40 seconds is a long time

I've talked to some folks, and seen some blog posts from folks who are comforted by the fact that North Korea's recent launch attempt only lasted 40 seconds. The best was the Daily Show's "Taepodong is not a funny name" video (which I can't find, now).

I for one am not comforted. I commented a while back on some launch failures. It turns out that almost every launch vehicle's maiden launch ended in flames. There are a few exceptions, but most of them had a failure at some point.

Well, anyway, even the veteran Russians have had some failures of late. So don't be fooled into thinking that just because Kim Jung Il is a dope, his engineers are, too...

By the way, check out this Russian (maybe-not) failure:

Launched skyward on June 21 atop a Russian sub-launched Volna rocket, the spacecraft may have actually made it into Earth orbit.

From wikipedia:

The launch took place from Delta III Submarine "Borisoglebsk," in the Barentz Sea. The spacecraft failed to reach orbit after stage one shut down prematurely at 82.86 seconds instead of the expected 100 seconds. The failure was attributed to “critical degradation in operational capability of the engine turbo-pump”. The second and third stage did not separate and the payload did not reach orbit.

I mean, they launched a satellite from a ballistic missle submarine. How cool is that?

"Star Spangled" Launch

I commented before on Discovery's July 4th return to flight launch. Here's a new composite video of the launch, with views from cameras on the Solid Rocket Boosters (those white rockets that are jettisoned first), and a view from the External Tank (the big red thing that they've been having all that foam trouble on).

I like this video because of the perspective it gives on all three of the jettisoned pieces of the launch. Too bad there isn't a fourth view from somewhere on the shuttle.

If you get bored, make sure you fast forward to about 7.5 minutes in to see the SRBs splashdown (watch for the parachute's shadow on the ocean), and then watch the rest to see the ET jettison.

The Fun Also Rises

This weekend Dewey Beach-goers will participate in the "10th Running of the Bull -- Just One -- With Apologies to Hemingway". I like this quote:

"If Hemingway was right . . . and you should 'always do sober what you said you'd do drunk,' " McDonnell wrote on their beach house Web site, "then doesn't it also follow that you should always do drunk what you swore you'd never do sober?"

Read, and then go to Dewey and run with the bulls.

The rocket's red glare

Discover has safely rendezvoused with the International Space Station, and is in the process of attaching the Leonardo module to the ISS. I didn't see the rocket's red glare (I was in the midst of a Tucson-Phoenix-Prescott-Vegas trip), but I assume the folks in south Florida had quite a Fourth of July fireworks display.

Here's an interesting discussion about the launch, and whether Shuttle and ISS are worth the risk of human life. A few quick highlights:

At least two key personnel had given a “no-go” authorization at the recent [Discovery] Flight Readiness Review. One of them was Bryan O’Connor, the Associate Administrator for Safety and Mission Assurance, who (as his title indicates) is responsible for flight safety and reliability. The other was chief engineer. Mike Griffin, the NASA administrator, overruled them and made a decision to fly.

So NASA got a lot of flack for going ahead with the launch, and an important question came up: Is ISS worth it?

...no matter how much more time and money is spent in trying to reduce the risk, “safe” will always be a relative, not an absolute term.

Space travel is not safe. Everyone knows that. So why does everyone get so upset when astronauts die? Here's an interesting (and think correct) theory:

What upset people so much about the deaths in Columbia, I think, was not that they died, but that they died in such a seemingly trivial yet expensive pursuit. They weren’t exploring the universe—they were boring a multi-hundred-thousand-mile-long hole in the vacuum a couple hundred miles above the planet, with children’s science-fair experiments. We were upset because space isn’t important, and we considered the astronauts’ lives more important than the mission. If they had been exploring another hostile, alien planet, and died, we would have been saddened, but not shocked ... we would have mourned, but also been inured to their loss as true national heroes in the service of their country (and planet).

Unfortunately, I'm not sure anything can be done to inspire the public more. Space travel is going to take a lot of slow years to become a reality. Those years will require engineers to solve thousands of seemingly boring, unimportant problems. The fact that American's aren't interested is hardly surprising, if you ask me.