Houston Section
Horizons - April 1999
Inputs for the May Horizons newsletter are due COB
May 17, 1999.
Table of Contents
AIAA Houston Section Leadership
List
-
Russ Filler - Chairman
-
Phil Mongan - Chairman-Elect
-
Dr. George Nield - Past Chairman
-
Bill Hartwell - Acting Vice-Chairman, Operations
-
John Vollmer - Vice-Chairman, Technical
-
Steve King - Secretary
-
Dave Parrish - Treasurer
-
Bill Atwell - Councilor
-
Bonnie Cooper - Councilor
-
Winston Goodrich - Councilor
-
Bill Hartwell - Councilor
-
Nick Johnson - Councilor
-
Bill Langdoc - Councilor
-
Mike Lisano - Councilor
-
Karen Loftin - Councilor
-
Joe Mayer - Councilor
-
Merri Sanchez - Councilor
Chairman's Corner
by Russ Filler, Chairman
The Houston Section
will hold its Annual Technical
Symposium May 28th.
I encourage you to attend. It
will really be a special
event this year. Many fine
authors from the Houston
Section will be giving
papers and talks highlighting
the fine work being
done here at JSC.
In addition, AIAA Distinguished
Lecturer James Harford
will be speaking at the
luncheon on "How the
Russians Beat Us to the
Moon," based on his
recent book, Korolev. That
evening is the Apollo
10 Crew and Flight Control
Team 30th Anniversary
Reunion.
This conference come
right after a very successful
ISS Service Vehicles
Conference held April 25-28 at
the Nassau Bay Hilton.
The Section thanks the fine
work of conference
Chairman Dr. Mike Lisano and
his organizational
team for the excellent conference
they conducted. Mr.
George Abbey, Bill Bates,
Keith Reily, John
Curry, and Bob Cabana were
featured speakers.
The banquet at the Lakewood
Yacht Club was well
attended and the group
enjoyed a great talk
by John Muratore on the X-38,
which included some
very interesting videos. This
conference certainly
helped "advance the arts,
sciences, and technology"
and provided a forum for
communication. This
should help make additional
service vehicles visiting
the station a reality.
I attended the Student
Paper Conference in
Albuquerque, New Mexico,
hosted by the University
of New Mexico. In
addition to the student
undergraduate and
graduate papers, student design
projects were presented
for the first time at an SPC.
The Region Activities
Committee was held on
Saturday. The RAC
has asked the Houston Section
to host the SPC next
year.
We congratulate Past-Chairman
Dr. George Nield
on being elected AIAA
Director - Technical Space
and Missile Systems
Group. Quite an honor. We
know you will be a
fine addition to the Board of
Directors. We wish
you the best.
The nominating committee
has put together a fine
slate of candidates to lead
the activities of the
Section next year. Be sure
to show your support for
the incoming candidates
by returning your ballot.
Hope to see you at the Annual
Technical
Symposium.
Russ Filler
Chairman 1998-99
AIAA Houston Section
The Apollo 10 Mission
by Russ Filler, Chairman
The purpose of the
Apollo 10 mission was to
confirm all aspects
of the first lunar landing
mission exactly as
it would be performed, except for
the actual landing.
Additional objectives included
verification of lunar
module systems in the lunar
environment, evaluation
of mission support
performance for the
combined spacecraft at lunar
distance, and further
refinement of the lunar
gravitational potential.
The crew for this mission
consisted of Thomas P.
Stafford, Mission
Commander; John W. Young,
Command Module Pilot;
and Eugene A. Cernan,
Lunar Module Pilot.
Back-up crew for this mission
were L. Gordon Cooper
(back-up commander),
Donn F. Eisele (back-up
command module pilot),
and Edgar E. Mitchell
(back-up lunar module
pilot).
This mission was the
"dress rehearsal" for the first
lunar landing. This
dress rehearsal for a Moon
landing brought Stafford
and Cernan's lunar
module nicknamed "Snoopy"
to within nine miles
of the lunar surface.
The astronauts tested the lunar
module's radar and
ascent engine, and surveyed the
landing site for Apollo
11. The lunar module was
then returned to orbit
where the crew successfully
performed all required
rendezvous maneuvers. The
mission also served
as a test of the extensive new
Apollo tracking and
control network on Earth.
Spacecraft systems
performance was satisfactory and
all mission objectives
were accomplished. The
Apollo 10 mission
took eight days. All systems in the
command and service
modules and the lunar
module performed well.
Thanks to Apollo 10,
the remaining obstacles to
achieving the national
objective set 8 years earlier by
President John F.
Kennedy, a manned lunar
landing before the
end of the decade, seemed
possible.
Mission Plan
The Apollo 10 mission
was the first lunar flight of
the complete Apollo
spacecraft, including the lunar module. All
components of the
Apollo 10 spacecraft were very
similar to those for
Apollo 9. The major difference
on this mission was
the inclusion of a
fully-configured lunar
module.
Apollo 10 was launched at
11:49:00 a.m. EST, May
18, 1969, and inserted into
an Earth parking orbit
of 102.6 by 99.6 miles.
After 2-1/2 hours of system
checkout activities, the
translunar injection
sequence was executed to
start the spacecraft on its
way to the Moon.
While Young orbited the Moon
alone in his
command module, "Charlie
Brown," Stafford and
Cernan checked out the LM's
radar and ascent
engine, and rode out a momentary
gyration in the
lunar lander's motion (due
to a faulty switch
setting), then surveyed
the Apollo 11 landing site in
the Sea of Tranquility.
This test article of the lunar
module was not equipped
to land however.
Eight days and three minutes
after leaving Launch
Pad B at Complex 39 at the
Kennedy Space Center,
Apollo 10 splashed down
3 miles from the Pacific
aiming point. Spacecraft
Commander Thomas P.
