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Atlasv - Blog Posts
Accidentally met NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden! (Barely pictured far left.) I was watching the Space Station cargo ship launch (which unfortunately didn't) from the viewing room and all these important people walked in. After the scrub Bolden came up to me and asked who I was. I responded that I was just an intern and we talked about astronaut training and what was on board the ship.
NASA Co-Op Week 10: Rocket Science Is Hard
I get frustrated with NASA asking “Why don’t we just build a rocket and go?”, looking and sounding like a doofus in a horse head. NASA Johnson and Kennedy interns met up at Cape Canaveral to watch the Atlas V launch. Visiting Kennedy Space Center reminded me about how much goes into a rocket launch, sending humans or satellites into space. Of course budget and the ability to set and maintain ten year plus political space exploration goals would speed up the process. Those variables aside I want to share what goes into a rocket launch.
Fishing For Rockets Surprisingly NASA does indeed reuse rocket parts, I thought this idea was unique to SpaceX but has been in the works for decades. Following shuttle era launches skirts of rockets and other parts were retrieved from the ocean. They would be inspected, refurbished and reused. Shuttle rocket parts will be used on the new Space Launch System (SLS). Signs labeled parts that will be used for the EM-1 Orion launch. Protective materials preventing heat damage often get reapplied to these parts. Parts of the rocket get so hot it reaches 6000 degrees Fahrenheit while others get so cold ice forms. The technology used to mix these epoxies in mid air is the same technology that coats M&Ms and Doritos. Talk about spin off technologies!
Monster Tank So you made rocket parts. Great, but how do you expect to assemble and transport something so huge? This was a problem my robotics team ran into as well. We had to make sure the robot we built would fit through the door. Once you have all the rocket parts they will be assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), the tallest one story building in the world at 526 feet. It takes 45 minutes for the main door to be opened. Clouds have been known to form inside the VAB and rain has fallen too. Despite how big the VAB may be when transporting one of the rockets into an assembly segment it needed to be tilted at a 45 degree angle. Upgrades are currently being made for the massive SLS. Once the rocket is assembled it is transported on the Crawler-transporter moving at a back breaking speed of one mile per hour. This transporter insures the rocket reaches the launch pad safely limiting the movement of rocket to less than a diameter of a basketball.
Blast Off Wave goodbye to your creation because it will soon launch, release its payload, tumble into the sea repeating the cycle. A successful launch is dependent of many variables including launch pad hardware, windspeed, humidity, weather, and simply fishing boats in the line of debris reentry. If launch is a go bolts the size of your lower leg explode freeing the beast from the ground. If the bolts do not successfully release the rocket don’t care, it will continue to lift off and tear its restraints off like King Kong.
WAYS TO GET INVOLVED Consider touring Kennedy Space Center. While Johnson Space is the home of the human aspect of space flight Kennedy is in charge of getting is up there: https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/
Write your congress members and senators encouraging them to support space exploration: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
Discover accomplishments made this week at NASA: http://youtu.be/_a9og3pAqxY
Watch highlights from the latest launch by United Launch Alliance of AtlasV carrying a GPS into orbit: https://www.youtube.com/embed/NPcRziWDigQ
A dozen NASA Interns from Johnson Space Center are road tripping to Kennedy Space Center to tour and watch the launch tomorrow October 30th. The United Launch Alliance (ULA) are launching a GPS into semi-synchronous circular orbit about 11,000 nautical miles over Earth's surface. This GPS will help military personnel and civilians navigate providing data. WATCH THE LAUNCH here October 30th 12:17pm EDT: http://www.ulalaunch.com/nasa.aspx Mission Overview: http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Mission_Booklets/AV/av_gpsiif11_mob.pdf More About Atlas V: http://www.ulalaunch.com/atlas-v-to-launch-gps-iif11.aspx Rocket photo by ULA