AirSpaceMag.com

Sea Shadow in San Francisco Bay in 1993 (U.S. Navy photo by George F. Champagne)

Caveat emptor for propeller-heads: This Lockheed Martin ship is not of the winged variety. And the U.S. government has been trying to get rid of it for years.

In the 1980s, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the U.S. Navy, and Lockheed Martin outfitted a twin-hull surface ship with the latest in marine and stealth technology. Sea Shadow had originally been built in the Hughes Mining Barge; it was designed, along with Hughes’ Glomar Explorer, to retrieve the Soviet ballistic missile submarine, K-129, which sank in 1968.

After a partially successful retrieval, the barge was towed to Lockheed Martin’s Redwood City site in California, where the re-outfitting commenced in 1982. After night tests off the Santa Cruz Islands in the late 1980s, the $50 million ship went public in 1993. Testing continued through 1999, with the barge and ship docked in San Diego; in 2006, both went into Navy storage. The radical design of  Sea Shadow — its angular shape, like the panels on Lockheed’s F-117 stealth fighter, rendered it nearly invisible to radar — inspired a lookalike in the 1997 James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies.

The General Services Administration auction site is taking bids on Sea Shadow through 5:00 Central Time on May 4 (the bid as of late Friday morning was $299,085). You won’t be able to use it for transportation, however. According to the GSA, “The ex-Sea Shadow shall be disposed of by completely dismantling and scrapping within the U.S.A. Dismantling is defined as reducing the property such as it has no value except for its basic material content.”

Why aren't we getting DHL packages like this? Three racehorses relax in their open pen as they await loading. Courtesy Horse America, Inc.

This Saturday is the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby, also known as “the most exciting two minutes in sports.” Sure, early favorites Bodemeister, Gemologist, and Union Rags are prepared to give their all on the one-and-a-quarter-mile track. But how do they get to Churchill Downs in the first place?

Many of them fly to Louisville on all-horse charters. “Equine shipping is big business,” says Andrea Branchini, manager of Horse America, Inc., who has shipped horses to domestic and international locations for more than 25 years.

“You can ship one horse by itself,” he continues, “but usually you try to minimize the cost to the owner by having shares. Horses can travel on regular cargo services on scheduled service carriers, or you can do an all-horses charter, a flight with only horses.”

Author Susan Nusser describes the scene in her new book Kentucky Derby Dreams: The Making of Thoroughbred Champions (Thomas Dunne Books, 2012): “One by one, the vans pull up at the loading ramp. Tall wooden boards slide onto its sides so the horses can’t see over. As the vans pull up, the crew disassembles and reassembles the base of the ramp so that the horses step right onto it from the van without ever seeing the ground. From the ground, the only thing you can see are the very tips of their ears, and sometimes a nose from a horse who’s lifted it up to sniff the air.”

Enjoying refreshments while waiting for the flight to begin. Courtesy Horse America, Inc.

Horses’ grooms usually travel with them in the aircraft, but an equine celebrity may boast a larger entourage. When Triple Crown winner Secretariat retired from racing in 1974, he was flown to Kentucky to begin his post-racetrack career at a stud farm. On the flight he was accompanied by his trainer Lucien Laurin, owner Penny Chenery, his groom Eddie Sweat, and photographer Raymond Woolfe Jr. As Jennifer Wirth noted in The Saturday Post, “As Secretariat’s plane headed for the Bluegrass Airport, the airport tower reportedly called to the pilot, Dan Neff, ‘There’s more people out here to meet Secretariat than there was to greet the governor.’ The pilot allegedly responded, ‘Well, he’s won more races than the governor.’ ” During the flight, a nervous Secretariat clutched at Sweat’s jacket, sucking the fabric for comfort (below).

Secretariat and his groom, Eddie Sweat, on the retired Triple Crown champ's flight to Kentucky. Photograph copyright Raymond Woolfe Jr.

Have a spare $4,000 and can’t figure out what to spend it on? How about a plastic Snoopy astronaut doll, signed by Apollo 10 commander Tom Stafford? If that wasn’t exactly what you were looking for, there were hundreds of other items to be had at Bonhams’ fourth annual space history auction, held April 26: A painting by astronaut Alan Bean of Apollo 16 astronaut John Young leaping into history ($68,500); a rare Soviet space suit used during the 1969 docking of Soyuz 4 and 5 ($46,250); early Russian space posters (To Space—the Soviet way!—$1,500); a copy of Octave Chanute’s 1899 book Progress in Flying Machines, signed by the author himself ($1,187). See a few highlights from the auction, below.

