AirSpaceMag.com

The Falcon 9 launches Dragon to the space station on Tuesday.

Driving through the NASA Kennedy Space Center gate last Saturday for the first attempt at launching SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, I noted the light traffic compared to the bumper-to-bumper scenes of the past. “Man, this ain’t no shuttle launch,” I said to the guard at the gate. “What shuttle?” he answered. “I was laid off a year ago.”

He was smiling, but not kidding. At Cape Canaveral, many are still resentful about the end of the shuttle program, or the lack of something big enough to replace it. And there’s a bit of envy directed at the young upstarts from California.

Robert Pearlman of collectSPACE got it right with his photo of today’s Falcon launch and a shuttle mockup. We’re seeing a historic passing of the baton in the space business.

The giant shuttle launch pads and assembly buildings now sitting silent and empty at the Cape are a monument to human ingenuity, but their day is over. Whether SpaceX will ultimately succeed, technically or economically, remains to be seen. They may not even get through this week without a major setback. And the company payroll of 1,860 people wouldn’t make a dent in the shuttle workforce.

Still, the numbers should grow. Elon Musk certainly believes they will. He talks about helping to set up communities on Mars, which is more than NASA dares to discuss these days. Musk has been known to bad mouth the aerospace establishment, but the SpaceX founder is more tempered in his comments lately, and humbler too (which must be hard when you’re called the Chief Designer and are treated like a rock star). He’s quick to thank NASA for his company’s success, as well he should.  The young company and the middle-aged space agency are on this mission (space station resupply) together, and SpaceX benefits daily from NASA’s decades of operational experience, not to mention paying contracts.

SpaceX-bashers who complain that the company is not “truly commercial” raise an irrelevant point. Plenty of American businesses are subsidized or otherwise propped up by the government. And it’s not like taxpayers handed SpaceX a gift. For a modest (by NASA standards) technology investment of $381 million, the agency has incubated a business that everyone agrees is critical to operating the space station. Dragon cargo service will cost less than other options, and come online faster. What’s the down side?

If space travel has a future as a large-scale enterprise, companies like SpaceX are now creating it. Not all the people who worked on the shuttle will get a chance to work on the New Thing, which is a shame, because they did good work. But their teenage children might.

Swanson's frozen meals first appeared in 1954. Hint: Placing the TV dinner in a decorative basket is not going to help.

While most people think of Swanson’s when they think of frozen dinners, the idea originated with Maxson Food Systems, Inc. New York inventor William Maxson wasn’t thinking of bachelors or busy working moms, though; he was thinking of airline passengers. As the New York Times reported on September 19, 1946, Maxson’s commercially marketed “Strato Meal” was “the same thing as Sky Plate, 500,000 of which have been served all over the world on planes of the Naval Air Transport Service and to passengers of Pan American Airways.” The Strato Meal, according to the Times, was a complete dinner-on-a-plate that included “a single serving of meat and vegetable…arranged on a tri-partitioned, paper-fiber container.”

The New Yorker ran a profile on Maxson in August 1945: He “has been a grandfather for five months, closely resembles Henry VIII, and is left-handed.” The article went on to mention Maxson’s other inventions, which included a multiple machine-gun mount used by the Army, and “an aerial-navigation instrument too complicated to describe in these pages.”

Ready to eat after 15 minutes in Maxson's specially designed oven. Originally appeared in the New York Times, April 11, 1945.

The original Sky Plates were “defrozen” in something called “Maxson’s Whirlwind,” which used a 24-volt D.C. motor, standard in aircraft of the time. The unit could heat six plates, although Maxson had created a device that could heat 120 at a time for a cargo ship for the War Shipping Administration.

The New Yorker article noted that Maxson got the idea of frozen dinners when he grew a surplus of cauliflower. “He cooked and froze a little (for some reason) and upon tasting it a year later (for some reason) found that it was delicious. Now he never touches fresh food at home except for an occasional salad. His dinner guests are taken into his freezer and allowed to pick out just what they feel they’d like; one may take egg foo-young, another oyster stew, another curried chicken, and so on. None of this nonsense of everybody at the table eating the same thing.”

The Dreamliner during its stopover in DC last week. (Photo: Roger Mola)

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner tour made a whistle-stop at Washington National Airport (DCA) last week, hoping to bring the media under its spell.

I liked the cup holders.

Sure, the Dreamliner may promise fuel savings from a light but strong hull made of carbon fiber. And its passengers may savor its small luxuries, which range from livelier air in the cabin, to ceilings that invite you to stand tall even in the toilet. Slide your finger over the control panel under a passenger window and within 60 seconds it darkens from sunlight to a drowsy dusk. The 787 could certainly lower the pain of crossing an ocean in Economy.

Yet it all pales in comparison to the cup holders, and I’m not the only one who’s distracted. When the 787 toured the world last summer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was equally entranced.

The idea behind the gadgets is not new, or not entirely. Cup holders are ubiquitous, from the minivans carting people to the airport to the very luggage they wheel into the cabin. On airliners, the concept of a cup holder operating independently from its tray table has been refined for a decade on non-U.S. airliners.

The novelty in the Dreamliner, at least for the style of passenger seat selected by its launch customer All Nippon Airways (ANA), is that the cup holders spin. Here, see for yourself:

You might argue that most airline coffee should be dumped intentionally. But when spills  happen accidentally due to in-flight turbulence, you will appreciate this Dreamliner amenity. Its cup holder lowers into place independent of the tray table, making the table useful for tasks other than holding your drink. In addition, the center ring spins like a gyro on pivot points, so that it rolls with the airplane in most attitudes, including your own.