Stafford, Lunar Module Pilot
Eugene Cernan and
Command Module Pilot John
W. Young, flying
the Command Module (CM),
code-named Charlie
Brown, thus rang down the
curtain on the dress
rehearsal mission for the
lunar landing in July.
The Now-Famous Snoopy
Award is Born
The code names of "Charlie
Brown" (for the CM)
and "Snoopy" (for the LM)
were taken from the
popular comic strip by Charles
L. Schulz. For this
mission, Snoopy, the beagle,
had exchanged the
goggles and scarf of the
World War I flying ace for
a space helmet. Around the
Manned Space Center,
Snoopy has become the symbol
of quality
performance , and those
who do outstanding work
are awarded a silver Snoopy
pin.
First Color TV from
Space
For the more than a
billion viewers all over the
world, the high points
of an exciting flight were
the live colorcasts
from space. The 15-pound color
TV camera, specially
developed for this flight,
performed beyond expectations.
It recorded the
initial docking maneuver
after the Apollo and the
Saturn third stage
had entered the lunar flight
path. All things considered,
the images that came
through on the home
receiving sets were remarkable
for color fidelity
and definition.
Liftoff and Into
the Lunar Trajectory
Saturn-Apollo 10 rose
from its pad on Complex 39B
at precisely 12:45.5
p.m. EDT Sunday, May 18. As
the flight approached
40 nautical miles altitude,
Stafford, a seasoned
veteran of two Gemini flights,
was exclaiming "What
a ride!" and his crewmate,
Cernan, copilot of
Gemini 9, repeated "Fantastic."
Ground controllers
concurred.
After 11 minutes and
52.8 seconds of flight, the
third stage of the
Saturn inserted the spacecraft into
a nearly circular
orbit approximately 103 nm in
altitude at its high
point and 100 nm at perigee. Its
250,000-pound-thrust
engine was then shut down
and the astronauts
spent two Earth orbits
conducting a thorough
checkout of the CSM
systems. Save for
a few very minor difficulties (a
primary evaporator
dried out, so backup equipment
was switched on to
replace it) everything was
working well.
Over Australia, in
the second orbit, the crew was
given a "Go" for translunar
injection (TLI). The
third stage J-2 engine
was restarted and fired for 5
minutes 42 seconds
to increase the spacecraft's
velocity from its
Earth-orbital speed of roughly
17,400 mph to the
24,250 mph required to put it on
a lunar course.
Once in a lunar trajectory,
Young changed places
with Stafford, who
had been in the middle couch
for the opening phase
of the flight, and began the
final preparatory
maneuvers for the outward leg.
Young separated the
CSM from the adapter, which
housed the LM in a
protective shroud atop the third
stage, and flew to
a point 50 feet ahead of the
still-joined LM and
third stage. He then pitched the
CSM 180°, in effect
a half-somersault, so that the
cone end of the CM,
with its docking probe, pointed
toward the LM. Using
the CSM thrusters, Young
flew slowly back toward
the LM and third stage
with a closing rate
of three inches a second, about
1.6 mph. Keeping the
two craft aligned, Young
eased the docking
probe into the LM's docking
collar and the ten
locking latches clicked into place,
firmly linking the
LM with the CM.
The docking maneuver
was highlighted with the
first of a series
of colorcasts from space. Cernan
photographed the approach
to the LM and, two
hours later, treated
Earthlings to a color view of
their own planet from
thousands of miles in space.
Cernan identified
the Rocky Mountains; Baja,
California; and asserted
that he could almost see the
Los Angeles freeways.
He described Alaska as being
"socked in" with cloud
cover and pointed out a
low-pressure weather
system over New England.
The Lunar Coast
Apollo 10's outward
journey proceeded almost
exactly as expected.
The 24,250-mile-an-hour
velocity at which
it entered the lunar corridor was steadily reduced by the
gravitational drag
of Earth to approximately 2,000
mph. Then, as the
spacecraft entered the Moon's
gravitational field,
the pull of the Moon overcame
the braking effect
of the Earth and the spacecraft
picked up speed to
a peak of 5,500 mph (relative to
the Moon) just before
entering lunar orbit. To
achieve orbit, it
was necessary to use the CSM
Service Propulsion
System, a 16,000-pound-thrust
engine in a retro-fire
mode, to slow the spacecraft's
speed to roughly 3,600
mph and permit its capture
by the Moon's gravitational
field. Testament to the
precision of the flight
out was the need for only one
of several planned
midcourse corrections.
In Lunar Orbit
On May 21, Apollo 10 swept
into an elliptical lunar
orbit with a high point
of 170 and a low of 60 nm.
Subsequently, the orbit
was circularized to
approximately 60 nm (Ground
control reported its
dimensions as 63 by 59 nm).
Not more than 20
minutes into their first
orbit, the crew began vivid
descriptions of the lunar
features over which they
were passing. The first
comment came from Stafford
who noted that they were
moving out of the
highlands into the mare
area, the so-called dry seas.
He reported a "couple of
real good volcanoes," an
observation of considerable
interest to astronomers
because of the until-then
unresolved controversy as
to whether the Moon had
seen volcanic action at
some previous time.
The crew found the "dark"
side of the Moon
surprisingly well lighted
by Earthshine and had no
trouble picking out landmarks.
Cernan commented
that the side away from
the Earth was "lit up like a
Christmas tree," and Stafford
found the details
"phenomenal."
As the spacecraft swung out
from behind the Moon
on its third orbit, the
crew operated the TV camera
for the sixth time and showed
Earth viewers historic
first pictures of the Moon
in color. The colorcast
opened with views of the
Sea of Smyth on the dark
side of the Moon. As Stafford
turned the camera on
the Sea of Fertility and
the large crater Langrenus,
Astronaut Joe Engel, of
the support team at the
Manned Space Center in Houston,
called the picture
detail "fantastic, absolutely
unbelievable." The
crater's two-mile-high walls
and the 7,000-foot peak
in its center stood out
in all their ruggedness.
