Challenger STS-8 – In the Dark of the Night

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

”Dear NASA,…” –  From Enchanting To Bizarre

(By Chuck Biggs)


Mark a letter “NASA Headquarters, Houston, Texas,” and it will eventually end up in the Public Affairs Office mail room, as will letters from “Buck Rogers, Space Station Moon,” and another 50,000 letters a year from all over the world.

“I would like to apply to be a Mission Specialist on the Space Shuttle. Can I bring my Garfield, my bean bags, my blankie and my Mom?” asked four-year-old Russ in a recent letter. Nine-year-old Kathleen, a Canadian, wrote, “The reason I want to go to the Moon is because someday we may have to evacuate the Earth and we will have to know how children can survive in space. Don’t worry about not having permission, my parents don’t mind if I go.”

Those are but two of the thousands of letters received last year, but not all of them are from children. One writer asked for a one-way ticket on the Space Shuttle to give his wife on their anniversary. An Episcopal Rector in Houston thanked NASA for a photograph taken in space and said, “It will be a real source of inspiration to me in my study as I search for the beyond in my own work.”

A businessman in New York asked NASA for the procedures for applying for permission to establish a flea market on NASA properties in outer space, leading to speculation that perhaps he knows something NASA does not. Some of NASA’s pen pals are rather more eccentric. One gentleman wrote JSC 40 letters in only three months. He never asked for a single thing, but only offered NASA useful information free of charge.

One of the more original pen pals, Buck Rogers from Space Station Moon – or so the return address said – sent NASA an elaborate “Space Orbital Housing Unit” design proposal complete with dimensional drawings. He even recommended certain experiments NASA might perform in the future and suggested that rubber runways be constructed on the Moon.

Norma Kersman, who runs the mail office for Public Affairs, said, “I think the people write us because the space program excites them. Even though astronauts have traveled into space, there is still an element of the unknown there.”

About half of the mail to JSC comes from overseas, Kersman said. The foreign letters usually need translation, which is done by volunteers around the Center, but Kersman said she can often tell what the writer wants, even without understanding the language. “Letters from Poland,” she said, “sometimes ask for a ‘prospectus of your company,’ which means information on the space program, or ‘labels,’ which translates to color photographs from space. Nearly 1,000 letters from Poland are answered each month, and rarely has a package been returned undeliverable.”

Another source of foreign mail, and a great deal of it, is the African country of Ghana. In addition to asking for information on the space program, many of the writers from Ghana ask for Bibles, blue jeans and money.

Keeping up with the fan mail is no easy task, Kersman said. During FY ’83, her operation answered over 50,000 individual letters and mailed 1,466,420 pieces of printed material. That is a monthly average of 122,201 fact sheets, lithographs and other space-related materials.

Frequently space buffs write NASA to share something dear and personal to them. A grandmother and grandfather in Wyoming sent a copy of a letter from their granddaughter, who had just learned to write in script. “Man soars in space, walks on the Moon and sends his contraptions beyond the boundaries of the galaxy,” they wrote. “Yet what human can fathom the awesome power of the common everyday pencil?” They asked that the letter be posted on NASA’s bulletin board. It was.

Some fans ask for materials, some offer suggestions and some share a bit of sunshine, but one unimpressed child wrote, “Our teacher gave us your address and I wanted to write to you. So now I have. Goodbye.”

(JSC Space News Roundup, Nov. 25, 1983)


You probably guessed I got mail from JSC after asking for some information, too…

Do not fold… uhm, I’ve folded the empty (!!!) envelope here to mask the address label   

[Ares67]

October 3: NASA SHIFTS $3.5 MILLION FROM SHUTTLE TO SRB FACILITY
NASA is shifting $3.45 million from its FY '83 Space Shuttle budget for site preparation for a new solid rocket assembly and refurbishment facility at Kennedy Space Center. The new facility is needed because the existing facility "is not economically expandable" to provide SRBs for more than 16 flights per year, while the mission model calls for up to 24 flights a year in later years. The new facility is to be built by the contractor selected for SRB processing, which is being recompeted. The new facility is to be in operation in time to produce the SRB flight articles for the 38th space shuttle flight, which is scheduled for mid-1986. Funds will be transferred from Shuttle Changes & Systems Upgrading ($3 million) and Shuttle Orbiter Production ($0.45 million). (Defense Daily, Oct. 3, 1983)


October 4: MAPPING PHOTOGRAPHS OF AFGHANISTAN CANCELLED
The Washington Post said that an experiment on the next U.S. shuttle flight was canceled because of the shooting down last month of a South Korean airliner by the Soviet Union. The experiment would have made the first mapping photographs from orbit of the entire area of Afghanistan, whose government the Soviet Union supports.

Cancellation was a joint decision of NASA and ESA, which built the $1 billion Spacelab scheduled to make its first flight October 28 in the shuttle Columbia’s cargo bay. This mission would take the Shuttle farther north and south than any previous manned U.S. flight, going 55 degrees from the equator over the end of Argentina as well as the Hudson Bay region of Canada and the upper areas of Scotland. Columbia and Spacelab would also fly over most of the Soviet Union, including Moscow for the first time, but would take no photographs of the Soviet Union. (Astronautics and Aeronautics 1979-1984, A Chronology, NASA-SP-4024, 1989 – edited)


October 5: SERIOUS BOOSTER CONCERNS MIGHT POSTPONE SPACELAB DEBUT
Potential problems with the shuttle's twin Solid Rocket Boosters might postpone the Columbia's impending launch and the debut of Europe's Spacelab. Tests are now under way to determine the existence and nature of any potential problems, and program chiefs expect to decide by late next week whether to order the shuttle removed from the pad.

