Not all went well, as micrometeroid shield was torn off by vibrations during launch. The Skylab team scrambled to come up with an interim solution, delaying the launch of the first crew from May 14 to May 25.
A 40th anniversary event was held yesterday at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The video of that event is above. Below is ABC News coverage of the Skylab launch; it should be noted that this was the last launch ever of a Saturn V booster.
Click the arrow to watch on YouTube ABC News coverage of the Skylab launch.
Hadfield is arguably the most accessible astronaut ever while in space.
But lost in all the social media hype was a BBC News interview published May 12 in which Hadfield had blunt words for those who think the ISS is a waste of time and that the world's spacefaring nations immediately should head for the Moon or Mars.
BBC News science correspondent Pallab Ghosh wrote:
His argument is that the construction and utilisation of the ISS will lead to the development of technologies that will eventually enable humanity to leave Earth and settle on other worlds. But that process will be a slow and incremental one.
And he has this to say to those who want things to move much faster: "It's just an uninformed lack of patience and lack of understanding of complexity and a desire to be amused and entertained that builds a false set of expectations."
Reader Mike Jetzer pointed me to these photos he recently found of Kennedy Space Center's visitor facility in the early days.
This photo was posted on the Facebook page of the Retro Space Images web site run by J.L. Pickering. The image is undated, but my guess is it was taken in 1965 after the Tourist Information Center opened on the west side of the Indian River. The original facility was simply a trailer; in this photo, we don't see anything behind the Redstone and the bulletin board.
This next photo comes from the Kennedy Space Center images archive. According to the page, it's dated July 22, 1966. It shows the interim Visitor Information Center, now operational, but still on the west side of the Indian River. Note the guard shack in the middle of NASA Causeway.
This final image shows the permanent Visitor Information Center, which opened in August 1967. The image is also from the KSC images archive, and is dated March 11, 1969. It provides a marvelous detailed overview of the VIC as it looked when completed.
If you read through the comments posted on TripAdvisor.com about today's KSCVC, a common complaint is that it's more expensive than what people remember from their childhood. But those were the days when the operation was partially subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Under federal law, today's KSCVC must sustain itself. The complex is much larger than it was in 1969, with many new exhibits including the upcoming Space Shuttle Atlantis which cost $100 million to build. Artifacts that were new in 1969 are almost fifty years old now; the items in the Rocket Garden were not designed to be on display out in the corrosive Florida weather for a half-century.
The VIC has come a long way since 1965. There's still room to grow.
Click the arrow to watch the April 12, 2013 conference at Spartanburg, South Carolina. The video runs 5½ hours.
Back in April, the Center for Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) co-sponsored a day-long event in Spartanburg, South Carolina titled, “1st Annual Space, Cancer and Personalized Medicine Conference.” It was hosted by the Gibbs Cancer Center.
CASIS recently posted the video of the entire event on YouTube. Some of it is over my head, but for those of us looking for examples of International Space Station research this is a treasure trove.
If you go to this link, it lists who spoke on what subjects and their start times. You can pick and choose your subjects to watch.
The video demonstrates the incredible research potential of the ISS. They're just getting started. CASIS, based here in the Space Coast, is leading the way.
“I Will Be Back One Day” is my latest NASA music montage.
The song is from a track on the album Lonesome Dreams by the band Lord Huron. I heard it on an FM radio station a few weeks ago and thought, “I can work with that.”
The lyrics refer more to someone pioneering the Old West, the general theme of the album, but certainly it can be interpreted for a space explorer leaving the Earth. The person speaking the lyrics vows to return and meet someone “by the great big lake.” That's easily interpreted as the oceans where Mercury, Gemini and Apollo landed. It could also refer to the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base. The “great big lake” could even refer to space itself.
Anyway, the above video is what my mind conjured by listening to the song.
Wolf was the author of 2010 legislation which forbade NASA from having any contact with China. Since then, Wolf and Bolden have sparred over the law's language and intrepretation. According to one online post, Wolf claimed in 1995 that Chinese hospitals were selling human fetuses as health food.
Bolden was grilled about the arrest of a Chinese national who worked for a NASA contractor. Bo Jiang worked for the National Institute of Aerospace. He was arrested at Dulles Airport for not declaring all the electronics he was carrying with him; according to media reports, an affidavit stated Jiang had previously taken to China a laptop with “sensitive information,” although what was “sensitive” was not reported.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard ordered Jiang released after a federal prosecutor acknowledged there is no evidence so far that he possessed any sensitive, secret or classified material.
But now we know what really was on the laptop in March.
Business Week reports that Jiang “unlawfully downloaded copyrighted movies and sexually explicit films onto his NASA laptop.”
Not exactly the Chinese spy Wolf claimed he was.
Has Wolf apologized to Jiang or Bolden?
According to Business Week, when contacted by the reporter Wolf's representative said the Congressman had no comment.
Former NASA contractor employee Bo Jiang, arrested last March by federal agents as he was about to board a flight to Beijing, took vast amounts of sensitive research by a noted colleague to China in 2012, The Washington Examiner has learned.
The source for the Examiner story was anonymous — “A NASA Langley executive with first-hand knowledge of the Jiang case.”
The Examiner did not mention what was really on the laptop when Jiang was arrested in March, or that a plea deal had been reached.
According to Wikipedia, the Examiner is owned by Philip Anschutz and is considered an outlet for his conservative partisan views. The Examiner is published in Springfield, Virginia, about 20 miles from Wolf's district office in Herndon.
