space shuttle – Australian Science

Women in Space: Judith Resnik

Sharon — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 00:37:19 +0000

This article is one of a series of articles in which I will profile every woman astronaut, cosmonaut and taikonaut who has been into space. Last time we looked at the career of Sally Ride. Today I’m profiling astronaut Judith Resnik. (The feature image above is a collection of drawings of women astronauts by artist Phillip J Bond. You can find Phillip’s wonderful series on women astronauts here.)

When the space shuttle Challenger was due to launch in the middle of the night (Australian time) on the 28th of January of 1986 – I was in the middle of a standard teenage baby sitting gig. The kids must have been 6 or 7 years old and we were all very excited by the upcoming launch, but disappointed by the late hour. As I tucked the kids into bed I agreed to wake them up during the night so we could watch the launch. We didn’t get up during the night, I don’t remember why – maybe I didn’t set the alarm, maybe I decided not to wake them, maybe I just forgot. When I woke in the morning and turned on the TV, the images of the Challenger exploding a minute into launch were so horrifying they still affect me today.

Judith Resnik (NASA image)

Judith Resnik broke many records during her short life. She was the only person in her high school graduating year to score a perfect college entrance score, she was the second American woman in space (2 missions/145hours), the first Jewish woman in space, and she was, sadly, a member of the first shuttle crew to perish during a mission.

Judith was born in 1949 in Akron, Ohio to Jewish parents who had emigrated from the Ukraine. She had a younger brother, Charles. When a student at Firestone High School, Judith excelled in mathematics and played classical piano. She went on to graduate from Carnegie Mellon University with a B.S. in electrical engineering, and then received her PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland. Judith married fellow student Michael Oldak in 1970; although the subsequently divorced in 1974 they remained close friends. Michael even travelled to Kennedy Space Centre to watch Judith’s first mission launch.

Judith in space (NASA image)

After graduation from Carnegie Mellon Judith worked as a design engineer on various NASA projects contracted through her employer, the RCA Corporation. She also worked with the US National Institute of Health as a biomedical engineer, and as a systems engineer with Xerox Corporation during her PhD. When Judith heard that NASA was looking for female astronauts she sought advice from her faculty advisor and mentor Angel Jordan, who encouraged her to apply. In an interview with the Carnegie Mellon newspaper Jordan said, ‘she was an amazing person’, and he still feels responsible for her loss, ‘I pushed her to excel, and I live with that memory every day’.

Judith Resnick, like Sally Ride, was recruited into the astronaut program by actress Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek) who worked as a recruiter for NASA from the mid 1970’s until the mid 1980’s. NASA selected Judith as an astronaut candidate in January of 1978. She completed the year-long training and evaluation period in August 1979. Judith’s first mission was as mission specialist on the maiden voyage of Discovery on 30 August 1984 (STS41-D). She worked on a number of projects in support of Orbiter development, including experiment software, the Remote Manipulator System (RMS), and training techniques.

During the mission the crew of STS41-D activated the OAST-1 solar cell wing experiment, deployed three satellites, and completed a number of experiments. STS 41-D completed 96 orbits of the Earth before landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on September 5, 1984. Judith’s first space mission caused plenty of publicity for NASA , during her mission Judith showed a playful sense of humour, doing extensive periods of aerobatics, and holding a sign reading ‘Hi Dad’ up to the camera. According to her ex-husband, Judith ‘had a great sense of humor and was always willing to try anything’. She made waves during her first mission with images of her long flowing locks of hair, viewers were used to seeing the mundane cropped hair styles of men during missions. Resnik didn’t like to be pigeonholed as a woman astronaut or a Jewish astronaut, she considered herself ‘just another astronaut, period.’

STS51-L Crew (NASA image)

Judith’s second mission was also as mission specialist, aboard Challenger (STS51-L), which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 11:38 on January 28, 1986. Challenger crew included the commander, Mr. F.R. Scobee, the pilot, Commander M.J. Smith (USN), fellow mission specialists, Dr. R.E. McNair, and Lieutenant Colonel E.S. Onizuka (USAF), as well as two civilian payload specialists, Mr. G.B. Jarvis and Mrs. S. C. McAuliffe (NASA Teacher in Space). During the mission crew were expected to deploy tracking and data relay satellites, carry out the first flight of the Shuttle-Pointed Tool for Astronomy (SPARTAN-203), deploy the Halley’s Comet Experiment in order to observe Halley’s Comet and complete a number of lessons as part of the Teacher in Space Project.