Two possible problems, both associated with the exhaust nozzles on the reusable boosters, are being studied. The most serious concern stems from abnormal nozzle wear discovered on one of the solid rockets used during the eighth shuttle launch August 30. Engineers so far have been unable to explain what caused the wear, never seen before on previous missions. Also, patches of silicon oil found on one of the boosters now on the pad have engineers puzzled.

"We have a question right now about the booster nozzles," said NASA Shuttle Operations Manager Tom Utsman. "But it's premature to talk about removing it (the shuttle) from the pad." Utsman confirmed, however, that removing the shuttle poised atop Pad 39A since September 28 is one of the options program officials are considering. Consideration is being given to speeding up assembly of a shuttle stack that would be used for Mission 11 planned for January, and putting the Columbia and her Spacelab cargo onto that stack. "We're making contingency plans. It's a matter of covering all the bases. If things aren't satisfactory, we're just not going to launch," Utsman said.

He also said that patches of ablative, or protective, coating on the inside nozzle surface of one of the Mission 8 boosters had worn to just two-tenths of an inch thickness. At that thickness, engineers estimate the rocket's searing exhaust could have burned through the nozzle in just eight more seconds of burn time. Utsman said he didn't know what would have happened if burn-through occurred. "That's one of the classic bad cases," he said. "What made one different? It doesn't mean that the ones out there (boosters on the pad) are bad," Utsman said.

Alan Thirkettle, who is in charge of the Spacelab project at Kennedy Space Center for the European Space Agency, said he is unsure about what will happen if a problem with the boosters is confirmed. "We're resting on the assumption that NASA is going to solve our problems for us and the only thing that will stop us from going on the 28th is cloud cover," Thirkettle said. "We're very, very ready to go." Thirkettle said the biggest concern facing Spacelab officials is the loss of science opportunities that any delay in Spacelab's launch could cause. The mission already has been delayed a month because shuttle scheduling problems.

Morton Thiokol, which manufactures the booster rockets at its Brigham City, Utah, plant plans to conduct test firings of booster components during the weekend. NASA officials hope to gain added information on the potential wear problems based on these firings. "We're going to push on down the road and sometime late next week we'll really start putting the story together," Utsman said. Asked if launch officials were taking a conservative approach, Utsman replied: "I wouldn't call it a conservative approach. It's the only approach you can take in a manned space program." (Yacenda, Today, Oct. 6, 1983 – edited)


October 6: THIOKOL TO PERFORM TEST FIRINGS
Continued uncertainties about the health of the shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters kept space program officials examining the problem. Faced with the last-ditch prospect of postponing the scheduled October 28 launch of the Columbia and its Spacelab cargo, program managers met at the three major NASA flight centers as well as at the contractor corporation where the boosters are built. The manufacturer, the Wasatch Division of the Thiokol Corp. (Brigham City, Utah) plans to run a series of test firings of the rocket boosters during the weekend in an attempt to determine the extent of the problem possibly afflicting the boosters.

A decision on whether a problem exists will be made based on the results and other investigations now under way. That decision, which will determine whether Columbia will be allowed to fly on time or will be brought back from the launch pad where she now stands, could come as early as October 10, a Thiokol source said. The decision would be made by officials in charge of the Solid Rocket Booster program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Two separate concerns have surfaced about the boosters' safety, both involving the engine exhaust nozzles that funnel out the twin rockets' 2.7 million pounds of thrust. The more serious problem was one discovered shortly after the last shuttle mission in August, when engineers found that the protective lining on one of the Mission 8 shuttle's solid rocket exhaust nozzles was worn precariously thin in spots. The other problem that has officials baffled concerns the presence of silicon oil on the nozzle lining. That oil, which has been seen on other boosters, was found in relatively large quantities on one of the boosters slated to help launch the Spacelab 1 shuttle mission.

If officials order Columbia back from the launch pad, a minimum delay of a month - and possibly up to four months - is envisioned. Such a delay could cause serious problems for many of the 70-plus scientific investigations planned for the $800 million European-developed orbiting laboratory, European Space Agency officials say. (Yacenda, Today, Oct. 7, 1983 – edited)


October 9: COLUMBIA ON TRACK FOR WET COUNTDOWN TEST
While the two solid rocket boosters that helped put the Challenger into space in August were undergoing a critical exam in Utah over the weekend, preparations continued for the October 28 launch of Spacelab 1 aboard Columbia. Crews were working toward a simulated countdown test scheduled for October 10. Rocky Raab, a center spokesman, said the simulation would test Columbia's external fuel tank by actually filling it with supercold liquid fuel. He said the mock countdown also would test the shuttle's onboard electrical power-supply cells as well as the hydraulic system. The launch of the European-built orbiting laboratory depends on the findings of the team investigating the boosters, Shuttle Project Manager Bob Lindstrom said. (The Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 10, 1983 – edited)

[Ares67]

October 10: FIRST KSC DIRECTOR DR. KURT DEBUS DIES
Dr. Kurt H. Debus, a World War II German rocket engineer who watched the U.S. space program grow from a few captured V-2s to a fleet of sleek shuttles, died in Cocoa Beach, Florida, after a heart attack. He was 74.

Debus was the first director of the Kennedy Space Center, and it was at least partly his decision that America's spaceport be on Florida's Atlantic coast instead of in Georgia or the Caribbean. When he came to Florida's mosquito-ridden marshes in 1952 to prepare the first launch of the Army's Redstone ballistic missile, Debus and his colleagues worked in motel rooms and restaurants until sweltering Quonset huts were set up as temporary offices.

When he stepped down as space center director in 1974, after breaking ground on a Space Shuttle landing strip, he had overseen up to 26,000 space workers and had been in charge of 295 rocket launches. He retired with his wife, Irmgard, to a Cocoa Beach waterfront home from which he could watch his beloved spacecraft climb into the sky. Debus' friend and mentor, the late Dr. Wernher yon Braun, once said of him, "We develop the rockets and the contractors build them. And then it's up to Debus to make them work."

