A Day in Astronomy: Loss of the Apollo 1 Astronauts

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Image (Credit): Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, left, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee. (NASA)

On this day in 1967, the Apollo 1 capsule caught fire on the launchpad, killing the three astronauts in the capsule – Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.

A frustrated Gene Kranz, NASA flight director, had this to say shortly after the fire and tragic loss of three astronauts:

Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung-ho about the schedule, and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, “Dammit, stop!” I don’t know what Thompson’s committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.

Did the Apollo space program recover? Absolutely. Did NASA avoid deaths on future space missions. Not at all. Do we give up on human space missions or keep moving forward? I think you know the answer to that one.

Credit: NASA

Pic of the Week: The End of Ingenuity

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Shadow of the Ingenuity helicopter’s rotor blade on the surface of Mars. (NASA, JPL-Caltech)

This week’s image shows the shadow of little helicopter that could and continued to do so for 72 flights on Mars. The photo taken by NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter shows one of its rotor blades after it finished its last flight on January 18, 2024. During the landing, one of the blades was damaged, permanently grounded the helicopter forever more.

The amazing little helicopter surpassed all expectations and became a very helpful buddy to the Perseverance rover. It may be the end of Ingenuity, but it should also be seen as the start of more missions that pair rovers and helicopters on Mars.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has some final words regarding this unique helicopter in a video that you can watch here.

In addition, Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager at NASA JPL, had this to say:

It’s humbling Ingenuity not only carries onboard a swatch from the original Wright Flyer, but also this helicopter followed in its footsteps and proved flight is possible on another world.

Space Stories: Finding Water on Mars, Mini Solar Sails, and a Balloon-borne Telescope

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Image (Credit): Image of Mars. (NASA)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Planetary Science Institute: “Vast, Potential Ice-Rich Deposit Found in Martian Equatorial Region“

A potential ice-rich portion of the Medusae Fossae Formation deposits may contain the largest volume of water in the equatorial region of Mars. Data from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) –  a subsurface radar sounder on the Mars Express orbiter searching for water and studying the Martian atmosphere – reveals layering in the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF) deposits. These layers are likely due to transitions between mixtures of ice-rich and ice-poor dust, analogous to those in Polar Layered Deposits, according to the paper “Evidence of Ice-Rich Layered Deposits in the Medusae Fossae Formation of Mars” in Geophysical Research Letters. 

—University of California: “Small Solar Sails Could be the Next ‘Giant Leap’ for Interplanetary Space Exploration“

Nearly 70 years after the launch of the first satellite, we still have more questions than answers about space. But a team of Berkeley researchers is on a mission to change this with a proposal to build a fleet of low-cost, autonomous spacecraft, each weighing only 10 grams and propelled by nothing more than the pressure of solar radiation. These miniaturized solar sails could potentially visit thousands of near-Earth asteroids and comets, capturing high-resolution images and collecting samples.

—NASA: “NASA’s GUSTO Prepares to Map Space Between the Stars“

On a vast ice sheet in Antarctica, scientists and engineers are preparing a NASA experiment called GUSTO to explore the universe on a balloon. GUSTO will launch from the Ross Ice Shelf, near the U.S. National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station research base, no earlier than Dec. 21. GUSTO, which stands for Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory, will peer into the space between stars called the interstellar medium. The balloon-borne telescope will help scientists make a 3D map of a large part of the Milky Way in extremely high-frequency radio waves. Examining a 100-square-degree area, GUSTO will explore the many phases of the interstellar medium and the abundances of key chemical elements in the galaxy.

The ISS is Getting Pretty Crowded

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Image (Credit): The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft, which is carrying four Axiom Mission 3 crew members, docking to the space station shortly after an orbital sunrise. (NASA TV)

The seven real astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are now playing host to four visitors for the next two weeks after the Axiom Mission 3 crew came aboard the station earlier today.

Unlike the last two Axiom missions, all three paying members of the Axiom Mission crew are being supported by various European governments:

  • Marcus Wandt, member of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) astronaut reserve (ticket paid by ESA and the Swedish National Space Agency);
  • Walter Villadei, a member of the Italian air force (ticket paid by the Italian air force); and
  • Alper Gezeravcı, a fighter pilot with the Turkish air force (ticket paid by the Turkish government).

At the price of $55 million per seat, I am hoping the governments and space agencies feel they are getting their money’s worth versus being part of the normal 6-month astronaut rotation.

Supposedly, the extra hands will be working on 30 experiments that the normal crew did not have time for, though I would imagine they would be the less important experiments if they would otherwise not be performed at all.

If all of this is truly important work, then I expect such demand will justify the need for commercial space stations down the line to continue the work of the ISS. However, I expect a good chuck of future space interest will come from the tourist side.

In the meantime, I just hope the toilets on board the ISS can deal with the extra passengers.

Note: So as not to give all the attention to the visitors, the current Expedition 70 crew members aboard station are:

  • NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara;
  • ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen;
  • JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Furukawa Satoshi; and
  • Roscosmos cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub.

The End of Two Moon Missions?

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Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of Japan’s SLIM mission over the Moon. (JAXA)

Within a two day period, we saw one Moon lander become a burning wreck plummeting towards Earth and another land on the Moon with an immediate problem that threatened its mission. The Moon may be closer, but it is becoming a hazardous place for space missions, similar to Mars.

First, the NASA-contracted Astrobotic Peregrine lander mission ended yesterday as the spacecraft entered the Earth’s atmosphere and burned up. The $108 Moon mission burned up with its cargo, including NASA’s scientific instruments, various rovers, and the DNA remains of humans whose families hoped would be at rest on the Moon’s surface. I expect a few Native Americans may be saying “I told you so” to themselves.

It was almost comical reading a Scientific American article trying to put a good spin on the lost cargo:

In addition, all nine of the payloads that were designed to communicate with Peregrine successfully returned data to Earth. Iris, a rover built by Carnegie Mellon University, sent back a “Hello Earth!” message. COLMENA, a set of five small rovers built by the Mexican Space Agency, also succeeded in sending data back—making it the first Mexican scientific instrument to operate in the moon’s vicinity.

I expect “Hello Earth!” fell far below the ground crew’s expectations, but I guess you take what you can get. And Mexico will probably hold off on any celebrations for the moment.

The second set of bad news related to the latest Japanese Moon mission. The good news is that the Smart Lander for Investigation Moon (SLIM) spacecraft was a success in terms of a soft landing on the Moon. The problem is that the solar array is not getting sufficient solar power for the lander to remain operational for more than a few hours. It is possible that the situation may correct itself as the sunshine shifts over time, but this is not a good start to the mission.

Whatever happens, Japan can still claim to be the fifth nation to successfully land on the Moon. It is not perfect, but the Japanese have more reason to celebrate than the Mexicans at this point.