ISSUE 5 November 2005 £2.50 VOYAGE

VOYAGEA Journey of Learning Through Space

ISSUE 5 November 2005 £2.50

Great Puzzles and Competitions

Exclusive features on thepast, present and future ofspace, mission reports,letters, book reviews,competitions

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CONTENTSOne World Crew Photo Feature 4

Other Features

38 Where to Go: Space Sites of the SW States

Great Puzzles and Competitions

PLUSMission Status Briefing 14 Did You Know 30Galactic Quest 22 Re-Entry: Apollo-Soyuz 44Where Next for the Shuttle? 24

Test your knowledge of space with: Get your entry in the next issue of VoyagePuzzle Page on page 12 Caption Competition on page 13Giant Wordsearch on page 31 Photo Competition on page 37

WIN a HUGG A STAR in our great competition on PAGE 16

MAT IRVINE takes us on a tour of the open spaces of the south west United States and looks at some of the important space sites youcan find there - and the ‘visitors’ who may have dropped in.

8 Training Astronauts for Space FlightGoing into space for a long time can have damaging effects on the astronauts’ health. ADAM HAWKEYlooks at the training methods used to combat the problems.

Mr Pilbeam’s Laboratory No 4: Teaching Space 18Something a little different from Mr Pilbeam this time, as he looks at different ideas and activities you can use to teach and understandsome of the concepts of space.

26 Beginning Astronomy - Part 4Last issue we looked at getting the right eyepiece and stand for your telescope. This time, DAVEBUTTERY looks at some of the useful - and not so useful - accessories you can buy.

Who’s Who in Space: Mark Shuttleworth 32With the third Space Flight Participant, Greg Olsen, having just made his $20 million flight to ISS,Voyage Voyage Voyage Voyage Voyage talks to the second SFP, South African businessman MARK SHUTTLEWORTH.

Editor:Mike Shayler

Production Assistant:Mary McGivern

Voyage Marketing:Suszann Parry

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Grateful Thanks

Hello and welcome to issue five. This issue, I really have to takethe time to thank everyone who’s been kind enough to give orsend us feedback about Voyage. I really appreciate the positivecomments we’ve had as well as the suggestions and ideas aboutwhat to include in the magazine. We’ve taken them on board andmade some changes already.

Special thanks must go to the Lisley children, Luke, Ruth, Daniel and Thomas, fortaking their time to review and enjoy issue four. Hope you enjoy the competitions,puzzles and pictures in this issue too.

I also have to thank the writers for this issue, some of whom stepped in at shortnotice to help out when a few articles went pear-shaped. Ah well, the best laidplans...

This issue, we’ve tried something different from Mr Pilbeam. He’s provided acollection of great little activities to try at schools of all levels, but there was so muchto cram in that there was no room for pictures. If you want to find out more aboutthese ideas, check out his suggested websites on page 43.

Mike ShaylerEditor

COMPETITION ENTRIESSend your answers for all competitions to:

Voyage Magazine124 Lyncroft Road

BirminghamB11 3EH

OR

email: [email protected]

Entries Must Be In By 20 January 2006See the competitions for how to

mark up your entries

Don’t forget to include your name,age and address or school addressYou may need permission fromyour parent, guardian or teacher

before entering

ASTRO INFO SERVICESCHOOL PRESENTATIONS 2005/2006

AT HOME IN SPACEJOURNEY ROUND THE SOLAR SYSTEM

ONE SMALL STEPEARTH IN SPACE

Packed with information, our shows includeaudience participation, slideshows, video,demonstrations, some real space hardware and alot of fun. Suitable for all ages, from 3 to 93!

To find out more and see some of the great comments aboutour shows, just log on to our website at:

www.astroinfoservice.co.ukand look under Presentationsor call us on 0121-422-8801or fax us on 0121-422-1568

ONE WORLD CREW

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Women in Space

Valentina TERESHKOVA was the firstwoman to fly in space, and the only oneto do so in the first 19 years of spaceflight.

She flew for just under three daysbetween 16-19 June 1963, and instantlybecame famous in the history books.

Sally RIDE was the first Americanwoman to fly in space, and the thirdoverall.

Unlike the Russians, who have onlyflown two more women sinceTereshkova, Ride was the first of morethan 30 American women to fly intospace so far.

Ride flew into space twice on theShuttle: STS-7 for six days in 1983 andSTS 41-G for 8 days in 1984, giving her atotal of 14 days in space.

Elena KONDAKOVA is the third, and sofar, the last Russian lady in space, butshe holds the distinction of being theonly female to have gone into spaceaboard both a Russian and an Americanspacecraft.

She also held the records for thelongest single flight and the most totaltime in space by a lady for three years.

Kondakova flew to the Mir space stationfor 169 days between October 1994 andMarch 1995 and went back to the stationaboard Space Shuttle STS-84 for 9 daysin 1997, giving her a total of 178 days inspace.

Shannon LUCID is the current recordholder for female space flight, havingmade four trips on the Shuttle and spentseveral months on the Mir spacestation.

She was recruited to NASA at the sametime as Sally Ride and is still there,although she has not flown since 1996.

Her flights have been STS 51-G for 7days in 1985, STS-34 for almost 5 daysin 1989, STS-43 for almost nine days in1991, STS-58 for 14 days in 1993 and along stay on Mir between March andSeptember 1996, giving her a total ofjust over 223 days in space.

Helen SHARMAN (seen with the rest ofthe UK candidates) is the only Britishwoman to have flown in space, and theonly person to do so under the Britishflag.

Her only mission was also to theRussian Mir space station, and shebecame the first non-American, non-Russian female in space. Sharman flewfor almost eight days in May 1991.

Peggy WHITSON has made only onespace flight so far, but it was also to aspace station, this time for a long stayon ISS. She also had to do a space walkor EVA during her mission.

Her flight was the second-longest so farby a female astronaut, lasting from Juneto December 2002, almost 185 days.

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ONE WORLD CREW

Eileen COLLINS is probably the mostwell known of the current astronauts.She was the first lady ever to pilot theSpace Shuttle, and also the first femalecommander of a Shuttle mission. Shewas also given the responsibility ofcommanding the first Shuttle launchfollowing the Columbia accident.

Collins has flown four missions on theShuttle, STS-63 for eight days in 1995,STS-84 for nine days in 1997, STS-93 foralmost five days in 1999 (her firstcommand) and STS-114 for 15 days in2005, giving her a total of 37 days spaceexperience.

Mae JEMISON was the first African-American female astronaut, recruited byNASA in 1987. A medical doctor, shewas inspired to join the spaceprogramme by watching NichelleNichols, who played Lt. Uhura in theoriginal Star Trek. After her space flight,Jemison later appeared in an episode ofStar Trek: The Next Generation.

Jemison’s only space flight was aboardthe STS-47 Shuttle mission for almosteight days in 1992.

Sadly, of course, two Space Shuttleshave been lost in accidents, and both ofthem had two female astronauts aboard,alongside five male colleagues.

Kalpana CHAWLA (left) and LaurelCLARK were both killed in the loss ofColumbia in February 2003. This wasChawla’s second flight, and both hadbeen over 15 days long. The first wasaboard STS-87 in 1997, which made herthe first Indian-born female astronaut.For Clark, STS-107 was her first flightinto space.

Chiaki MUKAI was the deputy scienceofficer for STS-107 and coordinated thescience for that flight. Before that, shebecame the first Japanese femaleastronaut and the first Japanese to fly inspace twice. She also worked on theJapanese experiments that flew aboardMae Jemison’s flight.

Mukai’s two flights in space have bothbeen aboard the Shuttle; STS-65 for 14days in 1994 and STS-95 for eight daysin 1998 (alongside John Glenn, makinghis second flight 36 years after his first)

Kathy THORNTON was neither the firstwoman to do a space walk, nor the firstAmerican woman, but she hascompleted three out of the four longestfemale space walks and spent morethan twice as long as any other womanoutside the space craft, over 21 hours intotal. This includes time spent repairingthe Hubble telescope

Thornton flew into space four timesaboard the Shuttle; STS-33 for five daysin 1989, STS-49 for nine days in 1992,STS-61 for 10 days in 1993 and STS-73for almost 16 days in 1995.

Claudie HAIGNERE was the first Frenchfemale astronaut and has the distinctionof being the first female to haveconducted science missions aboardboth Mir and ISS. Both her flights intospace have come aboard Russian Soyuzspacecraft.

Her flight to Mir lasted almost 16 days in1996 and her flight to ISS to exchangeSoyuz rescue craft lasted almost 10days in 2001, giving her a total of over25 days space flight experience.

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In the 1970s and early 1980s, when Russiawas still the Soviet Union, they developed apolicy of flying ‘guest’ cosmonauts fromother countries to their space stations,alongside experienced Soviet commanders.

The programme was known as‘Interkosmos’ and saw the first flights bycitizens of Czechoslovakia and EastGermany (as they were known), Poland,Hungary, Bulgaria, Mongolia, Romania,Cuba and Vietnam, before expanding tonon-communist countries including France,India, Syria, Afghanistan and the UK.

Pictured above is Cuban cosmonautArnaldo Tamayo-Mendez (left) alongside hisRussian commander, Yuri Romanenko.

Robert CURBEAM may not have been the first African-Americanto do a space walk, nor has he done the longest or the mostspace walks, but he has certainly done one of the most unusual.

In February 2001, during the first space walk of Shuttle missionSTS-98, a coolant line that Curbeam was working on leaked asmall amount of ammonia crystals. Curbeam and his colleaguestopped the leak and the escaped crystals quickly vaporised, butthe leak meant that mission safety rules had to be followed toprevent contamination entering the Shuttle when Curbeam cameback in.

This meant that Curbeam had to ‘sunbathe’ in his space suit indirect sunlight for about 30 minutes to bake off any crystals thatmight have been left. Then, when they came back into the airlock,it had to have the air pressure set to flush out anything thatmight be left. Add to that some other decontaminant proceduresand his space walk took 100 minutes longer than expected. Buthe proved that the emergency procedures worked.

From Planet Earth

While the first astronauts and cosmonauts may have been air force pilots and test pilots, used to taking great risks and pushingtheir hardware to the limit, the arrival of the Space Shuttle and space stations has opened the door to scientists, doctors,engineers, and even journalists to join in. More importantly, space programmes have expanded to allow both men and women,young and old, and different countries and ethnic backgrounds to take part.

Shown here are three pioneers of the more modern era of space flight. Guion Bluford (left) was the first of a growing list of African-American astronauts in space, flying on the Shuttle four times between 1983 and 1992 and logging over 688 hours in space. SultanSalman Abdulaziz Al-Saud (centre) was the first Saudi astronaut in space, aboard Shuttle STS 51-G in 1985. Shortly after his spaceflight, he helped to found the Association of Space Explorers, a multi-national organisation consisting of all astronauts andcosmonauts who have been in space. In October 2003, Yang Liwei (right) became the first Chinese astronaut in space, aboard theirShenzhou 5 spacecraft, making China only the third nation after Russia and America to launch its own citizens aboard its ownspacecraft. The Chinese have a long programme of space flights planned.

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ONE WORLD CREW

This is the crew of STS-121, the next Space Shuttlemission that is due to fly around March 2006. They will bevisiting the ISS, taking up supplies and cargo for thefuture expansion of the station, as well as continuing thetests of new safety equipment and procedures on theShuttle. They will also be taking up German ESAastronaut Thomas Reiter (not in picture), who will remainaboard the station.

Left to right in the picture are: Mission Specialist (MS)Stephanie Wilson (first flight), MS Mike Fossum (firstflight), Commander Steven Lindsey (fourth flight), MSPiers Sellers (second flight), Pilot Mark E. Kelly (secondflight) and MS Lisa Nowak (first flight)

On this page are a series of photos showing the multi-national nature of modern space flight. This shot wastaken aboard the International Space Station, and you cansee on the wall behind the crew some of the flags of thenations that have helped to make the ISS possible.

In this crew are six Americans (Parazynski, Phillips andAshby, top row; Voss, middle left; Rominger and SusanHelms, bottom row right hand pair); two Russians(Usachev and Lonchakov, middle and middle right), aCanadian (Hadfield, bottom left) and an Italian (Guidoni,bottom second left).

Just to show that anything is possible when there is nogravity to worry about, the crew of this Space Shuttlemission, STS-99, pose for a ‘starburst’ crew photograph. Thiswas another multi-national mission, with crew membersrepresenting NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) andthe Japanese Space Agency (NASDA, now JAXA)

In this crew, going clockwise from bottom centre, areGerhard Thiele (German, representing ESA), Mamoru Mohri(Japanese, representing NASDA), Kevin Kregel, Janice Voss,Dominic Gorie and Janet Kavandi (American, representingNASA)

Of course, the vast majority of people who have been intospace have been Russian or American, because they are thetwo nations that have built the spacecraft and paid for thespace programmes. But if the early days saw them competingagainst each other to be first, they are now working togethercloser than ever before, especially on ISS.

This photo shows the first ISS resident crew (in blue) alongwith the crew of Shuttle mission STS-97 (in red), who broughtthem fresh supplies and equipment. In front (left to right) areBrent Jett, Bill Shepherd and Joe Tanner (all American);middle row Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko (in blue, bothRussian) and Carlos Noriega and Mike Bloomfield (in red,both American). Right at the back is Canadian Marc Garneau.

FEATURE

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Training Astronautsby Adam Hawkey, FBIS

Sending humans into space andreturning them safely to Earth is verycomplex and always involves verydangerous procedures. This meansthat performing experiments inEarth’s orbit is very hazardous,expensive and time consuming.

For these reasons, ground-basedmodels that simulate the effects ofmicrogravity are regularly used. Themost commonly used techniquesinclude people spending long periods inbeds, being immersed in water, andtaking part in special flights in modifiedaircraft.

Although these ground-based modelscannot perfectly replicate the effectsobserved during space flight, they areuseful to see how the body is affectedby weightlessness and also for trainingcrews for their missions into space.With people spending up to six monthson the International Space Station(ISS), companies now organisingholidays in space and with plans tosend people back to the Moon and on toMars, knowledge about the effects oflong-term space flight will become evermore crucial.

