Leisure … more than a word, it's a lifestyle

Space Shuttle Endeavour blasted off on the penultimate shuttle flight yesterday morning under the command of Mark Kelly, the husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The wounded congresswoman was at Kennedy Space Center and watched the launch in an undisclosed private location.

Endeavour is headed for the International Space Station for one final time before heading to retirement at a Los Angeles museum. The shuttle’s experienced, all-male crew will deliver and install a $2 billion particle physics experiment during the 16-day flight, as well as spare station parts.

This is also the next to last flight for the 30-year-old space shuttle fleet. It is the final flight for the shuttle Endeavour, NASA’s youngest orbiter, which has flown 116.4 million miles in 24 previous flights.

All being well and with Mark Kelly at the helm, Endeavour and its experienced crew of five Americans and an Italian, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori will arrive at the International Space Station on Wednesday. They will deliver a $2 billion magnetic instrument that will seek out antimatter and dark energy in the universe.

Hundreds of thousands of spectators witnessed Endeavour’s last launch but it was a smaller turnout than the crowds that viewed the last shuttle launch in February. The early morning launch may have affected the turn out as Endeavour blasted off at 8:56 a.m. whereas February’s launch and last month’s failed attempt were in the afternoon.

Projections had put Monday’s crowd at 500,000, more than the number that saw shuttle Discovery’s final hurrah in February however Titusville Assistant Police Chief John Lau guessed the crowd at between 350,000 and 400,000.

30 years ago today Columbia and its crew of NASA astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen blasted off to begin three decades of shuttle missions with a first test flight that has been called the boldest ever. Columbia left earth at 7.00am on 12th April, 1981, to venture into space on a shake down mission and returned two days later.

NASA plans to announce retirement homes for Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour on the 30th anniversary of the first launch and we’ll have news of that late today.

After the fleet’s retirement, European and Japanese cargo ships will provide the International Space Station with supplies, but ISS crewmembers will have to fly there on Russian Soyuz capsules.

Over the decades, the reusable orbiters and their crews have deployed satellites, observatories and planetary probes. They delivered and repaired the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as crucial elements of the ISS. The shuttles united the rival Soviet and United States space programs in the years of construction of the ISS and after it was built.

Here’s some video our team took live from Kennedy Space Center a couple of days ago of the final launch of Space Shuttle Discovery.

It was almost four months late but Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off under clear blue skies this afternoon on its final mission to the International Space Station before it is retired next month. The 27-year-old orbiter, with a crew of six astronauts, roared from the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center at 4:53 p.m. as tens of thousands of spectators cheered NASA’s oldest and most-traveled shuttle.

“The final liftoff of Discovery,” exulted Mike Curie, NASA’s launch commentator, “a tribute to the dedication, hard work and pride of America’s space shuttle team.”

It was the 39th liftoff for Discovery. Its 11-day mission, commanded by space veteran Steve Lindsey, will deliver supplies and a humanoid robot to the International Space Station.

The launch marks the beginning of the end of the space-shuttle program, 30 years after NASA began launching reusable, do-all spaceships into orbit to do everything from launching satellites to building the space station itself. After Endeavour in April and Atlantis,now set for June, NASA will have no manned-space rocket for the first time in 60 years.

Today’s launch was delayed a little over three minutes by a computer glitch experienced by the U.S. Air Force Range Safety Office, which assures that the Atlantic Ocean downrange from KSC is clear of ship and airplane traffic but lift-off occurred with seconds to spare before the launch window closed.

“We had about two seconds of hold time remaining, which is about one second more than Mike [Leinbach] needed to get the job done, so we had plenty of margin,” quipped Launch Committee Chairman Mike Moses.

Leinbach acknowledged a “fairly large size” chunk of insulating foam fell from Discovery’s fuel tank nearly four minutes into flight. But he said that was late enough into the flight that engineers weren’t worried the foam did any damage to the orbiter.

Throngs of people watched the launch from vantage points all along the Space Coast. Among those in the VIP area were Florida Gov. Rick Scott, watching the first launch since he took office in January, as well as U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.

In addition to Lindsey, 50, a retired Air Force fighter pilot who flew dozens of missions in Iraq, the crew includes pilot Eric Boe, 45, an Air Force colonel and fellow fighter-pilot veteran; and mission specialists Alvin Drew, 47; Michael Barratt, 51, a medical doctor; Nicole Stott, a former mission engineer at Kennedy Space Center; and Steve Bowen, 47.