One of the Apollo program's iconic images: Buzz Aldrin standing on the Moon. Image courtesy Bonhams.

This well-known image of Buzz Aldrin, taken on July 20, 1969 by Neil Armstrong, went for $5,250. The 16 x 20 inch photograph was signed and dated by Aldrin, the Apollo 11 lunar module pilot and second human to set foot on the moon.

When Charles Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis at Le Bourget, completing the world’s first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, the aircraft’s fuselage fabric was badly torn by souvenir-hunters. “I could feel the Spirit of St. Louis tremble with the pressure of the crowd,” Lindbergh would later write. “I heard the crack of wood behind me when someone leaned too heavily against a fairing strip. Then a second strip snapped, and a third, and there was the sound of tearing fabric…. It was essential to get a guard stationed around my plane before more damage was done.” This 4 x 5 inch piece of fabric, below—which went for $2,000—is believed to be from that historic day.

Fragment of silver-coated textile with a black-and-white photograph of Louis Bleriot congratulating Charles Lindbergh on his transatlantic flight. Image courtesy Bonhams.

This 1964, 250-page Project Gemini manual—signed by Buzz Aldrin, Gordon Cooper, Gene Cernan, Richard Gordon, Wally Schirra, Dave Scott, and Tom Stafford—was issued to both astronauts and support personnel. The manual, which includes fold-out schematics and diagrams, went for $9,375.

This 1964 copy of a Project Gemini familiarization manual went for $9,375. Image courtesy Bonhams.

Looking for something a little larger? How about a nearly 8-foot-tall prototype lunar flagpole? Bonhams’ catalog notes, “About 3 months before Apollo 11, [director] Robert Giruth asked [the Manned Spacecraft Center's] Technical Services Division to design a flagpole that could support the U.S. flag in an environment with no atmosphere. It had to be lightweight, compact, and easily assembled by astronauts wearing pressurized space suits.

The prototype of the flag and staff placed on the Moon by the Apollo 11 crew fetched $43,750. Image courtesy Bonhams.

The team came up with a flagpole very similar to the present example. The Apollo 11 flagpole was attached to the left-hand side of [the lunar module] Eagle’s ladder, and was protected from the heat of Eagle’s descent engines by a special heatproof shield. [Buzz] Aldrin has commented [in Apollo Expeditions to the Moon], ‘It took both of us to set it up and it was nearly a disaster…. As hard as we tried, the telescope wouldn’t fully extend. Thus the flag which should have been flat, had its own unique permanent wave. Then to our dismay the staff of the pole wouldn’t go far enough into the lunar surface to support itself in an upright position. After much struggling we finally coaxed it to remain upright, but in a most precarious position. I dreaded the possibility of the American flag collapsing into the lunar dust in front of the television camera.’”

A steel surplus petal, identical to the four on Luna 9, sold for $4,000. Image courtesy Bonhams.

In 1966, the Soviets achieved the first soft landing on the Moon with their unmanned spacecraft Luna 9, which was also the first spacecraft to transmit images from the lunar surface. After the spacecraft landed, four petals that covered the top half of the vessel opened outward, helping to stabilize the craft on the Moon’s surface. One surplus petal, identical to the four on Luna 9, sold at auction for $4,000.

One of the most beautiful items at the auction was this lunar planning chart, signed by a member of each Apollo lunar landing crew. The chart, which indicates every Apollo lunar landing site, also includes written notes by the astronauts about their various flights. “A dream of mankind becomes true!” writes Buzz Aldrin. The 45 x 42 inch chart sold at auction for $62,500.

A lunar planning chart—signed by a member of each Apollo lunar landing crew—sold for $62,500. Image courtesy Bonhams.

The Saturn V rocket was moved outside the Vehicle Assembly Building for the U.S. Bicentennial celebrations. Photo: NASA / Kennedy Space Center

When the Apollo program ended in 1972, one lonely Saturn V was left at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The never-was Apollo 18 rocket was dismantled into stages, then reassembled in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building in 1975 as part of the U.S. Bicentennial celebrations the following year. And there it continued to sit for two decades, rotting in the Florida humidity. In 1996, the Smithsonian teamed up with NASA to restore the Saturn V and give it a new home, protected from the elements, with a full educational experience for Kennedy Space Center visitors.