Simulation techniquesEver since the first humans entered

space over forty years ago, finding outhow we perform in unfamiliarenvironments has become increasinglyimportant. More people now travel intospace and for longer amounts of timethan ever before (the world record is 14months, held by Russian cosmonautValeriy Polyakov). The high costs interms of money, time and risk to humanlife mean that various simulators havebeen developed to learn more about theresponse of human systems to reducedgravity.Investigations (including thoseconcerned with movement in reducedgravities) have been conducted for one,

or more, of three main reasons. The firstis to train crews to function safely andefficiently in situations they are likely tofind themselves in during space flight.Secondly, they are used to understandthe body’s response to changes in loadand mobility due to microgravity (orweightlessness). The final objective isthe development of countermeasuresagainst deconditioning, like exerciseequipment to stop bone and muscleloss. In order to do this, a wide varietyof techniques have been developed.

Parabolic flightsThe most effective method of simulatingconditions of microgravity is byemploying what are known as Keplerianaircraft manoeuvres. Thesemanoeuvres involve convertedpassenger jets – like the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration’s(NASA) KC-135A (figure 1) –performing a series of flight parabolasor arc shaped manoeuvres.

From a steady horizontal flight, theaircraft’s nose is gradually pulled up,and it starts climbing at an angle ofabout 45 degrees. This ‘injectionphase’, as it is called, lasts for about 20

Figure 2. The sequence of events on a singleparabola during a reduced gravity flight. Thissequence can be repeated as many as 40times, so it’s hardly surprising that the aircrafthas become known as ‘The Vomit Comet’.

Figure 1. NASA’s KC-135 reduced gravity plane during microgravity simulation flight. NASA

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FEATUREFor Space Flight

seconds, during which the aircraft andits passengers experience anacceleration of around 1.8 times thegravity level at the surface of the Earth(1.8-g). The engine thrust (or power) isthen reduced and the aircraft follows afree-fall trajectory (or path), duringwhich the crew and passengersexperience several seconds of reducedgravity. At the end of this period, theaircraft is pulled out of the parabolic arc,a manoeuvre which initiates another 20second period of 1.8-g on the aircraft,after which it returns to a normal flightpath (the whole sequence is shown infigure 2).

This is repeated several times in onesession, often as many as 40, andastronauts can use it to familiarisethemselves with the unique problemsassociated with living and working inmicrogravity, such as putting on spacesuits or carrying out Extra VehicularActivity (EVA), commonly termed ‘spacewalking’, and for rehearsing delicatetasks like eating, drinking and using thelavatory (figure 3). The testing of newdevices, including exercise equipment,can also be carried out, so they can beevaluated before space flight.

Since 1959 more than 80,000 parabolashave been flown in support of all the

major space programmes, from projectMercury to the International SpaceStation. They have also provided theenvironment for a number of space-related movies, such as Apollo 13. Theaccuracy of these flights at reproducingmicrogravity means that many of itspassengers experience nausea, whichhas led to NASA’s plane beingnicknamed the ‘Vomit Comet’. Theparabolas enable the passengers of theplane to experience the conditions ofnegative (about -0.1-g), micro- (about 0-g), Martian (about 0.38-g) and lunar

(about 0.16-g) gravity for 15, 25, 30 and40 seconds respectively.

Although this method is a very accurateway of replicating reduced gravity levelsthere are some problems with it. Firstly,it is very expensive – primarily the costof fuel and of supplying personnel tostaff and maintain the aircraft. Thetechnique also does not overcomeproblems of air resistance as air is stillpresent, unlike in the vacuum of space.

Parabolic flights also only providesuitable conditions for short periods oftime, with subjects only having, at most,40 seconds to perform the requiredtasks. These periods are long enoughfor the symptoms of space motionsickness to appear, but not for thedramatic changes in fluid volume andfluid distribution or the loss of bone andmuscle mass.

Flight parabolas are a useful techniquefor astronaut preparation (beingfrequently used to train crews forvarious in-flight procedures, tasks andexperiments), but an inappropriatemethod for investigating any long-termeffects space flight may have onphysiological systems.

Neutral BuoyancyIn NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory(NBL) located at the Johnson Space

Figure 4. An astronaut is lowered into the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory tank for mission training. NASA

Figure 3. Astronauts experiencing ‘weightlessness’ in the NASA parabolic aircraft . NASA

FEATURE

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Center, Houston, astronauts arelowered into large indoor pools whilewearing the suits they would wearduring space flight (Figure 4). The suitsare weighted so the astronaut neitherascends nor descends (raises or sinks),simulating weightlessness.

This technique is particularly useful forcrew training purposes, as experimentscan be conducted in real time and largeobjects (such as full-scale mock-ups ofsatellites and the Shuttle’s cargo bay)can be submerged for added realism(Figure 5). Neutral buoyancy techniqueshave some advantages over parabolicflights for astronaut training purposes,since they have fewer time constraints.This allows astronauts to practice tasksrequired during EVA, such as fixingproblems outside the Shuttle or the ISSand conducting scientific experiments.

However, even though astronauts areable to spend hours in the NBL (as theywould during a space mission) it is stillnot long enough to see some of thelonger-term changes in human bodysystems (such as bone loss). For thisreason, neutral buoyancy techniquesare mainly used for training crews,planning missions and testingequipment.

Bed-restThe most widely used method forassessing any of the long-term effectsthat microgravity may produce withinthe human body (such as the bone andmuscle loss discussed in issue 1) isground-based bed-rest. Althoughprolonged bed-rest cannot beconsidered a true simulation ofmicrogravity, many of the changes thatoccur during long-term space flight arealso present: muscle and bone loss,and changes in body fluids.

The head-down position (figure 6)simulates the effects of microgravity on

the body by changing the direction thatgravity is imposed on the body.

Lots of bed-rest studies have reportedsimilar losses in bone and muscle tothat experienced during space flight.One six-month study reported areduction in bone mass of 20% and a25% loss of muscle, while a three-month bed-rest study conducted by theEuropean Space Agency (ESA) found a10% loss of bone and 15% reduction inmuscle.

Bed-rest is now being used to assessbone and muscle loss and to testexercise equipment to see how effectiveit is. Additional medical equipment andqualified staff means that more in-depthresearch can be carried out than wouldbe possible in space, but one majordrawback with bed-rest is that theastronauts themselves are neversubjects. This is likely to remain alimitation, as astronauts would beunwilling to stop their missionpreparations for fear of reducing theirperformance.

Other problems relate to theenvironmental and psychologicalconditions. During bed-rest, subjects donot experience feelings ofweightlessness, as in space or otherEarth-based simulations, and ‘up anddown’ reference points restrict the onset

Figure 5. Underwater ‘weightless’ environment. Note the mock-up of the Space Shuttle cargo bay inthe bottom of the tank. NASA

Figure 6. A volunteer is tested during a head-down bed-rest experiment. NASA

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FEATURE

Figure 8. Diagram of the verticalharness system. Adam Hawkey

of Space Motion Sickness (see issue 1for information on SMS).

In addition to living and working inconditions of micro-gravity, astronautshave also needed to function underreduced gravity levels – as they had toduring the Apollo lunar missions, andwill have to again when humans travelto Mars. Using parabolic flights enablescrews to experience these gravity levelsfor short durations, but the mostcommonly used method of simulatingreduced gravity levels, which wasactually used to train the likes of NeilArmstrong and Buzz Aldrin, isspecialised harness systems.

Harness systems: horizontal andverticalThe horizontal harness device wasdeveloped so that astronauts couldpractice for walking on the surface ofthe Moon. The device used cablesarranged in such a way that it createdthe same body motions on the arms andlegs as would be on the lunar surface.

Several cables were attached todifferent parts of the body and toan overhead monorail trolleyabove the inclined walkway(figure 7). This allowed thesubject to walk, run and jumpalong the walkway. Theadvantages of this techniqueover other methods are that it is

a relatively cheap and safe way ofsimulating reduced gravity, theparticipants require no training and theresults are easy to collect. Thetechnique’s major limitation is that thesubject is unable to move from side toside or turn around.

The vertical harness for simulatingreduced gravity works in a similar wayto the horizontal one. The deviceapplies a nearly constant upward forceto the subject’s body, using a modifiedrock-climbing harness (figure 8). Theharness is then attached to a rollingtrolley and pulley system that moveshorizontally with the subject, makingsure that the harness applies onlyvertical forces. This harness system iscurrently being used so scientists canwork out how people will walk and runwhen they arrive on Mars.

The main problem with this technique isthat it applies vertical force only at thetorso so the limbs still experience Earthgravity. It also stops the subject from

twisting and turning, and moving in asideways direction.

ConclusionNone of these Earth-based techniquesis a perfect simulation of space flight,with each having its benefits andshortcomings. As modern technologicaladvances begin to make the idea oflonger interplanetary voyages a reality,the question of how humans can adaptto life in space becomes ever morecrucial.

To fully investigate the physiologicalchanges that long-term space flighttriggers within the human body it willobviously be necessary to exposegreater numbers of people for extendedperiods. However, as this is not anentirely practical, cost effective orethical option, Earth-based simulationtechniques are likely to continue beingan important part of space life-scienceresearch.

Simulation techniques do mimic someof the changes experienced duringmicrogravity and provide studyconditions that are more accessiblethan during space flight. Data fromprevious and current studies, includingseveral long- and short-term bed-restcampaigns supported by NASA andESA, have given us a great deal ofinformation on the physical changescaused by space flight and helped inthe development of variouscountermeasures. There are alsosignificant medical breakthroughs onEarth due to research in space relatedareas.

Although the physiological changesoccurring in microgravity differ in origin,they are often similar to those causedby certain diseases and to the ageingprocess. They can, therefore, providenew insight into the way the humanbody works and assist with thediagnosis and treatment of certainillnesses and injuries. Because of this, itis likely that research and training forspace flight will continue to go hand-in-hand with projects using reduced gravitysimulation techniques on Earth.

Figure 7. An astronaut practices forwalking on the Moon. NASA

PUZZLE PAGE

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5 6

7 8 9

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Can you complete the crossword from the clues. There’s a coupleof tricky ones to test you. Answers on pages 42/43CROSSWORD

Anagram Poser Puzzles byMiranda Line

Clues Across

1. Explosive theory about how the universe began (3,4)

5. The name given to the group of planets orbiting our sun (5,6)

7. All planets rotate on their ____?

9. A belt in the sky! Who does it belong to?

11. A vast cloud of dust and gas. Horsehead perhaps?

12. Helium or nitrogen for example

14. Sixth planet; The ring leader perhaps?

Clues Down

2. There are three known types of these - Spiral, Barred Spiraland Elliptical

3. US government agency for space flight founded in 1958

4. Twinkle twinkle little ____?

6. Where the Seas of Tranquillity and Serenity are found

8. Our lives depend on this, but never look straight at it.

10. The Earth’s shape is called an ______ spheroid

13. Tiny particle that everything is made up of

not new

site nine

lilo age

mad fleets

strong ram

met ploy

rain gag

all less

root

hove skater

Can you decipher these ‘Surname’ anagrams offamous people in astronomy and space?

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CAPTION COMPETITION

Tell us what you think theastronauts are thinking or

saying. You can have morethan one of them speaking but

please keep your answersshort if you can — and nothing

rude please!

The answer we consider thebest or funniest will win.

THE PRIZEWe have a copy of the book International Space Station Vol 2 for the winner

Please mark your entry Caption Competition 5 and send to the address on page 2

LAST ISSUE

Congratulations to Ken Herd of TheWirral, who wins a copy of The

International Space Station book for:

“I always said that superglue was the best”

Runner up:“Whose idea was it to play musical chairs

in this gear?...”Phil Marsh, Staffordshire

SPACE TODAY

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Mission Status BriefingA round up of recent events andupcoming launches in human spaceflight programmes. You can get moredetails on all these missions inSpaceflight magazine.

THE SPACE SHUTTLE

STS-114 Return-to-Flight

The first Shuttle flight since theColumbia accident in February 2003launched on 26 July 2005. This was the114th Shuttle mission and the 32nd forDiscovery.

The crew of seven was: CommanderEileen Collins, Pilot Jim Kelly, MissionSpecialists Wendy Lawrence, SteveRobinson, Andy Thomas, CharlesCamarda and Soichi Noguchi of Japan.It was the first flight for Camarda andNoguchi.

The main objectives for the missionwere to test new safety procedures andconduct assembly and maintenancetasks on the ISSAt launch, a piece of insulating foam fell

off the Shuttle’s main tank, which meantthe crew had to inspect the vehiclewhen it reached orbit. They did this withon board cameras and photostaken by the ISS crew.

Some damage was spotted,which meant the EVA crew ofNoguchi and Robinson would

have to do somerepair work.

Discovery docked withISS on 28 July andstayed there until 6August. Equipmentand supplies weretransferred to ISS andsome waste and othermaterial put into theShuttle for return toEarth.

Noguchi and Robinson completed 3EVAs (space walks) totalling 20 hours 5minutes. These were to try out Shuttletile repair techniques, to add or replaceequipment on ISS and to complete therepair of the tile damage spotted by thecameras.

STS-114 landed (after a weather delay)at Edwards Air Force Base in California,after 13 days, 21 hours, 33 minutes and5.8 million miles in space.

STS-121: The Next MissionBecause of the problems with theinsulating foam on STS-114, the nextmission has been pushed back to noearlier than March 2006. New Shuttlerules require good lighting and weather

conditions for launchand landing (whichmeans spring toautumn) and noflights over seasonalholidays.

The crew for STS-121is Commander SteveLindsey, Pilot MarkKelly, MissionSpecialists PiersSellers, Mike Fossum,Lisa Nowak and

Stephanie Wilson, and ESA astronautThomas Reiter, who will remain aboardISS to return the resident crew to three

for the first time since May 2003.Fossum, Nowak and Wilson will bemaking their first flights.

STS-121 is scheduled to last 11-12days and will be the 115th Shuttle flightand the 33rd for Discovery. The missionwill transfer more equipment to ISS andcarry out further tests on Shuttle repairprocedures.