Bowen replaced Tim Kopra, who was injured in a mid-January bicycle accident. Bowen flew aboard Atlantis last May and will be the first astronaut to fly on consecutive shuttle missions.

Discovery was originally planned to lift off on Nov. 1. But a hydrogen leak, followed by the discovery of cracks in the insulating foam and some support rods on the fuel tank, caused a lengthy delay as NASA engineers labored to identify a cause and a fix.

The highlight of the mission will be delivery of Robonaut 2, otherwise known as R2, a 40-inch robot built by General Motors that looks like a human from the torso up, with capabilities to one day be an active member of the space station crew.

R2 will spend the next year or so attached to a stand in the U.S. lab on the space station, simply being tested in zero-gravity and doing such things as turning knobs, plugging things in and other simple manipulation tasks.

NASA expects to upgrade and reprogram R2 so that it becomes a mechanical member of the crew. Eventually, it will get legs or some manner of lower body and be able to work with astronauts on simple tasks such as vacuuming, or more-complex maintenance and repairs and assisting astronauts on space walks. Finally, it could become a caretaker or experiment tender, working on assignments after astronauts have left.

NASA first began developing the robot 15 years ago, and the R2 model – the second generation of the concept — was developed in partnership with General Motors, at a cost of about $2.5 million per robot. Two have been built.

From waist to head, it stands 3-feet-4 inches and weighs 330 pounds. Built primarily of aluminum and steel, it has a soft, fleshy exterior, designed so that astronauts would not be hurt if they banged into it. R2′s arms give it an 8-foot wingspan. Its head is equipped with eight cameras. Its computer brain is in its torso.

For now, it will remain in a crate until the space station astronauts finish more-pressing tasks and have the time to set it up. Robonaut 2 has only a one-way ticket to space, and it’s been waiting for months inside Discovery’s hold.

The US shuttle Discovery rolled out for what should be its final mission last night. The orbiter, bathed in bright xenon light, completed its slow 3.4 mile journey to the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39A overnight.

Discovery’s flight to the International Space Station is scheduled to begin on 24 February all being well. The shuttle will deliver a storeroom to be attached to the 217 mile-high space station platform, along with further supplies and spares.

Stacked with its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters, Discovery took seven hours to complete the roll from Kennedy’s vast Vehicle Assembly Building to complex 39A and many Kennedy employees, along with their families, came to witness the event.

Back in November, NASA tried to launch Discovery but technical hitches, including cracks on its giant external fuel tank, kept the ship on the ground. The agency said engineers had now fixed those defects and carried out further work to strengthen the tank.

Discovery is the oldest of the three surviving orbiters. First launched in 1984, it has since completed 38 missions, traveling some 143 million miles in the process.

Endeavour is expected to fly to the station in April. Atlantis will go no earlier than June, if NASA has sufficient money left in its shuttle program budget.

President Barack Obama and the US Congress have determined that the shuttle fleet should be retired this year and following the fleet’s retirement, the plan is for US astronauts to fly to the space station on Russian Soyuz rockets until perhaps the middle of the decade.

Discovery is targeting a 1650 EST launch on 24 February. Let’s hope it goes well.

Bitter sweet morning here in Central Florida as Space Shuttle Atlantis has now returned to Earth for the final time. It was a fabulous sight as Atlantis and its six man crew swept in over Florida and made a picture perfect landing.

Atlantis was commissioned to be built on 29 January 1979 and it’s first flight was on 3rd October 1985. It’s first mission was just four days as it returned on 7th October. Here we are 25 years later and the mission that began on 14 May has now ended at 8.48am on 26th May 2020 some 32 missions later.

In that time Atlantis has docked with MIR on 7 occasions and with the International Space Station on 11 occasions and has spent some 294 days in space in total.It has also completed over 120 million miles

Only two shuttle missions now remain unless the Government gives the shuttle program a reprieve. Discovery is scheduled for a 16 September flight and Endeavor has a date in November that is yet to be decided.

Another great attraction at Epcot is Mission: SPACE and it’s a fantastic simulation of what an astronaut aboard a spacecraft on a mission to Mars might experience. You can really feel the G-Force at blast off and it is possible to feel a little nauseous at this time before the ride becomes a lot gentler as you leave gravity and enter space.