Much of the Moon's surface was
shown to be
roughly structured, grey-white
and, under certain
lighting conditions, having a
brownish tint. There
were areas of huge boulders, some
of them black
and others black and grey. The
preferred landing
site was revealed to be free of
boulders and pocked
with a scattering of small, shallow
craters, but with
enough smooth areas for a landing.
Shots of the
Earth showed its apparent size
as somewhere
between that of a golf and tennis
ball.
Thursday, the Big Day
May 22nd was scheduled
as a work-filled,
action-packed day
for the crew. If anything the
events of the day
went beyond the plan. It began
with a problem. Insulation
in the docking tunnel
had come loose earlier
in the flight and clogged a
vent; the incident
had let the LM slip about 3.5° out
of line with the CSM
in its joined position. Ground
control advised the
crew not to undock if the angle
exceeded 7°. As
this instruction was acknowledged,
the spacecraft passed
behind the Moon, which
ended all communication
with the ground for the
period it was on the
far side. A tension-filled 36
minutes followed,
relieved only when the Apollo
and the LM re-established
radio links with the
ground and advised
that they had successfully
separated and were
flying formation, or "station
keeping," some fifty
feet apart.
At 4:35 p.m., EDT,
the LM descent engine was fired
in a braking mode
and the LM moved toward an
orbit the low point
of which would take humans
closer to the Moon's
surface than ever before. Young
kept a lonely vigil
in the CSM, ready to undertake
the delicate and extremely
complex rescue mission if
something went wrong
with the LM.
Almost an hour later,
Cernan excitedly commented,
"Hello, Houston, we
is down among it!" The LM
had reached a point
8.4 nm above the Sea of
Tranquility where
Apollo 11 was intended to land.
The two crewmen alternated
with rapid-fire
descriptions of the
lunar surface that was passing
beneath them.
What they saw appeared
to stretch their
vocabularies. The
landing site was "pretty smooth,
like wet clay, like
a dry river bed in New Mexico or
Arizona." "Earthshine
got to be magnificent!" The
mare's "a beautiful
sight!" "Enough big boulders
to fill Galveston
Bay."
A Guidance System
Problem
At the low point of
the LM's second swing around
the Moon, Stafford
and Cernan prepared for
insertion into rendezvous
orbit, a delicate maneuver
using the LM's ascent
engine, to bring them up for
a rendezvous and docking
with Young in the CSM.
Before firing the
ascent engine, the descent stage,
with its power plant
capable of a wide range of
power settings controlled
by the crew, had to be cast
off. Just before the
lower segment was cut loose, the
LM gyrated.
Stafford took manual
control of the LM and
restored the proper
orientation. Then the descent
stage was jettisoned,
as planned, and the LM
stabilized. The episode
took some eight seconds.
Analysis indicated
that the problem was caused by a
malfunction in the
backup guidance system. When
the trouble began,
the LM was under the control of
this system. The system
shifted its control modes,
which produced the
LM's erratic behavior. Once
free of the descent
stage, the astronauts shifted the
ascent stage to the
primary guidance system control
and there were no
further difficulties.
The Final Rendezvous
With the LM back on its good
behavior and the
jettisoning of the
LM lower stage accomplished,
Stafford and Cernan
fired the ascent engine at 7:44
p.m., May 22nd. A
15-second-burn sent the LM into
a looping orbit above
and behind the CSM. From a
maximum separation
of 320 nm, by 10:07 p.m. they
had closed to within
38 nm. A sequence of three
burns of the LM's
small reaction-control thrusters
brought the LM within
docking range. During the
docking maneuver,
the LM played a passive role
and Young linked the
two spacecraft. The docking
was complete at 11:11
p.m. and 14 minutes later
Stafford and Cernan
came through the tunnel into
the CSM. As Cernan
emerged, he declared, "Man,
I'm glad I'm getting
out."
The LM had flown independently
eight hours with
Stafford and Cernan standing
all the while as if
they were driving a bread
truck. They were
maintained in their position
by a web of belts and
harnesses.
When advised of the docking,
Houston control
broke out a large
cartoon showing Snoopy kissing
Charlie Brown. The
accompanying balloon read,
"Smack. You're right on
target, Charlie Brown."
With the tunnel locked
up, the LM was cast loose
and a firing of its
engine drove it into an orbit
around the sun.
A Day's Orbit and Return
Home
Friday, May 23: At 6:25 a.m.,
while on the far side
of the Moon, the crew fired
the SPS to gain the
velocity needed to escape
from lunar orbit and enter
the narrow corridor that
would take them back to
Earth. So exact was the
burn that the speed
achieved was only 0.4 mph
less than planned.
Houston told the crew that
they "were coming right
down the fairway." The midcourse
corrections that
had been written into the
flight plan were
eliminated as unnecessary.
The return leg of the
flight featured more colorcasts.
A few hundred miles
from the Moon, the camera
zoomed in on the huge
crater Tsiolkovsky, named by
the Soviets after
the Russian theorist on rocketry.
Recovery
As the Apollo 10 moved
out of lunar orbit, the
prime recovery ship,
the carrier U.S.S. Princeton,
took up its station
450 miles east of Samoa. The
Governor of Samoa gave the
crew a reception.
In the Houston control
center, where the astronauts
were flown for debriefing,
a large sign had been put
up. It read "51 days
to launch": a reminder (if one
was needed) to all
hands that the lunar mission was
near.
Parts of this article
are from: "Mission Report:
Apollo 10," MR-4,
published by NASA June 17,
1969.