The EVA crew of Sellers and Fossum isexpected to complete three spacewalks.

STS-115: Back to ISS AssemblyThe 116th Shuttle flight is scheduled for2006, but will depend on the success ofSTS-121. The orbiter used this time willbe Atlantis, on its 27th mission.

The main objective for this mission is toresume the construction of ISS. This willbe the Shuttle’s main task until itsexpected retirement in 2010. On thismission, the crew will be installing twonew solar arrays.

The assigned crew consists ofCommander Brent Jett, Pilot ChrisFerguson, Mission Specialists JoeTanner, Dan Burbank, HiedemarieStefanyshyn-Piper, and Steve MacLeanof Canada. It will be the first flight forFerguson and ‘Piper’.

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SPACE TODAYNASA’s PlansNASA expects to use the Shuttle tocomplete the assembly of ISS by 2010,and there will be between 12 and 28more Shuttle missions to achieve this.NASA also expects to have its work andresearch on the station completed by2016, when it will be getting ready toreturn to the Moon.

It is likely that NASA’s internationalpartners will support the operation ofISS from 2010-2020 once theAmericans have completed their work.This means that future crews on thestation are likely to be made up mainlyof Russian, European, Canadian,Japanese and possibly Chineseastronauts,

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

11th Resident Crew

12th Resident CrewThe 12th crew was launched to thestation on 1 October, docking on 3October. They are expected to remainaboard the station until April 2006. It ishoped that this will be the final two-person crew on ISS as the Shuttle getsback to routine flights, which meansenough supplies and equipment tosupport three people can be brought upto the station.

The 12th crew is Bill McArthur (NASA)and Valery Tokarev (Russia) and theywere launched with the third fare-payingSpace Flight Participant, Greg Olsen,who spent just over a week on thestation before returning to Earth with the11th crew.

ISS PlansThe 13th resident crew of PavelVinogradov (Russia) and Dan Tani(NASA) should launch towards the endof March 2006. If all goes to plan withthe Shuttle, the third member of the nextcrew, Thomas Reiter (ESA), should jointhe 13th crew in early April aboard STS-121.

THE CHINESE SPACE PROGRAMME

Shenzhou 6The second Chinese crewed spaceflight took place successfully beteween12 and 17 October2005. This was thefirst time that aShenzhou (whichmeans Divine Vessel)had carried a crew oftwo into space.

The crew was FeiJunlong and NieHaisheng and for thefirst time, they wereable to enter theorbital compartment

of their spacecraft and to take off theirspace suits.

They were also able to conductexperiments, observe the Earth, warmfood, take sleep periods in turn and usesanitary facilities not available onShenzhou 5.

China’s PlansShenzhou 6 was the next stage in whatis expected to be a long and ambitiousChinese space programme. Shenzhou7 is expected to fly in 2007 and toinclude the first EVA by a Chineseastronaut.

After that, Shenzhou 8 and Shenzhou 9are expected to launch together anddock in space. This may mirror aRussian mission, Soyuz 4/5 in 1969,when crew transferred from onespacecraft to the other by space walk.For the Chinese missions, they maytransfer internally, creating what wouldbe a mini space station.

It is quite likely that the 2008 Olympicsin Beijing will be opened by the crew ofShenzhou 8/9 - a union in spacemarking the union of sports people fromaround the world.

A selection process is underway forfemale astronauts, and a Chinesefemale astronaut could be in space by2010.

Further plans that have been suggestedinclude building a small space stationby joining several Shenzhou craft inorbit, and the prospect of landing aChinese spacecraft on the Moon.

The 11th ISS resident crew of SergeiKrikalev (Russia) and John Phillips(NASA) launched to the station in April2005 and came back to Earth onOctober 10 after 179 days.

They were launched with Italian ESAastronaut Roberto Vittori, who spent aweek aboard the station beforereturning with the 10th crew.

Krikalev and Phillips completed an EVAof 4 hours 58 minutes. This was the 6thfor Krikalev and the 1st for Phillips.They installed and retrieved Russianhardware.

On 16 August, Krikalev broke the recordfor the longest accumulated time inspace, passing the previous record of748 days held by fellow Russian SergeiAvdeyev. By the end of this flight,Krikalev had totalled over 803 days inspace on six flights: two long flights onthe Mir space station, two more on ISSand two short Shuttle flights.

Voyage PRIZE COMPETITION

16

This is a photograph of theSpace Shuttle Mission Controlin Houston, Texas during thisyear’s Shuttle flight. But do

you know:

1. Which US president theHouston Space Center isnamed after?

a) George W. Bushb) Lyndon B. Johnsonc) John F. Kennedy

2. Which presidentcommitted America to goto the Moon?

a) Bill Clintonb) Gerald Fordc) John F. Kennedy

3) Which presidentauthorised the building ofwhat became the ISS?

a) Ronald Reaganb) Lyndon B. Johnsonc) Richard Nixon

4. Which president spoke tothe Apollo 11 astronautswhen they were on theMoon?

a) Ronald Reaganb) Gerald Fordc) Richard Nixon

Please mark your entry HUGG-A-STAR Competition and sendor email it to the address onpage 2

ISSUE 4 COMPETITIONThe correct answers for issue4 were:

1. b National Aeronautics &Space Administration

2. c Extra Vehicular Activity3. b. Kennedy Space Center4. a. Space Transportation

System

And the winner of the ESA ISSkit is:

Emma Parkhouseof West Sussex

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WIN A HUGG-A-STAR

MR PILBEAM’S LABORATORY No. 4

18

TeachingSome years ago, I was at a planningmeeting for a new DesignTechnology course. The topic ofrecycling came up, and I made the(as I thought) helpful suggestion ofconsidering the requirements forsurvival in a Mars base, where allresources have to be very carefullyconserved. I was startled when avoice from the other end of thetable called out, “But it’s not real!”

This is a common, and unfortunate,misconception of space, based onscant knowledge, or basic lack ofinterest. Exploring space is all aboutthe use of down-to-earth engineeringand science principles. Putting peopleinto space and ensuring their survivalis all about environmental science,ergonomics, food technology, textiles,psychology – the list is long, but allcomponents of the list areconsiderations with which we areentirely familiar. What we are doing isintroducing another factor – expectingthese items to function in an incrediblyhostile environment.

As I visit different schools, at thosetimes of the year when space is beingtaught, I see a great deal of excellentand colourful work. However, at timesI am struck by the similarity betweenthe displays. This is understandable,as people are fulfilling the fairlynarrow requirements of the curriculum,but there are now far more resourcesavailable on the web and in children’sactivity books than there ever were.The problem is knowing what worksand what doesn’t. Even the NASA sitehas stuff that fails miserably. So, inthis article, I would like to offer a fewsuggestions for practical and (mostly)cheap activities, which I have eitherperformed myself, or have seen doneby others.

Ideas for illustrating concepts dealingwith space and space travel havebeen around since the beginning ofthe space age, and sometimes wellbefore. These ideas are recycledagain and again in glossy activitybooks, the best of which has been theDK “How the Universe works” –recommended. This listing isn’t

intended to be original, but acompilation of some activities whichare generally reliable, and whichrequire minimal investment ofequipment and time. The list is brokendown into logical sections, andsuggestions for activities are included.In this issue, “Where are we?” tries toestablish our position within theuniverse and “Getting there” suggestsideas for space travel.

At the end, I have listed a fewwebsites which may be useful. I alsohave an extensive list of sites, whichis too long for this article. I am happyto e-mail it to anyone interested.

1. WHERE ARE WE?Objective: To establish shapes andsizes of galaxies, and the distancesbetween them; To describe stars asother suns; To describe the SolarSystem as a system of planets, andestablish the place of the Earth andMoon within it.

1.1 GalaxiesShapes of Galaxies and distancesbetween them.

Activity 1: Galaxies are classifiedaccording to their shapes, and thesecan be researched quite easily, but ifyou wish you can stick with a spiralshape. Have the children makewhirlpool shapes out of card. If theylike, they can stick on cotton wool torepresent stars. They can be paintedyellowish in the centre and light blueat the edges. Little bits of colouredglitter can represent stars. Hang themup so that the distance between themis 20 or more times their size.Materials: pictures of galaxies, card,cotton wool, glitter, glue, paint, string.

1.2 StarsStars are suns. Our star is special tous because we could not survivewithout it, but it is a star like all theothers, although they all differ onefrom another in terms of size andtemperature.

Activity 2: A star’s colour is acharacteristic of its temperature.Children can paint star shapes, card

disks or polystyrene balls in coloursranging from red through to paleviolet, and arrange them in the correctorder. Old Christmas decorations arealso effective. Discuss why the colourof metal changes when it is heated.Temperature may be indicated in howmany times hotter a star is thanboiling water. The melting points ofvarious materials can be combinedinto the display.Materials: card; polystyrene balls,Christmas baubles, paint.

Stars are many different sizes. OurSun is 1.5 million km in diameter;most stars are smaller and some arevery much larger.

Activity 3: A marble or bouncy ballapproximately 2.5cm in diameter, willrepresent the smallest type of star(neutron star). Our Sun would beabout 2 metres across at this scale.Then compare the marble to a sphereapprox. 1 kilometre across, which willgive an idea of the relative size ofBetelgeuse.Materials: suitably sized ball bearingor similar.

1.3 ConstellationsConstellations are patterns of stars inthe sky. There are 88 in total, 60visible in the Northern Hemisphere.They are made up of stars which areof varying brightness and distancesfrom us, so the patterns that we seeare purely line-of-sight effects, andare human inventions. They can berewarding to study, however, as theyprovide an insight into differentmythologies (particularly Greek andRoman) and world views.Constellations also vary according tothe seasons and this can be broughtout to demonstrate the annual journeyof the Earth around the Sun, showingwhat constellations are associatedwith which season etc. Constellationsalso show the rotation of the Earth, asthey seem to progress around thecelestial pole, marked by Polaris, thePole Star. Constellations are alsouseful for finding your way around thesky. The great navigations and animalmigrations are all tied up with beingable to read the sky, so the children

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MR PILBEAM’S LABORATORY No. 4Spacecan learn to use the Pole Star to findnorth. (See The Night Sky, page 26.)

Activity 4: Constellations can bereproduced in a variety of ways: pokingholes in paper, making a frame from awire coat hanger and stretching blackbin liner across, then poking holes inthat. This can then be held up to the skyand compared to the originalconstellation, or a torch shone throughin a darkened room. Pegboards canalso be used.Materials: maps of constellations, coathangers, paper, bin liners.

There is an educational ‘toy’ called“Constellation”, made by Quercetti,which uses luminous pegs onpegboards, allowing children to makeand identify 40 principal constellations.Unfortunately, some of theconstellations as drawn in astronomicalguides don’t resemble the thing they’resupposed to. In the 1960’s, a book waspublished called “A New Way to see theStars”, in which the author re-drew theclassic constellations so that they wouldlook much more like their names.

Activity 5: A ‘join the dots’ activity coulduse the patterns of the stars in just thisway, with the children joining the starsin a similar manner. This could also bedone with pegboards and string.Materials: Paper, pegboard, string.

To show that the constellations arepurely chance effects, the children canmake their own using the followingmethod:

Activity 6: Explain the Light Year(distance a beam of light travels in oneyear - 10 million million km). From abook of astronomical data, or from thenet, find out the distances in light yearsof the stars in a given constellation,such as the Plough. The children thencreate this constellation in a shoebox,using clay balls on cocktail sticks orsimilar, or they can be hung from the lidof the box with black thread. Paint theinside of the shoebox black, andperhaps decorate it with sticky stars.They will have to come up with a scalewhich will allow the farthest star to fitinside the shoebox, and then plot the

points on the inside of the box. Whenthese points are plotted, they insert thecocktail sticks and stars in the rightpositions. A hole cut in one end of thebox allows for viewing the finishedconstellation.Materials: patterns of the majorconstellations, paper, pens, string,pegboards, wire coat hangers, bin linersetc; shoeboxes, clay, cocktail sticks.

1.4 The PlanetsThe nine planets orbit the Sun in thewell-known order Mercury, Venus,Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,Neptune, Pluto.

Activity 7: Children may enjoy makingup a mnemonic for them.Materials: list of planets, paper.

Activity 8: Planets may be made fromanything round, but you should aim tohave five small ones (the fifth is Pluto),two large ones, and two medium sizedones. If you make them from salt dough,they can be coloured with foodcolouring. If you like, you can make anedible solar system using Smarties. Youcan make a pancake, colouring it blueto represent space. Peel and halve aSatsuma, and put it in the centre for theSun, then arrange different colouredSmarties around the pancake in theircorrect order. Send the final result intothe nearest black hole (a child’stummy).Materials: pancake mix, food colouring,Smarties, Satsuma, hungry children.

Old CD’s are excellent for makingplanetary rings. It’s best to cut yourplanet in half and stick the halves oneither side of the CD.

The bands of Jupiter can be done bysticking the planet onto a stick orskewer, and rotating it while holding thepaintbrush still. Use of a variable speedelectric screwdriver is an advantage.

Mobiles are an excellent little project forplanets.Materials: wire coat hangers or woodendowels, polystyrene balls or similar.

1.5 Planetary distancesThe relative distances of the planets

from the Sun are as follows (Earth’sdistance is treated as 1). This sequenceallows you to vary the display to suityour circumstances; it can also help innumeracy calculations.Mercury: 0.3, Venus: 0.6, Earth: 1.0,Mars: 1.5, Jupiter: 5, Saturn: 10,Uranus: 20, Neptune: 30, Pluto: 40. Onthis scale, the distance to the neareststar would be 240,000.Materials: planets made by children,children themselves, measuring device,plenty of space

Relative sizes of planets: taking theEarth as 1; Mercury: 0.5, Venus: 0.8,Moon: 0.25, Mars: 0.5, Jupiter: 10,Saturn: 9, Uranus and Neptune: 4,Pluto: 0.25.Materials: seeds and fruit, plasticeneballs, sports balls etc.