The STS 51-L crew died on January 28, 1986 when Challenger exploded shortly after launch.

The facts of the Challenger disaster are well known. Challenger blasted off from Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) at 11:38 hours on 28 January 1986. 73 seconds after lift off, during the ascent phase, Challenger experienced a catastrophic structural failure resulting in the loss of the crew and vehicle.

How news of the Challenger disaster broke

Naturally, after such a catastrophic incident there was a Presidential review, the resulting Rogers Commission findings are publicly available.

Judith has been honoured many times, including lunar crater ‘Resnik’, a dormitory at Carnegie Mellon, the main engineering hall at University of Maryland all named in her honour. A memorial to Resnik and the crew of Space Shuttle Challenger has been dedicated in Seabrook, Texas where Resnik once lived, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) ‘Judith Resnik Award’ for space engineering is also named in her honor, and a memorial to Judith resides at the base of Hammerschlag Hall, at Carnegie Mellon University. Members of Tau Beta Pi, the National Engineering Honor Society, help maintain the monument.

‘The future is not free: the story of all human progress is one of a struggle against all odds. We learned again that this America, which Abraham Lincoln called the last, best hope of man on Earth, was built on heroism and noble sacrifice, It was built by men and women like our seven star voyagers, who answered a call beyond duty, who gave more than was expected or required and who gave it little thought of worldly reward.’

– President Ronald Reagan, 31 January 1986.

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Women in Space: Sally Ride

Sharon — Mon, 20 May 2013 00:08:51 +0000

This article is the third in a series of articles in which I will profile every woman astronaut, cosmonaut and taikonaut who has been into space. Last time we looked at the career of Svetlana Savitskaya the second woman in space. Today I’m profiling astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. (The feature image above is a collection of drawings of women astronauts by artist Phillip J Bond. You can find Phillip’s wonderful series on women astronauts here.)

In 2004 I saw Sally Ride at an Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) Radio National Science Special in Canberra. When I first saw her speak, I was surprised how small she appeared on stage. In my mind, Sally Ride was larger than life, an adventurer, explorer, a trailblazer who broke boundaries in physics, astrophysics and space exploration. Of course within a few minutes of her speaking I was completely drawn into her world of science and space exploration where her stature, and gender is irrelevant. (The transcript of the show she shared with astrophysicist Paul Davies, and marine biologist Syliva Earle can be read here).

Sally Ride aboard the Shuttle (Image credit NASA).

Sally Ride was born in Encino, California. She had one sibling, a sister, her mother was a volunteer counselor at a women’s prison, her father was a political science professor. Sally went to Swarthmore College, taking physics courses at UCLA, she then went on to Stanford to earn her Bachelors degree in English and Physics, and her Masters degree and PhD in physics. Sally was an accomplished athlete, and nationally ranked tennis player in her youth.

Sally was one of about 8,000 people who responded to NASA’s call for applicants for the space program. Sally was ‘recruited’ to NASA by actor Nichelle Nicols who played communications officer Lt. Uhura in the original Star Trek television series. NASA had asked Nichols to help them find the first qualified women and minorities to join what was was until then, an all white male astronaut corps. After more than 12 months of testing and training Sally was one of the few selected to join NASA in 1978. Somewhat unsurprisingly at the time, her gender attracted quite a bit of media attention. Although she herself stayed well clear of gender issues Sally was still asked inane questions like ‘Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?’, and ‘Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?’. Sally noted that she felt astronaut training was ‘asexual’, women and men did all the same training, and that in space ‘weightlessness was the great equaliser, you don’t need to be strong in space’.

Sally Ride – Pilot (Image Credit NASA)

When Challenger roared into space on 18 June 1983 Sally Ride became the first American woman, and the youngest astronaut in space. She was preceded by Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982, both Russian astronauts. During the STS-7 mission the crew deployed two communications satellites and conducted pharmaceutical experiments. Sally was the first woman to use the robot arm in space and the first to use the arm to retrieve a satellite. Sally’s second space flight was in 1984, STS-41G where the crew deployed the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, and conducted various observations. STS-41G was the first time that two women flew in space together, when Kathryn Sullivan joined Ride on the crew. Upon her return she was then scheduled for STS-61M, however, that mission was cancelled in the wake of the Challenger disaster. She was nominated to head the Operations sub-committee on the Rogers Commission, the presidential commission investigating the challenger accident. Following the investigation Sally went to work in NASA HQ authoring a report ‘NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space’.