But this wasn’t as simple as it was with the newly built rocket in the 70s. “The Saturn rocket was pocked with gaping tears, rusted rivets, frayed wire, and fungi and other plant growths,” writes Andrew R. Thomas and Paul N. Thomarios in their new book, The Final Journey of the Saturn V. And Thomarios would know: he’s the president of The Apostolos Group, the team that was hired to do the rocket restoration.

Thomarios shares his firsthand knowledge of the grueling process to clean, repair, and move the five-stage vehicle into its new museum-quality building. It’s depressing to read the state the Saturn V had been left in for so long:

The rocket parts were covered with mildew, chewing gum, bird feces, and other items that defied description, but stuck to the rocket’s exterior. The gunk was so think that Nick Bolea, a long time Thomarios employee, decided to get on his employer’s good side by using a power-washer to write “Thomarios” in five-foot-high letters… [The employees] stopped work one day because a mysterious purple runoff was oozing out of the rocket. A hazardous material team was summoned to investigate. After some analysis, the team discovered the material wasn’t dangerous after all, but was fruit juice from berries birds had stored in the rocket’s interior.

And that’s not including the difficulties in working with the rocket itself, even without the grimy handprint of Mother Nature: the asbestos in the heat panels, the detailed documentation required by the Smithsonian, the rigorous safety standards implemented by a post-Challenger NASA.

This largely untold story seems like a fascinating focus for a book. It’s too bad The Final Journey only really gets to it in the last chapter, and not in the kind of detail you’d expect for, you know, a book. The first hundred pages of the 120-page book are a brief summary of the space program, from President Kennedy’s 1961 moon speech through Apollo — presumably to explain to the reader why this massive restoration was embarked on, though it seems unnecessary for anyone who would pick up a book with “Saturn V” in the title. There are 24 pages of color photos, many provided by Thomarios and not seen elsewhere, from the restoration, which are worth seeing. A space program follower won’t get much more from it, unfortunately, but The Final Journey would be a nice read for the young burgeoning space fan.

Enterprise gets ready for the trip north. (Bill Ingalls/NASA)

If the reaction of Washingtonians to last week’s space shuttle flyover is anything to go by, New Yorkers are in for a thrill.

Space shuttle Enterprise is scheduled to fly over New York City between 9:30 and 11:30 on Friday morning, riding on the back of a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft on its way from the National Air and Space Museum’s Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center to its new home at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum on the Hudson River. NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration won’t say exactly what the flight path will be, but they intend to fly over familiar landmarks like the Statue of Liberty (photo op!). These folks claim to have advance knowledge of the route, and offer advice on the best viewing spots.

Honestly, though, it didn’t much matter where you were standing in Washington last week. Discovery flew several slow loops over much of the metro area, and millions of people had the chance to get a close-up view, even if they hadn’t expected to. I had stationed myself on the roof of our office building, just a block off the National Mall (a prime spot!) when I got a call from my daughter Eleanor, on a school field trip about 30 miles south of the city. “Hey Dad, we just saw the space shuttle fly right over our bus!” What??!

It’s okay, I got a great view, too. And it’s a visual spectacle you should be sure to catch if you’re in New York tomorrow.

Washingtonians can now see Discovery for themselves on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center, or, if you really need to keep constant watch over it, bookmark this live webcam.

Also, the app-ized version of our Shuttle Collector’s Edition is now available on iTunes: The Space Shuttle Era: Stories From 30 Years of Exploration. For the iPad, we were able to add lots more photos and multimedia—including a spectacular time-lapse video of Discovery being prepared for launch—to the in-depth features and dozens of first-hand astronaut stories that appeared in the magazine version.

We did not, however, include this panoramic photo of Discovery and Enterprise together at the Udvar-Hazy Center, taken during last week’s ceremonies by photographer Mark Usciak of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Usciak had shot more than 40 shuttle launches over 30 years, starting with STS-1. So you know he had to be there for Discovery‘s retirement.

Click for the full-size version. (Photo: Mark Usciak)

Update, Friday April 27, 9:56 a.m.

Enterprise is in the air, headed for New York.

CNN has a live video feed here. And they’re asking people to submit their photos here.