by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
April has shaped up to be a VERY busy month for me! "It's Elementary!" Month has seen me speaking at the Gathering of Southern Sherlockians at the historic Read House Hotel in downtown Chattanooga TN, where I spoke on the research I did into the Victorian era for my Displaced Detective novels, as well as a sneak peek reading of an excerpt from a new steampunk novel that's not out yet. It's also seen me the busiest panelist at 221bCon, which was described as a "paradigm shift" in Sherlockian fandom! Yet to come are a couple of talks at the Huntsville-Madison County Alabama Public Libraries. It seems that they are reading Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes this month, and want me to come in and discuss my views of Holmes and the research I did for my books as well!
In fact, I'm staying SO busy that I haven't had a chance to throw down some cool new blog posts. I'm sorry about that. I'll try to do better in future, but every blog post written is less energy/creative spur to write a chapter of a new book. No, the well isn't infinite in depth, I'm afraid. One of my best buds, Travis S. Taylor, well - I swear the man is really The Flash in disguise. I honestly don't know how he does all he does! He seems to have boundless energy. I don't. I love to write, and when the words are flowing, I will lose all track of time. I will push and push to get to the end (or rather, the middle, because I don't write in sequence, but rather like movies are filmed). But when I'm done, I'm wiped. It'll be time for a break, in order to generate enough energy to write the NEXT book. Even Travis has told me it's normal for that to happen, and he occasionally emails or texts me with word that he's letting the steam and smoke out of his computer (aka taking a break)!
So, since it IS "It's Elementary!" Month for me AND the local public libraries, next week I'll put up some Displaced Detective excerpts!
-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
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Monday, April 22, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
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.
~~~
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
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
Monday, April 8, 2013
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.
~~~
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
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
Monday, April 1, 2013
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.
~~~
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.
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.
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
Monday, March 25, 2013
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.
~~~
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.
...
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
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