We Aren't The Only Ones, Part 5 and Final

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com


As promised, the Chinese space failure. Excerpted from A New American Space Plan, by Travis S. Taylor and myself, from Baen Books.

It should be noted that the Chinese space program is considered a branch of their military, at least in part, and therefore is subject to much secrecy. In point of fact, it is only in recent years that there has even been a Chinese space program apart from that needed to develop ICBMs. In addition, upon the fall of the Soviet Union, much of that space agency's history came to light. We do not have this advantage in gleaning information about the Chinese space program, so this section is quite short relative to American and Russian space history.

~~~

China’s space program as such began in the late 1950s, under the auspices of their Ministry of Aerospace Industry, and Chairman Mao Tzedong. At that time it consisted mostly of work on intercontinental ballistic missiles, as we were at the height of the Cold War, and they were responding to what they considered potential threats from both the U.S. and Russia. They seemed to have no particular interest in manned space flight for several more decades.

Upon Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping emerged as China’s leader, and canceled many missile programs and anti-missile defense programs considered important at the time. However, long range ICBM development did continue, as well as the Long March series of launch vehicles, enabling them to compete in the commercial launch industry. When the Cold War ended, Deng stepped up his commercialization of China, and moved away from the blatant use of communist revolution rhetoric in the naming of vehicles, and toward ancient Chinese religious and mystical names. This included, for example, renaming the Long March rockets “Divine Arrow.”

He split the Ministry into two parts in 1993: the China National Space Administration (CNSA), responsible for space policy and planning, and the China Aerospace Corporation (CASC), responsible for execution of the program.

Shortly thereafter, China had its first public space program disaster.

In February of 1996, the launch of the first Long March 3B heavy launch vehicle went drastically wrong. Carrying Intelsat 708, a commercial telecommunications satellite, the rocket failed almost immediately on liftoff as a result of an engineering defect, deviating drastically from its launch trajectory at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. It crashed twenty-two seconds later and slightly more than one mile (slightly under two kilometers) from the launch facility—directly on top of a village. Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, under government control, reported six killed and fifty-seven injured, with eighty houses destroyed. Unofficial reports, however, place the death toll at well over 500 people.

Three years after this disaster, Shenzhou 1 was successfully launched—unmanned—on the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Rebublic of China in 1999...China is a member of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. However, its space program, despite the “corporate” designation of half of it, is entirely military-run, and in 2007 it shot down one of its own dead satellites.

~~~

So far, since the Long March disaster in 1996, the Chinese space program has been ambitious and successful. They have specified their intent to go to the Moon and to be the first humans to land on Mars. If they continue like this, they may well beat everyone in the doing; they seem to have the will and the political backing to advance, while the West is mired in political in-fighting and lack of apparent interest.

Despite our failures, I think it can safely be said that the US space program as put forth by NASA has hardly had quite so spectacular or horrific failures as have occurred elsewhere. We have not dropped any rockets on any small towns; we have never deliberately and with foreknowledge gone forward with completely inane designs. We have not wiped out a significant portion of our rocket team by requiring them to sit in the same field with the launch vehicle. Speaking as someone who has worked side by side with fellow American space flight controllers, I can honestly say that we have done the best we could do to keep our colleagues safe within reason - for space will never be completely safe. It is inherently an inimical environment, and one in which no human would live for a minute without layers of protection, whether that protection be physical, procedural, or otherwise. I have been a part of that protection, in a manner of speaking. It is a task that I strove to do to my utmost, and it is something of which I will always be proud.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

We Aren't The Only Ones, Part 4

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

A bit more on the Soviet space program's failures, then on to China next week. Excerpted from A New American Space Plan, by Travis S. Taylor and myself, from Baen Books.

~~~

In 1971 the Soviets put up the world’s first space station, Salyut 1. Sort of like our Skylab, it was expendable and there was a whole series of these stations, military and nonmilitary. It was generally a successful program.

Except for the first flight to Salyut 1, Soyuz 11.

Soyuz 11 was the only manned mission to Salyut 1. All went nominally until it came time for reentry. At that time, the pyrotechnic bolts that were to release the service module from the reentry module fired simultaneously instead of sequentially. This in turn jolted open a breathing ventilation valve at an altitude of 104 miles (168 km) and bled the reentry vehicle’s atmosphere off into space. As it was located underneath the seats, the cosmonauts couldn’t locate and plug it fast enough to stop the loss of atmosphere. And due to the cramped conditions and the presence of 3 crew members, space suits were not worn for these early flights.

Flight recorder data later indicated the crew went into cardiac arrest within forty seconds. Within 212 seconds (less than four minutes) of the separation, the cabin pressure was zero. As a result, ground control lost communications with the crew long before the reentry comm blackout should have begun, realized that conditions were off-nominal, and began emergency preparations for the landing. The crew was found at the landing point, dead inside the cabin. Attempts were made to perform CPR by the service crew, but it was much too late.

In 1975 Soyuz 18a had the first ever manned launch abort. It’s forward momentum carriedit some thousands of miles downrange, nearly into China—which the Soviets were on particularly bad terms with at the time. It came down in the mountains again, sliding down the side of one, and nearly toppling off a cliff. This time, tangled parachutes saved the cosmonauts by snarling in the trees and preventing the sheer drop. The crew was pretty banged up.

In 1980 a Vostok rocket blew up on the launch pad. Forty-eight people died.