Activity 9: To show how the planets takediffering times to go round the sun,arrange for a number of children tostand at different distances from acentral ‘sun’, and walk round at identicalspeeds.Materials: none, but it might be nice tohave them wearing labels or carryingplanets. Inflatable solar systems areavailable.

Activity 10: Make up a set of fact cardson each planet and the Sun, and a setof corresponding question cards (onequestion per card). Divide the questioncards equally between pairs of children,who are ‘Space Agencies’. Have 9children act as planets, orbiting the Sun.

One child from each pair is a ‘probe’sent out by the Space Agency. Theycarry one question, e.g. “Go to theplanet which has the tallest volcano inthe Solar System”. They then follow the‘planets’ around, asking questions untilthey get the correct answer, when theyreturn the data to their agency and pickup another question. The game stopswhen a pair has answered all theirquestions, or when the final pairfinishes.Materials: Fact cards for the planets,question cards for the probes.

1.6 Earth and MoonActivity 11: Show the distance from the


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Earth to the Moon using a basketball, atennis ball, and a length of string wound9-10 times round the basketball. Askthe children to guess how far way theMoon is by placing markers at distancesfrom the basketball. Then unroll thestring, and compare results. Ask them ifthey are surprised, then ask them whythey thought it was where they said itwas. Point out that the Moon is a verylarge object, but very far away. Showthis idea of perspective using photos ofpeople with large objects in thedistance, and asking the children to tryand block out a distant object with theirfinger, while keeping one eye closed.Materials: basketball, tennis ball, string.

1.7 Different planetsWe rely largely on photographs for ourinformation about the other planets ofour solar system. These are easilyavailable, and can be prominentlydisplayed. However, photos have theirlimitations, as probes are sometimessent on flyby missions, when they can’tstay and look closely, and have to takephotos on a pre-programmed sequenceleading to a partial or misleading pictureof the planet.

Activity 12: It may be an idea to take anold globe or preferably a large beachball, and cover it with different texturedmaterials. Ask the children to study theplanet through special ‘scanners’(cardboard tubes), and ask them todescribe it in words. Different childrenwill thus have different viewpoints, andwill end up with different descriptions.Then ask some others to describe it byfeel, and contrast the descriptions. Thismay be a stimulus to creative writing.

1.8 Gravity on different planetsWe can’t take the classroom to anotherplanet, but we can imitate gravity ondifferent worlds.

Activity 13: Collect together ten 2-litrepop bottles. Fill one to the top withwater – this will be the Earth bottle;label it as ‘Earth’. Number the otherbottles 1 to 9, and fill them as follows:Mercury 1 litre; Venus 1.6; Moon 0.3;Mars 0.7; Uranus 1.8; Pluto 0.12. ForJupiter, fill the bottle with 4 kilos of sandor other suitable heavy material (these

values are approximate); for Neptuneand Saturn, add sand until you reach2.3 kilos. Tell the children that thebottles are all full of 2 litres of water oneach of the different planets, and askthem to compare how each one feels.They may even be able to guess whichbottle is on which planet, if they havethe information supplied to them.Materials: 2-litre pop bottles, water,sand.

1.9 The MoonActivity 14: Get a clear photo of the fullMoon, and carefully trace the major‘Seas’, cut them out and use them witha blank disk of the same size as thephoto. Make sure that your photo is theright way up, as telescopic photos maybe printed with South at the top. Showthe children a similarly sized linedrawing of the Moon, with the Seasmarked on. Take this away, and askthem to see if they can put the Seas inthe right places on the disk. Discuss thenames of the Seas, and why they werechosen. They can colour the piecesbefore placing them. Note that the Moonis one of the darkest bodies in the sky,reflecting only about 7% of the sunlightthat hits it. Its actual colour is likeweathered tarmac on car parks.Children may like to gather ‘Moon dust’from the car park for use in projects.Materials: Simple outline map of theMoon.

1.10 Lunar cratersActivity 15: Craters are produced mostlyby impacts. Get hold of some trays, andput a layer of corn flour about 4 cmdeep in the bottom. Scatter cocoapowder (or similar) over the top until thecorn flour is covered. Drop an object,like a stone or a ball bearing, fromdifferent heights and compare theshapes of the craters. Vary the massesdropped and compare again. Use apostcard to cut a crater in half, and tryto draw the profile from edge to edge.Can anyone produce a crater with acentral peak?Materials: flour, cocoa, tray, ballbearings or bouncy balls of differingsizes.

Activity 16: Download photos of lunarcraters, and ask the children to model

them. You could use laminated photosso that they can build them on thepicture, keeping the shape accurate.Materials: Laminated photos of areas ofthe Moon, modelling materials

1.11 Crater illusion(http://www.exo.net/~pauld/summer_institute/summer_day1perception/crater_illusion.html). This site gives anexample of how a change in lighting canaffect perception of craters, makingthem appear as hills. This can also bedone with certain moulds, when seenfrom the inside - particularly moulds ofthe face. This can lead on to looking atoptical illusions of all sorts. Things likethis will be important to space travellerswhen they try to land on the Moon.

Activity 17: Shine a lamp on one of thechildren’s model craters, and get themto see how it seems to change withdiffering angles of illumination. Showhow even a rounded shape can give asharp, pointed shadow. This is whyearly illustrations of the |Moon’s surfaceshow craggy mountains, whereas inreality, all the Moon’s mountains arerounded.

1.12 Different MoonsActivity 18: Find out the names of themoons of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,Neptune and Pluto. After what or whomare they named? In what ways are theydifferent from our Moon? Wordsearches on the moons of the SolarSystem could be useful (see page 31)

1.13 SeasonsShowing the tilting of the Earth is acommon activity, however, this simplelittle activity can be useful.

Activity 19: To show how we get moreheat from the Sun in summer thanwinter, paint two tin lids matt black, orcut two circles from black card. Setthem out with one directly facing thesun, while the other is placed so thatthe sunlight hits it slantwise. Touch thetwo discs after about 10 minutes, andsee which one is hotter. This is exactlywhat happens to any piece of ground onthe Earth – in summer, the sun’s rayshit more directly than in winter, this

21


being the main reason for the differencebetween winter and summer weather.Throughout the year, the equatorreceives 2.5 times the amount of heatfrom the Sun as does the North Pole.

2. GETTING THERECurrently, rockets are the only way toget into space. There are only a fewways to demonstrate rockets, and thesemethods have been around for years.They vary mainly in power and whetherthey’re suitable for indoor or outdooruse, and various ages.

2.1 Rocket PrinciplesA rocket is a very simple device inprinciple. Gases rush out of the back,and the rocket moves forward inreaction to this process. StraightforwardNewton. The rockets in this section willuse various forms of ‘reaction mass’,which will increase the mass beingthrown out behind them – compressedair, water, hot gases.

Activity 20: A simple demonstration is tosit a child in a chair with castors, andgive them some heavy-ish objects tothrow. As they throw each object, thechair should move a little in the oppositedirection. By ascertaining the masses ofthe child and chair, and the massesthrown, it should be possible to predicthow far the chair will move (ignoringfriction). By keeping the child suppliedwith masses, see how far they cantravel. Using a heavier child, see whatdifference it makes to the distancetravelled. Perhaps a race could beorganised in a school hall, with onechild keeping the other supplied withmasses (bags filled with sand,perhaps), the target being a ‘planet atthe end of the track’. Adult supervisionobviously required.Materials: Computer chair or similar; anumber of equal masses.

2.2 Film pot rocketsActivity 21: Take a standard 35mm filmpot, and a quarter of an Alka-Seltzertablet. Put a little water in the pot, anddrop the Alka-Seltzer in. Quickly andfirmly close the lid, and place the filmpot upside down on a table. Then wait.Good fun if everyone does it at thesame time (tension can be built as

everyone queues to have their waterand tablet, and then has to ‘fuel up’simultaneously). They won’t all pop atthe same time, and some won’t go atall. Decorate with paper nosecones andfins.

You can vary the rate of reaction bygrinding up the tablet, thus increasingthe reacting surface area, or by addingvinegar. Baking powder and vinegarwork very well. Warm vinegar producesalmost instantaneous results.Materials: 35 mm film pots, vinegar,Alka-Seltzer (or similar), baking soda.

2.3 Vitamin bottle rocketsChoose the plastic bottles with the click-on lids. Same procedure as above, butuse a whole tablet and a little morewater. These really move, so watch out!

2.4 Stomp rocketsGood stomp rockets can be bought atany major toy retailer. However, theyare easy and cheap to make. Oneversion uses a 2-litre pop bottle andplastic pipe. A paper rocket is made byrolling an A4 sheet around the piping sothat it is a snug fit. The top is foldedover to seal the end and fins are added.This can all be found on the Scitoyssite, but briefly, you attach suitablysized plastic piping to a 2-litre popbottle, which acts as the reservoir.Stamping on the bottle sends a pulse ofcompressed air through the piping tothe rolled paper rocket, which thenshoots off the end. However, as stomprocket sets are relatively inexpensive,you may prefer to buy one.

A more expensive alternative is the TEPRocket factory. The full set comprises acompressed air cylinder, a launch box,a mandrel for rolling paper rockets,some nosecones, a glue gun and a diefor making new nosecones. The totalcost is around £135.00, but with no realrunning costs. However, I wouldrecommend that you buy the basicversion. It is a very good kit, but morelikely to be used regularly in asecondary school Science/Technologydepartment.

2.5 Water RocketsAgain, these are available commercially

from various sources. There is thevenerable ‘Rokit’, now marketed byTobar/Hawkin’s Bazaar. This is goodfun, and quite versatile, but you won’tgo more than about 100 feet with it. It isa good experimental vehicle, and youcan use most PET bottles, except the 3-litre, as the results are disappointing.Another version, manufactured in Asia,is sold by Opitec, and uses theJapanese quick release hose connectormethod. The kit has a heavy metalbase, and is robust and reliable. Again,it’s possible to make your own, andsites exist to help you. Typing in ‘WaterRockets’ on the browser brings up along list of ideas and sources.

2.6 Solid Fuel rocketsThese are real rockets, which use solidfuel (gunpowder), and an electricmethod of ignition. They are designed tobe recoverable, usually by parachute,and re-used, once the motor has beenreplaced.

Because they are real rockets, theirperformance is above the other types ofrocket, and altitudes of several hundredfeet are routine. The Estes companyused to produce educationalpublications covering many aspects ofmodel rocketry: altitude calculations,aerodynamic drag, mathematics andmore, demonstrating the extent ofresearch possible with these rockets.Because of their nature, they require acertain amount of space in which tooperate (normally a school field), andthere may be flying restrictions in yourarea, if you are near an airport or flyingclub. There is considerable skill inmatching the power of the rocket motorto the weight and drag factors of themodel rocket, so that you keep withinyour launch area. It is important tofollow the safety instructions containedwith each model. Ready to launchpacks are available, but they are notcheap. You should contact UKRA for fullinformation, and the address of yournearest model rocket group. (See theModel Rockets article in Voyage issue2).

See page 43 for the list of web sites.You can contact Mr Pilbeam at

[email protected]

FUTURE SPACE

22

Galactic Questby Jonathan Levy

were dashed.

But if you’re still at school today, youcould make that journey. If you reallywant to go into space you should havethe opportunity, in your lifetime, and itcould happen sooner than you think.

The space race that put man into orbitand ultimatelyon the Moon,essentiallyhitched a rideon expensiveandexpendablerockettechnology –ballisticmissilesdesigned tolob nuclearwarheadsthousands of

miles across the planet.

With a little more oomph they couldreach orbit to circle militarycommunications, positioning and spysatellites, as well as ‘dark’ weapons –playing dead until required. Thesetechnologies migrated to publictelecommunications, weather,navigation and Earth resource satellitesin due course, as well as carryinghuman payloads cramped into smallcapsules.

Missile technology often combinedhighly volatile liquid hydrogen andoxygen (LOX) at extremely coldtemperatures in insulated tubesconnected in several ‘stages’ (in some

of the earliermissiles it wasalcohol andliquid oxygen).The thrustgenerated asthese liquidsare ejectedthrough therocket nozzlesand ignitedhas to begreater thanthe weight of

the rocket to move it skywards.

On muti-stage rockets, sections arejettisoned after use so that the rocket isnot only lighter, but can also continue itsjourney on a smaller engine issuing lessthrust. If it reaches around 28,000 km/hour and an altitude of more than 160km it will have reached low earth orbit.

This is a balancing act where thepayload (satellite or manned capsule) isin free fall back towards the Earth, butits forward velocity means the path ittraces through the sky matches thecurvature of the Earth – it is foreverfalling. At relatively low altitude, frictionfrom traces of the Earth’s atmospherewill slow the spacecraft until it starts tospiral back down, unless it can fire itsrockets to boost its speed once again.

Similarly, by increasing its velocity, thespacecraft can reach a higher orbit orescape the earth’s gravity altogether. Itrequires a velocity in excess of 40,000km/hour to break free and head out intospace – whether to the Moon or beyond.

The Space Shuttle combines twopropulsion technologies. In addition tothe LOX in the huge external fuel tankwhich is fed through to its main engines,it has two solid rocket boosters (SRBs)strapped to either side. These contain achemical mixture the consistency of stiffrubber that ignites violently andpowerfully, providing the extra thrustneeded in the first couple of minutes offlight to get the vehicle off the ground.

Over six million pounds of thrust iscreated by the Shuttle’s main enginesand SRBs to lift two million kilos ofspacecraft, cargo and fuel off the launchpad. By the time it has jettisoned theSRBs and used up some of its LOXfuel, it is light enough, and moving fastenough, to use the main engine’smillion pounds of thrust to make it intoorbit.The huge external tank is thenseparated and the Shuttle uses itssmaller orbital manoeuvring system(OMS) rocket nozzles for any orbitalmanoeuvres, corrections and de-orbitburn. Even smaller reaction control

This section consists of a couple ofarticles looking at the same subjectfrom different angles. On these twopages, Jonathan Levy examinesNASA’s vision for its future spaceprogramme and the possibilities forprivate sector flights. On the next twopages, Steve Curtis suggests thatmaybe NASA’s future should stillinclude the Shuttle...

