Win a holiday to NASA with Ender's Game

Ender’s Game is looking for new recruits! Join the Battle School here and play a brand new game every week for your chance to win an array of hardware or be entered in to a prize draw to win a holiday to NASA in Florida!

Put your skills to the test every week and see where you place on the leaderboard. The leaderboard will be hosted on the official Facebook page.

Enlist your friends by sharing the recruitment video, featuring Harrison Ford here:

Good Luck Soldiers!

IN CINEMAS OCTOBER 25TH

Ad astra per aspera. Remembering Apollo 1

This is another slight deviation from what normally appears on this blog. It's another one about space. More precisely, it's about another disaster that happened on the way to get man into space. I have already done a post for the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster and a happier one about the 50th anniversary of man in space.

This time it's to remember the 45th anniversary of the loss of Apollo 1 on the launchpad and the death of her crew Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee. This was a disaster waiting to happen. Not in the same way that Challenger was lost but still, with hindsight, a 100% oxygen, positive pressure [the pressure inside the capsule was higher that the external air pressure], atmosphere in a small, confined space wasn't the best idea.

With veteran astronauts Grissom and White was a rookie. Roger Chaffee. A bachelor who was looking forward to his first flight.

The problems of the capsule started quite early with lots of flammable material, built into the capsule. A door that couldn't easily, and quickly, be opened from the inside [a design decision from when Grissom's Gemini's capsule door spontaneously failed]. Not only that they had been delivered with over 700 faults that had to be fixed at the Kennedy Space Center. This lead to Grissom famously hanging a lemon over the simulator and not as most people think over the actual capsule. The crew were promised by Joseph F. Shea, the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office that all their concerns were cleared up and it would be safe to fly. This lead to the photograph below sent to Shea with the following comment

It isn't that we don't trust you, Joe, but this time we've decided to go over your head.

The test started and problems were reported immediately with an odor that was described as "Sour milk". Then there were communication problems that caused Grissom to remark, "How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between three buildings?". Then with the crew strapped into their suits and breathing 100% oxygen at 23:30:54 GMT something shorted and a spark produced. Ten seconds later Chaffee was heard to say "Hey!" This was possibly when the fire started and seventeen seconds later all communications was lost when a scream was heard.

When the hatch was finally opened they found the astronauts dead and in positions that indicated that they were trying to open the hatch as the procedures dictated.

This shut down the entire Apollo project until NASA discovered what happened. Within 3 months the investigation was complete and report written.

What came out of this report was: An easier to remove hatch, an atmosphere closer to that on Earth, removal of anything and everything that could be combustible [this includes making fireproof "paper"] and better documentation of what goes into the next generation of Apollo capsules.

There are many different memorials to the three. Ranging from mountains on Mars to craters on the Moon down to schools and bridges.

Without men like Grissom, White and Chaffee who had the courage to go into the unknown with, sometimes, not knowing the risks then man, President Kennedy's dream may not have succeed.

Space.com has the below footage talking about the aftermath of the fire from Universal Newsreel.

Or this piece from the British Pathe here in the UK with a piece called "Their Last Countdown"

50 years of man in space

Occasionally I go off topic of this blog and mention important other things.  The last time I did this was for the 25th Anniversary of the Challenger Disaster. This time it's for a lot happier event. The 50th anniversary of man in space with the launch of Vostok 1 carrying Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit and into the history books.

British Pathe has some great, unused, footage of the man himself before the launch.

Jumping forwards 20 years to 1981. This saw the first launch of the Space Transportation System, STS-1. This is better know as the first launch of the Space Shuttle. This was actually a fluke as it was due to take off on April 10 but due to a computer glitch the launch was delayed.

Jumping forwards another 20 years to 2001 and Yuri's Night was started to celebrate the anniversary of manned spaceflight.

 

This was, and still is, a night to celebrate the flight of Vostok 1 and the men and women who have followed him into space.

Even the International Space Station has got involved in today's celebration with a message.

To finish I give you one of the most striking images from spaceflight. Bruce McCandless flighing, unteathered, in space.

You can use it as wallpaper (1366x768) by just clicking on it

They touched the face of God

This is a slight departure from the normal things that appear on this blog. however, today is an anniversary of one of space travels greatest disasters. For the people who know me know how much of a "space nut" I am, and can be a bit of a bore at times.

25 years ago today the 25th Space Shuttle launch took to the skies. Most of the crew I bet you can't name. Except one. That being of the first "Teacher in Space", Christa McAuliffe, who was planning on holding live lessons from space. Unfortunately this wasn't to happen as just after 73 seconds into the flight the Orbiter exploded into a ball of flames and smoke. This was Challenger's 10th, and tragically, its last flight.

Most people of my age will remember how they found out about the disaster. I learnt about it when I came home from school and remembering watching BBC 2 that was running a live CNN feed as they were the only organisation at the time that could do this sort of coverage as it was in the days before global 24 hour news coverage. Below is a segment of CNN on that day. From take off to the "explosion"

After the disaster the US President, Ronald Reagan, cancelled the annual State of the Union Address and went on television to address the nation about that days tragedy. He finished the broadcast with a quote from the poem "High Flight".

We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'

So here's to the memory of Christa McAuliffe and the rest of the STS 51-L crew: Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik who paid the ultimate price in space exploration.

I would like to leave you with a happy[ish] thought. If you look at the mission patch to the right, you will see something next to Christa McAuliffe. If you are wondering what it is, then I can tell you. It's quite simple. It's an apple. Why? you may ask. The simple answer is "What do you give to a teacher"?