The attraction opened to the public in a “soft opening” mode in June 2003, and celebrated its grand opening on October 9 2003 with a ceremony attended by Disney CEO Michael Eisner, HP CEO Carly Fiorina and NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe, as well as several NASA astronauts from its many phases of human space exploration (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the space shuttle program and two crew members aboard the International Space Station).

The attraction was built on the former site of Horizons and construction began on Mission: SPACE shortly thereafter. Industry estimates put the cost of developing the new attraction at $100 million.

Mission: SPACE is meant to simulate astronaut training for the first manned mission to Mars aboard the fictional X-2 Deep Space Shuttle in 2036, the seventy-fifth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man in space. (The year 2036 can be deduced from plaques in the attraction’s queue celebrating 75 years of human spaceflight, including two faux milestones in the future.) Riders are “trainees” at the fictional International Space Training Center (ISTC), where they are arranged into crews of four before watching an introductory video featuring actor Gary Sinise.

Before boarding the simulators, each rider is assigned an on-board role (navigator, pilot, commander or engineer) and given two tasks to perform during the mission (pressing a specific button when told). For example, one of the commander’s buttons initiates the rocket’s first-stage separation, and the other activates manual flight control. The spacecraft’s on-board self-automated pilot will perform each task if the rider does not respond to his or her prompt from Mission Control or if there is no one to perform the task. Also featured are various labeled buttons and switches which the rider may play with but do nothing; they are only there to add to the realism aspect of the ride.

The mission includes liftoff from the ISTC, a slingshot around the moon for a gravity-assisted boost, a brief period of simulated hypersleep (to pass the lengthy time required to reach Mars) and a descent for landing on the Martian surface. As a training exercise, the mission contains several unexpected situations that add to the drama.

The attraction line contains several items and commemorative plaques from past, present and fictional future space missions. Among the items on display are props from the 2000 film Mission to Mars,  including the rotating “gravity wheel” from the predecessor X-1 spacecraft, a model of which hangs from the ceiling, and a replica of a NASA moon rover from the Apollo program.

Upon conclusion of the training exercise, guests are invited to participate in activities at the Advanced Training Lab, a post-show area containing a group game called Mission: SPACE Race in which players perform tasks as Mission Control technicians aiding two X-2 spacecraft racing to return to Earth; a space-themed play area for toddlers; a single-person, arcade-style game in which an astronaut explores Mars on foot; and a kiosk where brief video postcards can be created and sent via e-mail.

The minimum height requirement for Mission: SPACE is 44 inches (112 cm). Warnings throughout the attraction caution that people who do not like enclosed spaces, spinning, or are prone to motion sickness should not ride. Signs also warn that the ride may cause nausea, headache, dizziness or disorientation, and that people prone to motion sickness, or who have a headache or an inner ear problem, or who have a history of migraines, vertigo or elevated anxiety also should not ride. There are also signs which instruct the rider to keep their head flat against the headrest; if one ignores this, the centrifugal motion acting on one’s head can cause undesirable effects such as dizziness and/or headaches, or possibly even more serious effects.

On May 19, 2006, Disney began offering a less intense version of Mission: SPACE (called Green Team, also known as Less Intense training or no spinning), where the centrifuge does not spin, thus eliminating the forces of lateral acceleration for riders who choose the more tame experience. The cabs themselves still pitch and pivot, providing some motion. The normal ride is still available and is called Orange Team (also known as More Intense training or spinning).

Here’s an Orange Team video I made…

Space shuttle Discovery with its crew of seven astronauts roared into orbit this morning. It was a wonderful site to see it arcing over the horizon just before sunrise as it started its journey to the International Space Station.

There are now just three launches left as the agency races to stock the space station with spares, supplies and scientific gear before the shuttle fleet is retired later this year.

On this journey, Discovery is carrying eight tons of cargo and science equipment for the station’s laboratories. The 13-day mission, dubbed the “Experiment Express,” has three planned spacewalks to to install a fresh ammonia tank assembly for the lab’s coolant system and retrieve a Japanese experiment from the station’s exterior.

Discovery is commanded by Navy Captain Alan Poindexter, the crew includes rookie pilot James Dutton, flight engineer Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson, Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki and veteran spacewalkers Richard Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson.