I was born into the space age in 1957 –a Sputnik baby. By the age of 12, as Iwatched the first men on the Moon, thepace of manned space travel seemedso fast I had no doubt that ArthurClarke’s vision of 2001 would befulfilled, if not surpassed, and everyonewould be able to make the journey intoEarth orbit or even further.

By now, 2005, I thought I would live inan era of extensive space tourism andregular manned exploration of the outerplanets and beyond. I even attempted tomake a reservation on the firstcommercial spaceliner, but the Londonoffice of Pan Am had no record of the‘Orion’ spaceship from the film 2001,and my hopes of being one of the first

NASA plans to return to the Moon by 2018.

The new NASA crew launch vehicle concept.

23

FUTURE SPACE

system (RCS) thrusters look after theattitude of the spacecraft.

The US Space Shuttle is to be ‘retired’by 2010. NASA hopes to fix theoutstanding problems with any largepieces of insulation foam on theexternal tank, to avoid them comingloose during launch and falling onto theShuttle orbiter where they coulddamage its heat resistant tiles, so it issafe for around 20 more importantflights over the next few years. NASAhopes to have the Shuttle flying againby next summer.

So why should you be optimistic atgetting into space in your life time? Wellfar from the public space programmefaltering, NASA has revealed plans toreplace the Space Shuttle, to return tothe Moon by 2020 and on to Mars afterthat. It will be recruiting astronauts, aswill many of its close partners such asthe European Space Agency, whichmay well develop its own mannedspacecraft capacity in due course.

The opportunities for scientists andpilots to get into space will develop andgrow. Plus, the Russians continue to

service the International Space Stationand have their own ambitions beyondEarth orbit, and China is now in themanned spaceflight ‘business’. In thiscentury, more human beings will makethe journey into space than ever before.

However, the numbers making thejourney with government agencies suchas NASA and ESA are likely to be asmall percentage of those flying oncommercial spaceships. There may bea much greater opportunity for you tojoin the crew or passengers on one ofthe new ‘private’ sector flights, the firstof which is likely to launch within thenext five years.

And while NASA’s ‘new’ space fleet willbe based on the same rocket elementsused on the Space Shuttle and evenApollo, totally new rocket technology isdestined to make private space travelsafe and affordable: no multi-milliondollar tickets for single seats such asthose occasionally bought on today’shigh risk missions, but hundreds, andultimately, thousands of seats a year inrelative safety.

Prices may still be quite expensive to

start with, at $200,000 each, but theycould soon fall significantly as massproduced spaceships and risingdemand for tickets produce theeconomies of scale that makespaceflight almost as accessible as airtravel today.

The new NASA launch system compared withSaturn V and Shuttle.

Conceptrendering of thenew NASAvehicle in Earthorbit

NASA has announced that it iscreating a 21st century explorationsystem that will be ‘affordable,reliable, versatile, and safe’. In justfive years, the new ship will begin toferry crew and supplies to theInternational Space Station. Plans callfor as many as six trips to the outposta year. In the meantime, roboticmissions will lay the groundwork forlunar exploration. In 2018, humans willreturn to the Moon and eventually, goto Mars

The centrepiece of this system is anew spacecraft designed to carry fourastronauts to and from the Moon,support up to six crewmembers onfuture missions to Mars, and delivercrew and supplies to the InternationalSpace Station.

The new crew vehicle will be shapedlike an Apollo capsule, but it will bethree times larger. The new spacecrafthas solar panels to provide power,and both the capsule and the lunarlander use liquid methane in theirengines. Why methane? NASA isthinking ahead, planning for a daywhen future astronauts can convertMartian atmospheric resources intomethane fuel.

The images on these pages showconcept creations of this new system.

Photo Credits: NASA/John Frassanitoand Associates

More information on publicly funded mannedspace flight on the following space agencyweb sites:

United States: www.exploration.nasa.govEurope: www.esa.int/esaHSRussia: www.roscosmos.ru/index.asp?Lang=ENGChina: www.cnsa.gov.cn

FUTURE SPACE

24

Where Next forSince the dawn of aviation history,the aerospace industry has been aplace for dreamers. Just about everyrocket engineer in the world has atleast one foot in the clouds and manyof them are guilty of letting theirimaginations get the better of them.To give you an idea, around the timeof the recent Star Wars Episode IIIrelease, an entire cohort of NASAengineers admitted that the 1977 StarWars Episode IV heavily influencedtheir careers.

This passion for the subject combinedwith several moments of phenomenal20th century progress left many with thefeeling that almost anything could beachieved. In the aerospace industry, if amiracle doesn’t happen every 5 years,it’s the next dark age.

Design DreamsAmerican rocket scientists are stillexpecting the funding levels of the1960s to return at any moment. Theywon’t. Today, NASA only receives afraction of the resources it receivedduring the ‘space race’. Similarly, theheady pace of change that saw menwalking on the Moon a mere 10 yearsafter the first manned space flight isunlikely to be repeated. Progress takestime, sustained funding and – in thecase of manned space flight – designengineers who are ready to sendastronauts to their deaths.

Rocket scientists also have a habit ofproposing fantastically ambitious spacecraft that later turn out to be unrealistic.The major space agencies routinelywaste hundreds of millions of dollarsdesigning machines that will never fly.Once they realise they’ve made amistake, they start on an entirely newdesign. By the time NASA startedcutting metal for the current spacestation they had already spent moremoney on funding a series of faileddesigns than the likely cost of actuallybuilding the station.

Lessons from Soyuz?One group of space scientists who mayhave had a more sensible approach arethe Russians. When the Russianslaunch a Soyuz manned space craft tothe International Space Station, they

use a rocket launcher which is only amodified version of the rocket that sentGagarin into orbit over 40 years ago! Inessence, they found a design thatworked in the 1950s, made theoccasional minor modification and keptbuilding it using a low wage workforce inthe former Soviet Union. It works. Onthe top of the rocket, the Soyuz capsulehas been steadily modified since its firstlaunch over 30 years ago. They’recurrently looking for European partners

to fund a next generation Soyuz calledthe ‘Klipper’, a machine capable ofcarrying six cosmonauts into orbit andback. Similarly, their much ridiculed MirSpace Station was a modified version ofthe earlier Salyut. It’s true that Mirsometimes had problems but it’s truealso that they usually overcame them.Had the Americans built a secondgeneration Skylab space station (whichthey knew how to build), they mighthave been far better served than

The two images on this page show the concept of a Shuttle-type launch systembut used only for cargo. This version of the Shuttle was known as Shuttle-C. by Steve Cutts

25

FUTURE SPACEthe Space Shuttlebuilding the entirely new InternationalSpace Station.

Which brings us back to the NASA andtheir latest proposal to phase out theSpace Shuttle and replace it with a nextgeneration machine. This may be amistake.

Not As Bad As They SayDon’t knock the Space Shuttle. If youlook at the individual elements of themachine, much of it is actually perfectlygood kit. Take the solid rocket boosters.In 114 launches, 228 boosters havesucceeded in over 99.5% of cases.Similarly, no external tank has everstructurally failed and even the muchderided shuttle heat shield hasprotected the crew from the heat of re-entry in over 99% of launches (onecatastrophic failure in 114 launches.)This is an incredible achievement. Priorto the shuttle no space craft had everre-entered the atmosphere more thanonce.

Problems? Well, the heat shieldrequires much heavier maintenancethan expected. The average number ofdamaged areas to the Shuttle heatshield is about 150 per launch. Thelatest Discovery flight recorded about25 although this was after an intensive

NASA’s recentproposals for their nextlaunch system are aninteresting evolution ofwhat has gone beforecombined with lessonslearned from Shuttle.Maybe the days offanciful and unrealisticdesigns are gone.

effort to cut the figure to zero. Thewhole machine is too complex andrelies on 1970s technology.

To be fair, NASA has succeeded inmaking several evolutionary advancesto the Space Shuttle since its very firstlaunch in 1981. Many of the insulatingtiles have been replaced by light weightsubstitutes and the computers havebeen massively upgraded. Replacingthe 1950s style instrument panel withflat screen has also helped to reducelaunch weight by several tonnes.Modifications to the external tank itselfhave made it smaller and considerablylighter. In short, the Shuttle is actuallymaking good progress.

Revise, not Replace?Bearing all of this in mind, where shouldwe go from here? Well, paradoxicallythey need a two pronged approach.Firstly they have to recognise both thelimits of their budget and those aspectsof the Shuttle that work well. A rocketship that tries to modify the existingdesign is far more realistic than anentirely new machine. Secondly theyneed an additional new machine forlaunching people into space.

Part of the problem with the Shuttle wasthat it attempted to combine a human

crew with a cargo on every launch. Arocket that explodes one in 50 missionsis entirely acceptable for cargopurposes, but would be unacceptablefor manned space flight. The extramoney you have to spend to reduce thefailure rate to less than 1% isphenomenal.

If NASA wants to go back to the Moonand on to Mars it needs a new rocketthat can send very heavy cargoes intoorbit at low cost. In parallel, a separatecategory of vehicle can be used for ahuman crew with all the attendantincreases in safety and rescuecapability.

Shuttle-Type Cargo VehicleFor over 20 years, engineers have beentalking about this cargo launchingmachine. It’s the ‘Shuttle-Derived HeavyLift Vehicle’. In essence, it uses all thecomponents of the current Shuttlelaunch vehicle, except the crewcompartment, the wings and thefuselage.

The Shuttle is replaced by anunmanned cylinder containing cargo forfuture space exploration. The cargo isthen strapped to the side of the externaltank which is equipped with the usualtwo solid rocket boosters and theShuttle engines are strappedunderneath the cargo pod. It may bepossible to recover the engines byparachute. Once enough cargo hasbeen launched into orbit, a second,more modern and safer rocket launchesa human crew to assemble the cargo inEarth orbit and proceed to the planets.If an individual cargo vessels blows upyou just have to build another one butthe amount of money you save inlowering your anxieties about launchingin the first place easily pays for this.

This ability to have pieces of space kityou’re sure you can rely on and don’tfeel the need to scrap is going to becentral to any attempt to go beyondEarth orbit and on to the Moon andMars. The Shuttle wasn’t a failure. Itwas a difficult stepping stone on thatroute and will probably serve as theinspiration for the next generation ofspace craft.

THE NIGHT SKY

26

4. Buying or GettingBy Dave Buttery, FRAS

This is the fourth in a series ofarticles designed to helpnewcomers enjoy the wonders ofour magnificent night sky.

In the last article, we looked typesof telescope mounts andeyepieces. In this, the final articleon telescopes, we are going to lookat the vast array of (oftenexpensive) accessories that areavailable, some of which are good,some a waste of money, and someare ‘must haves’.

There is a huge industry out thereproducing ‘essential’ accessoriesfor your telescope and stargazingenjoyment. Like most ‘essential’items, these are often bought aspresents, and like presents, areoften used a couple of times andthen neglected. Of course, thisproves they are in no sense‘essential’.

So lets try and sort some of thewheat from the chaff, although Imust stress this is my view ofthings. One person’s wheat is oftenanother’s chaff!

Torches for night vision

These are really important. Youdon’t want to be tripping up in thedark, but white light causes thepupils in your eyes to contract and,to stargaze well, you want yourpupils as dilated as possible. Thesolution is simply to use red lightfor your torch.

There is a wide and variedselection of red light torches on themarket, priced from a few poundsup to the £50 mark. All are verygood, and most use LEDs for theirlight source, but a cheaper (andjust as effective) method is torubber band some red sweetwrappers over the front of astandard pocket torch that youprobably already have at home. It

costs nothing apart from the priceof the sweets, and you get to enjoythose as well. Of course, if youhave recently won the Lottery youcould buy night vision goggles, butthese cost way over £1000.

Filters

Still, coloured filters can dramaticallyadd detail to planets (although theyare almost useless for anything else)and the new generation of lightpollution reduction filters, while quiteexpensive, do help cut through theurban orange glow (even if they doslightly colour your image). Withoutthem, you may be hard pressed tosee faint nebulas.

Solar filters are critical if you want toobserve the Sun. The newgeneration of Hydrogen Alpha lightfilters cost hundreds or thousands ofpounds, but solar film filters that fitover the front of the telescope arereasonably priced, and a cheaperalternative still is to buy someBaader solar film and make yourown filter to fit your scope orbinoculars.

WARNING: Solar observation isdangerous without the correctfilter, and safe with one. Do not useeyepiece filters, as even thesmallest hole or hairline crack in itwill expose your eye to the full forceof the telescopically magnified Sun,which will almost certainly result inpermanent eye damage. Any suchfault in a filter placed at thetelescope’s front will not seriouslyexpose you to this danger (althoughif you know it’s there, you shouldrepair it).

There are almost as many filters onthe market as there are stars in thesky, or at least, it can seem like that!Filters can be very useful, and areoften overlooked by casualobservers because good ones arequite pricey.

27

THE NIGHT SKYAccessoriesDew shields

exposures for all but the Moon.One cheapish way to get images isto use a webcam. There are loads ofwebsites dedicated to instructing youhow to do this, but you will needadditional ‘bits of kit’, as you need toadapt the webcam before it will worksuccessfully. It seems that thePhillips ToUcam is the webcam of

choice for the majority of Astrowebcamers.

Observatory Domes

This is probably every astronomer’sdream – an observatory dome intheir garden. These are a lotcheaper than you may think (the oneshown above costs under £2300from Pulsar optical [www.pulsar-optical.co.uk]), but do you need one?Is one a waste of time where youlive?

Well, if you live in an inner city, don’teven think about it, but if you live onthe edge of a city or in the country,have the space and extra cash, itmay be perfect for you. You willneed to get it wired up and heated abit, but it’s a secure place to storeyour equipment and a real talkingpoint at parties!

If you own a Schmidt Cassegrain orMaksutov scope, you will want to geta dew shield to prevent the formationof dew on the front glass element ofthe lens (they also work like acamera’s lens hood, and preventstray light from entering the scope).They are priced from a few poundsfor a simple flexible one as shownabove, to more expensive heatedvarieties. If you can’t afford even thelow cost ones, you can make yourown with a stiff sheet of black plasticVelcroed around the front of yourscope.

