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Selected Articles from the
May 1999 Odyssey

Editor: Norm Cook

Seeing Red
Bakersfield Hosts Space Summit

Seeing Red

By Robert Gounley

When last we spoke, I was talking about preparations to launch a spacecraft called Deep Space 1.

Deep Space 1 on Launch Pad. NASA photograph

The launch was beautiful! There was a brilliant white flash before the rocket climbed atop a pillar of smoke. Amidst the long shadows of a Florida dawn, Deep Space 1 was leaving Earth behind.

Our TV showed the Delta booster embellishing a pale October sky with its bright orange plume. In Pasadena, where the sun had yet to rise, JPL's Von Karman Auditorium was filled with the friends and family of engineers and scientists working on the project. They cheered boisterously as rocket rose higher and higher. I clapped my hands tentatively and continued watching.

From lift-off to separation, a launch into deep space takes less than an hour. Preparations take years. In the final weeks, hundreds of engineers and technicians work around the clock checking every detail. It had to be right since we'd have no Auto Club where DS1 (our spacecraft's nickname) was going.

Time matters. There's an invisible on-ramp our rocket must take. That on-ramp appears only at a precise time each day. Everything--the rocket, the spacecraft, tracking stations, and weather--must be ready at that instant. Otherwise, this grand opera, with all its cast and stage, must stop in mid-overture to be resume another day.

The costs of postponing launch are high, whatever the reason. There are countable expenses like reloading the rocket with fuel and reassembling teams on opposite sides of the country. Then there are intangible costs, like the gamble that tomorrow the weather will be less favorable than today. Worse still, each day diminishes our chances of flying DS1 past a small asteroid with the unprepossessing title of 1992KD1. Launch too late and even DS1, with its advanced ion engines, can't catch up.

It all comes down to a single question...

"DS1, are you go?"

No speeches. No discussion. Just a word or two from our Project Manager when pre-launch roll call is taken. He speaks for the entire flight team, but his terse reply reflects the inputs flight team in Florida and California. Every member must reply if their part is ready.

That's what I had done the night before.

As Flight Director on the night shift before launch, my job was to monitor a detailed procedure which runs the spacecraft's computers and sensors through their final check-out. In Florida, a team of engineers were sending commands to the spacecraft; they had built and tested DS1 for flight. Here, in a JPL control room, a dozen or so engineers, the ones who would fly DS1, watched computer monitors displaying the spacecraft's vital signs. Like anxious pilots, we took a keen interest in this last pre-flight inspection.

Back in Florida, technicians were leaving the launch gantry for the safety of bunkers miles away. It was now well past the time when we could easily tighten a loose screw.

The shift had gone smoothly. Every command produced the expected result. I was looking forward to a few hours rest before joining friends to watch the launch. While getting ready to leave, I saw that one number on our screens had turned red. It was five hours until launch.

Last-minute warnings are common in the business. Like overprotective parents, engineers program their computer displays to flash alarms at the slightest suggestion of trouble. We now had thousands of measurements telling us DS1 was fine and only one insinuating a trace of doubt. Probably, it was nothing--just ask the person who set the alarm. I asked. He didn't know. If fact, he could see no reason for it to appear red at all.

By now, the crew for launch had begun to arrive. Everything looked "GO!" except for that one unresolved measurement. No one had to tell me that they wanted an answer quickly.

Some rapid detective work produced the answer. Out of hundreds of telemetry channels with alarms, a typo had set this one incorrectly. Everything on the spacecraft was as it should be. I felt deep relief withdrawing my one minor disclaimer .

The countdown continued. Roll call came and our Project Manager gave his "GO!".

I was thinking about this while viewing the launch. The Delta rocket was

Launch of Deep Space 1. NASA photograph

performing flawlessly. However, DS1's health would not be known for at least another 40 minutes. Only when released from Delta's upper stage would it be free to deploy solar panels and make radio contact with Earth. Until then, DS1 is silent passenger enduring an extremely bumpy ride.

