Still crazy after all these years
- Thread starter Pistolero
- Start date
fiver
Well-Known Member
I would love to go up and look back.
the picture they took from the moon of the earthrise has always had an impact on me, and it affects me every time I see it.
my Pop promised to send me up to orbit a few times when I was a teenager, but for some reason I never quite made it that far.
maybe he really said floor and I just mis-heard, he was speaking in rather loud tones.
the picture they took from the moon of the earthrise has always had an impact on me, and it affects me every time I see it.
my Pop promised to send me up to orbit a few times when I was a teenager, but for some reason I never quite made it that far.
maybe he really said floor and I just mis-heard, he was speaking in rather loud tones.
Pistolero
Well-Known Member
My NASA astronaut friend ( who I have't seen in many years now) said he got a really wonderful
assignment. They have relatively little unprogrammed time up in ISS, huge workload of stuff that
has to be done. They manage to steal some of their sleep time periodically to look out the window
and take pictures. Those are what he was showing me.
His favorite assignment was a space walk where the purpose wasn't to do some outside work, like
99% of them are, very busy time, programmed very tightly on oxygen and power. His assignment
was to test new gloves with improved fingertip heaters and more flexible tips so you could feel more
accurately what you were touching. The requirement was to get feet locked into the long remote
control arm and they put him way out as far as they could go, and turned him to face towards
Earth and he had to hold still for about 45 min or an hour, no movement to work up body heat,
they wanted worst case on the suit and esp fingertip heaters. He got to spend the whole time
in his quiet personal spacecraft just watching the Earth roll by under him. He said it was the most
wonderful thing he ever got to do in space, and it sure sounds like it.
I also know the first civilian astronaut, the pilot who flew the Rutan SpaceShip One into suborbital
space. I was at Mojave when it happened, and since I knew multiple team members, got to hang
around in the hangar with the spacecraft after the flight. Heady times. Lots of real VIPs around.
That was years ago. Talking to folks who have been into space makes it that much more attractive.
Bill
assignment. They have relatively little unprogrammed time up in ISS, huge workload of stuff that
has to be done. They manage to steal some of their sleep time periodically to look out the window
and take pictures. Those are what he was showing me.
His favorite assignment was a space walk where the purpose wasn't to do some outside work, like
99% of them are, very busy time, programmed very tightly on oxygen and power. His assignment
was to test new gloves with improved fingertip heaters and more flexible tips so you could feel more
accurately what you were touching. The requirement was to get feet locked into the long remote
control arm and they put him way out as far as they could go, and turned him to face towards
Earth and he had to hold still for about 45 min or an hour, no movement to work up body heat,
they wanted worst case on the suit and esp fingertip heaters. He got to spend the whole time
in his quiet personal spacecraft just watching the Earth roll by under him. He said it was the most
wonderful thing he ever got to do in space, and it sure sounds like it.
I also know the first civilian astronaut, the pilot who flew the Rutan SpaceShip One into suborbital
space. I was at Mojave when it happened, and since I knew multiple team members, got to hang
around in the hangar with the spacecraft after the flight. Heady times. Lots of real VIPs around.
That was years ago. Talking to folks who have been into space makes it that much more attractive.
Bill
Centaur 1
New Member
Thought you guys might like this 3d interactive video tour of the Orbiters. If you look around inside the engine compartment, you'll see where I went to work every day. http://www.nasatech.net/SpaceShuttle/#
KHornet
Well-Known Member
My grand daughter is fascinated by the Shuttles, and I believe has seen every one that flew.
I did get to see one piggy backed in at Offutt, and that was impressive. The wife got to see
The plane with the shuttle on top take off, and said that the bird used every bit of concrete
available on the runway.
I was impressed when John Glen went up, and was in Nam for
the first moon landing, and was impressed by that. I am not so easily impressed anymore
as shuttle take offs and landings became fairly common place. Am very impressed with
the massive number of spin off inventions that occurred due to the space programs. Am
not impressed that we are now paying the Russians mega bucks to put our astronauts out
to the space station.
I hope to see the space program funded again, and have leaders who
understand science and progress.
Paul
I did get to see one piggy backed in at Offutt, and that was impressive. The wife got to see
The plane with the shuttle on top take off, and said that the bird used every bit of concrete
available on the runway.
I was impressed when John Glen went up, and was in Nam for
the first moon landing, and was impressed by that. I am not so easily impressed anymore
as shuttle take offs and landings became fairly common place. Am very impressed with
the massive number of spin off inventions that occurred due to the space programs. Am
not impressed that we are now paying the Russians mega bucks to put our astronauts out
to the space station.
I hope to see the space program funded again, and have leaders who
understand science and progress.
Paul
Pistolero
Well-Known Member
Centaur 1, I get "You are forbidden to access this server" when I click on the link. Sounds neat, hope there is some work-around.
