SpaceX, Santa Maria & Space Coast West

While Mars rover Curiosity, Space Shuttle Endeavour and NASA have been getting most of the media attention lately, SpaceX has been busy. 

The company announced today that it is targeting October 7 as the launch date for its first cargo supply flight to the International Space Station under contract with NASA. Space X's Dragon supply craft will launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

Meanwhile, in California, SpaceX's official signage went up at Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Los Angeles. SpaceX is building its own launch pad there designed to launch both crewed and robotic spacecraft into orbit - and beyond. 

 

Photo credit: SpaceX

SpaceX's brand-new sign at Vandenberg Air Force Base

This is not the first time that ambitious plans have been forged for VAFB's launch capabilities. I discovered this the last time I visited the Santa Maria Museum of Flight, near the base. One of the retirees working there as a volunteer museum guide shared interesting details with me regarding VAFB's role as a future space shuttle launch site that first emerged in the late 1970s, as the shuttle concept was being developed. 

He showed me group photos of engineers in front of a shuttle mockup, signed posters, starting to yellow with age, of Enterprise in flight position on a launch pad at Vandenberg, taken years prior to the first actual shuttle flight in 1981. He also showed me a heat tile from the doomed shuttle Challenger, acquired by the Museum as a reminder of what could have been. 

By the time Columbia made its successful maiden voyage into orbit and back again, Santa Maria was already positioning itself to become the city behind Vandenberg, a community ready to welcome an influx of skilled labor, money, vitality and tourism. During the early 80s, NASA was planning to expand its shuttle launch capability to VAFB, to create, in essence, a Space Coast West location. The people of Santa Maria were eager to step into that role. 

Those hopes and dreams, like so many others, were dashed in an instant due to the Challenger disaster in 1986, as NASA cancelled plans to launch the space shuttle from Vandenberg.
Space Coast West never came to be. 

Until now. 

SpaceX has revived this dream, as the company is planning an ambitious launch schedule, both from Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg. Santa Maria looks like it is perched at the brink of reviving its dream to re-invent itself as a city rooted in the excitement, promise and economic boon that is spaceflight. 

As far as I know, the only space shuttle that has ever been at Vandenberg was Enterprise, never meant to fly in space. Please let me know if you know of any other shuttles that have been at Vandenberg for any reason. 

Yuri's Night 2012

April 12 is International Space Day and a special day for all space geeks.

51 years ago today, Yuri Gagarin became humanity's first astronaut, blasting off into space atop a Soyuz rocket and safely returned to Earth 108 minutes later

31 years ago today, STS-1 Space Shuttle Columbia launched on its maiden flight and circled the Earth 37 times in 54 hours. Columbia's successful landing gave the U.S. its first reusable spaceship.

And finally, today, April 12, 2012, I found a video that I have never seen before - Yuri Gagarin's launch video (presumably from Baikonur Cosmodrome, which in this video still looks only partially completed) with a lot of bonus material on how the Russians handled and reacted to the flight and Yuri's safe return to Earth. One thing's for sure: I have never seen so many Russians so happily exuberant at the same time. 

 

I have become fascinated with this video. The more I watch it and listen to it the more Russian phrases I understand. At least I suspect I understand them. Which is pretty cool.

It also struck me how blissfully, peacefully happy Yuri Gagarin looked right after he returned to Earth. Go to about 3:07 and you'll see what I mean. It is a look of contentment, wonder and awe that all astronauts experience when they see Earth from space with their own eyes. 

This reminded me of a conspiracy theory I came across regarding Yuri Gagarin's untimely death. He was 34 when he died in an accidental plane crash. Officially. Unofficially, the story goes like this: After his historic space flight, Yuri became reluctant to embrace communism and wary of being portrayed as a Socialist hero by the Soviet propaganda machine. He opposed isolationism and escalation of the Cold War. And, of course, people listened to him. So the KGB arranged for a convenient accident, because Gagarin as a dead Soviet hero was much less trouble than a man revered by the Russian people who spoke out against the human rights violations and oppression of a Soviet Union whose government ruled by fear, intimidation and violence. In other words - Don't send a man to space and expect him not to broaden his consciousness and horizons beyond the confines of national borders and ideologies. 

Or, in the words of Arthur C. Clarke: "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

Or, in the words of astronaut Don Pettit @astro_pettit, currently living and working on the International Space Station, who wrote this poem from space:

   

And why the Sun comes up each morn, and why the Earth goes ’round?
I wonder what the Sun on Mars, would bring at dusk and dawn?
 I wonder what two moons would say, from Earth lit sky when Sun is gone  
I wonder if Mars mountain crags would be a sight to hold?
 I wonder if I’d dare to climb, how could I be so bold!  
I wonder when Man’s mind will grow, 
and cease to be so small  
I wonder when we’ll venture forth, I hope before we fall  
I wonder if we’ll never dare, to reach up through the sky 
Forever doomed to live on Earth, and this, I wonder why?

Don Pettit, Node 2, Deck 5, ISS, LEO (International Space Station, Low Earth Orbit)