"He had an encyclopedic knowledge" of rocketry and spaceflight, said Gordon Harris, former NASA spokesman. "He had to. He had to check on other people's mistakes." "I appointed him personal guardian of our quality," said the Rev. John Bruce Medaris of Maitland, a former Army major general who headed the space program while Debus was at the space center. "I enjoyed working with him. He listened well and he had a good sense of what would go and what wouldn't."

Harris recalled being with Debus in the blockhouse on January 31, 1958, the night Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, was launched, as well as in the launch off on the mission to land on the Moon. There's no doubt which event is more famous in people's memories and in history books. But for Debus, Harris said, the tiny Jupiter C rocket that boosted Explorer 1 carried more weight. "My recollection is that he still thought Explorer was the bigger of the two. At the time, it was more thrilling," Harris said. A few seconds before the tiny satellite was launched, Medaris recalled, the chief of the launch crew called out a warning that something was wrong. "Kurt looked at me. I just felt it was a bad signal. He raised his eyebrows and I said go, and we went ahead and ignored it and it went off fine."

For Debus the excitement had begun decades before. As a young boy he watched, fascinated, as the newfangled airplanes took off near his home in Frankfurt, Germany, where he was born in 1908. Debus studied electrical theory and techniques at Darmstadt University, where he earned his doctorate and later became assistant professor. In 1937, he married Irmgard, a dental assistant, and the couple had two daughters - Siegrid, now of Satellite Beach, Florida, and Ute, of Washington, D.C.

Harris said Debus was "pressured" by the Nazi government after the start of World War II to join von Braun and other German scientists developing transcontinental rockets at the Baltic port of Peenemunde, where he became chief test engineer. The lethal V-2s he helped build blitzed London, Antwerp and other European cities with their swiftly delivered loads of high explosives. After the war, von Braun led more than 100 scientists, including Debus, in surrendering to the Americans. The group was brought to the United States to begin the U.S. space program, which started with the firing of dozens of unused V-2s from proving grounds at White Sands, New Mexico. Later Debus was transferred to Alabama to test the Redstone, the Army's first ballistic missile, which could carry a nuclear warhead about 200 miles.

"At the time I had absolutely no idea of the importance of the rocket to the future of mankind," Debus said in 1974. "It was a brand new field, with a sense of importance, and we were developing our own technology as we went along." The hours were long and the pay was low. "We were hanging by our teeth in the early years," Debus said. "The government was always threatening to cut us off."

In 1952, Debus got his first look at Cape Canaveral, the rattlesnake-infested and marshy spit off Florida's east coast. Be was named director of operations of the Missile Firing Laboratory of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, NASA's predecessor. The next year, he came back with several dozen Army scientists and technicians to fire the first Redstone. His office was a restaurant table. "We were a circus troupe," he recalled.

The space agency was considering Cumberland Island in Georgia and several Caribbean islands, as well as the Cape, as potential locations for its major launch site. Debus pushed Brevard County because "there was a community here that could absorb the increased population that he knew was going to come," Harris said. In addition, there already was an Air Force station and missile testing range at Cape Canaveral.

Besides the first satellite launch, Debus watched over the Mercury manned spaceflights, the two-astronaut Gemini missions with their spacewalks, the Apollo Moon voyages and the Skylab program. One of his last acts as space center director in September 1974 was to turn over a shovelful of dirt for the future Space Shuttle landing strip on Merritt Island. Then he and Irmgard, nicknamed Gay, returned to their home, where he could watch the space shots through binoculars, just as he had done from the blockhouse during the first launches.

Harris said Debus was always enthusiastic about the Space Shuttle, but dreamed that he would see humanity establish an outpost on the dark side of the Moon to listen to signals from the stars. "He believed that there was life out there," Harris said.

"It is a great loss," former astronaut John Glenn, a presidential candidate, said in Tallahassee. Glenn, who became famous as the first American to orbit the Earth, said Debus was "a fine man and he did great work over there."

In an official statement, Dick Smith, current director of Kennedy Space Center, called Debus "a trailblazer." His contributions to the U.S. space program cannot be overemphasized. He brought a quiet, personal genius to this demanding work, Smith said. "His was a creative mind which conceived of the needs of a NASA launch center for decades to come, and it was under his direction that concepts and blueprints were transformed into the spaceport which we find so valuable a national asset today." (Susskind, The Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 11, 1983)

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

October 11: COLUMBIA REHEARSES FOR OCT. 28 LAUNCH…
After a two-hour delay caused by a leak in a hydrogen fuel-supply system, technicians took the Columbia through a simulated countdown to within 31 seconds of launch. The test, called a "wet countdown" because fuel tanks were filled, was designed to test all non-astronaut launch functions except for the actual engine firing, said center spokesman Rocky Raab. The test was completed at 2:35 p.m. EST. Columbia’s tanks were to be loaded with liquid hydrogen and oxygen for the test, but because of a leak in an 8-inch hydrogen supply line, technicians filled only the oxygen tank with the supercooled liquid. The hydrogen tank was pumped full of gaseous hydrogen. Initial reports blamed the leak on a faulty seal. (The Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 12, 1983)


October 11: …BUT ALMOST CERTAINLY WILL HAVE TO WAIT A LITTLE LONGER
A series of small rocket test firings conducted in Utah during the weekend indicate the impending launch of the Columbia and her European Spacelab cargo almost certainly would be scrubbed, space program officials confirmed. Concern about the safety of the shuttle's twin, reusable solid rocket boosters arose after the last shuttle flight in August, when patches of dangerously high wear were detected on one of the linings that protect the rockets' exhaust nozzles from the heat of engine ignition.

