Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Space Shuttle Flight Director Talks About Return to Flight

Episode Date: July 11, 2005

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Space Shuttle Flight Director Paul Hill, this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan. Everything looks A-OK for Space Shuttle Discovery as we put the finishing touches on this week's program I'm Matt Kaplan. in charge of STS-114 will give us a quick update on flight status and review the many measures NASA has taken since the Columbia accident. Then we'll talk about return to flight and what comes after the shuttle with astronaut and scientist Owen Garriott. Stick around for Bruce Betts and special guest Bill Nye the Science Guy on a festive edition

of What's Up. And Emily is back with Q&A right after just a couple of news notes. Got SETI? You millions of SETI at home users should know there has been an exciting development. No, we haven't found ET yet, but if your computer comes up with that jackpot signal, we'll all know about it much sooner. Get the details at planetary.org, where you can also see new and achingly beautiful images from Cassini at Saturn.

Okay, here's Emily and a thousand billion friends. I'll be right back. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, how many comets are there? Once in a while, the news headlines are full of stories about a comet that is visible from the Earth with the naked eye. These comet stars give the impression that comets are rare members of the solar system. However, nothing could be further from the truth. It's estimated that our solar system contains a trillion comets. That's a one followed by 12 zeros. Most of those trillion comets lie far from the sun in a region known as the Oort

cloud. These icy and dusty bodies are leftovers from the formation of the solar system. Sometimes a gravitational interaction with a giant planet, Jupiter or maybe Neptune, disturbs a comet into a new orbit that takes it much closer to our part of the solar system. What happens next? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. I was fast asleep one early morning last week when the phone rang. Staff at the Johnson Space Center in Houston wished me a good morning and said they had Paul Hill on the line. I could talk with the STS-114

flight director if I could be ready in four minutes. I made it with six or seven seconds to spare. After all, with Discovery slated to make history as the first shuttle back in orbit since the Columbia accident. I didn't want to miss the chance to talk to Paul about what NASA has done to make the space transportation system safer. Paul Hill, first of all, thank you very much for joining us on Planetary Radio at what must be a very busy time. We are a little bit busy right now. How far has NASA gone in making you confident that the space transportation system is ready to go back into orbit?

Well, we've spent a lot of effort since the accident making sure we understand the risk of debris coming off the vehicle during a launch, what kind of damage that debris can do to the outside of the shuttle, and how much damage can we sustain and still deorbit with the vehicle safely. We thought we understood all of that before the accident. We clearly did not, and we have done a lot of tests and a lot of analysis since the accident to fully understand it. On top of that, we've gone to a lot of work to change how we apply foam to the tank. We've significantly reduced the size of the foam that could come off the tank

from on the order of about two pounds to two hundredths of a pound. And we've demonstrated that if foam that size came off the tank and hit our most critical areas, we can handle it without preventing the orbiter from being safe for a landing. We've made a lot of other engineering modifications like that across the shuttle. We've done a lot of work to make sure all of those things are safe, and I have complete confidence in all of that engineering and that the vehicle is ready to go. And in parallel with all of that, the operations team in mission control and the astronauts

have spent a lot of time in the last two years continuing to practice and stay sharp for flying in space. And we turned up the gain in October of last year, focusing just on STS-114 and all of the new operations we're planning on doing on this flight. And we are very well prepared and definitely ready to fly next week. Now, in addition to, I guess, just a much lower likelihood that you will lose some of that insulation, there are a lot of additional systems in place to sense any kind of a problem. Oh, you bet. We have added cameras and radars at the Cape to monitor the stack as it goes uphill.

The radar is capable of detecting debris as small as your fingernail coming off of the shuttle and showing us where it goes. We have sensors built into the wings that will tell us if something hits the wing on the way uphill. We have cameras on the underside of the orbiter that will take pictures of the external tank after separation. A crew is going to take pictures at a much closer range than ever before of the tank itself with a handheld camera and with a camcorder. On the second day of the flight, we have a couple of lasers and a camera on the end of a 60-foot boom that we'll put on the end of the space shuttle robot arm.

We'll use that to take very fine measurements of the front of the wings and the nose of the shuttle itself. On the third day of the flight, just before we dock with Space Station, we're going to turn the orbiter upside down and take pictures from Space Station that will show us down to about an inch what the tiles on the bottom of the shuttle look like. So we'll absolutely know what the state of the outside of the vehicle is by about the fourth day of the mission. How much, if anything, has been lost in terms of capability for a space shuttle. Are we talking about a substantial increase in weight to be able to take care of these systems

or changes in procedures? Well, we did give up 800 to 900 pounds of payload carrying capability for the new equipment that we're carrying, in particular the boom that's over on the right side of the payload bay and all the latches necessary to hold the boom down. So we gave up just under 1,000 pounds of payload capability. The crew is going to spend more time on the first and second day of the flight doing some of the things to inspect the bottom of the vehicle than we have spent on previous flights.

But we have planned this in such a way that we get those things out of the way before we dock to space station. And then after we dock to space station, we want to start spacewalks and delivering the new hardware that's in the module and the payload bay. And all of those new operations, like the inspections, we'll have all of those out of the way and not competing with the time the crew needs to spend on taking care of space stations. So you sound pretty confident that this vehicle is ready to return to orbit and is going to be able to do the job that it's needed to do until its replacement comes along, which

is something we've talked about on this show. Oh, yeah. I have great confidence that the vehicle's ready to fly and we're ready to fly it. That doesn't mean that there's no risk involved in flying the space shuttle, but we are definitely ready to fly it. It is as safe for this flight as it is possible to make it in what is still a risky business. And we are looking forward to the development of the next vehicle and preparing to fly the next vehicle that we hope to use to push us out of low-Earth orbit. Let me ask you, going back to the changes made to the orbiter, I can remember a conversation I had years ago with a predecessor of yours.