~~~

It should be noted that, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian space program has, to my knowledge, not suffered a single major setback that has resulted in loss of life.

Next week as promised: The Chinese space program.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

We Aren't The Only Ones, Part 3

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com


Part 3 of this series takes us into the Russian manned program, specifically the Soyuz and the problems it experienced from the very beginning, as excerpted from A New American Space Plan, by Travis S. Taylor and myself.

~~~

Soyuz 1 was the first flight of the Soyuz spacecraft. It was also the Soviets’ first in-flight death. The craft was known to be faulty to begin with. The engineers reported over 203 design faults—not faulty equipment, not improperly installed, faulty design work, before the launch. Unfortunately, by this time Soviet leaders had caught moon fever. They wanted to beat the Americans to a manned landing, and they wanted to take advantage of the delay caused by the Apollo 1 fire. Oh, and they wanted to celebrate Vladimir Lenin's birthday with some fireworks. Big fireworks.

Vladimir Komarov was the primary, and Yuri Gagarin was his backup. The situation was so bad that Gagarin tried to get Komarov bumped from the primary position, because he knew that he was considered a national hero and therefore not expendable. He hoped to get the mission delayed until the problems could be fixed. He failed.

Soyuz 1 was launched, Komarov aboard. Its mission was to rendezvous and EVA with Soyuz 2. As soon as it got on orbit, one of the solar panels failed to unfurl, so the spacecraft was running on low power from the get-go.

The Soyuz 2 crew prepped themselves for a repair mission. Thunderstorms overnight at Baikonur fried the Soyuz electrical systems, so Soyuz 1 was on its own.

Then the “orientation detectors” (I assume this means gyroscopes or star trackers or some such, or maybe not) decided to malfunction, rendering maneuvering difficult. Then the automatic maneuvering system died entirely, and the manual system went on the fritz.

Once the maneuvering system went down, the flight director decided to abort the mission. At this point, everything looked like a happy ending.

Except this was a new ship. With new details. Like a thicker heat shield, and a correspondingly larger parachute. Remember those design flaws? Guess what? Nobody bothered to make the chute receptacle any bigger. In their brilliance, technicians used wooden mallets to beat the parachute into place.

So the drogue chute came out, but the main parachute didn’t. Simple enough: Komarov deployed the manual parachute. Which promptly tangled in the drogue chute. He hit the ground at an estimated 89 mph (140 km/hr).

The ship exploded.

 

The Soviets didn’t have too many manned firsts after that, and they never made it to the moon with a crewed lander. The same year we landed on the moon, they managed a docking and crew exchange of Soyuz 4 and 5. (The Soviets claimed that this was the world’s first space station.) Unfortunately when it came time to come home, Soyuz 5’s service module failed to separate, and the capsule with service module reentered nose first. The cosmonaut inside, Boris Volnyov, hung from his straps until the module’s struts burned through and it broke away, enabling the capsule to right itself before the hatch also burned through—the gaskets were already burning and filling the cabin with noxious fumes. But then the parachute lines tangled, and the landing retros failed, and while Volnyov walked away from that landing, he broke his teeth. He landed in—yes, you guessed it—the Ural Mountains instead of Khazakhstan, and with the temperature outside at -36°F (-38°C), he was forced to walk several kilometers to the cabin of a local.

~~~

 

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

We Aren't The Only Ones, Part 2

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com


Just by way of reminder, we've been talking about space program disasters. We started off in memoriam of the Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia disasters, all of whose anniversaries fall within about a 2-week timespan on the calendar. Then we went on to begin talking about the space disasters of other countries, beginning with the Nedelin disaster in Soviet Russia in 1960. Let's keep talking about the USSR space program and its problems this week.