Congressional Visits Day: A Summary
by Russ Filler, Chairman
Houston Section
attends Congressional Visits Day
Houston Section Chairman
Russ Filler, Wayne Rast
- Public Policy Lead,
and Councilor Bill Atwell
represented the Houston
Team for Congressional
Visits Day March 7-8,
1999 in Washington, DC.
This year CVD was
expanded to include talks with
the Executive Branch
as well. Both the White House
and NASA Headquarters
(remember NASA is part
of the Executive Branch)
were visited. AIAA also
visited the Pentagon
to discuss Department of
Defense spending.
CVD was another success
this year. Numerous
sections and technical
committees were both well
represented.
After a Sunday evening
reception, the group began
CVD briefings to prepare
us for our discussions.
We were briefed on
the AIAA message; we had
background briefings
on the Legislative process,
and the fundamentals
of having talks with
congressional and
executive legislators.
The Luncheon Speaker
was Jim Muncie from the
House Science Committee
Staff. Jim is very
knowledgeable about
aerospace and is a "space
cadet" himself. He
wanted his speech to be a vision
of where the aerospace
industry needs to go.
Better, Faster, Cheaper
has had profound effect on
the space program
and has changed what the
government is doing
in space. NASA is changing
from an operating
agency to a research and
development agency,
similar to the days of the
National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA). The Air Force
is moving close to an
"Aerospace Force,"
representing that space is as
important as air now.
Jim Muncie has concerns on
how many of the new
fighters (F-22) can the country
afford. For space,
competition is happening in a big
way in communications;
launch vehicles are
examples. He gave
his thoughts and concerns on
new launch capability
development, including his
concern on whether
a single stage to orbit is feasible.
He noted NASA is trying
to get out of doing
operations. The Space
Flight Operations Contract
(SFOC) with United
Space Alliance and the
Consolidated Space
Operations Contract (CSOC)
with Lockheed- Martin
are a start. He seemed pleased that USA is
putting profit back
into the program in the way of
upgrades. He talked
about the "big decision" to
occur in the 2003-2005
range about what to do with
the shuttle or whether
to move on to the next
generation vehicle.
He sees a lot more future projects
being joint industry-government
ventures. Each
sharing the research
and development costs; and
industry taking the
risks to utilize new technology
for advanced systems.
He sees the need for increased
R&D in propulsion,
and in materials and
structures, heading
towards not just airplanes and
spacecraft, but "aerospace
ships."
They also discussed the end
of the decade decision
on space transportation
(should additional shuttle
upgrades be made or do we
transition to a new
vehicle). They also indicated
removing the Executive
Order on commercial payloads
for the shuttle is not
in the cards. First, it
is not wise to put government
assets and a crew at risk
for commercial activities.
Second, the cost is too
high for commercial use -
even if privatization brings
the cost down. The costs
are not real since it uses
government assets for
commercial proposes. Use
of the government assets
for private use is not in
the best interests of the
taxpayers. The US has been
expressing concern in
the aeronautical area about
Europe subsidizing
Airbus; the US should not
create a Space Airbus by
using the shuttle for commercial
payloads. In
addition, this would be
disadvantageous to the
private companies developing
space access.
They said they were encouraged
by the
Commercialization Plan for
the International Space
Station submitted by NASA.
They also addressed the rationale
for the reduction
in the aeronautics and space
utilization budgets.
Mainly, the High Speed Transport
lost their
corporate support, and the
market demand was not
there. Space utilization
is being deferred since the
initial station habitation
is being delayed due to
slips in the assembly sequence
- primarily due to the
Service Module delays.
Tuesday was spent with Congress.
The Houston
Section meet with Congressman
Brady, and Amy
McKinnis of his staff; Mike
Gerber from Senator
Hutchison's Office; Congressman
Nick Lampson,
and Amy Hockberg from his
staff; Diego Alvarez
from Rep. Shirley Jackson-Lee's
Office; and Jule
Ann Carter from Congressman
Tom Delay's office.
The Houston Team also visited
Russ Filler's
hometown Congressman's office,
Mark Souder,
from the 4th Congressional
District of Indiana. Dan
Goldin had just recently
visited the district as a
guest of the Congressman
and they were very
pleased we stopped to talk
with them.
AIAA hosted a reception in
the evening with Dana
Rohrabacher the featured
speaker. Attendance at the
reception was slightly affected
by the winter blizzard
that dumped the most snow
DC had seen in 5 years.
However, the reception was
still well attended and
productive.
After lunch we broke
up into 3 teams to visit the
Pentagon, NASA Headquarters,
and the White
House. This was the
first time AIAA visited these
offices. AIAA Vice
President of Public Policy Joe
Mayer (a councilor
for the Houston Section) led the
delegation to the
White House. I was one of twenty
selected to visit
the White House.
The Executive Branch
was well represented. Led by
the Office of Science
and Technology Policy, it
included key members
from the Office of
Management and Budget
to address space,
aeronautics, and the
military budgets.
The meeting started
by highlighting how tight the
budget situation is
and explaining the guidelines
for use of the budget
surplus. Sixty-two per cent of
the surplus will go
for Social Security reforms, 15%
for Medicare, 12%
for universal savings, leaving
only 11% for discretionary
programs, which
includes NASA. This
surplus is also based on
recovery of $18 billion
from tobacco tax changes.
The Executive Branch
wanted to convey that when
they came in they
were faced with a space "vision
without money." They
recognize they need to
articulate their message
(vision) better. It was
pointed out NASA receives
25% of the civilian
Research and Development
dollars. They pointed
out they gave NASA
an 8% increase for space
station, space science
4%. They spent considerable
time explaining their
NASA budget priorities and
rationale for the
2000 fiscal year budget.
They explained the
priority is assembly of the space
station, and the reasons
for the decrease in the
aeronautics budget.
CVD again proved informative
and beneficial. The
Houston Section Team
developed a set of charts to
highlight our message
this year. This package was
reviewed by both USA
and Boeing and approved
the Executive Council.