Officials confirmed that one of the two boosters now part of the shuttle vehicle on pad 39A has a nozzle lining of the same lot as the one on the last flight that nearly burned through because of the abnormal wear. Some of the materials used in manufacturing that lot of linings are now considered suspect, sources said. Booster program managers refused to categorize the suspect materials as a bad lot, preferring to term them "questionable" until results of further tests are in. The tests, which use small, 40-pound solid rocket motors, were conducted by the boosters' manufacturer, the Wasatch Division of the Thiokol Corp. (Brigham City, Utah).

Several high-ranking space officials, including James M. Beggs, met at Thiokol headquarters to discuss the booster problem. Joining the discussion by teleconference line were program managers at KSC, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and NASA headquarters in Washington, including shuttle program chief James A. Abrahamson.

Thiokol's shuttle booster program chief, Joe Kilminster, said test results so far show one "marginal" lot of booster lining materials that were supplied by a single subcontractor; Kilminster declined to identify the subcontractor. "We're looking for further confirmation that some of the materials used in these boosters have some properties that are undesirable," Kilminster said. NASA booster program chief Bob Lindstrom, said by telephone from Utah that different types of tests than those previously run were planned for October 12 and that still more testing beyond then remained a possibility as well.

Knowledgeable sources said preliminary preparations were already underway to roll the shuttle back from the pad on October 14 and replanning and reprogramming of many of Spacelab 1's complex scientific payloads had begun as well. (Yacenda, Today, Oct. 12, 1983 – edited)


October 13: DEBUS “TRULY A VISIONARY”
The brains and the backbone of America's space effort gathered at Patrick Air Force Base to honor the memory of Dr. Kurt H. Debus, the German rocket expert and space pioneer who died October 10. Debus, who was known primarily as the architect of the Kennedy Space Center launch site and who served as the center's first director from 1961 through October 1974, died of a heart attack at the age of 74.

In eulogizing Debus, Rocco Petrone, a 31-year associate of Debus and now head of Rockwell International's space program, called him "a leader and team builder... truly a visionary."

About 180 people, including many retired space veterans and others still with the nation's space program, filled the Capehart No. 2 Chapel at Patrick's South Base Housing area to commemorate Debus, who was a Cocoa Beach resident since his retirement from NASA in 1974. A procession of 55 cars that stretched for a mile followed as Debus's body was moved following the 10 a.m. service to Florida Memorial Gardens south of Rockledge, where interment took place. NASA provided a bus to carry several agency officials, including some who had come from Washington, D.C. to attend the funeral.

The list of those attending the ceremony read like a "Who's Who" of the nation's space program. Among the many pioneers there were people like Karl Sendler, the last remaining member of the team of five German scientists including Debus that helped set up the Army's first launch facilities at Cape Canaveral in the early 1950s, and Gordon Harris, former KSC public information director and Debus' close friend.

Also present were Ray Clark, a NASA engineering director under Debus; G. Merritt Preston, who headed the Gemini program during Debus' administration; Walter Kapryan, longtime launch director throughout the period that encompassed the Mercury through the Skylab manned space flight programs and who is now with Lockheed Space Operations; Grady Williams, KSC design engineering director serving under Debus; and engineers Isom "Ike" Rigell, Peter Minderman and Bob Murkshe. Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise, now president of Grumman's new shuttle processing operation, also was in attendance, as were KSC Deputy Director George Page, KSC Executive Staff Director George English, NASA Associate Deputy Administrator Philip Culbertson, KSC Public Affairs Director Charles Hollinshead, KSC Personnel Director Ben Hursey, and many other active and retired space agency figures.

Dr. Paul Allen, a Baptist minister and a friend of  Debus's daughter Siegrid, presided over the services. Debus, who had been in ill health almost since the time of his retirement, suffered from kidney and other disorders in his last years. The family asked that donations be made in Debus's name to the Brevard Kidney Center, 375 S. Courtenay Parkway, Merritt Island, Florida.

Perhaps the most unique contribution which Dr. Kurt H. Debus made to this community and the national space program was the establishment of a visitor's center and daily bus tours of the spaceport. He reasoned the people – without regard to race, nationality, or any other consideration – should have access to Kennedy Space Center in order to witness the engineering marvels which made Apollo possible and paved the way for today's shuttles. He also believed that public interest would translate into continuing support for space exploits of the future. Firmly convinced of the need, he set about persuading NASA and the Congress to open the gates. Millions have responded from virtually every nation on Earth. It is a legacy which does honor to its creator and has accrued to the economic benefit of this community. (Yacenda, Today, Oct. 14, 1983; Gordon L. Harris, letter to the editor, Today, Oct. 15, 1983 – edited)

[Ares67]

October 13: SMITHSONIAN TO BUILD ADJUNCT FACILITY AT DULLES
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum said that it would build an adjunct facility at Dulles International Airport to house an expanding collection of aircraft, including the shuttle Enterprise. Estimated to cost $40 million, the facility would replace the restoration site now at Silver Hill, Maryland, but would not be completed for another seven to fifteen years. Possibilities for Dulles included a group of four buildings to accommodate a Boeing 707, a Boeing B17 bomber, Boeing 727, a Boeing 747, and others; the design and funding were not yet settled.

The collection had outgrown the Mall area, said Walter Boyne, director of the museum: “We are going to get the Space Shuttle and the Concorde,” which it would be physically impossible to move to the Mall area. “They are so complex you can’t simply take a wing off and move them.” The present museum now has 10 million visitors a year, and Boyne said that people would be as interested in the shuttle 100 years from now as they were in the Wright Brothers’ plane today. (Astronautics and Aeronautics 1979-1984, A Chronology, NASA-SP-4024, 1989 – edited)


October 14: SPACELAB LAUNCH ON HOLD – COLUMBIA ON THE MOVE
Suspected defects in a solid rocket booster nozzle lining caused NASA officials to postpone the planned October 28 launch of the Columbia and her Spacelab cargo. No new launch date was set for the mission, ninth in the shuttle program, but officials said the earliest it might fly would be November 28. Depending on an evaluation of the delay's impact on Spacelab's scientific mission, the launch could be delayed until late February. For the first time ever in the shuttle program, the launch vehicle will be rolled off the Kennedy Space Center pad where it now stands and returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs. Rollback is expected to begin at 8 a.m. EST on October 17.