Again, we are excerpting from A New American Space Plan by Travis S. Taylor and myself, from Baen Books.

~~~

...The Soviets suffered another setback in 1961. In a tragedy eerily similar to the Apollo 1 fire, but six years earlier, Valentin Bondarenko died in a high-oxygen (but low-pressure) environment during a training session. Yuri Gagarin kept vigil at his hospital bedside, where he died a few hours after extrication.

Shortly thereafter, aboard Vostok 1, that same Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, completing a single full orbit of Earth. In the same year, the USSR launched Venera I to Venus, and put Gherman Titov into orbit for a full day aboard Vostok 2...In 1965, Voshkod 2 crewmen conducted the first extra-vehicular activity (EVA)—although not successfully. Their airlock was an inflatable, attached to the side of their craft, and it didn’t work quite as well as envisioned. The Voshkod was a redesign of the Vostok, and not a particularly good one. It was cramped, it contained two crewmen instead of one without expanding the volume at all, and it had no provision for emergency escape. As if that weren’t bad enough, after a little over twelve minutes of EVA, Alexei Leonov found that his spacesuit had ballooned out to a point where he had become inflexible. He simply did not have the strength to bend, even at the waist. When he attempted to reenter his vehicle, his suit became wedged and he couldn’t reach anything to free himself!

In the end he had to vent atmosphere from his suit, risking the bends, in order to get it small enough to re-enter his spacecraft and rejoin his crewman Pavel Belyayev. Then the hatch wouldn’t close
properly. Once they got that fixed, the spacecraft was so cramped that, after orienting for deorbit burn, it took them an additional forty-six seconds to navigate their inflated spacesuits back into their seats. This threw off the center of gravity during the initial stages of reentry. The automatic landing system failed, and they had to resort to manual backup— and the orbital module didn’t disconnect when it should have! They spun crazily until the module finally jettisoned at an altitude of only 62 miles (100 km).

The whole mess caused them to miss their designated landing area by a good 240 miles (386 km) in the middle of the Ural Mountains of Siberia. The location was cold, it was snow-covered, it was filled with bears and wolves—and it was the animals’ mating season, the time when said bears and wolves were in their foulest moods. The Soviet control center had no idea where they were—and the hatch’s pyro bolts had blown it off. As was common in the early days of the space program for both Soviet and American, there was a pistol and ammunition aboard, and the men were trained for that terrain, but they had little in the way of shelter save the open Voskhod capsule. Aircraft located them, but it was too heavily forested for helicopters, so the men settled down for the night in their spacesuits— after stripping and wringing perspiration out of their soaked underwear. After a frigid -22°F (-30°C) night, a rescue party on skis arrived the next morning.

Not exactly a successful mission.
...

The N-1 rocket, the Soviet counterpart to the Saturn V, began development in 1965. Unfortunately its principal architect, Sergei Korolev, by this time known only by the enigmatic title “Chief Designer,” as his very existence was a state secret, died abruptly in 1966 of medical reasons which are still debated. Cancer was certainly a factor, as was his known heart condition, but a botched operation, coupled with the inability to intubate him due to jaw damage from beatings dating from his days in the gulag, may well have contributed. This left the N-1 program leaderless. It floundered badly, and after four failed launch attempts, the program was suspended, then cancelled in 1976.

 

~~~

 

More Russian problems next week.

 

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

 

Remembrance: Columbia (Part 2)

by Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

It is perhaps best if I simply let the timeline of the catastrophe speak for itself. Due to my familiarity with the subject, one of the crewmembers, and the bird itself, perhaps my readers will forgive me if I pull from the Wikipedia article on the matter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_disaster]. Having read the CAIB (Columbia Accident Investigation Board) Report in some detail, I find it to be accurate in the essentials.

~~~

“The following is a timeline of Columbia's re-entry. The shuttle was scheduled to land at 9:16 a.m. EST.

2:30 a.m. EST, February 1, 2003 – The Entry Flight Control Team began duty in the Mission Control Center.

The Flight Control Team had not been working on any issues or problems related to the planned de-orbit and re-entry of Columbia. In particular, the team had indicated no concerns about the debris impact to the left wing during ascent, and treated the re-entry like any other. The team worked through the de-orbit preparation checklist and re-entry checklist procedures. Weather forecasters, with the help of pilots in the Shuttle Training Aircraft, evaluated landing-site weather conditions at the Kennedy Space Center.

8:00 – Mission Control Center Entry Flight Director LeRoy Cain polled the Mission Control room for a GO/NO-GO decision for the de-orbit burn.

All weather observations and forecasts were within guidelines set by the flight rules, and all systems were normal.

8:10 – The Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) notified the crew that they were GO for de-orbit burn.

8:15:30 (EI-1719) – Husband and McCool executed the de-orbit burn using Columbia’s two Orbital Maneuvering System engines.

The Orbiter was upside down and tail-first over the Indian Ocean at an altitude of 175 miles (282 km) when the burn was executed. The de-orbit maneuver was performed on the 255th orbit, and the 2-minute, 38-second burn slowed the Orbiter from 17,500 miles per hour (7.8 km/s) to begin her re-entry into the atmosphere. During the de-orbit burn, the crew felt about 10% of the effects of gravity. There were no problems during the burn, after which Husband maneuvered Columbia into a right-side-up, forward-facing position, with the Orbiter's nose pitched up.

8:44:09 (EI+000) – Entry Interface (EI), arbitrarily defined as the point at which the Orbiter enters the discernible atmosphere at 400,000 feet (120 km; 76 mi), occurred over the Pacific Ocean.

As Columbia descended from outer space into the atmosphere, the heat produced by air molecules colliding with the Orbiter typically caused wing leading-edge temperatures to rise steadily, reaching an estimated 2,500 °F (1,370 °C) during the next six minutes. (As former Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale stated in a press briefing, about 90% of this heating is the result of compression of the atmospheric gas caused by the orbiter's supersonic flight, rather than the result of friction.)

Columbia at approximately 8:57. Debris is visible coming from the left wing (bottom).

8:48:39 (EI+270) – A sensor on the left wing leading edge spar showed strains higher than those seen on previous Columbia re-entries.

This was recorded only on the Modular Auxiliary Data System, which is similar in concept to a flight data recorder, and was not telemetered to ground controllers or displayed to the crew.

8:49:32 (EI+323) – Columbia executed a planned roll to the right. Speed: Mach 24.5.

Columbia began a banking turn to manage lift and therefore limit the Orbiter's rate of descent and heating.

8:50:53 (EI+404) – Columbia entered a 10-minute period of peak heating, during which the thermal stresses were at their maximum. Speed: Mach 24.1; altitude: 243,000 feet (74 km; 46 mi).

8:52:00 (EI+471) – Columbia was approximately 300 miles (480 km) west of the California coastline. The wing leading-edge temperatures usually reached 2,650 °F (1,450 °C) at this point.

8:53:26 (EI+557) – Columbia crossed the California coast west of Sacramento. Speed: Mach 23; altitude: 231,600 feet (70.6 km; 43.9 mi).

8:53:46 (EI+577) – Signs of debris being shed were sighted by people out to watch the re-entry. Speed: Mach 22.8; altitude: 230,200 feet (70.2 km; 43.6 mi).

The superheated air surrounding the Orbiter suddenly brightened, causing a streak in the Orbiter's luminescent trail that was quite noticeable in the pre-dawn skies over the West Coast. Observers witnessed another four similar events during the following 23 seconds. Dialogue on some of the amateur footage indicates the observers were aware of the abnormality of what they were filming.

8:54:24 (EI+615) – The Maintenance, Mechanical, and Crew Systems (MMACS) officer informed the Flight Director that four hydraulic sensors in the left wing were indicating "off-scale low." In Mission Control, re-entry had been proceeding normally up to this point.

"Off-scale low" is a reading that falls below the minimum capability of the sensor, and it usually indicates that the sensor has failed (stopped functioning, due to internal or external factors), rather than that the quantity it measures is actually below the sensor's minimum response value. The Entry Team continued to discuss the failed indicators.

8:54:25 (EI+616) – Columbia crossed from California into Nevada airspace. Speed: Mach 22.5; altitude: 227,400 feet (69.3 km; 43.1 mi).

Witnesses observed a bright flash at this point and 18 similar events in the next four minutes.

8:55:00 (EI+651) – Nearly 11 minutes after Columbia re-entered the atmosphere, wing leading-edge temperatures normally reached nearly 3,000 °F (1,650 °C).

8:55:32 (EI+683) – Columbia crossed from Nevada into Utah. Speed: Mach 21.8; altitude: 223,400 feet (68.1 km; 42.3 mi).

8:55:52 (EI+703) – Columbia crossed from Utah into Arizona.

8:56:30 (EI+741) – Columbia initiated a roll reversal, turning from right to left over Arizona.

8:56:45 (EI+756) – Columbia crossed from Arizona to New Mexico. Speed: Mach 20.9; altitude: 219,000 feet (67 km; 41 mi).

8:57:24 (EI+795) – Columbia passed just north of Albuquerque.

8:58:00 (EI+831) – At this point, wing leading-edge temperatures typically decreased to 2,880 °F (1,580 °C).

8:58:20 (EI+851) – Columbia crossed from New Mexico into Texas. Speed: Mach 19.5; altitude: 209,800 feet (63.9 km; 39.7 mi).

At about this time, the Orbiter shed a Thermal Protection System tile, the most westerly piece of debris that has been recovered. Searchers found the tile in a field in Littlefield, Texas, just northwest of Lubbock.

8:59:15 (EI+906) – MMACS informed the Flight Director that pressure readings had been lost on both left main landing-gear tires. The Flight Director then told the Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) to let the crew know that Mission Control saw the messages and was evaluating the indications, and added that the Flight Control Team did not understand the crew's last transmission. [I believe that it was around this point that the pressurized landing-gear tires likely exploded from the heat. At the very least it would have torn a huge hole in the underbelly of the wing, if not outright sheared off a substantial portion thereof. Note that the next several entries occur in fractions of a second. --Osborn]

8:59:32 (EI+923) – A broken response from the mission commander was recorded: "Roger, uh, bu – [cut off in mid-word] ..." It was the last communication from the crew and the last telemetry signal received in Mission Control.

8:59:37 (EI+928) – Hydraulic pressure, which is required to move the flight control surfaces, was lost at approximately

8:59:37. At that time, the Master Alarm would have sounded for the loss of hydraulics, and the shuttle began to lose control, beginning to roll and yaw uncontrollably, and the crew would have become aware of the serious problem.

9:00:18 (EI+969) – Videos and eyewitness reports by observers on the ground in and near Dallas revealed that the Orbiter had disintegrated overhead, continuing to break up into more and smaller pieces, and leaving multiple contrails, as it continued eastward. In Mission Control, while the loss of signal was a cause for concern, there was no sign of any serious problem. Prior to orbiter breakup at 9:00:18, the Columbia cabin pressure was nominal and the crew was capable of conscious actions. The crew module remained mostly intact through the breakup, though it had lost enough structural integrity that it lost pressure, and was completely depressurized no later than 9:00:53.

9:00:57 (EI+1008) - The still intact crew module was seen breaking into small subcomponents. It disappeared from view at 9:01:10. The crew, if not already dead, were dead no later than this point. [I will take issue with this statement later. -Osborn]

9:05 – Residents of north central Texas, particularly near Tyler, reported a loud boom, a small concussion wave, smoke trails and debris in the clear skies above the counties east of Dallas.

9:12:39 (EI+1710) – After hearing of reports of the shuttle being seen to break apart, the NASA flight director declared a contingency (events leading to loss of the vehicle) and alerted search and rescue teams in the debris area. He made a call to the Ground Controller: "GC; flight, GC; flight. Lock the doors." Two minutes later Mission Control put contingency procedures into effect. Nobody was permitted to enter or leave the room, and flight controllers had to preserve all the mission data for later investigation.