Cameras

Now I have to admit this is not myfield of expertise in any way, but I doknow the cost and time involved intaking astrophotographs.

I have to start by saying that greatpictures are within the capabilities ofanyone, if you take the time to learnhow to do it properly.Astrophotography is a specialisedarea, however, and CCD cameras(like the one shown on the right) costhundreds of pounds. They are veryspecialised pieces of kit, and theyneed a decent computer to createthe image after it’s been taken.

Simply trying to point a pocketcamera (digital or film) into thetelescope’s eyepiece, might (butusually doesn’t) work. You can buyspecialist mounting brackets to holdthe camera still, but even so youneed a camera that can take long

THE NIGHT SKY

28

Seriously, I would love one, but Ican’t justify the cost and my gardenis really too small for one. Andremember, there is more than thecost of the dome to consider. Youwill have to lay a concrete base andhave it wired up, and you mustcheck whether you need planningpermission for it as well.

There are portable ‘tent-like’observatories on the market for afew hundred pounds, but I have noexperience of these, although I havegazed at the stars from my own tentand found it very rewarding.

Miscellaneous kit

This is the stuff you would be most

likely to get for Christmas! Loadsand loads of ‘critical’, but probablyuseless items that you may or maynot use. Where do I start? Well, I’mnot going to mention much in theway of what’s out there, but insteadmention what I feel are useful items

to have.

Firstly, hand warmers and fingerlessgloves are really essential on thoselong winter nights, as is a snug fittingfur lined hat (those ‘Russian’ hatsare great). A very warm Duvet-stylejacket and thick thermal socks wouldalso be on my list of good ideas.

One thing you won’t need is araincoat, and if you need to knowwhy, then astronomy’s not for you.

Apart from these, a small campingtable to put your equipment, starmaps, coffee mug and flask on isalso useful and they cost only a fewpounds from any outdoor store.

So to conclude, think before you buyand ask yourself: Do I need it? Will Iuse it? Can I make it instead oradapt something I’ve already got tosuit my needs? The answers couldsave you a lot of time, money and

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THE NIGHT SKY

Dave Buttery is a Fellow of theRoyal Astronomical Society and amember of many Astronomical andEducational groups.

He is the senior partner in AURIGAAstronomy, an astronomicaleducation service for schools,which helps teachers with theastronomical components of theNational Curriculum via his mobileplanetarium ‘The Auriga StarDome’.

For further details on what Davecan offer your school, call

01909 531507 or visit AURIGAAstronomy’s website

www.auriga-astronomy.com

unnecessary clutter.

The Autumn Sky

This autumn we have twospectacular sites to see, and bothare ‘naked eye’ objects that you cansee easily.As October turns into November,Mars dominates the evening sky, adazzlingly bright orange, just to theright of Taurus and the Pleiadescluster.

And as Christmas arrives ‘a brightstar will be visible in the west’.Venus just before nightfall will bespectacular.

Don’t forget, also, that Orion and allthe great winter sky objects wediscussed back in part one of this

series (see Issue 2) will once againbe gracing our skies.

Until the next issue, when we’ll lookat books and star charts…ClearNights, and happy sky watching.

All images courtesy of:

Starizona:http://www.starizona.com

Meadewww.meade.com

Celestronwww.celestron.com

DID YOU KNOW ABOUT..?

30

THE PLANET URANUS

Just Dropping ByUranus has been visited by onlyone probe from Earth, Voyager 2 in1986. While it was there, Voyager 2discovered 11 of the planet’ssmaller, dark inner moons, and fournew rings. The images Voyager 2sent back made us assume thatUranus was a bland, boring planet,but recent Hubble Telescopeimages have shown that its bandsof cloud blow round rapidly. They’rejust hard to see.

What’s in a NameUranus is the seventh planet from theSun and the third largest (in diameter)after Jupiter and Saturn.

It was named after the Greek god ofthe heavens, the father of Saturn.

Planet GeorgeUranus was the first planet discovered by telescope,by William Herschel in 1781. He originally named‘Georgium Sidus’ (the Georgian Planet), after his royalpatron King George III. It was also, for a time, named‘Herschel’, after its discoverer. The name ‘Uranus’was first proposed by German astronomer JohannBode to conform with other classical mythologicalnames, but it wasn’t commonly used until about 1850.

Missed ItUranus was actually spotted severaltimes before Herschel’s discovery,but was assumed to be another star,not a planet. In 1690, John Flamsteednamed it as 34 Tauri.

Lazy PlanetOn most planets, the north pole points,roughly, north. Uranus, however, has anorth pole that points below where you’dexpect it’s equator to be. In other words,the planet actually rotates lying on itsside. This means that it’s north and southpoles face the Sun directly for 42 years(half a Uranian year) and get more energyfrom the Sun than the equator. Oddlythough, the planet is hotter at its equatorthan at its poles. Why this should be isnot yet known.

Dark RingsLike Saturn and the other gas giants in our Solar System, Uranushas rings. We have discovered 11 so far, but unlike those aroundSaturn, they are very dark. The rings were the first onesdiscovered after Saturn’s, by American astronomer James Eliot in1977. This was important as it proved that rings are common tolarge planets, not just to Saturn.

Blue RinseThe Planet’s atmosphere consists mostlyof hydrogen and helium, with traces ofmethane that give it its greeny-bluecolour. On a very clear night, Uranus cansometimes be seen in the sky with thenaked eye and it will show up fairly easilywith binoculars or a small telescope as ablue-green disk, if you know where tolook.

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GIANT WORDSEARCH - MARS - The Red Planet

T I T A N A P I O S T O C D E A E

H Y P E R I O N A P A B C C B D N

W B N B S O M L R U E E A K E N C

J J J E H C T O T C H R L M H A L

P A N U R A M X O K T O Y V T R H

R A N O M E D S E D L N P Q A I A

E O C U T G I T I A A W S H M M A

S G S H S I E D I G M D O A Z I P

X U E A A W R B I T A M L L L G O

O U D S L S U T E P A I D E M H R

S M M A O I S Q R O A N H I D H U

A B E D L M N I W P H P I R E A E

I R T Z V E I D R B O P C A R M E

T I I G O S C E W A T E L E S T O

R E S A M I M N D Q L N O R A H C

O L J U L I E T E S O B O H P B H

P D S Y H T E T K L S I N O P E J

Hidden in this grid are 40 of the moons that orbit some of the other planets in our solar system from Mars and beyond.When you’ve done the word search, why not see if you can find out which moons belong to which planet.

Words in the grid can run backwards, forwards, up, down and diagonally. Answers on Page 42/43.

Puzzle by Miranda Line

WORD LIST

AmaltheaArielAtlasCalypsoCarmeCharonDeimosDesdemonaEnceladusEuropa

GanymedeHimaliaHyperionIapetusJanusJulietLarissaLedaMetisMimas

MirandaNereidOberonOpheliaPanPhobosPhoebePortiaPrometheusPuck

RheaRosalindSinopeTelestoTethysThebeTitanTianiaTritonUmbriel

Who’s Who in Space

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Mark ShuttleworthFollowing the recent flight of thethird Space Flight Participant, GregOlsen, to the International SpaceStation, Voyage magazine presents a2004 interview with the second SFP,South African Mark Shuttleworth, tofind out about his $20 million flight.

The Mission

Mark Shuttleworth flew to ISS aboardthe Russian Soyuz TM34 spacecraft on25 April 2002. Flying with him wereRussian cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko,commander of the flight, and ItalianESA astronaut Roberto Vittori, the flightengineer. Mark had his own experimentprogramme planned for the flight.

Soyuz TM34 docked with ISS on 27April and remained there for theresident crew to use in an emergency.At the end of his flight, Mark and hiscolleagues came home in the olderSoyuz TM33 vehicle that had beenattached to the station for six months,landing on 4 May. Mark logged 9 days21 hours in space, and became the423rd person to get there.

Getting the Chance

Mark earned his fortune during the rapidexpansion of the Internet in the late1980s and 1990s and began to look fora new challenge. The one thing hewanted to do above all else was to fly inspace. The first space flight participant,Dennis Tito, had flown in 2001 and thishad opened up the possibility of morefare-paying passengers following suit.

Realising that he had to stand out fromthe crowd in order to get a flight, hepainstakingly negotiated his waythrough the bureaucratic jungle of theRussian Space Agency and realisedthat his best chance of flying lay in themedical tests and training that spaceexplorers undergo.

This is the least favourite part of spacetraining, but Mark decided thatvolunteering to undergo these medicaltests would be a different reason for himto fly in space. He negotiated a contract

with the Russian Institute of Medicaland Biological Problems to run thecomplete suite of cosmonaut candidatemedical tests, lasting three weeks.

But doing medical experiments was onlythe first step in getting into space. Hestill had to get a contract to fly, whichmeant another round of bureaucracy.Eventually, Mark got a training contractwith no guarantee of a flight at the endof it, but this was fine, because it meanthe would have as much training aspossible to prepare for the flightopportunity, which duly came.

Early Years

Mark was born in September 1973 inthe gold-mining town of Welkom inSouth Africa. He grew up in Cape Townand developeda fascinationwithtechnology atan early age.Mark takes upthe story:

MarkShuttleworth(MS): I grew upin South Africaand remembernearly settingthe house onfire onnumerousoccasions with

attempts at making small model rockets.I was a junior explosives modellingexpert from a young age - smokebombs, stink bombs and so on.

I was very fortunate to have greatscience teachers from an early age andthey encouraged me to pursue myinterest in all things that went bang andflash. I was fascinated with theexploration of space and rocketry andspent a lot of time learning about it. I gota lot of support from teachers, but Inever considered it as a career orpotential experience until much laterwhen I was in a position to be able toact on it.

Voyage: What’s your earliest memoryof the space programme?

MS: I remember the first launch of theShuttle. I didn’t see it on television, but Iremember all the excitement in thenews building up to it. I rememberreading up on it, trying to get as muchtechnical information on the Shuttle as Icould.

Voyage: Were you looking for a careerin science at the time?

MS: I was, very much. I believed that’swhat I would do and in fact I initiallysigned up to university to study science;physics, chemistry and maths, andswitched to business really only at thevery last minute. Throughout my

This is Mark’s ‘South African Mission Control’ team, his invaluable groundsupport unit throughout training and the mission. www.firstafricaninspace.com

33


business school training, I kept a verystrong interest in the sciences, just outof personal interest more than anythingelse. After university, I became drawninto the business world but also in avery academic scientific fashion in that Iwas interested in technology.

Voyage: Were you looking to run ordevelop your own business from thatearly age?

MS: Yes. It was always clear to me thatif I was going to go into business, then Iwanted to start my own company, andso while I was at university, I wasworking on different kinds of businessideas, mainly showing companies howto use the Internet, and those consultingprojects turned ultimately into thebusiness of consulting.

Science in Space

Voyage: How did you decide you woulddo educational things on your flight?

MS: I’d derived a lot of personal benefitfrom my interest in science and thatinterest was driven in large part by myinterest in space. So I wanted to try andbring some of that same fascination withspace and science and technology toschool kids in South Africa.

I suspected that having a personalconnection to space in the form ofsomeone from your country that wasabout to fly would really put space onthe map for school kids in South Africa,so I decided to fund an educationalprogramme in South Africa that would

capitalise onthat excitement.

Voyage: Didyou havechance to getinvolved withselecting theexperiments, orwere you toobusy trainingwith theRussians?

MS: I had a project management teamin South Africa and through them, sentletters to all of the universities, technicalcolleges and so on. We asked them tosubmit some experiments andexplained to them some of theconstraints under which thoseexperiments would have to operate.These included flight constraints,weight, robustness and safety, andtiming constraints - the very short timeavailable to run them. I set aside a goodbudget to cover those experiments andwe had over 30 proposals which,together with my team, I whittled downto four.

Voyage: And those four were?

MS: The most interesting one for mewas a stem cell and embryology

experiment. This was the first time thatstem cells had been flown in space,together with mouse and sheepembryos. In addition to that, we didexperiments on muscle development,specific kinds of muscle training,metabolism measurements and therelationship between heart rate andmetabolic function in zero-g, both basedon work that’s being done at theUniversity of Cape Town; and thenprotein crystallisation, working on someHIV Aids proteins and some humanimmune system proteins that wecrystallised in space.

Voyage: How did you interact with themain ISS crew for your experiments,because power and time is alwayslimited?

MS: The Russians had done a completeanalysis of where we would requirepower or time from the main crew, andthat was communicated to the maincrew in advance of our flight. They wereprepared for us with power points andworkspaces and so on set aside for us.We were also very fortunate in that themain crew had had their missionextended three times due to Shuttledelays, so we probably had a lot moreaccess to them than you would undernormal circumstances. They gave us alot of help.

These are the people with whom Mark shared his space flight experience.The back row is the ISS resident crew of (l-r) Carl Walz (NASA), YuriOnufriyenko (Russia) and Daniel Bursch (NASA). The front row is the Soyuzcrew of (l-r) Roberto Vittori (ESA), Yuri Gidzenko (Russia) and Mark. NASA

This is Mark undergoing zero-gtraining in a specially adaptedaircraft (see feature page 8).Putting the space suit on is anessential part of this training andonce you’ve done so, theinstructors like to spin you around.This doesn’t do your stomach anygood, so it’s just as well the visoron the helmet is closed.

You can see here how theinstructor is keeping himself inplace by hooking his foot throughthe red rope on the floor.

Talking of the floor, you’veusually only got about 30-40seconds to practice whatever it isyou’re training on before theaircraft has to come out of its dive.If you’re not on the floor before theend, you will be very quicklyafterwards

www.firstafricaninspace.com


34

Voyage: Did you have any interactionwith the people who designed theexperiments while you were up there?

MS: We had fairly regular conferencecalls, emails and so on. One big issuethat we ran into, for example, wasbubbles in the nutrients that I wasfeeding the stem cells and the embryos.Working with syringes, small amountsof nutrient bubbles in there areimpossible to get out, and because ofthe zero-g environment, we were gettingbubbles left right and centre. I wasfeeding these cells froth more thannutrient and so that required quite a lotof interaction with the ground crew, whohad to try and reproduce what washappening on the ground.