Officials decided to replace only the rear segment of the one booster containing a nozzle lined with protective material from the same batch as one that nearly burned through during the last shuttle flight in August. But to accomplish that, virtually the entire shuttle vehicle - including the orbiter, the External Tank and the one suspect booster - must be broken down and then reassembled. Only the other booster, which has a nozzle lining from a different batch not believed to be defective, will be allowed to stand during the operation.

Officials of the European Space Agency, which developed and built Spacelab, concurred with NASA's decision. "A new date for the Spacelab mission will be based on obtaining full confidence in the SRB nozzles and an evaluation of the science requirements for the Spacelab experiments," NASA’s official announcement said. The head of the European Space Agency's Washington's office, Wilfred Mellors, said ESA had no immediate statement on the delay. "I don't think we have a reaction yet. All the top people are asleep in Europe at the moment. We'll be disappointed, but clearly it's something that couldn't be avoided," Mellors said.

While booster restacking proceeds, Columbia will be returned to a nearby orbiter processing hangar where her scientific payload can be serviced. The shuttle should be back in the hangar by midnight October 19, KSC chief spokesman Hugh Harris said. With Columbia occupying one of KSC's two processing hangars and Challenger, Columbia's younger sister ship, filling the other, the planned arrival of NASA's third shuttle at KSC on October 21 has been postponed. The new ship, Discovery, will remain at Rockwell International's Palmdale, California, factory until at least November 4, Harris said. Discovery's first flight isn't scheduled until May 7 at the earliest. (Yacenda, Today, Oct. 15, 1983 – edited)

[Ares67]

October 17: COLUMBIA MOVED BACK TO VAB
NASA moved the Columbia from the launch pad back to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center to replace the nozzle and aft section of one of her two Solid Rocket Boosters, a move which delays the scheduled October 28 launch to November 28 at the earliest and possibly to February 27. Associate Administrator Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson said if the rocket had fired another 14 seconds, it would have burned through the nozzle wall. He said that while a catastrophic explosion probably would not have occurred, Challenger probably would have been pushed off course during ascent, forcing an emergency landing back at the Kennedy Space Center launch site.

Two recent test firings of a 40-pound small SRB using liner material from the suspect lot produced confusing results when the first liner failed and the second didn't. Columbia is expected to be ready for a return to the launch pad by November 10. (Defense Daily, Oct. 18, 1983 – edited)

[Ares67]

October 17: NASA STARTS SPACE ADAPTATION RESEARCH PROJECT
NASA has created a new project and research institute at JSC to focus efforts in investigating some of the potential problems astronauts have in adjusting to the weightless environment of space.

The Space Biomedical Research Institute will function as part of the Space Adaptation Project within the National Space Transportation Systems Program Office here. One element of the Institute will be a Division of Space Biomedicine run by the Universities Space Research Association, with former astronaut and U.S. Senator Harrison Schmitt as acting director.

That division will coordinate the efforts of scientists from universities, pharmaceutical companies, commercial organizations and foreign countries, while other organizational units within the institute will coordinate the work of scientists from JSC, the Ames Research Center, the Department of Defense, the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and others. Dr. Sam Pool, chief of the Medical Sciences Division, will serve as acting director of the institute.

Space Adaptation Project Manager Elena Huffstetler said the project, although located in Houston, is a NASA-wide effort, and is designed to draw together the work of researchers all over the country. Policy-level control of the project will come out of the Life Sciences Division at NASA Headquarters.

The focus of the project is on both clinical and applied research into the Space Adaptation Syndrome (SAS), the name NASA applies to a variety of physical adjustments astronauts sometimes experience when first exposed to weightlessness. Much of the basic research into vestibular and other physiological reactions to weightlessness and disorientation is being performed at Ames Research Center. Efforts on-site at JSC, for the most part located in the facilities of Building 37, will focus on the clinical approach – how to help alleviate difficulties encountered by spaceflight crews with an eye toward Space Shuttle and space platform operations.

Technical objectives of the project fall into four basic areas: countermeasures (prevention), countermeasures (treatment), prediction and choice of countermeasures, and basic mechanisms. Along those lines, a variety of bodily mechanisms and avenues of research are being investigated.

Project objectives are to focus specifically on the operational aspects of the syndrome, to improve countermeasures to the highest reliability, to develop accurate predictors of susceptibility to SAS, and to gain a greater understanding of the physiological mechanisms underlying the possible solutions to SAS. (JSC Space News Roundup, Nov. 4, 1983 – edited)


October 17: “KILROY WAS HERE” – NASA REPORTS INTRUSIONS BY “COMPUTER ENTHUSIASTS”
The New York Times said that “computer enthusiasts” had invaded NASA’s electronic mail system, left cartoon images and “Kilroy was here” messages for agency employees, and played pranks on others. A NASA official said that the intruders had destroyed some information but had not “significantly disrupted” the electronic mail service.

NASA first noticed the intrusions in mid-July, and they continued into mid-September. Besides reading unclassified NASA messages, the intruders had destroyed some messages and created personal passwords and new files for themselves and their computer friends. Some NASA employees who used Telemail had been inconvenienced, but the system had never been halted.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said that it was investigating a number of youths in connection with the intrusions. To make Telemail easy to use, NASA had told employees to use their first initial and last names as part of an entry code; employee names were available from agency telephone directories sold by the Government Printing Office. The Office of Management and Budget told a House subcommittee that it was trying to increase security for federal computers, and an FBI official asked Congress for a law prohibiting unauthorized entry into a computer. Without such a law, federal authorities were treating the cases as wire fraud, like use of telephone lines to obtain service without paying.