~~~

The morning of the disaster was about 3 months after my husband had had emergency heart bypass surgery. It had been a grueling recovery for both of us, and I clearly recall that it was the weekend (I believe it was Saturday) and we had slept in. I got up, wandered into the den, grabbed the remote, and hit the power. The television came on to the last channel we'd watched – the Weather Channel – and even they were reporting that “...Space Shuttle Columbia is twelve minutes late exiting the re-entry comm blackout.” I knew what that meant; I worked too long on those birds – on THAT bird – not to. Twelve seconds...maybe. Twelve minutes, there was no doubt. I turned and yelled down the hall, “HONEY! Get in here! We've lost a Shuttle!”

In retrospect, probably not the wisest thing to do to a recovering heart patient.

But he survived. They didn't.

It was so very surreal for me, and still is. I worked with Columbia more than any other shuttle in the fleet. I had a friend on board her – I helped train Kalpana Chawla for her first mission, back in '97. I'd kept up with her, popping into the Astronaut Office to look for her whenever I was in Houston. We'd have a cup of coffee, sit down and catch up, laughing and chatting. But I was doing DOD work at that point, and had lost track of who was scheduled for which flights. It wasn't until my husband asked me if I'd known any of the crew that I thought to check. And I was horrified. KC had one of the widest smiles, the most cheerful demeanors, of anyone I have known, before or since. To think she went through that...it was, and is, hard for me to accept.

I'd written a book, entitled Burnout:The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281. It was fiction, every bit of it. It was in the hands of my writing mentor, and later sometime co-author, Travis S. Taylor, to read and critique. He was going to help me polish it, then help me find a publisher. I'd researched using the information from the Challenger disaster, but decided to make it very obviously NOT that incident; I'd chosen a re-entry scenario instead. The disaster which now played out before my eyes was precisely what I'd written into the book. Travis had to talk me out of trashing it instead.

In the end, life went on for some of us. My book, and numerous more, have been published. In January 2012, I was invited to return to my undergraduate alma mater, Austin Peay State University, to help support the library and to give a talk and a book-signing. It was a messy, cold, stormy night with torrents of rain falling when I arrived at the location and began setting up. The Friends of the Library were setting up around me for a reception before the talk, when a gentleman showed up. In all honesty I cannot recall his name because what came next was very...I'm not sure the English language has the word for what I felt in those ensuing minutes.

Because he told me he had been one of the 3 field coroners for the Columbia disaster. He had come, partly to answer the questions I had about it that I'd never been able to answer, and partly to hear my perspective on it. He had copies of the autopsy reports which I was allowed to flip through – though I can't recall a word on any page. And he gave me the answer I didn't want to hear: my friend KC had been alive through the breakup – they all had. In fact, he told me, at least one crewman was found on the ground, body intact, death due to multiple blunt force traumas. He didn't say so outright, but I can interpret that – he died when he hit the ground.

A recent presentation I made on scientific and engineering work done since then included a summation of that chat. I was later gently challenged on the matter of the crew's deaths. This upset me because, unable to remember the man's name, I hadn't a way to verify his credentials. (If you're out there, mystery man, please contact me through this blog.) But today, as I refreshed my memory on the details of the catastrophe, I found a newspaper report that took its information from the final version of the CAIB report, and I quote:

“The Working Group found no irregularities in its extensive review of all applicable medical records and crew health data. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted forensic analyses on the remains of the crew of Columbia after they were recovered. It was determined that the acceleration levels the crew module experienced prior to its catastrophic failure were not lethal. The death of the crew members was due to blunt trauma and hypoxia. The exact time of death - sometime after 9:00:19 a.m. Eastern Standard Time - cannot be determined because of the lack of direct physical or recorded evidence.” [http://www.spaceflightnow.com/columbia/report/030826crew/]

As a result of all this, some colleagues and I from SIGMA, the science fiction think tank [www.sigmaforum.org], are in process of developing a new system called SPEARED – Single Person Emergency Atmospheric Re-Entry Device. (This is the “scientific and engineering work” I mentioned earlier.) We have patents pending and hope that someday soon this new system will prevent deaths such as those aboard Columbia, and maybe even Challenger.