Living in Soyuz

Voyage: Let’s go on to life on Soyuz.You spend two days aboard Soyuzbefore you get to ISS. What do you do?

MS: After the excitement of launch, andthe immediate post-launch analysis ofthe vehicle – pressurisation tests,system checks and so on – you’re prettymuch done for hours, so you have along stretch once you’re up and steadywhere you don’t have much to do.That’s great for getting used to things.You’ve got space motion sickness todeal with, but it’s lovely at that stage ofthe flight to have time to look out of thewindow because you’re fairly limited inwhat you can and can’t do. Soyuz isperfectly comfortable with three peoplein it.

Voyage: How do you prepare your foodin such a small environment?

MS: You know, after the launch and allof that excitement, I remember Yuri(Gidzenko) being very clear about thefact that he was very hungry, so themoment we were clear of ouroperational activities, we set abouthauling out our first picnic. And it’sreally quite straightforward. The food isgenerally stored next to the mainconsole and the habitation module andit has to be packed in amongst other

stuff, so you pull out all the food andthen just keep it in one place where it’seasy to get to because over the next 36hours, one of the main things you’ll bedoing is eating.

Voyage: How do you heat the food up?

MS: You don’t. There’s canned foodcanned meats and so on, and freshjuices, but no warm food or drinks.

Voyage: How do you sleep in Soyuz?Do you sleep in your couches?

MS: Well, I guess that would depend onthe crew. We all slept in the habitationmodule and there was more thanenough space in that, even though itwas full to the brim with scientificequipment, because you’re working in3D as it were. You can sleep at anglesto one another. So Yuri slept across thehatch to the descent module andRoberto (Vittori) and I then slept sort ofsuspended in mid-air, at different anglesto one another.

On Station

Voyage: After Soyuz, there’s obviouslymuch more space on ISS, but there’salso much more going on. Did it feel‘busy’?

MS: ISS is very spacious, althoughthere are some areas used for storagewhere the passageways are a bit moreenclosed. But it’s not claustrophobic.Neither is the Soyuz actually, partlybecause after months of training in it, itfeels perfectly comfortable to be floatingaround in it. More so in space becauseagain you’ve got that extra dimension towork with; you’re not stuck to the floorand you can move around one another.

Voyage: One of your experimentsinvolved exercise. How did you copewith that, was it a challenge?

MS: No, it’s a lot of fun actually, onceyou figure out how to use theapparatus. It’s a different kind ofexercise because you don’t have the

Before any Russian mission is launched, it is traditional for the crew to layflowers in honour of Yuri Gagarin and the four cosmonauts who have losttheir lives during the space Russian space programme, Komarov, Volkov,Dobrovolsky and Patsayev. www.firstafricaninspace.com

This is Mark and his fellow crew memberstraining in the Soyuz simulator at the YuriGagarin Training Centre in Star City nearMoscow.

This view shows how closely packed the crewis wearing full suits, but once in space, there ismore room to move about. One place they cango is the habitation module, which is the bitwith all the labels on in this simulator.

www.firstafricaninspace.com

35


general problem of carrying your bodyaround with gravity. You’re generallyexercising only very specific muscles,depending on the precise routine thatyou’re doing. So it feels quite different,but a lot of fun at first. It’s also nice toget a bit of a stretch because up thereyou tend to feel as if you’ve been in bedall day because you’re not really usingyour muscles.

Voyage: ISS is supposed to be quitenoisy, with all the fans and equipmentworking. Were you disturbed by thenoise?

MS: No, actually, I was surprised. I’dheard about that and I was concernedabout it. I was surprised to find that thenoise level was perfectly tolerable. Iunderstand that they had put quite a lotof padding around certain pieces ofequipment, for example, before wearrived, so it may well have been a lotnoisier in the days before that.

Voyage: Earth view must have beenspectacular. What were your favouritethings to see, and did you see SouthAfrica?

MS: Oh yes. Seeing your home townfrom space is very emotional and a verymoving experience, so seeing CapeTown was amazing. A couple of thingsstruck me. Weather patterns arefantastic to observe from spacebecause you really see the weather andyou see it’s dynamic, not lines on a

chart. Looking atgeography from upthere is a thrillbecause you havea sense of howcountries andcontinents fittogether and areconnected. When ittakes you 15minutes to get fromNorth America toNorth Africa, yousuddenly realisehow close togetherwe all are andplaces that

seemed so far apart are so close. Yousee the world without borders, withoutboundaries and it really changes yourperspective. Seeing familiar landmarksfrom space is great – cities, rivers, theNile from space. Africa I foundparticularly beautiful, not just becauseI’m from there but because it hasincredible deserts and incrediblejungles. The Congo seemed to mericher and denser than ever. Just aremarkable place to see from space.

Voyage: How do you cope withpersonal hygiene, such as cleaningyour teeth and washing?

MS: Well, with the exercise that I wasdoing, you’d feel grotty if you didn’tclean yourself in some way, andcleaning your body was fairly easy withthe little towelettes that they give you. Iremember that in Star City that we’donly had the little packets, so I’d openedup everything and started cleaning

myself with a little one. Then YuriOnufriyenko came over, laughed at meand said ‘No, Mark.’ He opened upanother cupboard and they had the bigones. I’d been cleaning myself a patchat a time with these little Kleenextissues and they had the big ones onthe station. Once you figure that outthen keeping yourself clean is fairlystraightforward. Brushing your teeth is abit messy so you end up having toswallow the toothpaste, it’s just theeasiest way to do it.

Voyage: One last question. Whatwould you say to a student who isinterested in a career that might involvescience or technology?

MS: I’ve always been fascinated bypushing the limits of what’s possibleand the great thing about scientists andtechnologists is that they are constantlylooking at the future and to me that’s themost inspiring, most exciting job thatone can have. So if you are at allinclined to do that, then I would urgeyou to try and work that into your careerchoice somehow. That doesn’t meanthat you can’t, for example, studybusiness or work in management or inalmost in any field of human endeavour,but if you retain a fascination or a senseof wonder at what science can do, Ithink you’ll find that it challenges youand makes you forward-looking in a waythat other interests just don’t.

Voyage magazine would like to thankMark Shuttleworth for his valuable timeand for permission to use images from hiswebsite: www.firstafricaninspace.com

Floating around theInternational SpaceStation on the trip of alifetime. NASA

Mark had a full experiment programme to perform while in space. Thisglovebox was designed and built by the University of Stellenbosch, andpassed all of the Russian certification tests for the flight. Inside arespaces for the incubator (Australian) that kept the embryos and stemcells at a constant temperature. The third glove allowed a second personto assist with some of the more tricky operations in weightlessness. Theglovebox has compartments for clean and used syringes, needles andother items. www.firstafricaninspace.com

The International Space StationFrom Imagination to Reality - Vol. 2

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Yes - please send me _____ copy/copies ofThe International Space Station - Vol. 2CONTENTS

THE ISS RUSSIAN SEGMENT: RECENTDEVELOPMENTS AND FUTURE PROSPECTSBart Hendrickx

NASA SHUTTLE MISSIONS TO ISS (2002-2005)David J. Shayler

PHASE THREE OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THEINTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: ASSEMBLINGTHE BACKBONE OF THE STATIONRoelof Schuiling

ISS CREWINGBert Vis

THE EXPEDITION CREWS - LIFE IN ORBITNeville Kidger

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - ORBITALCONSIDERATIONS AND RELATED TOPICS,JANUARY 2002 - APRIL 2005Phillip Clark

ISS EVA LOG 1998-2005Philip Corneille

37

PHOTO COMPETITION - WHERE IS ITAnother in our where is it series. This is a view of one of the world’s great cities, a metropolis of 15 million people livingeither side of the strait that connects the two seas in the picture. Clues? The city where East meets West, and thecolour of the sea on the left should help.

LAST ISSUECongratulations to Mike Wilson for correctly

guessing that this image from issue 4 is Mount Etnain Sicily. Mike will receive an autographed photo of

Valeri Bykovsky and Velentina Tereshkova.

Remember, you can enter any of the competitions bypost or email, whichever you prefer. Please get the

permission of your parent, guardian or teacher if youare under 16.

THE PRIZEHugg-a-planet Earth.Over 600 places labelled on the Hugg-A-Planet, Earth. A real globe but soft.

Please mark your entry Photo Competition 5 and send to the address on page 2

38

WHERE TO GO Deep Skies: Spaceby Mat Irvine“If you ever plan to motor west…from

Chicago to LA…”, as the lyrics in thesong ‘Route 66’ go, it will take youinto many areas that will fascinateanyone with a passing interest inspace, astronomy and anything ‘outthere’.

For the route down through the USAthat takes in the states of New Mexico,Arizona, Nevada and California hassome of the most intriguing space sitesof the south-western US states.

Here you will find both radio and opticaltelescopes; space and missile launchsites, and the possible site of an extra-terrestrial landing way back in 1947!

Exactly why these areas attractedscientists and engineers is fairly easy toexplain. (One cannot be so sure of anyaliens, but let’s stick with what we knowat the moment...)

The whole area is at a fairly highelevation, with some mountain rangespassing 3000 metres. This is good foroptical telescopes that need good‘seeing’ (the ability to ‘look’ though whatis, after all, a thick layer of atmosphere).The higher up you are, the thinner theatmosphere above you.

It is also still fairly sparsely populated –and few people means few electronicdevices. Even a microwave ovenoperated in the wrong place can wrecka radio signal from space. It is alsogood to have few people around if youare launching things upwards – as thereis the high possibility that they will comedown again at some point.

Lowell and PlutoSo where to start? The area covered bythese states is vast and most of theseplaces are spread out over the wholearea. However, if we do stay near Route66, one place that is directly on thisfamous road is in the town of Flagstaff,in northern Arizona – the LowellObservatory. Perched on the hilloverlooking the town (and the road),Lowell is probably best known for beingthe place where the planet Pluto was

discovered in 1930.

But the observatory goes back to 1894when Percival Lowell founded theobservatory with 18" and 12" refractortelescopes. Within two years he hadinaugurated the 24" Clark Telescope,which still remains in use. However, this

was not the ‘scope used by ClydeTombaugh in 1930 to discover the ninthplanet of the Solar System. This was aspecially built 13" telescope, housed inits own observatory. Using a blinkcomparator – which you can still see,and look through, in the Observatory’smuseum – Tombaugh discovered a ‘dot’that appeared to move over successivenights – Pluto.

Big HoleWithin striking distance of Flagstaff,east on the I-40 towards Winslow, youpass through the small town of Winona,(after which actress Winona Rider issupposedly named), then Two Guns(this is cowboy country remember), andthen you reach what until relativelyrecently was thought to be the remainsof an extinct volcano. It isn’t – it’s theworld’s largest natural hole in theground – Meteor Crater.

50,000 years ago, (just yesterday inastronomical timescales), a meteorweighing several hundred thousand

Two of the telescopesat the LowellObservatory. On theleft is the 24-inchClark scope, firstused in 1894 and stillin use today. Above isthe 13-inch telescopethat Clyde Tombaughused to discoverPluto Mat Irvine

The walk towards thePluto DiscoveryTelescope at the LowellObservatory also takesyou on a walk throughthe Solar System,starting here with theSun.

Notice the amount oftrees in the area. This isquite common withoptical observatories asthey tend to stabilise theair surrounding thetelescopes. Mat Irvine

This is the walk up tothe Clark Telescopedome that houses the24-inch telescopeshown above. Thedome was lastmodified in 1960 whenits rotation method waschanged. It now runson 24 wheels and tyresthat were originallymade for 1954 Ford F-100 pick-up trucks!

Mat Irvine

39

WHERE TO GOSites of the SW States

tons, though only about 46 meters indiameter, hurtled through theatmosphere and hit what was until thena totally flat plain. The explosion (which,if there had been any seismometersaround, would have registered on all ofthem world-wide) produced a crater thatis 230 meters deep and 1230 metres indiameter, with the walls now standing46 meters above the surroundingcountryside. The walk round the rim isover 1.6 km.

Although the depth isn’t quite what itwas, (it’s now only around 170 metresdeep), as you climb up from the Visitors’Center to the top of the rim, there’s noway quite to prepare yourself for theview. You can’t even take the wholewidth in one look; you need to sweepyour eyes back and forth.

On the observation platform, the built-intelescopes show you close-up views ofwhere mining was attempted in theearly 20th Century, to dig out whatremained of the meteorite (it wasn’tfound, as it would have disintegrated).However, you can also see arepresentation of an astronaut standingin the centre, for Meteor Crater wasused by NASA for astronaut training.The Crater has also starred on the silverscreen – at least three Hollywoodmovies have featured the location –Damnation Alley, Meteor (perhaps nottoo surprisingly!) and possibly the mostfamous – Starman.

Mobile TelescopesIf we continue in our eastward direction,

we pass from Arizona into New Mexicoand, sited well away from what there isof civilisation’s technology on the Plainsof San Augustin, you will find 27 radiotelescope dishes spread over a verywide area. This is the Very Large Array,or simply the VLA, which is the world’slargest radio telescope site. It is at aheight of 2150 metres, where the air isclear, dry and still – almost as importantfor radio telescopes as optical ones –and the surrounding mountains blockstray radio signals.

The VLA is part of the National RadioAstronomy Observatory, which is basedat Greenbank, West Virginia, andincludes other radio telescopes atGreenbank and also at Kitt Peak, nearTucson in south Arizona. Greenbankhas the world’s largest fully steerabledish, the 92-metre, but the VLA canoperate as one single dish, 32 km indiameter.

This is because each individual dishcan literally be moved from a very tight

formation, called the ‘D’, to its largest,the ‘A’. In the D configuration, all thedishes are within 0.64 km of the centre,but spread out to the A, the outermostdish is 21 km away!

