The Space Race Obituary / Milestone / Potpourri Thread

[MKSheppard]

Also, there were many cargo bay configuration studies done regarding sizing.

Most of NASA's studies fell in a much smaller range than the huge 65,000+ lb to LEO (28,000 lb to Polar) capability with 15 x 60 ft cargo bay that STS got in the end...

...which happens to align closely with DoD's Spy satellites, in particular, the KH-9 BIG BIRD, which weighed 29,000 lbs and was 10 x 53~ feet.

[phongn]

Interesting, although that's not exactly what I was getting at- I was looking at the squat "shuttle" in the picture and wondering how practical it is.

STS also came under enormous weight pressure (not just cost) - those heavily redundant and robust systems aren't free. Even the originally proposed "moderate cargo, low cross-range, flyback booster" version NASA desperately wanted might've still had to do enormous amounts of processing post-landing.

The Amazing All-Electric Flying Machine! By Brian Welch

PDF here

[Vehrec]

I wonder if that stuff about BIG BIRD is part of the reason why NASA got to turn one of those suckers around and point it at the stars? I mean, how much parts comonality does Hubble have with a spy satellite?

[phongn]

I wonder if that stuff about BIG BIRD is part of the reason why NASA got to turn one of those suckers around and point it at the stars? I mean, how much parts comonality does Hubble have with a spy satellite?

Hubble is believed to be descended from the KH-11 (and a NASA history notes one reason for its 2.4m mirror is to use spy satellite mirror techniques). It has very different systems, though.

[MKSheppard]

Back to Obituaries....

Courtesy of COLLECTspace:

link

John S. Llewellyn, Jr., who from 1962 through 1965 served in Mission Control as a remote site flight controller and then retrofire officer (RETRO) during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs died this afternoon, Tuesday, May 8, 2012, fellow flight controller Sy Liebergot shares.

In his 2000 autobiography "Failure is Not an Option," flight director Gene Kranz described Llewellyn as "a stocky, square-jawed former Marine" who was an early member of the Space Task Group.

Llewellyn is credited with coining the term "Trench" for the front rows of Mission Control, where the most active consoles and controllers were located, as recounted by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox in their 1989 book, "Apollo: The Race to the Moon."

Llewellyn, who in other incarnations operated a flame thrower in the Korean War and tried to raise cattle in Belize, was a capable and conscientious Retro within the walls of the Control Center and prone to the most outrageous adventures everywhere else — "Butch Cassidy born a hundred years too late," as another controlled described him. Even within the walls of the MOCR, Llewellyn had his own way of doing things.

For example, Retro was supposed to count down to retrofire in the usual "ten, nine, eight..." pattern, but with Llewellyn, you never knew. Once he started at fifteen. Another time he began "ten, eight," and, when the puzzled FIDO looked over at him, quickly added "nine, seven..." Sometimes he got behind, and so the count would end up "...five, four, one, retrofire!" But he always go to "Retrofire!" at the right time, and was otherwise an exemplary Retro — inside the MOCR.

Outside, was another story, or dozens of stories. He is said to have broken a few bones falling from a collapsing drainpipe as he climbed back to his motel room after the front door had been locked on him at the Nigerian remote site — or was it Australia? He is said to have found a man with a lady friend, thrown him out of a second-story window, and then, intent on inflicting further damage, jumped out after him. There are at least three different stories, involving three different bodies of water, in which Llewellyn submerged cars.

Llewellyn himself was no help in sorting out truth from fiction in all of this, smilingly denying everything, occasionally throwing in a correction that was more improbable than the original story.

In any case, it is said that Llewellyn used to get mad at the O&P guy sitting up in the third row of the MOCR. O&P would inquire of him whether his retrofire times were completed yet, and Llewellyn would tell him belligerently, "Y'all oughta get your ass down here in the in trench workin' this instead of sittin' up there," and the name stuck.

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From 1997 to 2001, he did six oral interviews with the JSC history people, you can start to read them HERE

[MKSheppard]

Courtesy of NASASpaceflight.com's forums:

A bit over fifty years ago:

On 26 April 1962, the Soviets launched their first film-return optical spy satellite. The capsule with the film landed successfully three days later, giving the Soviets an orbital surveillance capability.

On 8 May 1962, the US launched the first Centaur high energy upper stage on an Atlas. It failed, due to hydrogen overpressure causing the Centaur to explode after it's insulation fell off...but it set the stage for fifty years of CENTAUR GO.

Amusingly enough, Krafft Ehricke; another one of von Braun's rocket team (who left very early on for a private career with Bell/Convair/General Dynamics) led the effort to design CENTAUR; with overall project management being at Marshall Spaceflight Center; and after CENTAUR's kablooey; von Braun called for it to be cancelled to save frustration and headaches; since MSFC already had a high energy upper stage in the S-IV.

Instead, CENTAUR was transferred to Lewis, where it finished out it's development.

Just don't ask Phong about Centaur G'