Late Night with Garrett Reisman

May 09, 2008

Space station flight engineer Garrett Reisman kibitzes with Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert during a video linkup on Thursday.

The New Jersey Crew

May 02, 2008

Four of the seven crewmembers slated to fly aboard shuttle Discovery later this month grew up in New Jersey/New York.

Meet Mark Kelly, the commander of the next shuttle crew. He was born in Orange, N.J., but considers West Orange, N.J. his hometown. I guess you have to live there to really appreciate the difference.

Meet Kelly’s No. 1, pilot Ken Ham. He’s from Plainfield, N.J. and graduated high school in Clark, N.J.

Then there’s the flight engineer Ron Garan, a pilot as well, who hails from Yonkers, N.Y.

Even Akihiko Hoshide, the Tokyo-born astronaut, who will oversee the installation of Japan’s Kibo laboratory complex into the International Space Station, spent part of his childhood in New Jersey.

What’s going on?

“We’ve got a large New York/New Jersey contingent on this crew,” said Kelly during the crew’s prelaunch press conference in Houston on Thursday.

Later, in an informal chat, Kelly says he didn’t plan it this way, but he sure doesn’t mind it.

As for the rest of the crew, well if they’re not used to the tough-talking, sharp-witted New Yorkers by now, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Returning home with them on the shuttle will be space station flight engineer Garrett Reisman, from …Morristown and Parsippany, N.J.

Construction boom

April 16, 2008

The housing meltdown may have stymied construction in many parts of the United States but work has been thriving aboard the International Space Station. Since the arrival of the Expedition 16 crew, headed by NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, NASA has added three new modules to the outpost.

"It's so large I can actually lose crew members at times," Whitson quipped during an inflight press conference on Tuesday.

Whitson returns to Earth on Saturday as the United States’ most experienced astronauts, having accumulated 377 days in orbit during two long-duration spaceflights. She surpasses the 374 days in orbit wracked up by Michael Foale during six missions, most recently as commander of the space station’s Expedition 8 crew.

The Russians remain the world’s most experienced space travelers. Whitson’s crewmate Yuri Malenchenko returns home as well on Saturday after spending a career-total 515 days in orbit over four missions -- making him ninth on the list. Topping the space endurance record list is six-time flier Sergei Krikalev, who has spent 803 days in orbit.

From Earth to the Space Station

April 03, 2008

Europe’s new cargo ship, the Jules Verne, slipped into a docking berth at the International Space Station today, delivering eight tons of supplies and a book, Jules Verne’s “From Earth to the Moon.”

Written in 1865, the humorous French science fiction tale “De la Terre à la Lune” was one of the first in the genre and served as an inspiration for the first sci-fi movie “A Trip to the Moon,” released in 1902.

The European Space Agency developed the Automated Transfer Vehicle line of cargo ships as part of its contribution to the space station program and plans to fly about once a year. Aboard the first ship, named for the visionary author, is a rare 19th century edition of “From Earth to the Moon” and two of his original manuscripts on space and astronomy.

Here's a clip of the ATV final approach to the station:

Hot Air

March 31, 2008

I think I missed the boat on the story I wrote last week about a test the last shuttle crew ran to inflate some prototype tubes in space. The point of the experiment, which was sponsored by the Defense Department, was to see how structurally sound this alternative space assembly process could be. The idea is that instead of launching satellites with big, heavy antennas, mirrors, and other assorted parts, to design the spacecraft with pieces that can be launched flat and then inflated and stiffened in orbit.

With launching costs running in the neighborhood of $10,000 per pound, it’s pretty obvious what the advantages are. But here’s the point: While NASA and the military are running around inflating little tubes in the shuttle’s cargo bay, a private industry already has launched and is testing two prototype habitats, called Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, in orbit. And in two years, the company, Bigelow Aerospace, plans to launch another inflatable that can house researchers, tourists or anyone else with a penchant and purse to fly in space.

Considering how few shuttle flights are left before the fleet is retired and how much NASA still needs to do on the International Space Station, it seems like the experiment aboard the shuttle was superceded by the passage of time and developments in the commercial world. It probably should have been dropped. Government entities are not really suited to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and they certainly should not be in competition to what private industry can do better.

Left: Experiment on shuttle; Right: Genesis 2 in orbit