Today, a new Alabama Flying Machine took to the sky. The Ares-1X vehicle lifted off from pad 39B at 11:30 this morning.
This is another episode of Alabama Flying Machine Blogging, in which we promote a story about a Flying Machine that was designed, built, managed, integrated, and/or flown with a significant Alabama role.
When we started this blog, one of our goals was to present Alabama to the world, and also present the world to Alabama. This morning's launch combined a 4-segment Solid Rocket Booster with a mass-simulator of the Ares upper stage and Orion spacecraft. What's the Alabama connection? Follow me below the fold to learn...
Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong took his famous small step for [a] man, followed by Buzz Aldrin. Many people in Alabama, and most in Huntsville, know that the homegrown Saturn V gave the three Apollo crewmen the big push that sent them on their way. But do they know the fun stuff in the story?
This is another episode of Alabama Flying Machine Blogging, in which we promote a story about a Flying Machine that was designed, built, managed, integrated, and/or flown with a significant Alabama role.
When we started this blog, one of our goals was to present Alabama to the world, and also present the world to Alabama. This post is a presentation of Alabama's role in aviation or space history, either by a machine, a program, or a flyer. Now, NASA-Marshall in Huntsville managed the whole vehicle (and anyone who's worked on a Marshall-managed program knows that that means they watched you like a hawk), which came together from across the country. But we're going to concentrate on a particularly Alabama contribution to this mighty machine - namely, the first stage, the S-1C.
The Saturn V was so big, that it had to be spread among several organizations - Boeing (stage I), North American (stage II), Douglas (stage III), and IBM (Instrument Unit, (IU), brains of the outfit). Douglas and North American designed and built stage III and stage II in southern California, while Boeing and IBM designed and built stage I and the IU in Huntsville, Alabama. Boeing actually built the first three flight stage I's in Huntsville at the Marshall Center, the remaining flight units were built at the Michoud Facility in New Orleans.
Follow me below the fold for more on Stage I and ping-pong balls...
This is another episode of Alabama Flying Machine Blogging, in which we promote a story about a Flying Machine that was designed, built, managed, integrated, and/or flown with a significant Alabama role.
When we started this blog, one of our goals was to present Alabama to the world, and also present the world to Alabama. This post is a presentation of Alabama's role in aviation or space history, either by a machine, a program, or a flyer. So, let's get down to it:
In April 1908, an airplane left the ground in northern Madison County in Alabama. Today, it is hanging in the Davidson Center at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center. Yes, it's the same machine.
It was designed and built by Mr. William Quick, a farmer, father of ten, gristmill operator, blacksmith, machinist, and aviation enthusiast who lived and worked near modern-day Hazel Green. Like many other experimenters of his day, Mr. Quick was not a highly-educated man, but he was intelligent and observant. He studied "buzzards, bumblebees, and all that flew well", read voraciously, and finally turned his understanding into a working aircraft.
Join me below the fold, for the story of William Quick's monoplane:
This is another episode of Alabama Flying Machine Blogging, in which we promote a story about a Flying Machine that was designed, built, managed, integrated, and/or flown with a significant Alabama role.
When we started this blog, one of our goals was to present Alabama to the world, and also present the world to Alabama. This post is a presentation of Alabama's role in aviation or space history, either by a machine, a program, or a flyer. So, let's get down to it:
On May 28, 1959 - 50 years and one day before this post - a modified Jupiter ballistic missile was launched from Cape Canaveral on a sub-orbital flight. The Jupiter was a single stage medium-range ballistic missile, fueled by kerosene and LOX, derived from the Army's Redstone missile. The prime contractor for Jupiter was the Chrysler Corporation, and final assembly took place at Chrysler's Warren, Michigan plant. Eventually the Air Force took over the Jupiter. But initially it was an Army program, so it came under the purview of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.
So, that's one Alabama connection. But there's more! Follow me across the fold...
The Alabama-built Unity Node and Destiny Lab, major U.S. contributions to the International Space Station, are potentially threatened, as is the entire ISS, by debris from a collision on Tuesday between an Iridium spacecraft and a dead Cosmos spacecraft.
(Iridium image from obsat.com)
This is the first time that two objects this big have collided in orbit - the Iridium weighed 1235 lb at launch, and the Cosmos is said to weigh in at nearly a ton (not sure if that is a 2200 lb metric ton or a 2000 lb short ton). Since they collided with a relative velocity of around 3600 MPH, the crash was energetic enough to create a lot of shrapnel. So there is now a large and probably expanding debris cloud in space - part of it following the path of the Russian Cosmos vehicle, and part of it continuing in the path of the Iridium's orbit.
So why's a commsat and a Cosmos threatening ISS? Follow me over the fold...
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