Space History

A man takes a picture from a rooftop as the Endeavour Space Shuttle makes its way toward the California Science Center on October 13, 2012.⠀ ⠀ Via Time and Photographer Rick Loomis-Pool

From the film Ad Astra

Intellectually disabled autistic people are important and they matter, regardless of what they can and can’t do.

Cognitively disabled autistic people are important and they matter, regardless of what they can and can’t do.

Chronically ill autistic people are important and they matter, regardless of what they can and can’t do.

Mentally ill autistic people are important and they matter, regardless of what they can and can’t do.

Multiply-disabled autistic people are important and they matter, regardless of what they can and can’t do.

Young autistic people are important and they matter, regardless of what they can and can’t do.

Elderly autistic people are important and they matter, regardless of what they can and can’t do.

All autistic people are important and they matter, regardless of what they can and can’t do.

The personhood of autistic people is non-negotiable.

1989: ‘Shuttle Evolution “Block II”’

(sorry for low resolution, I cannot find a higher-res version anywhere)

1989: A concept drawing for a never-realised next-generation Space Shuttle, capable of carrying 8 astronauts and possibly over 30 tonnes to low-Earth orbit. The most noteworthy feature is the detachable cockpit with engines which could serve as a launch escape-system or a lifeboat during an incident in-orbit. It was to use its lifting body, wings, and body flap to glide to a runway and presumably land on skids. The escape system would enable a crew's escape at any point during launch or orbital flight.

Comments and observations

The inclusion of this escape-system in the orbiter would necessitate a gap in the heatshield at the nose, one of the hottest parts of the vehicle during re-entry. That's obviously a big problem. Further, a pad-abort would seem to be very impractical. 3 seconds at 8 Gs would only send the capsule about 2 km high, probably not high enough to glide towards the nearest runway, especially with those stubby wings. Perhaps an emergency parachute system and a splashdown of the capsule would have been more sensible?

Other changes to the orbiter seem to be in the interest of improving gliding performance, such as two wing-tip vertical stabilisers instead of one tail-mounted one (to eliminate wing-tip vortices), shrinkage of the orbital manœuvring system pods by relocation of the OMS's propellant-tanks into the wings, and the addition of canards which would probably yield greater pitch-authority during landing.

The system also proposes replacement of the solid rocket boosters with liquid-hydrogen–fuelled boosters. These could provide a greater payload capacity, as well as greater control of thrust during ascent, and the possibility of an emergency engine shutdown, improving the crew's safety. The biggest and most obvious downside would be increased cost. The drawing doesn't specify whether the LFBs are intended to recover themselves by deploying parachutes, but what's certain is that saltwater generally damages delicate chemical rocket engines, so they probably couldn't just plop into the ocean like the real Shuttle's SRBs did.

Esa/JAXA’s Bepi Colombo Spacecraft during one of its Earth flybys before heading towards mercury

I always think that squids are like little spaceships

A Caribbean reef squid spotted during a night dive in the Bahamas. Their large eyes make them effective nocturnal predators, and their intelligence makes them highly inquisitive, as with other cephs!

Apollo 17 ascent stage returning to moon orbit.

Can't wait to see Rocketlab recovering first stages! They are made of carbon fibre so they should be a bit more heat resistant than aluminium?

Flight 10 is scheduled for 25 November!

Flight 10 will use S-band telemetry and onboard flight computers to gather data for future first stage recovery.

The first stage will also use a new reaction control system for guided re-entry.