Asni’s Art Blog: Space Shuttle
Having a permanent space station in orbit is all well and fine, but how to get people and materials on and off it?
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Astronaut Mike Mullane on Astronauts Getting the Bends
Not just scuba divers, but spacewalking astronauts could also experience decompression sickness. i.e. “the bends”
Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane on “The Amazing Flight Software People”
Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane has some thoughts about the IBM team who built the Shuttle onboard flight software.
Space Shuttle First Flights: The Amazing Flight Software People
The people who designed, tested and supported the Space Shuttle Flight Software were the most exceptional technical team I’ve encountered.
Space Shuttle First Flights: An Era Ends, A New Age Begins
Space Shuttle is ended. The future of near-earth manned spaceflight is now in the hands of private industry. As I believe it should be.
Space Shuttle First Flights: The Legacy of Space Shuttle
Was Space Shuttle worth it? The International Space Station. The Hubble Space Telescope. How do you set a value on something that humans had only dreamed about?
Space Shuttle First Flights: Columbia (February 3, 2003)
As with Apollo 13, NASA “can do amazing things when they’ve got their back against the wall”. But for Space Shuttle Columbia they didn’t try.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Challenger (“Nature Cannot Be Fooled”)
Richard Feynman’s question about Space Shuttle Challenger was, “What is the cause of management’s fantastic faith in the machinery?”
Space Shuttle First Flights: Challenger (January 28,1986)
On the eve of the Space Shuttle Challenger launch the Morton Thiokol engineering team protested the decision to launch. They were overridden by NASA
Space Shuttle First Flights: Mike Mullane (Don’t Eat Yellow Snow)
Space Shuttle Discovery’s flight in 1984 dumped an unexpected “payload” in orbit.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Launch Of Discovery (STS-41D): August 1984
After Space Shuttle Discovery recovered from a dangerous launch abort in June 1984, the second try was flawless and spectacular.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Discovery Launch Abort (June 1984)
The maiden voyage of Space Shuttle Discovery was scheduled for June 25, 1984. The first-ever main engine shutdown launch abort scared the crap out of us.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Judy Resnik (“Best Wishes”)
Mike Mullane offered me a personal memento from Judy from their first Space Shuttle flight. I still have it.
Space Shuttle First Flights: STS-1 (Columbia) The First Orbital Flight
Our Shuttle flight software team had the “distinction” of hearing Walter Cronkite describe, live and on national television, whether we’d done our work correctly.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Dick Truly – The Approach and Landing Tests
I had visions of the Space Shuttle Enterprise getting jostled during separation and colliding with the 747’s vertical stabilizer – which would definitely make for a bad day all around.
Space Shuttle First Flights: John Aaron (“Exceptional” Flight Software)
NASA’s John Aaron set high standards for IBM, and Space Shuttle onboard software came closer to “error-free” than any large, complex software ever built.
Space Shuttle First Flights: John Aaron (Software Failure Is Not An Option)
I met with John Aaron to explain why IBM couldn’t fulfill a Shuttle software contract that required zero errors. His answer changed my mind.
Space Shuttle First Flights: John Aaron (Error-Free Code?)
NASA required IBM’s Space Shuttle software to be delivered “error-free”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the likelihood of that was extremely low.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Phil Shaffer (Again)
During the Apollo Program, NASA’s Phil Shaffer had subjected me to what I’d describe today as a version of “Shark Tank”. I wasn’t looking forward to presenting to him again on Shuttle.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Ten Pounds in a Five Pound Sack
The first version of the Shuttle flight software had two serious problems: it couldn’t fit in the computer, and it ran way too slow. IBM was two years into the contract and basically nothing worked. All hell broke loose.
Space Shuttle First Flights: “Fly-by-Wire”
During high speed atmospheric flight, the extreme forces buffeting the Space Shuttle produced abrupt, violent oscillations that, left unattended, would cause it to spiral out of control. No human was capable of flying the Shuttle unassisted.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Onboard Computers (Shuttle vs. Apollo)
The Space Shuttle’s onboard computer system alone weighed more than the entire Apollo Command Module.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Why Shuttle Has Wings
An Air Force requirement demanded wings for the Space Shuttle, and that drove everything else about its design. Yet they were never used for that purpose.
Space Shuttle First Flights: “Space Transportation System”
In spite of having four separate sets of rocket engines, for the entire flight through the atmosphere and landing, the Shuttle Orbiter was simply an unpowered glider.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Shuttle and the X-15
In 1959, U.S. astronauts piloted an airplane-shaped rocket ship into space, and then flew nearly 200 missions, twenty years before the first Space Shuttle ever left the ground.
Space Shuttle First Flights: STS-135 (End of An Era)
Now that the era of Space Shuttle has passed, was it all worth it? While the Apollo Program was the great adventure of our age, what exactly did this stepchild do to earn its keep?
An Interview with Kevin R. Grazier, Science Consultant for GRAVITY
Kevin R. Grazier is a planetary scientist and friend of mine who has regularly landed gigs as a science consultant on a number of popular Hollywood movies and TV shows. Including GRAVITY.
IAAA Gallery: Marilynn Flynn – Aspirational Astronaut
The space art of Marilynn Flynn – one of the few earth-based artists to have her work flown in space.
IT’S (NOT) ROCKET SCIENCE: The International Space Station
I was watching the TV commercial featuring the Space Shuttle Endeavor the other night – you know, the one where a truck tows the Shuttle through the streets of Los Angeles to its permanent exhibit […]
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