Thurston

Uncle Neil's Storytime Corner

”Inspection”

Once upon a time, people built stainless steel rockets, just like you boys and girls. They called them Atlas rockets, they blew up, a lot! Well, in 1975 they blew up an IntelSat IV and people became very unhappy. So, the engineers decided to do some failure analysis. well...after examining some wreckage they found that an umbilical harness that supplied power to the rocket didn't always let go when it was supposed to. That meant the power to the rocket either went off too soon or it shorted the electrical system. this made the rocket real mad so the engineers went back and checked their records and guess what? The disconnect plug was never rated for space flight true, it was used on boats and ships but never actually tested to aerospace standards... ya'll know what standards are right? Good, that’s right, for fifteen years no one had ever looked at the build documents so every time since 1960 they launched a rocket it could go boom.... many did. Something like 16 rockets blew up because the GSE design was too simple for the engineers to check as they should have. Things need to be checked, a whole lot of times. It’s better to know than assume.

”When Satellites Disappear”

Thirty years ago, when the space shuttle was considered a viable spacecraft, Atlantis had to go on a special mission because the Defense people wanted a new satellite. See NASA sold their soul to the DoD to pay for the shuttle, and the DoD made sure they could place all sorts of neat gear into orbit. Back in those days they spent money on programs no matter what. One of those was called “Future Imagery Architecture”. It turned out to not work so good. They saved the parts that did work and renamed it the “Enhanced Imaging System”, but everybody just called it “Misty”. Now, isn’t that a nice name? When the time came to put Misty into orbit NASA had to change all the safety rules, just this once, ‘cause Atlantis had to fly a dog-leg flight maneuver which took it over the Eastern sea board. If the shuttle had been unlucky, a lot of civilians might have been hurt and a $13 billion program would have made many people look real stupid. But that didn’t happen. Misty was released into space.

After a few months people who watch satellites (‘cause they can’t hold a real job) couldn’t track Misty anymore. Misty just disappeared. Nobody said a word. Now, many years after this a company called SpaceX agreed to launch a satellite for these same DoD people who lost Misty. Only this time it was even more special. So, few people knew about this satellite they would not let SpaceX know anything about it, only its name. They called it “Zuma” They must have been fans of the amazing rock album from 1975 called “Zuma”, I bet ya’ll have all heard “Cortez the Killer.” Right? Anyway, SpaceX launched Zuma into orbit and it disappeared as well, just like Misty had nearly thirty years before. Many people were sad. Congress said SpaceX was to blame. See, Zuma was what’s called a stealth satellite, you can’t see it, but it can see you. Just like Misty parts of the satellite fell out of the sky. Still no one would say a word. In 1995 some people thought they saw Misty, but no one was really sure. Maybe someday Zuma will reappear, we won’t be sure if it does. We never get to know everything, that just makes people sad. So, satellites disappear kids, but not always.

”Where’s That Module?”

This is the story of a missing Lunar Module. The lunar modules took people to the surface of the Moon back when humans did not worry so much about toilet paper and selfies. People went to concerts and actually watched the show. In July of 1962 NASA gave Grumman Aircraft company a contract to build 15 lunar modules, some were just test articles and never flew, others landed on the Moon and a few were never actually completed. Of the modules not completed as spacecraft three ended up in museums, one was scraped and one was listed as “incomplete” on the NASA paperwork, “not used” on an archive document. Now, most normal people would just let that “incomplete” description go and not worry about the fate of LM-14 (that was her name). However, things got complicated. In the absence of real facts and data people nowadays sit around and spin yarns (like Uncle Neil) to create what’s called “content.” Content can be a good thing ‘cause people are curious and bored. See kids, there are people who need to hate something. So, they hate the government or NASA. It’s easy, everyone does it and no story is too mundane not to be made into a conspiracy.

After a few year’s journalist had run out of ideas for Apollo stories. They began asking space people and engineers what happen to LM-14. Surely it didn’t just disappear? Where is the receipt! Some people said they thought LM-14 was at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. While there is one there it is LTA-3DR. That is what’s called a “Test Article”. They dropped this one from high up. Other people said that LM-14 was built, and sold to the Japanese for the World’s Fair in 1976 where it was turned into a kind of a circus show, it came down out of the ceiling and made people clap. Thing is, the “Japanese” lunar module was a rebuilt stage set that CBS had built for the moon landings. Back then CBS needed “content” so they had one built for their “simulations.” People like me would lay on the floor in front of the TV and listen to Walter Cronkite talk to a simulation. CBS had guys in space suits climbing around on this thing, it was neat.

Finally, some Grumman engineers got really tired of answering stupid questions and confessed that LM-14 was never built. Apollo 19 was canceled and the 5% completed LM-14 was cut up. In the end, whatever there was of LM-14 was just really expensive grade Aluminum and may have wound up in some early F-14 Tomcat mock-ups. But Internet trash producers gin up stories just to prod the public into more hatred or suspicion of NASA, it makes them money. It’s the American Way!

"When Rockets Go Boom"

Tonight’s story has to do with rockets blowing up. See kids, most people are drawn to space stuff after having seen a rocket explosion. Rarely do rocket explosions disappoint anyone. In the late 50’s and early 60’s rockets blowing up became almost a daily thing. At one time, the Air Force was blowing up Atlas missiles every few weeks, it was a priority to solve this problem. Around 1963 NASA began to worry just a bit about what would happen if one of the big Saturn rockets decided to retire early and do the fireball shuffle. No one really knew how bad it could be. On March 2, 1965 an Atlas missile loaded with a Surveyor program test article got about ten feet off the launch pad, decided not to fly and landed on its bottom. Atlas was not designed to do that.

By this time the folks at Vandenberg Air Force Base had become experts on blowing missiles up and recording data to try and stop this from happening. So NASA got an idea. The NASA guys used data from that explosion to calculate just how big the fire ball would get if a Saturn blew up and how fast the Apollo capsule would have to leave to escape safely. Based on their calculations the “fireball” would last almost 34 seconds and blow out people’s windows as much as 30 miles from the pad (that’s 50 km) more or less. Destruction of the pad was assumed. Now, we have all heard the term “we have cleared the tower” during a rocket launch. That was important because that meant the rocket had not collided with the launch tower. A NASA study at the time indicated that a collision with the tower was the most likely reason a Saturn would explode. It was soon understood that the RP-1 (kerosene) would burn sort of slow. However, the Saturn second stage was filled with liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Cryogenics have unique properties when allowed to suddenly vaporize. The second stage would blow up with more force than the first stage, even though the first stage was much bigger. The second stage would explode with the force of 0.25 ktons of TNT. That is pretty close to the energy released by a small nuclear device, what people use to whimsically refer to as a “Baby A-Bomb.”

Our most recent Starship upper-stage is about twice the size of the old Saturn SC-II stage and it has liquid methane instead of hydrogen. If it blows up on the pad… well, let’s just not go there. For example, if one of the Raptors loses thrust during those first few seconds of flight the result can be what is called an “engine hardover.” The computer would try and fix the flight and push the rocket into the launch tower by mistake. That is why our pad will not have a launch tower until everything is reliable. See kids, an explosion of that size creates all sorts of problems. People have to stay away from the launch pad because even if the fireball misses them the local air over-pressure of 5 psi is lethal. You can die without so much as a scratch on you. That would be real bad, but at least we could tell who it was so we could let their parents know what happened. So, when you see a SpaceX Starship leaving the launch pad for the first time remember, there is a person nearby with a button to make it all go away so no one gets hurt, just windows and birds.