Sally Ride and Muppet (Image courtesy of Wikimedia)

During her career, Sally served as the ground-based capsule communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights (STS-2 and STS-3) and helped develop the Space Shuttle’s robot arm. She spent a total of more than 343 hours in space. Sally remarked in an 1984 interview that she felt ‘a lot of pressure’ being the first US woman in space, and that most of the pressure was ‘generated by the media’. She said she felt ‘proud’ to be the first US woman in space, and that the extra pressure made her determined to do things right.

Sally left NASA in 1987 and went to work for Standford University, she then moved to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) as the Professor of Physics. She was also the Director of the California Space Institute, and a vigorous promoter of public outreach for science. In 2001 Sally co-founded her own company, Sally Ride Science, a company that creates entertaining science programs, events, and publications for elementary and middle school students, with a focus on girls. In 2003 she was asked to be a member of the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the only person to sit on both the Challenger and Columbia accident boards. Whilst at USCD, Sally led Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) public outreach program for the ISS – EarthKAM and GRAILMoonKAM which encouraged school students to study imagery of the Earth and moon. Sally was also nominated to serve on the 2009 commission that helped shape NASA’s current spaceflight program.

Sally Ride (Image courtesy of NASA)

Sally Ride passed away on 23 July 2012 from pancreatic cancer. A fiercely private person, she did not release any information or details of her 17 month battle with her illness. Her death shocked many people. President Obama said shortly after her death ‘As the first American woman to travel into space, Sally was a national hero and powerful role model. She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars and later fought tirelessly to help get them there by advocating for a greater focus on science and math in our schools’. Sally’s legacy of public outreach and work with school students through her company Sally Ride Science will be continued by her partner and co-founder of Sally Ride Science, Tam O’Shaughnessy.

Perhaps the most moving tribute to Sally comes from her friend Nichelle Nichols, ‘Sally Ride — my heart aches right now. Sally was one of my first and biggest achievements. She once thanked me for my recruitment efforts while under contract to NASA, saying “If it hadn’t been for you I might not be here.

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The perils of space exploration: last flight of space shuttle Columbia

Kevin Orrman-Rossiter — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:01:33 +0000

The 28th and last flight (STS-107) of the space shuttle Columbia was ten years ago. Launched on January 16, 2003 Columbia was destroyed at about 0900 EST on February 1, 2003 while re-entering the atmosphere after its 16-day scientific mission. The destruction of the shuttle killed all seven astronauts on board.

The traditional “in-flight” picture of the crew. This picture was taken from a camera recovered from the crash debris. Photo credit NASA.

An illustrious career

Columbia was the first of the space shuttles to fly, it was successfully launched on April 12, 1981, the 20th anniversary of the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1, and returned on April 14, 1981, after orbiting the Earth 36 times. The first flight of Columbia (STS-1) was commanded by John Young, a Gemini and Apollo veteran who was the ninth person to walk on the Moon in 1972, and piloted by Robert Crippen, a rookie astronaut who served as a support crew member for the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz missions.

Columbia has an illustrious career as part of the US space program, featuring many ‘firsts’. It was the first true manned spaceship. It was also the first manned vehicle to be flown into orbit without benefit of previous unmanned “orbital” testing; the first to launch with wings using solid rocket boosters. It was also the first winged reentry vehicle to return to a conventional runway landing, weighing more than 99-tons as it was braked to a stop on the dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

NASA PHOTO: The April 12, 1981 launch at Pad 39A of STS-1, just seconds past 7 a.m., Columbia carries astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen into an Earth orbital mission scheduled to last for 54 hours, ending with unpowered landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Its second flight, STS-2 on November 12, 1981 marked the first re-use of a manned space vehicle. A year later it became the first 4-person space vehicle – bumping this to six on its sixth flight (STS-9) on November 28, 1983. This flight also featured both the first flight of the reusable laboratory ‘Spacelab’ and the first non-American astronaut on a space shuttle, Ulf Merbold. STS-93, launched on July 23, 1999, was commanded by Eileen Collins, the first female Commander of a US spacecraft.