This is the last shuttle flight to have a crew of seven and this is the first time that four women will be in space at one time as Metcalf-Lindenburger, Wilson and Yamazaki join up with  NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson who is already onboard the station.

The main goal of Discovery on this trip is to deliver supplies that will keep the station operating long after shuttles have been sent to become museum attractions and while no-one quite knows what will happen once these supplies run out  I’m sure there’s a game plan…as I’ll reveal later.

During this mission the crew will be unpacking “Leonardo,” an Italian-made orbital moving van the size of a small bus. Also known as a Multi-Purpose Logistic Module, or MPLM, Leonardo is loaded with science experiments and precious cargo, including a new crew sleep station and a lab freezer.

Shuttle Discovery is pretty well loaded on this mission and evidence of that is the fact that it is estimated that it will take 100 man hours to unload into the ISS.

So while the astronauts are kept busy, the attention of many will likely to be on Kennedy Space Center as President Barack Obama  is scheduled to make a speech on April 15  in regard to his plans for spaceflight after the shuttles are retired.

Obama created something of a furor in the aerospace community in February when he proposed killing NASA’s Constellation program, which had been aimed at returning astronauts to the moon. The end of the shuttle program and the canceling of NASA’s planned replacement program means thousands of looming job losses at KSC and other NASA centers so we’ll all hold our breathe as the White House maintains that its plan to outsource crew and cargo flights to private space companies and replace Constellation with a rocket technology development program will put the agency on a more sustainable footing and will ultimately provide a more a diversified space sector that will lead to more aerospace jobs over the long term. Who are we to question them given everything that’s happened in the last 18 months?

Space Shuttle Endeavour, carrying the last major piece of the International Space Station, is poised for launching before sunrise on Sunday, the last planned nighttime liftoff of a shuttle ever.

The launch is the first of the year as the shuttle program enters its home stretch of five missions this year. The four flights after this one will be largely devoted to carrying science experiments and spare parts to the space station. The shuttles are scheduled to be retired in September.

“Every launch is a little bittersweet,” Michael Moses, the shuttle launch integration manager, said at a news conference Friday. “We’re one closer to the end.”

The launch is scheduled for 4:39 a.m. at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“You’ll see it all the way up the East Coast,” said Michael Leinbach, the shuttle launch director. Weather forecasts call for an 80 percent chance of favorable weather with only some concerns of high winds at the launching pad.

The main cargo for the Endeavour on its 13-day mission is Node 3, a 23-foot-long, 15-foot-wide module for the space station, built under contract with the European Space Agency. It will house many of the station’s life-support systems.

This is the station piece that would have been called Colbert had NASA abided by the results of a poll last year that asked the public for naming suggestions. Stephen Colbert, the host of the parody talk show “The Colbert Report,” urged his fans to vote for naming the station segment after him, and they did in large numbers.

But NASA, which had said the poll results were not binding, instead bestowed the module with the name Tranquility, after Apollo 11’s landing site on the moon in 1969. The space agency did name after Mr. Colbert a piece of exercise equipment, which went to the space station last August and will be moved into the Tranquility module.

If the shuttle launches on Sunday morning, most of the shuttle staff members will be able to watch the Super Bowl in the evening. If the launching is delayed by weather or a mechanical problem, they will instead probably be busy preparing for another launching attempt on Monday morning.

“We’re not going to change our plan based on the Super Bowl, frankly,” Mr. Leinbach said.

Shuttle officials also acknowledged the potential turmoil in NASA’s future after President Obama proposed last week to cancel Constellation, NASA’s program that was to return astronauts to the Moon. But they said that would not compromise their attention during the shuttle mission.

“The team is ready to go,” Mr. Leinbach said. “We will not be distracted on the console. We will not be distracted working on the orbiters. I have no doubt about it. It’s a very, very professional team.”

Space Shuttle Discovery over Cumbrian Lakes

Last night was yet again one of those occassions where it’s great to be alive and living in Florida. We got to see a terrific launch as Space Shuttle Discovery set off to the International Space Station. This time Discovery had on board the final set of solar arrays which are needed to complete the station’s complement of electricity generating solar panels which will help the station support the expanded crew of six people later this year.

For those of you interested in a great day out, Kennedy Space Center is a terrific place to go. Last May I wrote a blog that you might like to see again by clicking here  and I also created a pictorial of Kennedy Space Center of some of the things you can expect to see when you are there. Click here for more details.