Is that handle like the upper stage of an Atlas? A friend was a rocket scientist at GD San Diego, worked
on the launch team for a whole bunch of Atlas launches over 30+ years.
Bill
Is that handle like the upper stage of an Atlas? A friend was a rocket scientist at GD San Diego, worked
on the launch team for a whole bunch of Atlas launches over 30+ years.
Bill
Centaur 1
New Member
Hi Bill,
I'm not sure why it's not working for you, maybe one of your security settings are too restrictive. I use Chrome for a web browser and it loads the site without any problems.
I had been machining flight hardware at GE Astro Space since 1984 when I was hired by General Dynamics and they moved me to Florida in 1989. That when they were restarting the Atlas and Titan programs after the loss of Challenger. I worked a couple of years in their machine shop, then moved around learning all of the different systems. I worked mostly Atlas/Centaur for the first 4 years, then when Titan/Centaur got busy they transferred me over there. In the beginning I worked exclusively on the Centaur, then GD sold Space Systems division to Martin Marietta and they slowly integrated the two work forces. By the time everything came to an end in 2005 I got to work on Atlas I, II, III, V, and Titan IV. I had the privileged of working on some really cool programs. The overwhelming majority of Titan payloads are classified, but the one big one that wasn't is Cassini. We launched it in 1997 and it's still taking pictures of Saturn and it's moons. I also helped process the New Horizons spacecraft that explored Pluto a couple of years ago. After the end of Titan, I was lucky enough to get a job with United Space Alliance on the Shuttle. Because of my experience with propulsion systems, I worked in the aft shop. Where we were responsible for everything aft of the cargo bay. My last mission there before I retired was the final repair mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. I definitely got the chance to work on some really cool stuff before I retired. Aerospace is a fun career.
Ian
Notorious member
Atlas II-A to III-A revision is the one I was familiar with. Boeing D&S contracted some of the wire bundles, which is where I was involved. Sounds like you had more fun, most of the time the only way we could tell what we were working on was by reading the description on the engineering drawing.
Worked on a laser project (sub to Lockheed) to go on the Challenger - to communicate with the Tridents. Interviewed with Glenn (IIRC ) at Rhom in Houston after that. Just got back from Columbus & KC, friends from Grand Island (teachers) were really impressed with the eclipse. We saw the 75% here, no big deal, seen it before.
Pistolero
Well-Known Member
Lots of interesting projects, from several of you guys. My stuff was not something I want to discuss online.
If we ever get together, we can jaw about it, just not much for splattering all my life details online where it may
cause me some problems some day.
I know what you mean, Ian. Some of what I worked on, I had a general idea what it might be useful for, but while
I was making it work, I was not cleared to know what it would be used for. Other stuff I knew exactly what it was.
As far as the eclipse....I agree that the partial is interesting but not a huge deal. I have seen several partials. The total,
is more of a deal. Here are two pics, three minutes apart. One is in about the middle of totality, the other is just
barely past. The camera autoexposure corrected, so the light change is even greater than it appears.
The second is with the slightest sliver of sun visible, but it is still about like a high thin overcast day, bright
and "sunny". That was the huge difference compared to the partials where the apparent brightness
only appears to be only very slightly changed from no obscuration to 95% obscuration. Note that dark, sharp
shadows with about 1 or2% of the sun uncovered. That tiny sliver still puts out a lot of light.
That circle of light on the ground in the darker one is from a tiny one AAA flashlight that I
was using to set the camera to "auto" during the totality, after removing the dark filter.
These are time lapse from a GoPro that I set up on top of the car.
Bill
If we ever get together, we can jaw about it, just not much for splattering all my life details online where it may
cause me some problems some day.
I know what you mean, Ian. Some of what I worked on, I had a general idea what it might be useful for, but while
I was making it work, I was not cleared to know what it would be used for. Other stuff I knew exactly what it was.
As far as the eclipse....I agree that the partial is interesting but not a huge deal. I have seen several partials. The total,
is more of a deal. Here are two pics, three minutes apart. One is in about the middle of totality, the other is just
barely past. The camera autoexposure corrected, so the light change is even greater than it appears.
The second is with the slightest sliver of sun visible, but it is still about like a high thin overcast day, bright
and "sunny". That was the huge difference compared to the partials where the apparent brightness
only appears to be only very slightly changed from no obscuration to 95% obscuration. Note that dark, sharp
shadows with about 1 or2% of the sun uncovered. That tiny sliver still puts out a lot of light.
That circle of light on the ground in the darker one is from a tiny one AAA flashlight that I
was using to set the camera to "auto" during the totality, after removing the dark filter.
These are time lapse from a GoPro that I set up on top of the car.
Bill