Space Shuttle Columbia flew 28 flights, spent 300.74 days in space, completed 4,808 orbits, launched 8 satellites and flew 201,497,772 km in total, including its final mission. Its penultimate flight (STS-109) was the third of the highly publicised servicing and upgrade flights to the Hubble Space Telescope.

The fatal flight

The rockets fire. Amidst the thundering fiery roar the shuttle lifts majestically from the launch pad. Unnoticed at the time, at 81.9 seconds after launch a foam insulating block disintegrates upon hitting the leading edge of the shuttles left-wing. The launch continues as scheduled. One hour after launch Columbia was in orbit and the crew began to configure it for their 16-day mission in space.

The next day, routine analysis of high-resolution video from the tracking cameras reveals the debris strike. Multiple groups within the mission team review the tapes. They assess the possibility of damage and decide that an image is required of the wing. They make a request to the NASA ground management for imaging of the wing in-orbit.

However, it was considered “of low concern” that the carbon matrix could be damaged by the foam block. The engineers were over-reacting. The Space shuttle Program managers declined to get the Columbia imaged – or alert the shuttle crew. In fact the crew were told that the impact was a “turn-around issue”, something they had seen before and would be a maintenance check only. Titanic-like the mission continued.

Scientifically the mission was great success. The shuttle crew worked around the clock to ensure that maximum scientific value was achieved. Including an investigation of the web-spinning abilities of the Golden orb spider under low gravity. An experiment designed by students from Glen Waverley Secondary College, in Melbourne Australia.

The morning of re-entry all appears calm and normal in the mission control room. As re-entry started the crew are seen to be in good spirits and looking forward to coming home.

Then while travelling at Mach 24.1, during the 10-minute fiery re-entry, when the leading edge reaches temperatures in excess of 1550 Celsius, the damaged thermal protection panels on the wing overheated – then failed catastrophically. The wing and shuttle disintegrating.

The nearly 84,000 pieces of debris from the shuttle are stored in a 16th floor office suite in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center.

The seven crew members who died aboard this final mission were: Rick Husband, Commander; Willie McCool, Pilot; Michael Anderson, Payload Commander; David Brown, Mission Specialist 1; Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist 2; Laurel Clark, Mission Specialist 4; and Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist 1.

Two other died in the search for the debris: Jules Mier (Debris Search Pilot) and Charles Krenek (Debris Search Aviation Specialist).

NASA PHOTO: Final descent, Columbia streaking over the Owens Valley Radio Observatory in Big Pine, California

Is spaceflight perilous? Or an unforgiving adventure?

It is rather remarkable that NASA had launched men into space sixteen times during the the Mercury and Gemini programs without a casualty – although there had been some scary moments.

Compared to the cramped and tiny Mercury capsule the Apollo command module was, in spaceflight terms, a luxury liner. So when a spark ignited the oxygen atmosphere of the Apollo 1 capsule on January 27, 1967 killing three astronauts it was shocking for both NASA and the public. The last communication from the Apollo 1 capsule was not revealed for a long time to the public:

Fire! We’ve got a fire in the cockpit! We’ve got a bad fire…..get us out. We’re burning up…..

The last sound was a scream, shrill and brief. After this nothing at NASA would be quite the same again.

The fatal Apollo 1 fire was also unexpected. At the time of the fire the crew of Gus Grissom, John Young and Roger Chaffee were perched atop an empty Saturn V rocket involved in routine testing of the capsule control systems.

The 1986 Challenger disaster was equally shocking – and far more public. The explosion 73 seconds after lift off claimed shuttle crew and vehicle. The cause of explosion was determined to be an o-ring failure in the right solid rocket booster. Cold weather was determined to be a contributing factor. The subsequent investigation and changes delayed the next shuttle launch to late 1988.

Space Shuttle Challenger’s smoke plume after its in-flight breakup, resulting in its crash and the deaths of all seven crew members. Photo credit NASA.

You could say that space exploration in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than aviation, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect. Gus Grissom has been quoted as saying during the pioneering Mercury missions:

If we die we want people to accept it. We hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.

I’m not sure that Gus Grissom would have accepted these deaths as an acceptable risk of human spaceflight.

Cite this article:
Orrman-Rossiter K (2013-01-16 00:01:33). The perils of space exploration: last flight of space shuttle Columbia . Australian Science. Retrieved: May 06, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/science-2/the-perils-of-space-exploration-last-flight-of-space-shuttle-columbia/
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