Apollo: April 2009 Archives

credit NASA / caption is this what return to the Moon means?

In an extraordinary exchange between NASA acting adminisrator Christoper Scolese and the US House of Representatives' committee on appropriations' subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies chair, Scolese said that the agency was still working on what "return to the Moon" meant and whether that was a outpost, which he went on to describe as expensive, or an extended sortie like Apollo

So much for Apollo on steroids...

Hyperbola hoped to have an audio recording of the webcast but unfortunately Microsoft's sound recorder didn't deliver. Hopefully the appropriations will have a webcast replay accessible soon

I've come across this other educational space exploration game by Canadian company Project Whiteheadcard called Project Moonwalk. Here is its flash site and here is its wiki and this is its development site

Alas it seems to have come to a stop although the company developing it is now involved in the new Canadian Space Agency exploration game that features the International Space Station and robotics

credit Moon Beat / caption: Picture on the far right is of BBC's Reginald Turnill

Following in the footsteps of In the shadow of the Moon comes the flip side to the Apollo history documentary and Kevin Stirling's Moon Beat focuses on the media, the journalists who covered the programme at close quarters

NASA itself recognised those that covered the programme and called them the Chroniclers. There is a wall covered in plaques recognising the work done by the individual journalists at Kennedy Space Center and one of those plaques bears the name Reginald Turnill

The then British Broadcasting Corporation aerospace correspondent, or space reporter depending upon which webpage you read, Turnill is featured in Moon Beat

On the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik Flightglobal.com visited Turnill at his home on the south coast of England and spoke to him about that event and his career with the BBC

Hyperbola videos can be watched on its YouTube channel Flighthyperbola and the videos of channels Flighthyperbola subscribes too

credit NASA / caption: 24 July 1969, the Apollo 11 command module up righting balloons can be clearly seen

It looks like NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle is going to have even more similarities with the space agency's Apollo command module. The Orion project office tells Hyperbola that come 2015 (take your pick on Orion-Ares crewed flight dates) the sea landing of the six crew International Space Station mission spacecraft will have balloons to ensure it can right itself if it flips upside down in the swell. NASA says

The system is early in design but here is the baseline: 

Crew Module Up righting System consists of:

-        3-52" up righting airbags integrated in the forward bay

-        Stored gas inflation system

-        24 hour up righting capability

credit Hyperbola / caption: Buzz Aldrin chats to media at Virgin Galactic's 28 July 2008 WhiteKnight Two roll out 

Hyperbola has spoken to a representative of Dr Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and told that Aldrin was never going to attend the Space Renaissance press conference that the organisers said would take place at the British Interplanetary Society in London, UK

An email purporting to come from Aldrin's staff and sent to one of the organisers of the Space Renaissance press conference was given to Hyperbola but Aldrin's staff deny any knowledge of the email or the person who forwarded it; it is all as mysterious as the alleged face on Mars

NASA announced yesterday that the reformulation of the Apollo programme's Avcoat has been selected for its Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV)

Flight predicted this in its 10 March article about the heat shield when an announcement was expected that month. Instead NASA announced the decision on 7 April

The decision, 14-months late, brings to an end a major question about an important mass driver for the CEV. Delayed by 10-months the Orion's preliminary design review is now more likely to go ahead later this year - the Obama administration's choice for NASA administrator likely to come so late that the individual concerned will not be in place to do anything to stop it

Avco, long since bought by Textron Systems, did propose its Apollo heat shield material for Shuttle but its abative technology lost out to the reusable ceramic tiles the orbiter's use today

And in a twist to the Constellation programme story the ceramic tiles of PICA have lost out to Avcoat for Orion

NASA is offering interviews about the Avcoat selection so expect more from Flight and Hyperbola in the near future