Instead of just visiting the
Congressional Offices
and saying "we are a resource
for you," we had a
specific message. The package
explained the AIAA,
the Houston Section; it
thanked Congress for
progress since last year and
encouraged specific
support for shuttle and station.
This was the third
year for CVD and for me to
attend CVD - the congressional
offices knew who we
were this year, why
we were there, and it made
delivery of our message
much easier this year.
Aerospace Winners Selected at Science Fair
by Joy Conrad, Pre-College Outreach Chair
On March 26, the AIAA
Houston Section awarded
prizes to the top
Aerospace projects at the 1999
Science and Engineering
Fair of Houston. The event
was held in the Astroarena
and served as the
regional fair for
all public and private junior and
senior high school
students in the 16-county
surrounding area.
Categories ranged from botany to
zoology and included
such topics as engineering,
computers, and earth/space
science.
Of the approximately
1500 fair entrants, AIAA
Houston Section members
Joy Conrad, Steve King,
Bill Proft, and Steve
Zobal selected the Best
Aerospace project
in the three divisions. The
winners were:
I. Junior Division
(grades 7 and 8)
Kevin Murphy of the
Woodlands for his project
entitled 'Is Bernoulli
Telling the Truth' which
studied air pressure
as a function of changing tube
diameter.
II. Ninth Grade
Division
Nicolas Alvarado of
Pearland for his project entitled
'Flap Effects' which
studied how three types of
wing flaps performed
in a wind tunnel.
III. Senior Division
(grades 10 12)
Elizabeth Pienkos of
the Woodlands for her project
entitled 'Martian
Chronicles Chapter 3' which
studied various aspects
of simulated Martian soil.
Congratulations to
all three winners. There were
several outstanding
projects entered into the fair
making selection difficult.
Each winner was
awarded a book signed
by former Section councilor
and astronaut Ellen
Ochoa. The AIAA was one of
approximately 85 special
awarding agencies that
gave out special interest
awards at the fair.
Houston Section Supports JSC's Future City Competition
by Bill Best, Publications Chair
Last fall the Clear
Lake Council of Technical
Societies (the Houston
section of the AIAA is a
member) initiated
an effort to organize the Future
City competition for
the Houston area.
What is the Future
City competition?
It is a contest held
in conjunction with National
Engineers Week in
late February. National
Engineers Week, begun
in 1951, has been the only
national event celebrating
the engineering
profession. It is
the mission of National Engineers
Week to increase public
awareness and appreciation
of the engineering
profession and technology by
emphasizing the positive
contributions that
engineers make to
our quality of life. National
Engineers Week is
sponsored by professional and
technical engineering
societies and corporations. The
National Engineers
Week Committee is sponsoring
the National Engineers
Week Future City
Competition' in cooperation
with The
MATHCOUNTS Foundation
and The National
Science Education
Leadership Association. The
Competition is a National
Engineers Week program
for seventh- and eighth-
grade students to foster
interest in math,
science, and engineering through
hands-on, real world
applications. The contest is
open to all public,
private, and parochial schools in
selected areas.
What is the contest?
Student teams design
and build a city of the future.
The city must display
residential, commercial, and
industrial areas,
power plants, roads, power
distribution networks,
etc. The city must be energy
efficient, supplying
enough energy for its residents.
Other considerations
are pollution levels, traffic
density and cost efficiency.
The solution will consist
of: computerized design
using software provided by
Maxis, a physical
scale-model of a city section, an
essay on an assigned
topic, and a team oral
presentation. The
competition has three phases. In
phase I, the team
designs its city using the
designated software and
print out a map of the city.
In phase II, the team builds
a scale model of a
section of the city. Phase
III involves writing a 500
word essay and a 100 word
abstract which gives an
overview of the city. Each
school is allowed to enter
one team in the regional
competition. A team is three
students, one teacher, and
one mentor. The regional
winner gets an all expense paid
trip (about five
days!) to Washington, DC for the
national
competition held during Engineers
Week. Schools
register for the competition by
October and complete
their designs by the end of November.
The scale
model must be completed by the
time of the regional
competition in late January.
For the first Houston regional, January
23rd at San
Jacinto Junior College, central campus,
teams from
public, private, and parochial schools
entered. A
team (all seventh grade girls! ) representing
El Hade
school from Sugarland won the Washington,
DC
trip for their futuristic city, 'Noor'.
They did not
place but their essay was the best at
the finals!
Next year the competition should be bigger
and
better. The project is worthy of support.
One
because of its engineering aspects,
team building,
innovations, etc., and two for its low
cost ($25 for
the software -unlimited copies and a
cap of $100 on
the cost of the required scale model).
To make the competition a reality we
will need your
help next fall when the process begins
again! Stay
Tuned.
Houston Section Hosts MIT Team
by Russ Filler, Chairman
Houston Section
to Host the MIT NASA Means Business Team
May 27, 1999, 12
noon
Building 30 Auditorium
The Houston Section
will host the MIT NASA
Means Business student
group Thursday, May 27th
in the Building 30
Auditorium from 12 noon to 1
PM with questions
following the presentation.
The 1999 NASA Means
Business Student
Competition is a new
national pilot program that
directly involves
university students in real NASA
programs and missions.
Last January, NASA
selected six teams
to develop a business plan for the
human exploration
of Mars. The teams are from
MIT, the University
of Colorado, Georgia Tech, the
University of Illinois,
the University of Maryland,
and Texas A&M.
The MIT team of students
in the "Think Mars"
team is multi-national,
representing over ten
countries, and varied
in age, from undergraduates
to multi-degree holding
graduates. The team effort
is supported by over
thirty MIT faculty members
who have agreed to
act as consultants in all of the
economic, political,
social, and technical aspects of
the proposal. The
MIT-Sloan team is supported at
MIT by the University
President, the Department of
Aeronautics and Astronautics,
and the Sloan School
of Management. The
Team is sponsored in part by
the New England Section
of the AIAA.