The individual antennae themselves arenot on wheels – that would be far tooimprecise when it comes to pointing thedish. Instead, each sits on a triangularbase, on three pillars. Then, when theyneed to be moved, one of two largetransporters, running on pairs of railwaytracks, literally picks up each antennaand moves it very slowly – as eachtelescope weighs 235 tons – to the nextrequired position. It then sets it down onthe relevant sets of pillars to a precisionwithin 6.5 mm. To reconfigure the wholetelescope can take up to two weeks.

There are actually 28 dishes on site, the28th being kept as a spare in the largehanger. All the antennae are identical,with 25 m diameter dishes standing 29m high. The UK’s MERLIN systembased at Jodrell Bank similarly usesseveral radio telescopes scatteredaround the country that can act ‘as one’,and the ones at Tabley, Pickmere andDarnhall are built to the same design asthe ones that make up the VLA.Of course, the VLA has featured in themovies – the most famous beingContact, based on the Carl Sagan noveland starring Jodi Foster.

ET?Not that far from the VLA – we aretalking American distances here – in asouth-easterly direction is the small

As you approachMeteor Crater, itisn’t really obviouswhat it is. It lookslike a line of lowhills - until youclimb up from theVisitors Center andsee it in its full glory

Mat Irvine

The telescopes thatview into MeteorCrater are all aimedat different pointsin the distance.Here, Mat Irvinelooks through oneaimed at a full-sizemodel of a NASAastronaut and USflag. Mat Irvine

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WHERE TO GO

town of Corona. However, this nameprobably doesn’t mean anything to mostpeople, as the ‘event’ that ‘possibly’happened near here in July 1947 hasbecome far more associated withanother town a further 120 km on –Roswell.

In fact, Corona is just one suggestedlocation that has gone into urban mythas the site of what has become theworld’s most infamous supposed crashlanding of a UFO and the recovery of itsalien occupants. Other sightings put itfar closer to Roswell, maybe within 35miles – assuming anything happened atall.

In fact, Roswell only really becameinvolved, and forever associated withthe ‘event’, as it was from here that thefirst policeman travelled out to wherethe reported ‘incident’ had happened afew days before. Remember, this was1947. There were certainly no cellularphones, and most outlying areas didn’teven have a standard ‘landline’ phone.Most roads were still dirt tracks, socommunications were hardly instant,and it sometimes took days for reportsto come in.

Even though this is the world’s mostwidely known – and reported –supposed ‘UFO event’, there are still

many unknowns – even after over half acentury. However, this has not stoppedmost of the town of Roswell beingturned over to this ‘event’. All this iscentred at The International UFOMuseum and Research Center, which ishoused in a converted cinema indowntown Roswell.

Here, in very well laid out and presenteddisplays, you can read all the reports ofwhat ‘may have happened’; gaze atphotos of crop-circles; and listen to arecording of the local radio station’s

news report that first gave out theinformation – until it was mysteriouslyhalted in mid-broadcast by ‘officials’.There are models and representationsof what the real object may have been –a ‘secret American Air Force device’,and there are many models anddrawings of what a more un-Earthlycraft could have looked like. In allthough, you make up you own mindwhat to believe.

Real RocketsHowever there is another aspect to

The dish in the pictureon the right is on theWestern Arm of thearray, which runs pastthe Visitors’ Center.Those in thebackground are on theNorthern Arm

Mat Irvine

This is the entrance to the Very Large Array on the Plains of San Augustin, west of the town ofSocorro in New Mexico. Usually, all 27 dishes work as one, but occasionally, one is taken out ofoperation for maintenance, like the 2nd dish from the right (above), which is not lined up with theothers.

To give you an idea of the size of these dishes, you can see Mat Irvine standing next to one of them.Note also the three concrete pillars it is standing on. These are precisely aligned for repositioningthe dishes. This is done using the giant transporters like the one you see in the picture below, nearthe 28th dish that is stored in the maintenance hangar. Mat Irvine

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WHERE TO GO

Roswell that is perhaps less widelyknown. At the other end of the town isthe Town Museum and Art Gallery,which houses exhibits on someone whowas certainly not unknown and alien –Robert H. Goddard.

Robert Goddard launched the world’sfirst liquid-fuelled rocket, in March 1926.Solid powered rockets – those like largefireworks – have been launched forcenturies, and they are certainlypowerful – the two boosters for theSpace Shuttle are solid fuelled. Overallthough, you get more power from liquidfuels (as used by the Space Shuttle’smain engine, fed from the ExternalTank), and it was with liquid fuels thatGoddard did most of his experiments.

The first flights were much further north– in Auburn, Massachusetts, near toClark University where Goddard taught.However, even in the 1920s, the place

When Robert H Goddard moved tothe Roswell area in the 1930s, itallowed him to construct muchlarger launch towers. Goddardhimself is on the far right of thispicture.

Smithsonian Institute

The town museum in Roswell houses arecreation of Robert Goddard’s workshop fromhis Roswell days. It features much of hisoriginal machinery, tools and equipment.

Mat Irvine

was becoming built-up and crowded,and there was the very real danger ofrockets coming down in his neighbours’back gardens.

So Goddard moved his operation southto the wide-open spaces of New Mexico– near the small town of Roswell. Here,he had far more freedom with hisexperiments and spent many yearsbuilding and firing bigger and biggerrockets into the clear blue skies. This iscelebrated in a special section of theTown Museum, with recreations of hisworkshops with the tools, machineryand the rockets themselves.

Someone Watching?But it does also bring in mind thequestion posed at the beginning of thispiece – why exactly did the ‘UFO event’of 1947 happen in this area? One mainreason – and again we are of courseassuming that something DID happen –

is that it was only twoyears since the world’sfirst atomic bomb test tookplace in 1945, at TrinitySite, which is not that faraway to the west of the

This is a reconstruction of thelocal radio station that firstannounced to the world that‘something had happened’ -before suddenly being takenoff the air... Mat Irvine

Roswell area. Anyone (anything?)watching our planet in 1945 couldhardly have missed the – to that date –biggest artificial explosion ever created.

Maybe they were also watching earlierin the 1930s when Goddard wasperforming his rocket experiments? Theculmination of all these events mayhave led ‘them’ to investigate further,but instead led to the ‘crash’. Again it’sall total speculation… but when you dogaze out across the New Mexican scrubland with its distinctive red soil, and withthe Sun going down behind the distanthills – well you could imagine virtuallyanything…

Space Site Web SitesLowell Observatory:www.Lowell.eduThe Very Large Array:www.vla.naro.eduMeteor Crater:www.meteorcrater.com andwww.barringercrater.comUFO Museum and Research Center:www.iufomrc.comRoswell Art Gallery & GoddardMuseum:www.roswellmuseum.org

You can see more pictures of theseSpace Sites - and many others - on MatIrvine’s web site:www.smallspace.demon.co.uk

SOLUTIONS

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not new Newton

site nine Einstein

lilo age Galileo

mad fleets Flamsteed

strong ram Armstrong

met ploy Ptolemy

rain gag Gagarin

all less Lassell

root Oort

hove skater Tereshkova

CROSSWORD

Front Cover: NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, the pilot for the next Shuttle mission, STS-121, is seen in the training version of aspace walking suit, called the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU). He has just submerged in the water tank in Houston. There arescuba divers in the water already to assist him. You can read about water tank training in our feature on page 8.

Back Cover: Soyuz TMA5 on its way to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in October 2004. This flightwould carry the Expedition 10 crew to stay on ISS: Leroy Chiao and Salizhan Sharipov

COVER PICTURES

B I G B A N G

A A S

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A A A O

A X I S O R I O N

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GIANT WORD SEARCH PAGE 31

T I T A N A P I O S T O C D E A E

H Y P E R I O N A P A B C C B D N

W B N B S O M L R U E E A K E N C

J J J E H C T O T C H R L M H A L

P A N U R A M X O K T O Y V T R H

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E O C U T G I T I A A W S H M M A

S G S H S I E D I G M D O A Z I P

X U E A A W R B I T A M L L L G O

O U D S L S U T E P A I D E M H R

S M M A O I S Q R O A N H I D H U

A B E D L M N I W P H P I R E A E

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O L J U L I E T E S O B O H P B H

P D S Y H T E T K L S I N O P E J

Mr Pilbeam Websites (See page 18)Please note that we have no control over these websites. This list is for information only.

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpowerfront.shtmlhttp://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/toys/toys.htmhttp://www.exploratorium.edu/snackshttp://amasci.com/unew.htmlhttp://scitoys.comwww.telescope.org (Bradford Robotic Telescope)http://www.antigravityresearch.com Advanced water rockets manufacturer in the USA– quite inexpensive, as postage is included in the price.http://science.howstuffworks.comhttp://www.hightechscience.org/activities.htmhttp://www.madsci.org/http://www.spartechsoftware.com/reeko/http://www.nasa.gov/home/http://www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/astroeng.html (astronomy, space research, space flight, meteorology and earth sciences. )http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~kmcclary/ORRERY/index.html (Solar System simulator)http://www.shatters.net/celestia/: (very good free planetarium program)http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kidshttp://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf4-1.html (basics of spaceflight)http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtools/articlearchives/space/planets.htm. Very convenient collection of essential facts on the planets.http://www.ukra.org.uk The central organisation for model rocketry in the UKhttp://www.opitec.co.uk For the Asian-made water rocket kit, and other very useful projects.

RE-ENTRY: A look back at significant moments in space history

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Thirty years ago, in July 1975, the twogreat superpowers of the Cold Warera, America and the Soviet Union,put aside their differences to fly thefirst ever international mission inspace.

The mission was called, in the West,The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, orASTP, and featured the joint flight oftwo Soviet cosmonauts on Soyuz 19and three American astronauts on thelast-ever Apollo, Apollo 18.

The Soviet crew consisted of AlekseyLeonov, who ten years earlier had beenthe first person to walk in space, andValeriy Kubasov, who had flown aboardSoyuz 6 in the first ever three-spacecraft flight, with Soyuz 7 and 8.

The American crew of three were TomStafford, who flew twice in Gemini andcommanded Apollo 10, the last dressrehearsal before the first Moon landing;Vance Brand, making his first of fourflights after several back-upassignments; and Deke Slayton, theonly one of the Original 7 Mercuryastronauts who had not made a spaceflight having been grounded for medicalreasons.

The Soyuz spacecraft launched first on15 July 1975, followed just over 7 hourslater by the Apollo. After two days ofmanoeuvring and closing up to each

COLD WAR COLLEAGUES

other, the two spacecraft joinedtogether on 17 July.

For the next 44 hours, the twospacecraft of these powerful rivalsremained joined, with the crewsspending time in each other’sspacecraft and conducting a series ofjoint experiments, operations andceremonies, including the historic firsthandshake in space between the twonations.

The two spacecraft finally separated on19 July, with the Soyuz landingsuccessfully in Soviet territory on 21

July. The Apollo splashed down in thePacific Ocean near Hawaii on 25 July.

This was the first of what was hopedwould be a long programme ofcooperation between the two nations,and although it would be another 19years before they would fly in spacetogether again (for political reasons),the two space agencies continued towork together and exchangeinformation. The crews had spent twoyears training together in each other’scountries, pioneering a process that wenow take for granted with ISS.

Narrow EscapeThe two cosmonauts on Soyuz 19, Leonov and Kubasov,were scheduled to fly an earlier mission together, alongwith Pyotr Kolodin, on Soyuz 11 in 1971. But a few daysbefore the launch, Kubasov fell ill and the whole crew wasreplaced by their back-ups, Dobrovolsky, Volkov andPatsayev.

Sadly, after a successful flight to the Salyut space station, thiscrew was killed during re-entry when their spacecraft’s airleaked out of a faulty valve. They were not wearing spacesuits.

Mercury is CompleteDeke Slayton was selected as one of the first seven Americanastronauts in 1959, but he was prevented from flying in theMercury programme due to a heart condition. Instead, hebecame Director of Flight Crew Operations, responsible forastronaut office activities and with a key role in deciding whowould fly on which mission in the Gemini and Apolloprogrammes.

In 1972, Slayton was medically cleared for space flight andflew his only mission on ASTP, thus ensuring that every one ofthe original seven had flown at least once.

1

WHERE TO GOThis map of the UK is going to build into a guide to all the places that you can go to experience space and sciencedisplays, shows or interactive days out. It only has a few entries at the moment, so we’d like your help to fill it up. Ifyou or your school have been to a science centre near you, tell us about it and we’ll add it to the map.

If you are a space or science centre, we want to let people know you are there, so send us some details about yourcentre to let schools and students know what you do. We will be featuring different centres in future issues.

Aberdeen: Satrosphere01224 640340 www.satrosphere.net

Edinburgh: Royal Observatory0131 668 8405 www.roe.ac.uk/vc

Newcastle: Discovery Museum0121 232 6789 www.twmuseums.org.uk/discovery

Halifax: Eureka! the Museum for Children01422 330 069 www.eureka.org.uk

Leicester: National Space Centre0870 607 7223 www.spacecentre.co.uk

Norwich: Inspire01603 612612

www.science-project.org/inspire

Hailsham: ObservatoryScience Centre 01323 832731www.the-observatory.org

London: London Planetarium0870 400 3010 www.london-planetarium.comLondon: Royal Greenwich Observatory020 8858 4422 www.rog.nmm.ac.ukLondon: Science Museum0870 870 4868 www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

Weymouth: Discovery01305 789 007

www.discoverdiscovery.co.uk

Bristol: At-Bristol0845 345 1235 www.at-bristol.org.uk

Glasgow: Glasgow Science Centre0141 420 5000 www.gsc.org.uk

Cardiff: Techniquest02920 475 475 www.techniquest.org

Oxford: Curioxity01865 247004 www.oxtrust.org.uk/curioxity

Birmingham:Thinktank at Millennium Point0121 202 2222 www.thinktank.ac

Macclesfield: Jodrell Bank01477 571 339 www.jb.man.ac.uk/scicen

Armagh: Armagh Planetarium028 3752 3689wwwarmaghplanet.com

Cornwall: Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station0800 679593 www.goonhilly.bt.com

ISSUE 5 November 2005 £2.50 VOYAGE

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Transcript of ISSUE 5 November 2005 £2.50 VOYAGE