I'll keep you posted.

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Extraction Point! by Taylor, Osborn to be released April 15, 2011!

Travis S. "Doc" Taylor, NYT best-selling science and science fiction author of the Warp Speed series, the Tau Ceti series, co-author of the first book in the Cresperian Saga, Human By Choice, and co-author of the Looking Glass series with John Ringo; and Stephanie Osborn, best-selling co-author of books two and three of the Cresperian Saga The Y Factor and The Cresperian Allliance, and the science fiction mystery Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281, have collaborated on the first novel in the Point series, Extraction Point!, for Twilight Times Books. Extraction Point! is complete and to the publisher! Release date is set for 15 April, 2011!

Brilliant scientist and government operative Dr. Reagan "Ray" Brady is a man with a shadowed, and painful, past. He should be dead. In fact, the man he was IS "dead," and the identity he now has is not the one with which he was born. Were it not for two faithful friends, now dubbed Jay and Ernie, all three men would truly be dead. Instead, Ray has what he considers the perfect life: the three now work for an ultra-secret division of the Department of Homeland Security, on the lookout for invasion by rather unique sorts of illegal aliens - "Santa Clauses," or extraterrestrials, and "Easter Bunnies," or time travelers. This team includes not only Ray, but his wife and team leader, Samantha Brady. The team's "mascot" is their one year old daughter, Abigail.

Things couldn't be any more perfect for Ray - until a mysterious man shows up, leaving several dead men in his wake. When Ray's team confronts the man in the Big Apple, Ray is nearly beaten to a pulp, then watches as the man leaps from the roof of a ten story building - and vanishes in mid-air. Meanwhile, Samantha is watching video from the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and seconds after his disappearance from NYC, sees the same man saunter calmly in for a full guided tour of the facility. A genetic scientist, whose work is on the cutting edge of research, disappears from his locked office. And large quantities of gold and other items are being stolen from within bank vaults and other secure facilities around the world. Most disturbing is the missing fissile material from Oak Ridge.

Who is this man? Why does his image show up through three centuries of Earth's history? How do he and his men manage to travel seemingly instantaneously? What does he intend to do with all of the stolen wealth and dangerous material he has amassed? And can Ray and his team stop him before Ray loses everything he now holds dear?

Watch for this exciting new book, first in the Point Series!

Past, Present, and Future

Time for an update!

Past:

Chattacon was, as usual, a delight. I had a great time there, but unfortunately managed to miss a face to face with John Ringo. Of late, I've become one of John's scientific advisors, and when I heard he'd showed I looked everywhere - except where he was. Oh well. Another shot at him come LibertyCon this summer.

Burnout and The Y Factor came out nicely in the Preditors & Editors Readers' Poll. Burnout made #7 in the category of Science Fiction Novel, and #11 for Best Cover Art. The Y Factor made #3 in Best Cover Art! MANY thanks to everyone who voted!

The Y Factor is a finalist for the EPIC Award, formerly known as the EPPIE, and Burnout is a finalist for the Int'l Thriller Writers' Best First Novel! (Excitement ensues as I wait for the results...)

Present:

I'm working hard on Escape Velocity, the sequel to Burnout. It's about a quarter of the way done. It'd be farther along if the characters would follow my outline, lol. Somehow they wind up doing things I hadn't expected and didn't plan for, and then I have to adjust the outline!

The Cresperian Alliance, Book 3 of the Cresperian Saga, has been released as an ebook! For more information on the book and how to purchase, go to my website and click on the "Books" link.

Travis "Doc" Taylor and I are working on a book called Extraction Point! We hope it will be the first of a series of novels. Travis and I are both VERY pleased at how it's progressing.

Sullivan-Maxx Literary Agency is representing my Displaced Detective series, with an eye to placing it with a publisher. I'm really excited and hopeful about that; I already have 4 books done in the series, with a 5th in work!

Future:

MidSouthCon in Memphis is flying toward us! It's always a delightful convention filled with friends and colleagues, and I'm very much looking forward to it! Burnout is nominated for the Darrell Award, so there's an element of anxious anticipation as well!

The EPIC Award winners will be announced from EPICon in New Orleans NEXT WEEKEND! Cross your fingers for The Y Factor!

Stay tuned for more upcoming adventures!