They are one of six
finalists in the 1999 NASA
Means Business Student
Competition. Since
January, the MIT "Think
Mars" team has put
together a strategic
plan addressing the myriad of
financial, political,
and logistical issues that will
arise in the future
human exploration and
development of Mars.
The team draws on a diverse
background, consisting
of twenty students from the
Department of Aeronautics
and
Astronautics and the
Sloan School of Management
at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and
the Harvard Business
School.
Additional information
on the NASA Means
Business Student Competition
can be found at:
http://www.csr.utexas.edu/nmb/
You can find additional
information on the MIT
NASA Means Business
web site at
http://thinkmars.mit.edu/
The six teams
present their findings to NASA in
May. These plans
will then be synthesized into
NASA's official
Mars Exploration Business Plan.
The MIT Team
has offered to present their findings
to a larger
audience, and the AIAA Houston Section
is pleased
to host this event.
Financing Your Future
The AIAA-Houston Section's Professional Development Committee will be hosting
a Brown Bag Lunch & Learn on: Financing Your Future - The New Retirement
Reality
People are retiring
earlier and living longer, healthier lives. As a result you can expect
to spend at least a
quarter of your life
(20 years or more) in retirement - not the 5 to 10 years of a generation
ago. Social
Security provides
less than half the income of today's retirees and is expected to provide
proportionately
less in the future
- not the full support expected a generation ago. Traditional, lifetime,
company-provided
pensions are becoming
less common.
The result is that
today's workers must assume greater responsibility for their own retirement.
That means
it's up to you to
ensure that you have adequate retirement savings. To help fill the gap
between perception
and reality, this
lunch and learn session will provide a practical discussion on investing
for your
retirement.
Speaker: Randy Brocher, a Financial Advisor with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
in Clear Lake
(281-280-7120).
Randy works with
both individuals and businesses to identify financial goals and design
personalized
investment programs.
Date: Tuesday, June 1, 1999
Time: 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Place: NASA-JSC's Gilruth Recreation Center, 2nd Floor Conference Room
204.
RSVP: This event is
free and open to the public, all are welcome.
Please contact Steve
King at 281-333-6646 or steve.king@lmco.com
by 11:30 am on May
31, 1999 if you plan to attend. Those without JSC
badges/auto decals
should tell the NASA-JSC gate guards they are attending an AIAA event at
the Gilruth.
Please contact John
Alred (Professional Development Committee Chair) at 281-336-4737 or
John.Alred@SW.Boeing.com
with your ideas and interests involving professional development - thanks!
Human Habitability Study
The design of crew living quarters on space station is critical in providing
a comfortable place to live away
from home. Because we do not yet have conclusive data on the relationship
between design and behavior in
a hermetic habitat like the BioPlex facility, habitability studies
have to be conducted. AIAA Life Sciences,
Space Processes, and Human Factors Technical Committee presents:
"Lunch and Learn"
" The Role of Human Habitability Study in Space Facility and Vehicle Design
"
Wednesday May 26, 1999
at 11:30-12:30 PM in Building 37, Conference Rm. 1
Please join us, bring
your lunch and a friend, and listen to Constance Adams, a registered architect
of
Lockheed-Martin who
supports the Crew Accommodations and Architectural Integration system of
the
TransHab project as
a Space Architect/Human Factors Engineer. The project includes the internal
configuration and
design of the vehicle and work with other subsystems to help them develop
a formal
architecture.
Looking forward to
seeing you.
Please, to RSVP or
for a temporary badge to attend, contact Karin Loftin at (281) 244-1122
or
kloftin@ems.jsc.nasa.gov.
AIAA International Space Station (ISS)
Service Vehicles Conference
by Dr. Mike Lisano, Conference Chairman
The Houston Section
hosted the first AIAA ISS
Service Vehicles Conference
at the Nassau Bay
Hilton in Clear Lake.
The conference, which started
on April 25 and lasted
three days, provided a
unique international
forum for the engineers who
design, build, and
operate spacecraft flying to,
from, or near the
ISS. Approximately 50 technical
papers related to
these spacecraft were presented, by
engineers from space
agencies and organizations in
the U.S., Japan, Europe,
Russia, and Canada.
There were also papers
presented by astronauts Tom
Jones and Charlie
Precourt.
The conference began
on Monday morning, April
26, with opening remarks
by NASA Johnson Space
Center Director Mr.
George Abbey, who was
introduced by Section
Chair Russ Filler. "The time
is right to have this
conference," he noted, as he
provided an update
of the current status of the
Space Station. Next,
Mr. Bill Bates, ISS Program
Office Chief of Staff,
gave a keynote address in
which he explained
the guiding philosophy behind
the building of the
ISS.
After a few words from
the Conference General
Chair, Dr. Mike Lisano
of LinCom Corp., the
conference Plenary
Session took place. The Plenary
Session provided a
thorough overview and
introduction to the
technical and operational
requirements that
service vehicles will encounter as
part of interacting
with the ISS. The remainder of
the conference consisted
of technical paper sessions
and workshops on "focus
topics," such as relative
GPS navigation and
the attitude envelope of the
ISS.
The conference lunch
speaker on Monday was Mr.
Keith Reiley of NASA
JSC, Manager of the Mission
Integration Operations
office for the ISS. Tuesday's
lunch speaker was
Mr. John Curry, also of NASA
JSC, Flight Director
for upcoming ISS assembly
flights. Both of these
speakers provided interesting
insights about the
interactions between service
vehicles and the ISS,
from their own perspectives.