Another report said that the FBI had seized computers and other equipment from fifteen computer enthusiasts around the United States, mostly teenagers. The bureau said that there was “extensive” penetration into commercial and DOD computers and that intruders had tampered with the files of some corporations. (Astronautics and Aeronautics 1979-1984, A Chronology, NASA-SP-4024, 1989 – edited)


October 19: ARIANE LAUNCHES INTELSAT V F7
The Ariane L07 mission successfully launched the satellite Intelsat V F7 into an 8.58-degree orbit today. The launch took place at the site in Kourou, French Guiana at 45 minutes and 36 seconds after midnight GMT. The staging of the Ariane rocket worked well, and that all other systems also performed nominally. The payload was deployed at 1:00 a.m. GMT into an orbit with 36,158 kilometer apogee, 183 kilometer perigee, and 8.5 degrees inclination. Representatives from ESA and France’s CNES wer delighted with the new success for the European space industry. (JSC Space News Roundup, Nov. 4, 1983; Astronautics and Aeronautics 1979-1984, A Chronology, NASA-SP-4024, 1989 – edited)

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

October 20: SALYUT CREW “IN HIGH SPIRITS”
The Soviet Union launched a supply ship, Progress 18, from Baikonur at 4:59 a.m. EDT October 20 to rendezvous with Salyut 7, claiming that the cosmonauts there were “living normally.” Lyakhov and Aleksandrov appeared on Moscow television October 16 and appeared to be “in high spirits.” However, their flight had reached its 116th day October 21, and the previous record for a stay in space was the 114 days set last year in the course of a 211-day endurance flight. It would take ten days to two weeks for the cosmonauts to unload Progress 18, which would be burned on reentry.

Nature magazine, published in Great Britain, said that the crisis was exaggerated and concern for the crew came not from Soviet engineers but from physicians, who had seen significant declines in activity and efficiency after four months in space. Nature described as “fanciful” a suggestion that the Soviet Union wanted to keep the cosmonauts in orbit until they could be rescued by the U.S. shuttle on its November flight. (Astronautics and Aeronautics 1979-1984, A Chronology, NASA-SP-4024, 1989 – edited)


October 24: LEAKY JOINT DELAYS BOOSTER STACKING
Testing procedures revealed a leaky joint between two segments of the shuttle's right-hand booster, but officials said they have experienced similar problems before and think they know how to fix things. In the process of reassembling the booster with a new aft end on October 22, tests showed a leaky connection between the two middle segments of the four-piece rocket, officials said.

KSC spokesman Mark Hess said today that engineers planned to take down the uppermost of the ill-fitting segments this evening to clean and inspect the flange and O-ring that lock the parts together. The segments were to be restacked later in the evening and further tests of the connection are planned for October 25.

Because of the hitch in the schedule, preparations for a possible November 28 launch of the shuttle were set back about a day, Hess said. "We're potentially one day down as far as SRB stacking goes," said Hess, adding that a late November launch remained feasible because of several days of contingency time incorporated in the timetable. Any delay past then would delay the flight until late February.

Meanwhile, technicians were busy changing out some troublesome equipment aboard the Columbia. The shuttle is back in one of the two orbiter processing hangars while workers restack the rest of the vehicle. Among the equipment in line for recall are the Columbia's No. 3 electricity-producing fuel cell, a key engine component, and the toilet, which remains a residual problem for NASA. (Yacenda, Today, Oct. 25, 1983 – edited)


October 25: LEAKY BOOSTER JOINT REPAIRED
The leaking joint in Columbia's right-hand solid-fuel rocket booster was repaired, lifting a barrier to the already delayed ninth launch. The last two of five segments of the rocket booster were expected to be in place by noon on the 26th, said KSC spokesman Mark Hess. "That will complete assembly of the rocket, and somewhere around midnight" on the 26th, or early on the 27th "we'll lift it up (the external fuel tank) and attach it to the rockets," he said. (Today, Oct. 26, 1983)

[Ares67]

October 26: GERMAN SPACE OFFICIAL PREDICTS EXPANDED INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
The head of West Germany's space program predicted that a successful first Spacelab mission would stir a groundswell of support in Europe for expanded international cooperation in space. Hermann Strub, head of the Aerospace and Technology Directorate for the Federal Republic of Germany, said he was sure increased European space activity could come from the flight of Europe's orbital laboratory aboard the American shuttle.

Part of that future activity, Strub told Today, might be joint American-European development of a manned orbiting space station, with Germany taking the lead in the project in Europe. The delayed Spacelab project is also crucially important to West Germany, which holds a 60 percent share in the facility's industrial development and an even larger stake in the European portion of the laboratory's scientific payload, Strub said.