I'm registered non-partisan. I've worked part-time in politics for many years, for politicians of both partisan stripes. I know how one goes about planting a story in the media for political purposes (having done it myself).
In the next few months, watch for China-phobes like Wolf, Space Coast Rep. Bill Posey and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) to cite the Examiner article as further proof that Bolden and the Obama administration are “soft” on China.
UPDATE May 2, 2013 — The Virginian-Pilot reports that Jiang “pled guilty to a single misdemeanor count of misusing government office equipment and was sentenced to time served — about eight weeks.”
Jiang had been in custody since March 16, when he was stopped while preparing to board a China-bound flight at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. He was charged with providing false statements to the investigators who searched his baggage because he failed to fully disclose all of the electronic gear he was carrying with him.
The investigation was prompted by U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Fairfax County, who publicly identified Jiang as a potential security threat after whistleblowers at NASA-Langley told him Jiang had been permitted to take a NASA-owned laptop computer with him on a visit to China last fall.
Taking the NASA computer without prior written approval was a violation of NASA security regulations, according to a statement of facts put into evidence today — a breach that resulted in the termination of Jiang’s employment with the National Institute of Aerospace, a Hampton-based NASA contractor, in January.
However, “the United States has no evidence that Jiang was ever put on notice of that specific prohibition,” according to the statement.
Moreover, analysis of the NASA laptop established that it contained no classified information, nor did any of the electronic equipment Jiang was carrying with him in March.
In his plea agreement, Jiang acknowledged violating a NASA regulation governing use of government office equipment by downloading copyrighted movies, television shows and sexually explicit images onto the NASA-owned laptop.
Bloomberg News reports that Rep. Wolf fingered Jiang as a security risk during a March 13 public hearing, even though no charges had been brought. The same day that Wolf made the allegation, the FBI opened its investigation.
The open question in my mind now is, did the FBI investigate Jiang and arrest him due to political pressure brought by Wolf?
Hopefully an investigative reporter will start digging into this.
UPDATE May 3, 2013 — Today's articles on Bo Jiang's release.
In recent weeks I've been posting photos of the solid rocket booster replica stacking in front of the orbiter Atlantis exhibit under construction at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, most recently at this link.
Today the frustum was added to the left-side booster. (How can you tell it's the left side? It has a black stripe around the top.)
The below photos show you the progress during the day, bad weather not withstanding.
Click the arrow to watch on YouTube the first powered flight of the VSS Enteprise. Video source: Virgin Galactic.
Join the club.
VSS Enterprise today became the first self-powered commercial spaceship to break the Sound Barrier, when during its first powered test flight the vehicle exceeded Mach 1.
Enterprise is more formally known as SpaceShipTwo, which is the spaceplane model. A second one, VSS Voyager, is being built.
SpaceShipTwo is carried to flight and dropped by WhiteKnightTwo.
“The first powered flight of Virgin Spaceship Enterprise was without any doubt, our single most important flight test to date,” said Virgin Galactic Founder Sir Richard Branson, who was on the ground in Mojave to witness the occasion. “For the first time, we were able to prove the key components of the system, fully integrated and in flight. Today’s supersonic success opens the way for a rapid expansion of the spaceship’s powered flight envelope, with a very realistic goal of full space flight by the year’s end. We saw history in the making today and I couldn’t be more proud of everyone involved.”
MSNBC space reporter Alan Boyle of Cosmic Log posed these questions to Branson after the flight:
Q: You've talked about how you and your family are looking forward to this. After today's launch, are you looking forward to it even more?
A: Of course. It was a thrilling day today. Everything went absolutely according to plan. It looked magnificent. The pilots just loved the experience. I think they were tempted to go straight into space, but knew they'd get fired if they did. We're very much looking forward to getting there either at the end of this year or very early next year.
Q: How many test flights do you think will be needed? You've already mentioned that you are hoping the first spaceflights could happen by the end of this year, and commercial service would follow. Now that the first powered test has taken place, what does the schedule ahead look like?
A: There will be many test flights between now and the end of the year, before we actually go into space. We'll do as many tests as we feel are necessary before we actually turn it over to myself, my children and other people. We'll be working with the FAA and others to get as many flights under our belts as we feel are needed, but I do think we'll be ready by the end of the year.
An image shot today from SpaceShipTwo's boom camera during its first rocket-powered flight. Image source: Virgin Galactic.
A telescopic image of VSS Enterprise in flight today. Image source: Virgin Galactic.
Here are stories posted so far about today's historic flight. The list will be updated as available.
January 30, 1967 ... The bodies of the Apollo 1 astronauts leave the Bioastronautics Operational Support Unit for transport to Andrews Air Force Base. Original image source: NASA.
Yet another historic building at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station has fallen to the ages.
The Bioastronautics Operational Support Unit (BOSU), completed in February 1965, was a hospital and medical clinic for the base. It also housed the specially trained medics who were to recover astronauts from the launch pad during an emergency.
Page 6 of that document relates what is arguably the most famous and tragic moment in the facility's history.
In January 1967, the BOSU supported its only emergency related to the U.S. Manned Space Program: the AS-204 Command Module fire at LC 34 that erupted during a simulation on January 27th. Just after midnight on January 28, the bodies of the three astronauts in the vehicle, Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee, were brought to the BOSU. Here, military doctors conducted a preliminary post-mortem examination of each, including physical, microscopic, radiographic, and toxicological examinations. In addition, twenty-seven members of the Pad Safety Crew, who had suffered smoke inhalation, contusions, and abrasions, were examined at the BOSU; two were kept overnight for observation.