Monday evening, the Conference
Banquet at the
Clear Lake Yacht Club featured
Mr. John Muratore
of NASA JSC, Manager of
the X-38 Test Vehicle
Project. His presentation
featured videos of the drop
tests of this crew return
vehicle testbed vehicle from
a B-52. Mr. Muratore provided
entertaining
narration of these videos,
as well as insights into the
rapid prototyping design
process his team has used.
Tuesday evening, the Conference
Social took place
at the NASA JSC Gilruth
Center. This event was
jointly sponsored by AIAA
and the Institute of
Navigation. The crowd was
entertained by two
speakers. First, astronaut
Robert Cabana, STS-88
mission commander, narrated
a video made by the
STS-88 crew of their flight
to assemble the first two
components of the ISS. Next,
Dr. Michael Braasch
of Ohio University discussed
recent experiments in
GPS multipath.
Given the enormously
positive feedback from those
who attended, it seems
the Conference met its
technical objective
of providing a first-time forum
for ISS Service Vehicles,
right next door to JSC. It
also provided a fun
opportunity for engineers from
around the world to
get to know one another, as a
new age of international
space exploration begins!
Mr. Gordon Ducote Speaks on the ISS Service Module
by Bill Best, Publications Chair
On Wednesday evening,
March 31, Gordon Ducote,
of NASA's ISS Program
Office, gave an excellent
presentation on the
Russian-supplied ISS Service
Module. Gordon, who
is the Launch Package
manager, stepped in
at the last minute as his
Russian equivalent,
Vladimir Yain, who had
planned to be in Houston
at this time, could not be
present. Unfortunately,
a Houston meeting Vladimir
was going to support
was postponed. Mr. Ducote's
meeting was held at
the Clear Lake Country Club,
which proved to be
an excellent location.
Mr. Ducote joined NASA in
1988 after a career in
the USAF. He was a
charter member of the Russian
Element Integration
Team formed in 1994. His
responsibility is
the myriad of interfaces,
programmatic and technical,
between NASA, the
Russian Space Agency,
and the manufacturer of the
Russian-built Service
Module for the ISS. He has
made 18 trips to Russia
in support of the program
and shortly leaves
on number 19.
The SM began as the
core for a Mir II, but the
collapse of the Soviet
system brought development to
a halt. When NASA
realized that the integration of
the SM into the ISS
program could advance the date
of permanent manned
presence and possibly save
the program as much
as $2B, efforts to complete the
module were resumed.
Moscow-based Khrunichev
Enterprises, under
contract from Energia, built the
SM. Primary assembly
was completed in April of
1998 and the SM was
transferred to Energia, also in
Moscow, for final
assembly and testing. The module
should be at the launch
site for final testing and
launch preparations
in June of this year.
The launch of the Russian
built service module by a
Proton booster to
the ISS will mark a major step in
the construction of
the Space Station. The launch
from Baikonur in Kazakstan
later this year (although
later than planned)
will still advance the date of
permanent manned presence
on the ISS by about
three years versus
a lone NASA effort. The SM is a
big payload at a liftoff
weight of 43,600 pounds and
is 43 ft long, and
provides everything required for a
permanent manned presence
in space.
The SM consists of
three main parts, 1) the transfer
module with three
docking ports, 2) the working
module where the control
post or cockpit is located,
and 3) the assembly
module where the propulsion
unit and most of the
antennas are located, as well as
an additional docking
port. The SM has a number
of systems highlights
which are described below.
The SM has three parallel
operating, highly fault
tolerant core and
terminal computers built by
Daimler/Chrysler Aerospace
(DASA) in Germany,
who also wrote the
operating system software.
Energia wrote the
application software. The motion
control system and
its sensors are controlled by the
terminal computer
and almost everything else by the
central computer.
The French (Matri Marconi Space)
supplied the Control
Post computer, which allows
access to any computer
via laptop. Most of the
technical problems
which have occurred involve the
computer system. This
is understandable since the
system is built with
new logic circuits and is orders
of magnitude more
complex than any computer
system previously
used in manned space flight.
The Motion Control
System (our Guidance and Nav)
integrates inputs
from a large number of external
sensors to determine
attitude information. This
information is used
to maximize solar array input
and maintain the correct
thermal balance. There are two
solar orientation
subsystems and sensor subsystems
for earth horizon,
stellar orientation, astro
navigation and a magnetometer.
The auto
navigation system
is capable of using the GPS or
the Russian Glonas
for reference.
For communications,
the SM has eight different
systems on board.
Voice and data uplink/downlink
for state vectors,
video and audio, space suit voice
and telemetry, and
data transmission to and from
an approaching vehicle
or a satellite. The high data
rate space-to-space
system was designed with the use
of the Russian satellite
'Altair' in mind, but the
active one is now
spinning out of control and the
spare is still on
the ground. For the first year we
will have to rely
on the capabilities of the Unity
module which will
provide 50% coverage, while the
Russian will have
to make do with ground station
passes only.
The electrical power
provided by the module's solar
arrays, about 4.4
kW, is sufficient for the operation
of the service module
but not much more. This is by
design as the service
module is not a research vehicle
but serves as a habitation
and control module.
Electrical power generates
heat and the thermal
mode and conditioning
system insures that the crew
and equipment aboard
the service module are kept
between 65¡
and 82¡ F. The T&CS is composed of
four subsystems, an
active TCS, a ventilation
system, the TCS control
system, and a passive TCS.
The active TCS provides
cooling using an
ethanol/glycol air
conditioning system with two
independent loops
to external radiators. The
ventilation system
is composed mainly of fans which
at present are a noisy
problem, with as many as 30
running at once. Some
redesign and mufflers and
other noise suppression
devices are being tried, but
the problem may finally
be resolved after the service
module is launched.
The centralized heat rejection
system controls the
T&CS by way of components
which are part of
another system, the onboard
Complex Control System.
This system collects and
feeds data to the
central computer, which controls
the fans, coolant
flow rates, etc. The passive TCS
consists of blankets,
thermal plates, and external
coatings.