Dreamliner pilots are in a better position to know when spills might happen, which may explain why they get standard drink holders in the cockpit. Federal Aviation Regulations allow the crew to have food and drink in the cockpit so long as care is taken. The FAA apparently missed the 1964 film Fate is the Hunter, in which spilled coffee shorts critical instruments and leads to a devastating crash. Last year a United Airlines pilot splashed coffee on the radio system, and in the ensuing confusion accidentally entered the code for a hijacked airplane, forcing a diversion.

Not that the cup holders in the 787 passenger cabin lack rigorous test. Its plastic construction may not equal the carbon fiber in the airliner’s hull, but it meets standards for impact and even for fire resistance (Code of Federal Regulations, Flammability of Polymer Composites (14 CFR 25.853).

Time will prove, though, whether it can withstand the passenger who uses the ring as a handhold while stepping over his seatmate on the way to the stand-tall toilet. Cup holders may survive the first delicate tug or two, but not the brutal yank as he trips over the fold-down footrest. Which, at first glance, also seemed like a dreamy idea.

Painting of Titanic sinking from the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo.

Admit it: You thought text messaging began with the advent of mobile phones. Not so, claims maritime historian John Maxtone-Graham in his new book, Titanic Tragedy: A New Look at the Lost Liner. Maxtone-Graham writes:

Years before cell phones, Marconi men [shipboard telegraphers] were the first texters: OM or OB (old man or old boy) was a commonly transmitted preliminary…. They employed a host of other time-saving shortcuts. STBI meant standby, GE and GN, respectively, “good evening” and “good night.” Some abbreviations were culled from other languages: C signaled “yes.” DE, doubtless pinched from the French, meant “from.” N was “no,” “you” became U, and R was “are.” The word “message” was shortened to MSG, “traffic” to TFC. “Best regards” was conveyed enigmatically by the number 73, akin to later CB enthusiasts’ 10-4. Later, when female operators were recruited, “love and kisses” was signified by 88. Disparagements had their own coded pejorative: LID branded an inept telegrapher as a “poor operator,” QRL meant “keep quiet, I’m busy,” and GTH a pithier “go to hell.” The abrupt torrent GTHOMQRL said it all: “Go to hell, old man, I’m busy.” A gentler sign-off might be TUOMGN: “Thank you, old man, good night.”

The AH-64 Apache Longbow attack helicopter. Courtesy Boeing.

And what has this got to do with aviation? Modern military pilots text one another, even in the middle of battle. As Ed Macy explains in Apache, crews use a secure text messaging system consisting of four lines of text and 176 character spaces. Macy and his fellow Apache pilots would often text one another in order to minimize the chatter on the Apache helicopter network, giving updates, for instance, on their remaining weaponry. A pilot might send the message: 40*30MM, 0*HEISAP, 8*FLECH, 0*HELLF. (Translation: The Apache was down to 40 30-millimeter cannon rounds, was out of High Explosive Incendiary Semi-Armour Piercing rockets, had 8 remaining Flechette rockets, and no more Hellfire laser-guided missiles.)

What’s next? NakedSecurity reported in February that the U.S. military is in line to get Smartphones cleared for secret dispatches. “The United States,” reports Lisa Vaas, “which currently forbids government workers or soldiers to use smartphones to send classified messages, is preparing a modified version of Google’s Android operating system that will meet its security certifications…. While pinpointing fellow infantrymen would be a boon, the military has to ensure that soldiers aren’t simultaneously broadcasting their own GPS coordinates to enemy combatants. Weather apps, for example, automatically transmit a phone’s GPS coordinates in order to deliver a local forecast.”

From the 2011 Team America Rocketry Challenge

These kids yawn at your typical roof egg-dropping challenge. Tomorrow, 100 teams will compete in the Team America Rocketry Challenge. The teams are made of three to ten middle and high school students, who have already bested hundreds of other teams from around the country to make it to the D.C.-area competition, where they’ll send handmade rockets into the sky for top-notch prizes.

The Challenge started in 2002 as a celebration of the centennial of aviation, but the response and support was so big, it’s continued annually ever since. The kids register in the fall and spend all year with a teacher-supervisor and a mentor from the National Association of Rocketry to learn the math and physics required to blast up to the required altitude (this year it’s 800 feet), while carrying two raw eggs safely up and back down to Earth.

The top ten teams split $60,000 in cash and scholarships, and are given opportunities with NASA’s Student Launch Initiative and trips to international air shows with member companies from the Challenge’s sponsor, the Aerospace Industries Association.

If you’re in the D.C. area, you can head over to see the teams compete tomorrow during an event that’s part celebration of science, engineering, and nerdery (people have been known to dress up in costume), and part introduction to the competitive world of the aerospace industry. The “Final Flyoff” happens in the Great Meadow at 5089 Old Tavern Road, The Plains, Virginia, just about an hour drive from Washington, D.C. Bring a picnic and watch the launches throughout the day, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. In between, wander around the exhibition area that will feature aerospace company displays, mini-rocket demos and contests, and college representative to talk about their science and engineering majors. Then see the Rocketry Challenge winners, and very likely the future leaders of the aerospace industry, crowned at 5 p.m.