The auditorium's TV screen showed the control room where I had been hours earlier. We expectantly watched a dozen engineers staring at their computer screens, waiting for spacecraft data to appear. Any data. Even data framed in red.

The TV faces appeared calm, but intent. I don't know how much anticipation was evident on my own face. On the TV, someone dabbed a bead of perspiration from his brow.

DS1 was taking a long time to phone home.

Many things can go wrong in a launch. I must have pondered every one. Could something catastrophic have happened after separation? Was it something unforeseeable? Or was there a warning we overlooked--or disregarded?

Time oozed by.

The news came suddenly. In the control room, smiles appeared everywhere. We had data! A tracking station in the California desert was receiving DS1's signals. They showed everything was working.

There may have been more said at the time, but I didn't hear.

I was too busy cheering.

Could you help? Write us with space-related topics you think would interest and possibly amuse our readers. Depending on the topic, we can draw upon education for theory, experience for practice, and imagination for everything else. Opinions expressed will be those of the author and do not represent those of any employer, government sponsor, family, friends, acquaintances, or religious affiliation.

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Bakersfield Hosts Space Summit

By Jim Spellman, NSS/Western Spaceport Chapter

The California Space Development Council (CSDC)--composed of representatives from the various California chapters of the National Space Society--rolled into Kern County on May 1 for a weekend "Space Summit" at California State University Bakersfield.

Hosted by the National Space Society's Western Spaceport Chapter, the event drew space buffs from around the state to discuss the latest technology and spread the word about the future of space travel to the media, local political leaders, and the general public. Over 60 participants came from as far south as San Diego and Orange County, to as far north as Sacramento and the Bay area; from Santa Maria to the west and Mojave/Lancaster/Palmdale in the east.

"There's no good reason why the human race has to stay locked on the Earth forever," said Donald Johnson, CSDC Vice President of events. CSDC has been working since the mid-80s to create a space-friendly mindset among the general public, which Johnson called the biggest challenge to creating extraterrestrial communities. "It's not science fiction," Johnson said, "since the technology is almost at hand."

Senator Knight at CSDC Space Summit.
Photograph courtesy Craig E. Ward.

People on hand for the Space Summit included a living legend turned state politician that many still consider "the fastest man alive"--state Senator William J. "Pete" Knight. Elected to California's State Senate in 1996, Senator Knight previously served four years in the Assembly, four years as Mayor of Palmdale, and thirty-two years in the United States Air Force.

During his career in the Air Force, Knight earned the rank of Colonel, was Vice-Commander of Edwards Air Force Base, and established a world speed record for fixed wing aircraft of Mach 6.7 (4,520 MPH) while flying the X-15. He was awarded astronaut wings after flying above 60 miles (defined by the Air Force as the beginning of the space frontier), and flew 253 combat missions in Vietnam. He is currently enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

"It's appropriate that we're here in the land of agriculture and livestock, addressing people who have some experience with using cattleprods," stated Bill Lawrence from the Aerospace Office, Inc., a privately-operated aerospace think-tank firm. "We need to get the public to use cattleprods on their elected officials and pay attention to the mass migration of aerospace jobs that are still leaving California and setting up shop in other states."

"In Alabama, their politician's business motto to aerospace companies looking to relocate is, 'Y'all come down here'," Lawrence said. "With the exception of Pete Knight and a handful of others in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., the attitude of California's congressional delegation, on the otherhand is, 'Well, you're already here; why should we bother supporting you any further?'"

Joining Senator Knight were many participants actively working in local Kern County-based businesses who are developing new technology ranging from rockets to space settlements. While some of the discussions included plenty of the nuts-and-bolts details of cryogenic engines and geosynchronous satellites, some discussions ranged from upcoming amateur rocketry launch attempts to space tourism.

NSS member Randa Milliron from InterOrbital Systems and TransLunar Research is one of the many private venture companies taking root in Kern County who are trying to make the rocket business work by making their products more affordable. "We're going for cheap," Milliron said. "Cheap, cheap, cheap."