The Integrated Propulsion system
consists of two
major subsystems. The first is
the two correcting
engines which provide 312 Kg of
thrust each and
are rated for 250 restarts. The
engines are canted 15¡
off the x-axis and can be gimbaled
±5¡. The second
is the Attitude Control thrusters
which use two
manifolds of 16 engines each.
13.3 kg of thrust is
provided by each thruster.
Another of the more complex systems is
the Life
Support System (we would add Environmental
Control to the title) is comprised of
many elements.
The main ones are listed here:
· Oxygen Supply Aids - Consists
of the
electron/water hydrolysis system
and the solid fuel
(lithium perchlorate) oxygen generators
· Air Purification Aids
- Controls contaminates such
as CO2 and other outgassing products
by dumping
them overboard or chemically altering
them
· Gas Analysis Aids - Measures
and controls the
atmospheric pressure within the
module
· Water Supply Aids - Supplies
ambient, drinking,
and hot water for meal preparation
and crew use for
sanitary needs and water for hydrolysis
use
· Sanitary/Hygienic Equipment
- Toilet, hand wash,
and other crew uses
· Fire Protection and Suppression
- Smoke detectors,
fire fighting equipment
and the alarm system
There is also the EVA system which consists
of the
space suits, and support hardware. The
crew
support system consists of hundreds
of items:
exercise equipment, audio/video equipment,
personal care aids, food processing
and storage,
clothing storage, restraints, photo
equipment, etc.
Structures and mechanisms systems include
the
docking mechanisms, meteoroid shields,
antenna,
and docking target deploy mechanisms
and - maybe
most important - the 13 windows located
on the Service Module.
The Service Module
after reaching a 51.6¡
inclination in a 137x212
mile parking orbit deploys
solar arrays and targeting
aids, which is the
beginning of an autonomous
flight. On day 2 the
SM is raised to a
220 mile circular orbit and begins
the rendezvous process,
which is completed by an
ISS auto docking on
day 11. Then the SM assumes
attitude control of
the station. In a few weeks a
Russian Progress cargo
module will dock with the
new configuration
of the ISS, followed in a few
days by an orbiter
(STS-101 Mission 2A.2). The
crew will transfer
cargo and perform two EVAs to
do the final hookups
between the ISS and the SM.
About 3 months later
the next crew - William
Shepherd, Sergei Kirkalev,
and Yuri Gidzenko -
launched by a Russian
Soyuz booster, will dock to
begin habitation of
the ISS.
[For more ISS details
go to the NASA SHUTTLE
WEB SITE (http://shuttle.nasa.gov/index.m.html),
then to SPACE STATION,
then to FACT SHEET
LIBRARY]
Cranium Cruncher
By Norm Chaffee
I didn't realize how many mathematical chefs we have in the Houston
Section membership! Lots of you
figured out last month's puzzle regarding the preparation of vegetable
soup by five different people - and
you discovered their individual recipes from the clues I gave you.
I got correct answers from the following
soup afficionados:
-
Frank Baiamonte
-
Liz Bains
-
Cindy Begley
-
Hubert Brasseaux
-
Jeri Brown
-
Joy Conrad
-
Phil Copeland
-
Allen Dutton
-
Steve King
-
Ajit Kwatra
-
Bill Miller
-
Andy Petro
-
Ayman Quaddumi
-
Victor Treat
-
James Wade
Congratulations to all of you - I hope you did a little culinary research
and enjoyed the results.
Our winner this
month, selected by my random process from among the pool of all correct
respondents, is
Liz Bains! Liz,
you'll receive a free dinner at an upcoming AIAA function of your choice
in the next year.
Congratulations!
For those of you still working on the puzzle, the answer is as follows:
Lily spent $6.09 (5 cans of peas; 4 of asparagus; 3 of carrots; 2 of beans;
and 1 of corn)
Benny spent $6.43 (5 cans of asparagus; 4 of carrots; 3 of beans; 2 of
corn; 1 of peas)
Joshua spent $6.66 (5 cans of carrots; 4 of corn; 3 of asparagus; 2 of
peas; 1 of beans)
Slim spent $7.42 (5 cans of beans; 4 of peas; 3 of corn; 2 of asparagus;
1 of carrots)
T-Bone spent $7.75 (5 cans of corn; 4 of beans; 3 of peas; 2 of carrots;
1 of asparagus).
Here's a late
entrant from a couple of months ago. Victor Treat successfully solved the
little algebra puzzle
in March, but
his response just missed the publishing deadline for April. So a belated"congratulations,"
Victor!
Now try this
tricky one as your May challenge!
ELEVATOR COUNT
Bob and Martha are
in charge of counting the people who get on and off the elevators in Building
1 at
JSC. They take turns
riding to the top floor and back down, counting as they go. After two such
trips each
morning, two trips
around noon, and two trips in the late afternoon for each of them, they
add up their
numbers from morning,
noon, and evening, and then each of them calculates an average number of
people
riding the elevators.
They then report this to the Facility Manager.
Can you fill in the
following matrix, based on the clues below?
Counter Morning Noon
Evening Daily Total Average
Bob
Martha
The clues are as follows:
1. On Martha's noon
trips there were 32 fewer people than in her morning count.
2. Bob counted a total
of 122 in his morning and noon counts, just one higher than his evening
count, but
24 more than Martha's
evening count.
3. Bob's morning count
is the same as Martha's average.
4. Bob's evening count
was 37 more than Martha's morning count.
Good luck! Send your
answers to me via e-mail at Norman.H.Chaffee1@jsc.nasa.gov or by paper
mail at
Mail Code AP2, NASA
- JSC, Houston, TX 77058. As always, the wnner gets a free meal at an upcoming
Houston Section activity!
Norman Chaffee
|