Strub made his remarks at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida, where his visit was keyed to a different kind of launch, that of a new German Studies Center on the campus. Strub said he expects a decision on the launch to be made November 2 when NASA Administrator James M. Beggs and European Space Agency Director Eric Quistgaard confer by telephone. "My impression is that NASA is doing its best," Strub said, noting that Europeans understand delays because they've had problems with their launcher, the Ariane rocket. (Yacenda, Today, Oct. 27, 1983)

[Ares67]

November 2: STS-9 LAUNCH OFFICIALLY RESET FOR NOVEMBER 28
The maiden launch of Europe's Spacelab orbital scientific laboratory aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia was officially reset for November 28, 1983, announced NASA and the European Space Agency. Lift-off from Kennedy Space Center was set for 11 a.m. EST on the Monday following the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. A tight 14-minute opportunity exists for launch managers to get the mission off on the 28th, NASA said. Landing at the end of the nine-day, 11-minute mission is scheduled for 8:11 a.m. PST on December 7, at Edwards Air Force Base, California. "NASA management has confirmed that the shuttle system is ready to support the November date following the change of a solid rocket motor nozzle assembly," a jointly released NASA/ESA official announcement said. (Yacenda, Today, Nov. 3, 1983)


November 3: COLUMBIA IN GOOD SHAPE
Space Shuttle Columbia's journey to Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building was the third such trek for Columbia in less than two months: two times to the VAB, and one time, on October 19, back to the hangar from the assembly building while repairs were performed on the shuttle Solid Rocket Booster. With a November 28 launch date now set, technicians must hurry to reunite Columbia with the rest of the shuttle vehicle. "The vehicle is ready to go. She's in good shape, all buttoned up," NASA processing flow director James Harrington said.

The move from the hangar was delayed nearly two hours by problems with a purge duct needed to draft air into the $800 million Spacelab inside Columbia's cargo bay. The 27-minute tow to the VAB was complete at 11:45 a.m. EST. The rest of the prelaunch schedule outlined by Harrington calls for installation of a final engine heat shield, running a confidence test of Columbia's new fuel cells - taken from the yet-to-be-delivered Discovery after another new set of cells on Columbia malfunctioned - and programming both Columbia's and Spacelab's mass memory computer units.

Those jobs plus integration testing of all shuttle connections are to be completed by Thanksgiving, giving workers a two-day breather before the final countdown picks up on November 28. Harrington said one of the last obstacles to a launch was cleared on Nov. 2 when engineers gave a clean bill of health to the shuttle's twin solid rocket booster exhaust nozzles. Concerns about the safety of one nozzle lining forced the shuttle from the pad Oct. 17, scrubbing what was supposed to be an Oct. 28 launch. Harrington said engineers gave a two-hour briefing on the state of the booster nozzles to NASA Administrator James M. Beggs Nov. 2, before Beggs and European Space Agency Director-General Erik Quistgaard decided on the new launch date. (Yacenda, Today, Nov. 4, 1983)


November 4: TDRS-1 NOW AT FINAL LOCATION
Two maneuvers successfully conducted Oct. 16 and 17 placed the first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite at its permanent location at 41 degrees west longitude. The satellite, launched during STS-6, is now at its permanent location over the Atlantic Ocean just off the northern coast of Brazil along the equator. Engineers from NASA, TRW and Spacecom conducted the two final maneuvers.

The communications satellite, designated on the tracking map in Mission Control as TDRS-East, did not reach geosynchronous orbit after its deployment from the shuttle Challenger due to a malfunction of the Inertial Upper Stage booster. Following nearly two months of delicate maneuvers in which only six one-pound thrusters were used, the spacecraft was placed into geosynchronous orbit on June 29 at 67 degrees west longitude. (JSC Space News Roundup, Nov. 4, 1983 – edited)


November 4: JSC PLANS SHUTTLE CONTRACT CONSOLIDATION
JSC has initiated steps to consolidate virtually all existing contracts supporting Space Shuttle operations at the Center into a single major contract. The objective of the contract, to be awarded early in Fiscal Year 1986, is to develop a more efficient and cost-effective approach to shuttle operations, according to JSC Director Gerald D. Griffin.

The contract “will essentially consolidate all of the STS operational support activities currently performed by a number of different contractor organizations as well as some routine functions currently performed by our civil service staff,” Griffin said in a center-wide announcement which went to employees last week. Some 16 different contractor organizations now provide services for the shuttle operations.

“It is currently planned,” Griffin said, “that the scope of the contract will include, but may not necessarily be limited to activities in the following areas:

1) maintenance and operations of such STS facilities as the Mission Control Center, crew trainers and simulators, flight design and crew activity planning systems, The Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory and the STS portion of the Central Computing Facility;
2) flight preparation activities including flight planning/flight data generations, orbiter software reconfigurations, simulation preparations, and facilities reconfigurations;
3) direct mission support (simulations and flight); and
4) sustaining engineering support for the above activities.”

Griffin said most JSC organizations will not be directly affected by the new approach. “However,” he said, “those individuals and organizations directly affected will, in the near future, be briefed more fully on the details of these plans by members of their management.” JSC officials also will be meeting early in November with companies likely to be affected by the contract consolidation. (JSC Space News Roundup, Nov. 4, 1983)


November 4: TELESCOPE RENAMED AFTER HUBBLE
The Space Telescope, America’s future orbiting optical astronomical observatory, has been renamed the “Edwin P. Hubble Space Telescope” in honor of one the nation’s foremost astronomers. It is scheduled for launch aboard the Space Shuttle in 1986. Dr. Burton Edelson, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, announced the renaming.

Hubble’s astronomical research over three decades profoundly changed our understanding of the basic structure of the Universe. Before Hubble, scientists held differing views on the extent and dimensions of the Universe. It was believed that our solar system was part of a larger system which contained all the stars visible to the naked eye. Astronomers were uncertain whether the faint spiral nebulae were also part of our Milky Way system or themselves distant galaxies each composed of countless stars. (JSC Space News Roundup, Nov. 4, 1983 – edited)

[Ares67]

November 8: COLUMBIA IS BACK ON PAD 39A
Three weeks after its rollback from Pad 39A, Columbia returned to her launch site in final preparation for the November 28 liftoff of its Spacelab mission. Meanwhile, NASA announced the third member of its spaceplane fleet, the orbiter Discovery, was due to arrive at KSC from California atop a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft on November 9. (Yacenda, Today, Nov. 8, 1983 – edited)

[Ares67]

November 9: WELCOME, DISCOVERY!
More than 100 spectators were on hand near the spaceport's three-mile-long shuttle runway to greet the Discovery as she flew in atop her Boeing 747 carrier aircraft. Touchdown came at 1:46 p.m., following a single low pass over the spaceport runway by the 747/Orbiter combination. "With the roll call of America's highest technology being Columbia, Challenger and Discovery, we can now say: 'All present and accounted for…' announced KSC spokesman Rocky Raab over the public address system set up for the occasion.