I have been derelict

Dear readers, please forgive me. I have been derelict in my attentions to this blog. I can only plead that I have been up to my eyeballs in manuscripts. For a writer, this is a good thing, yes? Since the summer started I have collaborated with Darrell Bain on the third book in the Cresperia Series, called The Cresperian Alliance; it is now under contract. It is the sequel to Human By Choice and The Y Factor, which latter will be coming out in print in December, just in time for the holidays.

The Cresperian Alliance should come out in e-book in January, and in print next summer.

I have also collaborated with Travis "Doc" Taylor, my mentor, on a book called Extraction Point! which we are hoping to be the first in a series. I completed Book 6 in an as-yet-unsold series of science fiction mysteries. I edited yet another book for submission to a publisher. And now I've started on the sequel to Burnout, tentatively called Escape Velocity.

In addition to this, I have been doing booksignings and guest appearances at conventions and interviews and goodness knows what else. I hadn't a day off from Labor Day through the first weekend of October. Just over a week ago I did a day trip (!) from Huntsville, AL to Jackson, MS for a booksigning. I will be appearing this Wednesday night at 9pm EDT on the blogtalkradio show Premium Views, and I will be in Corinth, MS the first Saturday in October for another talk and booksigning.

I've been a busy little rocket scientist. I hope that helps make up for the lack of updates here. I'll try to do better in future.

Updates on The Cresperian Series

The Cresperian Series, consisting of Human By Choice (Darrell Bain and Travis S. Taylor), and The Y Factor (Darrell Bain and Stephanie Osborn) now has a third book.

The Cresperian Alliance (Stephanie Osborn and Darrell Bain) is the next in the saga of the gentle "Crispies" and their interactions with the human race. The Cresperian Alliance sees the return of Earth's first starships from Cresperia. An alliance has been formed between the advanced, but peace-loving, Cresperians, and the more volatile humans. But now there's another race involved, allied with neither. And the Snappers, while advanced, aren't so friendly or peace-loving. Will the Snappers decide to expand their interplanetary empire? If so, in what direction...? What should Cresperia do? What should Earth do? And will the Cresperian alliance hold, should the worst happen?

Contract for The Cresperian Alliance is IN HAND! Tentative ebook publication is scheduled for Jan 15, 2010. Tentative trade paperback print publication is slated for Jul 15, 2010.

Human By Choice was released in trade paper last month, and simultaneously garnered the Dream Realm Award!

And my husband, Darrell Osborn, who created the cover art for Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281, has been asked by Twilight Times Books to create art concepts for the cover of The Y Factor!

Steph's 411

So, what's been happening with me lately? I've been staying REALLY busy.

1) I've been working with Travis "Doc" Taylor on a new book called Extraction Point! Hopefully it will become the first of a series, if all goes well. Got my half of the rough draft finished and sent to him about a week ago.

2) I've been working with Darrell Bain on the 3rd book in the Cresperian series. We have the outline and character names pretty much down. He's started on the first part of it and will send it to me soon. We'll go back and forth on it.

3) I'm editing on a manuscript of my own, trying to tighten it up and get it ready to submit to a publisher. :) I love science fiction mysteries.

4) I'm getting ready to start on the sequel to Burnout.

5) I did a podcast this past Wednesday, which can be heard at Red River Writers Live.

6) The Florence AL Public Library invited me to participate in their celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. So yesterday I gave a talk about my career in the space program and did a book signing, which went quite well.

7) My publisher and I also managed to convince Barnes-Noble to make a couple of edits to their store book database. This will, hopefully, result in my books being carried on bookshelves very very soon.

Upcoming events:

1) I'll be appearing on The Mortal Vampire podcast at 7pmCDT on Tuesday, July 7th, for Part II of my interview! You can listen in, and even participate, here.

2) I'll be at LibertyCon science fiction convention in Chattanooga TN the weekend of 10-12 July! That looks like being GREAT fun.

3) On Saturday, 18 July at 7pmCDT the North Alabama Science Fiction Association will host me at the Renasant Bank off Airport Road in Huntsville AL for a talk and booksigning.

4) At noonCDT on Wednesday, July 29, I'll be participating in another Red River Writers Live podcast (link TBD; keep an eye on my website for details) introducing the authors of Red River Writers Live.

5) At the kind invitation of H. David Blalock, I've joined a booksigning tour group called Imagicopter. I won't be at the inaugural booksigning due to a conflict, but plan to attend as many of the tour stops as possible!

6) The Huntsville Public Library - Main Branch has invited me for a talk and booksigning on Saturday, the 22nd of August at 2pmCDT.

And that's only through the summer, guys! I'm staying pretty busy and I'm happier than the proverbial clam about it (although why clams should be happier than other critters, I don't know...)! Keep an eye open; I may be coming through your area sometime soon!

Contented day

School is out. No more frantic students prepping for finals, no more crazy hours and Algebra 2 then Chemistry then Trigonometry then AP Chem then Physics, then... shifting mental gears faster than any race car driver. I like doing it, but I need the break. I can kick back now. Nowhere I have to be today. Just where I want to be.

