
Just my 2¢.
There is one good thing happening in space for the astronomy crowd - the visit by Comet Lulin - this has kept the astronomy sites abuzz with stories and images.
I remember seeing on the news that an object, here in TX, was being researched as possible debri from this collision. These mishaps are costly and timely, indeed. No one perished thought, right? For that I am grateful.
Davida