Compared to its predecessors, the neat and trim Discovery appeared to be in the best condition yet for a newly delivered orbiter. NASA's latest spaceplane is outwardly different from its two fleet mates. A new type of thermal insulation blanket - called Advanced Flexible Reusable Surface Insulation (AFRSI) - was used on the upper half of Discovery instead of the white heat-protective tiles covering the topside of Columbia and Challenger. The approximately 2-foot-square AFRSI blankets are the same color and serve the same purpose as the former white tiles, but give a cleaner, less cluttered look to the craft.

As Discovery was arriving to fanfare at one end of KSC, another component of the June 4 mission - the external fuel tank upon which Discovery will be mounted for launch – quietly arrived elsewhere at the space center. The 154-foot-long tank came by barge from the Michoud, Louisiana, plant of Martin Marietta, where it was built.

NASA's new orbiter, Discovery, is named after two sailing ships of history: Henry Hudson's Discovery, which made an ill-fated journey to what is now known as Hudson's Bay in 1610; and Capt. James Cook's Discovery, which in 1776 accompanied the legendary navigator to the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska on what was his last cruise. Construction on NASA's fourth and perhaps last reusable shuttle orbiter, dubbed Atlantis, is set to begin next year. (Yacenda, Today, Nov. 10, 1983 – edited)


There she is – beautiful Discovery!   

“She is my favorite girl
You look so sweet
You make my heart skip a beat
Yeah, yeah, yeah she's my favorite girl
She's my girl
She is my favorite girl”

- New Kids On The Block, “My Favorite Girl,” Sony Music 1991

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

November 11: TDRS EXPERIENCES KU-BAND ANTENNA TROUBLE
Space agency officials ran into antenna problems with a relay satellite crucial to the upcoming shuttle mission, but said the difficulties should not affect the planned November 28 launch. One of two antenna packages on the satellite, which relays signals back and forth between the shuttle and the ground, is failing to respond properly to commands from the ground, officials said. Attempts to switch on a back-up system also were not fully satisfactory but engineers said they would continue to work on the problem.

The malfunctioning antenna is actually part of a redundant system, providing back-up to the satellite's main antenna, which continues to function properly and could support the mission by itself. KSC spokesman Mark Hess said engineers don't yet have a full understanding of the antenna problem, which has been growing worse the past two weeks, and are concerned that the same problem wouldn't strike the functioning antenna.

Meanwhile, the shuttle's own Ku-band antenna was ordered back to the factory November 9, but again officials said the problem would not affect the launch schedule. Hess said the antenna was removed and sent back to the manufacturer, Hughes Aircraft Co. (El Segundo, California). The antenna, used to communicate with the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, is to be repaired and returned to KSC sometime in the next few days.

The decision to remove the antenna came after a printed circuit board, similar to one that is part of the antenna package aboard Columbia, failed during qualification testing in a laboratory. "We did not feel confident that we could go through the whole mission and not have a problem," Hess explained. NASA said pre-flight work on Columbia is continuing over the three-day weekend, with workers testing the three new electricity-producing fuel cells recently installed on the orbiter.

Acceptance testing also is proceeding on the agency's latest spaceplane, Discovery, which arrived at KSC November 9 and was rolled into an orbiter processing hangar early November 10. Next door to Discovery, the second member of the three-orbiter operational fleet - Challenger - also is undergoing preparations for its late January launch. (Yacenda, Today, Nov. 11, 1983)


November 16: KENNEDY VISIT TO SPACE CENTER REMEMBERED
Twenty years ago - today - President John F. Kennedy made his last visit to this NASA center; six days later, Kennedy was dead, assassinated in Dallas, Texas. As reported in the November 27, 1963 issue of the Spaceport News - the official center publication - Kennedy reaffirmed his support for space exploration in a speech issued just the day before his death.

"There will be setbacks and frustrations and disappointments in space," Kennedy said. "And there will be pressures for our country to do less and temptations to do something else. But this research must and will go on. The conquest of space must and will go ahead."

Kennedy's November 16 visit was his third to the spaceport in the three years he was president. Previous visits came in February and September 1962. Kennedy's final visit lasted two hours and 20 minutes, but was packed with briefings and tours. Among the briefings the president received was one on Gemini program operations at Launch Complex 37, given by NASA Deputy Associate Administrator George M. Low and astronauts Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper.

Another briefing on the manned lunar program by NASA Associate Administrator George Mueller took place inside the complex 37 blockhouse. The late Wernher von Braun, who was director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, also filled in the president on the capabilities of the new Saturn I rocket being readied for its first flight. Kennedy also walked underneath the 163-foot-tall vehicle, designated Saturn SA-5, for a closer look at its powerful engines, and asked yon Braun if the rocket had any military possibilities. The president took time to shake hands with mechanics and technicians, and to ask them how things were
going.

An inspection of the Merritt Island Launch Area – as the complex that now forms the heart of Kennedy Space Center was known - followed aboard a Marine helicopter with Dr. Kurt H. Debus, who died on October 10th of this year. After the overfly, Kennedy boarded the USS Observation Island off Cape Canaveral to view a successful Polaris missile launch from the nuclear submarine Andrew Jackson before riding a helicopter back to the skid strip to fly on to South Florida.

"I have found this visit most informative," Kennedy said to Debus prior to departure. "It has been a great help to me and will aid me in assessing our space programs." Debus said the president was "very much impressed with what he saw." (Yacenda, Today, Nov. 16, 1983)