Part of her company's plans call for launching a rocket, appropriately called "Neptune" directly from the sea--without the expensive infrastructure currently being used by Boeing's SeaLaunch ocean platform--which drew noticeable gasps of stunned amazement from the audience. The Neptune design is nothing more than a "Big Dumb Booster" using off-the-shelf hardware to save costs, she said. "The technology is proven," Milliron explained. "It draws directly from the earlier work of rocket pioneer Bob Truax."

"Small businesses will be crucial to the effort," said John Powell, president of JP Aerospace in Davis, CA. "It's going to be the small, unknown group--the people you haven't heard about yet," Powell said. At the time this article goes to press, Powell's amateur organization--touted as "America's Other Space Program"--plans to launch the first-ever amateur rocket into space from Black Rock, Nevada on May 22 (see their web site for more details).

Still other private enterprise rocket builders like Stephen Wurst wants a kind of "Good Housekeeping Seal" of approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for his spaceship and others like it. "An FAA licensing standard for reusable launch vehicles could provide the boost of credibility that serious start-up companies need," said Wurst, president of Palmdale-based Space Access, LLC.

The proposed process of FAA criteria would create certain safety and reliability levels for RLV launches. "The result wouldn't be a rating," Wurst stated, "but simply a thumbs up or thumbs down response." But Wurst wants to take the process one step further. He wants the government to be required to purchase some launches from FAA-approved companies.

Wurst and others want the government to regulate and promote but also allow the emerging private industry to spur new development. With about a dozen start-up companies, Wurst feels there is enough competition in the private sector. "They are not going to drop a system like the space shuttle overnight," Wurst stated, "but the government needs to let go."

"Let's say the space shuttle and us," Wurst said. "We're not saying give us all the business--but give us some portion of the business.

John Hicks, Assistant Director of Strategic Planning for NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center introduced the Space Summit audience to future programs on the near horizon for Edwards AFB, including Spaceliner 100, Bantam-X, and Future-X space launch vehicles. Gary Stanley, executive director of the Western Commercial Space Center (WCSC) near Vandenberg AFB in Santa Barbara County briefed the attendees on the various space grants the center is responsible for managing for the state of California. Other companies and representatives included Dr. Hal Bennett of Bennett Optical Research in Ridgecrest who is the creator behind the SELENE (SpacE Laser ENErgy) project. SELENE is envisioned as a cost-effective means of beaming energy via a ground-based laser up to orbiting satellites, thereby extending their on-orbit lifetime by serving as a space "gas station."

A status report on Lockheed Martin's X-33/VentureStar, was presented by Mayor Frank Roberts from the city of Lancaster, while Buzz Lange from Rotary Rocket Company in Mojave provided the latest video images of the Roton ATV (Atmospheric Test Vehicle), recently unveiled before the public. Both local launch companies have also provided information to the FAA for licensing purposes. Rotary Rocket, seeking about $150 million in financing for their Roton SSTO (of which they raised $30 million to date), is one of the least expensive variants of such planned spaceships.

Rounding out the program were local presentations--known as "The Kern County Connection." Gregory Lewis, deputy director of the National Test Pilot School in Mojave gave a presentation on the training role the world-renown flight school does for its civilian test pilots. Steve Simmons, general manager of Lortz Manufacturing, a sheetmetal facility in Bakersfield, is a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin's X-33 and Kistler Aerospace's K-1 two-stage-to-orbit RLV. Dr. Jeff Lewis from Cal State Bakersfield's department of Physics and Geology and Darren Bly and Bill Vanderwark from the local Kern Astronomical Society concluded the intense, four-hour session of briefings, panel discussions, and Q&A from the audience NTPS assistant director Nadia Roberts escorted summit attendees on a "kick the tires" tour of various subsonic and supersonic high performance test aircraft and helicopters located in the flight school's hangers (four in all). A surprise last-minute addition in the schedule was an "up close and personal" private tour hosted by Buzz Lange of the Roton ATV--now being prepared for its first test flights--at Rotary Rocket Company's "high" and "low" bay assembly facilities.