AirSpaceMag.com

Ranger 9's view of Alphonsus, before the spacecraft went splat

Now that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is enroute to the moon (it arrives Tuesday) we might ask where it will point its high-resolution cameras when observations get underway. In fact, scientists have been thinking about that for years; last week they met in Tempe, Arizona, to discuss LRO targeting strategies on the eve of launch.

NASA’s Constellation office, which wants LRO’s maps and pictures to help plan the next lunar landing, had worked up a list of 50 targets—the kinds of places future astronauts might visit, if not an actual list of candidate landing sites. The list was mostly assembled from past studies, and took into account things like scientific interest, ease of access, and whether the location had native resources the explorers could use for fuel or supplies.

NASA then asked a panel of outside scientific experts, the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), to review the list and see if it made sense. After a bit of shuffling and rearranging, the LEAG came up with their own list of 50 interesting targets on the moon. LRO’s target list will presumably look a lot like this one.

At the top of the list is a large crater called Alphonsus, which has been a favored location since the 1960s, when NASA considered it as an alternate site for one of the later Apollo landings. It’s also where the unmanned Ranger 9 satellite impacted in 1965.

Speaking of impacts, have a look at this sequence of Kaguya’s final images before it hit the moon on June 10. Click on the arrows to advance the view.

Earhart in 1928 (NASM Photo SI-81-1431A)

Nowadays, Amelia Earhart is remembered for her last, lost flight. But in her time, she was best known as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, an adventure that began on this day in 1928.

Earhart wasn’t the pilot, but a passenger. In the months after Lindbergh-mania hit America, publisher George Putnam, who eventually became Earhart’s husband, went looking for a woman to accompany two male pilots, Wilmer Stultz and Louis “Slim” Gordon, on a transatlantic flight. The trip’s sponsor was a wealthy aviation buff, Amy Guest, who originally had contemplated making the trip herself. Instead she hired the 29-year-old Earhart—an avid if mostly unknown pilot with a day job as a social worker in Boston.

Stultz, Gordon, and Earhart took off from Newfoundland in a Fokker F7 on June 17, and landed in Wales after “20 hours and 40 minutes” (the title of her book about the flight, published that same year). Earhart was instantly famous, toasted by royalty, honored with a ticker-tape parade, but never boastful. Downplaying her limited role in the flight, she sent a note to President Calvin Coolidge saying, “SUCCESS ENTIRELY DUE GREAT SKILL OF MR. STULTZ.”

Four years later she had all the glory to herself, becoming the first woman—and only the second person—to fly solo across the Atlantic.

The most important review of NASA space policy since the Columbia accident investigation kicks off today with its first public hearing. Watch it live on NASA Television.

Cassidy: History awaits

Next month, when space shuttle Endeavour arrives in orbit to begin its 16-day space station construction mission (Note: The launch has been postponed to July 11), Chris Cassidy might feel more than the usual satisfaction. On his first shuttle flight, the former Navy SEAL, who wasn’t even born when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, will become the 500th person in space.

The honor is due less to Cassidy’s unquestioned worthiness than to where he’ll be sitting. As of today, 498 people have been to space. When Endeavour blasts off, four people will be on the upstairs flight deck: Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Doug Hurley, and (sitting behind them) Cassidy and Canadian astronaut Julie Payette. Polansky and Payette both have flown on the shuttle before. That makes Hurley (who’ll be sitting upfront) #499, and Cassidy #500. I suppose we could quibble about who’ll really be “first,” since the shuttle arrives in orbit upside down, there will be other first-time astronauts downstairs (now “upstairs”?), and everyone gets there at pretty much the same time anyway. But let’s not. It’s Cassidy, according to NASA. And although agency spokesman Kyle Herring doesn’t know what, if anything, the astronauts might do to mark it, “the crew is aware of the milestone.”

It’s always fascinating to look at the table of space demographics maintained by veteran CBS News space correspondent Bill Harwood. To get to the current count of 498, he applied certain ground rules. Anyone who has flown above 100 kilometers (62 miles, the generally accepted definition of “space”) makes the list. So you’ll find Joe Walker, who flew the X-15 to 354,200 feet (107.96 km) on August 22, 1963. And you’ll find Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie, who took SpaceShipOne above 100 km in 2004.

Not every list maker is so generous. The authors of the German Spacefacts website put the current tally at 495, since they only count people who have reached orbit. No Walker, no Binnie or Melvill. Alan Shepard doesn’t even make the list until #48, when he goes to the moon on Apollo 14.

Two things strike me from looking at these lists. One is that it took 20 years from Yuri Gagarin’s first flight in 1961 before the 100th person reached space. That same year, 1981, the space shuttle started ferrying large groups into orbit. Once the shuttle retires, the numbers will drop again, unless space tourism really kicks in.

The other thing I notice about these demographics is the dominance of Russian cosmonauts when it comes to total time spent in space. The 19 most experienced space travelers are Russian. Leading the pack is Sergei Krikalev, who has spent 803 days of his life—more than two years—in orbit. So even though NASA has a big lead in the number of people launched, it’s the Russians who really have the hang time.

Next stop the moon

Despite what you’ve read, NASA doesn’t really have a moon program. Not yet. But it will as of next Thursday. That’s the day the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is scheduled to launch on a year-long (at least) mission to send back our best pictures of the moon since astronauts stopped visiting there a generation ago.

In many ways, the images will be better. This time, we’ll get global coverage in multiple wavelengths, along with far more data on the moon’s physical and chemical properties than we’ve ever had. LRO’s most detailed pictures will show objects on the surface that are human in scale, including the Apollo landers left behind in the 1970s.

It’s been five years since NASA announced its return to the moon. Since then, we’ve gotten mostly budget wrangling, schedule slips, and arguments about which rocket is best. Okay, that’s a little harsh. There has also been real progress on the Orion space capsule and a hundred other systems, including a test flight of Ares rocket hardware scheduled for this summer. But personally, I’m ready for some actual lunar exploration to remind us what this is all about.

Go, LRO! Launch is set for 5:12 p.m Eastern time on June 18, from Cape Canaveral. (Note: the launch was originally scheduled for June 17).