It's quiet for a change. Rainshowers move by occasionally, with the enchanting sound of rain pattering on the roof. I'm researching some science for Extraction Point!, the first in a series I'm co-authoring with my mentor, Travis "Doc" Taylor. My 3 year old cat, Elrond Half-Siamese, cuddles against my side, rests his chin on the corner of the laptop, and watches me type.

Book sales are doing reasonably well, and I have several appearances of various sorts lined up next week.

I am content. Life is good.

I'm reviewed in the New York Times!

Oh my gosh, I am so thrilled. Darrell Bain and I ran across an article referring to Human By Choice a week or so ago, by a writer who checked out electronic gadgets, e-books and the like. He loved Human By Choice, so I emailed him to tell him the sequel, The Y Factor, was out, and would he like a free review copy? He was also a big fan of my mentor, Travis "Doc" Taylor, so I told him I had a book out that Trav had mentored me through, and was currently co-authoring a book with him.

Well, that got him really interested. In the end, he BOUGHT not only The Y Factor, but Burnout, as e-books, because as a writer himself, he felt writers should get paid for their work and not give it away. And the results came out today.

The Article

The Pertinent Excerpt (by kind permission of the author):

This Week at Mobile Tech Manor
E-books of the week

This week I read "The Y Factor" by Darrell Bain and Stephanie Osborn, the second in the "Cresperian" series I told you about last week. This book was very enjoyable and I can't wait to read the next book in the series. I was thrilled to hear from both Darrell and Stephanie that they are beginning work on the next book in the series so guys, please get to work, OK? It turns out that Darrell is only about 50 miles from me so maybe we can have some coffee sometime. That would be cool.

Stephanie told me about her own novel, "Burnout: the Mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281" and I am in the middle of it right now. It is a good story abouta shuttle landing tragedy that is not quite what it seems, and it is a real page-turner. Stephanie is a good writer and she is able to draw from her experience working on the shuttle program in her past life. It is a great read and recommended. I am always excited to discover a new author and I will be following her writing career for sure.

~jkOnTheRun/ New York Times

Where is she now??

Steph is busy busy right now!

1) It's the week before finals at the schools, and kids are going crazy doing last minute cramming. If they'd studied throughout the year, they wouldn't need me trying to stuff knowledge into their heads at the last minute, but oh well...

2) I'm deep into writing Extraction Point! with Travis S. Taylor. It's a fascinating science fiction story with more than a touch of mystery thrown in, and the first in a series. I'm about to finish chapter 5 and move on to chapter 6.

3) I've been editing a book of my own, again the first in a series, involving alternate universes and the ability to pop from one to another. Imagine the chagrin when a person from an alternate universe is inadvertently brought to ours and can't be sent back...

4) Darrell Bain and I are about to start talking plot on the third book in the Cresperia Series! #1 was Human By Choice, written by Bain and Taylor. #2 is The Y Factor, written by Bain and myself and currently near the top of Fictionwise's best-seller list. (It stayed at #1 on the SF list for some time, and I think it's still at #2! Last I saw it was #16 on the overall fiction list at Fictionwise!)

5) Once school is out I'm also going to start on the much-demanded sequel to Burnout! It's already outlined; hopefully I'll get a good start on the rough draft, at least, through the summer.

Writing, writing, and more writing! I'm lovin' it!

My mind is blown...

...I am a best-selling author.

On Tuesday the 21st of April, The Y Factor, coauthored by Eppie Award winner Darrell Bain and myself, was released as an e-book. By Wednesday evening, it was #13 on Fictionwise's best-seller list. And it's had legs.

It was a fun book to write, the second in a series about first contact with an alien race, and the politics involved, etc. And Darrell is fun to work with, too. I had high hopes for it.

But my gosh, I never expected this.

I'm still so stunned I can't believe it's real. I don't know how to act, or what to say, or anything. I've tweaked my website a bit, but past that I'm not sure what to DO.

I'd turn cartwheels (if I could), or scream at the top of my lungs (except the neighbors would probably object), or run around in circles (but my bad knees would give out). I GOTTA find a way to vent this and make it real to me! Suggestions, anybody?

If you're interested, you can purchase The Y Factor e-book here and here. (It'll be out in trade paperback this fall.) But you might want to pick up the first book in the series by Bain and my mentor, Travis Taylor, Human By Choice. You can find the ebook here. The paperback will be released soon.

The Y Factor & Burnout updates

The first edits came in today for The Y Factor, the sequel to Human By Choice that Darrell Bain asked me to co-author. As he's a bit under the weather, he asked me to go ahead and take a look at it.

I was really pleased; for the most part, all it consisted of was spelling and grammatical boo-boos, quick and easy to fix. There are a couple of things that I want Darrell to look at and give his yea/nay on, but the bulk of it was done in a couple of hours.

The cover flat for The Y Factor came in, too, and looks great!

A tweak to the Burnout cover flat came in, lightening the text, and if it looked great before, it looks fantastic now! I'm starting to get really REALLY excited!