After another long hiatus in shuttle flights, one of the points that he made was that they had used that time off, basically, not just to correct the problems that they knew they had, but to make other improvements. Is that true in this case as well? That is true in this case also. We have made some changes to hardware and software that had nothing to do with STS-107 and the Columbia accident. Now, we had a lot more on our plates from an engineering perspective after this accident than we did after the last accident, which is not to say that we didn't have to do a

real hard job after 51L or after Challenger. But in that case, all the focus was on the joints in the SRBs and fixing that joint and making sure that we didn't have another burn through. In this case, we were looking across the shuttle stack and debris formation and ice formation and liberation during accident. We went back and looked at most of our flight critical or all of our flight critical systems and made sure that engineering risks that we agreed to several years ago were, in fact, the right trades to make.

And in doing that, we found different parts of the vehicle that we wanted to change in decisions on and that the Orbiter Project Office made improvements on that, again, had nothing to do with the accident, but were all about recognizing that the shuttles are getting older and we needed to do more work to keep flying the vehicles today than we might have had to do 10 years ago. Paul Hill, we've only got about a minute left in this very tight schedule. Your reaction, I mean, you're obviously seeing a tremendous amount of media and public interest in return to flight. I'm sure this does make this a bit more anxious and exciting than it might be otherwise.

No, I mean, I'm glad that folks are watching, that folks are interested. As far as increasing the pressure, I don't think you can increase the pressure on us or the pressure that we feel getting ready to put seven friends of ours back on a space shuttle and light the engines and throw them back into space. That's daunting enough all by itself. I'm just glad that the public is interested in watching, and I am very hopeful that we don't let them down. Well, we wish you and that crew godspeed and terrific success as Return to Flight takes

place imminently. Thank you very much for taking a few minutes to speak to us on Planetary Radio. You're welcome. Paul Hill has been our guest. He is the flight director for the upcoming Return to Flight by the Space Shuttle, the space transportation system. Astronaut and scientist Owen Garriott joins us for a conversation about Return to Flight and the future of human spaceflight

when Planetary Radio continues in a minute. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. continues in a minute. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in The Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387.

And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, planetarysociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Dr. Owen Garriott was one of the first scientist-astronauts selected by NASA. He flew aboard Skylab, a darn nice little space station, back in 1973, and again on SpaceLab ten years later. Since then, he has kept busy both in the aerospace industry and in academia. About a year ago, he helped create a groundbreaking study on the future of human spaceflight.

The report reached several ambitious but highly practical conclusions about where we should go as the space shuttle era comes to an end. Oh, and I'm really glad that you could join us again, particularly since you were just on the show last January talking about the report of the group commissioned by the Planetary Society, which you were a co-leader of. We're going to get to that in a moment. I would love to get your thoughts about the return to flight effort and the fact that the space shuttle will be returning to orbit this week

and what has taken place since the Columbia disaster. I know you weren't really a part of the return to flight effort, but I bet you've had some thoughts about it. Well, it's been quite a while. Of course, two and a half years now to get the orbiter back in position, ready to go again. The Exit Investigation Board put down some very stringent requirements, the majority of which have been fulfilled and all of which have been addressed. And so it's my opinion that, yes, indeed, the shuttle is ready to fly.

I'm pleased that NASA is getting on with the job of completing the ISS, satisfying our international partners, and then, as soon as we can, retiring the orbiter and having a replacement vehicle, a CEV, crew exploration vehicle, ready to take its place. And, of course, that last portion that you just talked about, the shuttle basically completing the ISS and then being taken out of service, replaced by this crew exploration vehicle, this is right out of the report that you generated with a distinguished group.

The co-leader that you worked with in generating that report has a new job since we last talked. Yes, he does, and he's doing an excellent job, as near as I can tell. I could not be more pleased with the new administrator that NASA has in the way of Dr. Mike Griffin. I think he is following just what he had outlined before in that report. He is including additional work from the talented NASA personnel that he now directs. additional work from the talented NASA personnel that he now directs. For example, I mean in particular the 60-day study that he has commissioned, which is just now reporting back in, with how they see the appropriate direction for extending human presence out into the solar system.

And so it could vary a little bit from what Mike and the rest of that team put together about a year ago. But basically he's following it very closely, and I just couldn't be more pleased than I am about the way he is proceeding. He obviously has a lot of respect for the work that was generated. Here's a quote from his very first press conference as NASA administrator when he was asked a question about going to Mars by a reporter, he said, everything that I know to date about what it will cost us to do a Mars mission is summarized in a Planetary Society report that Owen Garriott, an old and good friend,

and I shared on behalf of the Planetary Society with numerous co-authors. We will, of course, put the link to that report, both the executive summary and the full report, we'll put a link up to it on the Planetary Society website, right, where people can link to listening to this program, and many are right now. It does sound like many of the conclusions that you folks reached are being vindicated. Certainly it does seem that way. And, of course, we were only a group of nine people who were doing almost an ad hoc study without the resources that NASA can bring to bear. And so now Dr. Griffith has been in a position to bring a much larger group

with a great deal of experience and full-time attention can be applied to the program. And so I think it will be important to have them address all of those issues on which we indicated a lot of additional study was needed. For example, we pointed out the launch vehicle, both for the CEV and eventually for larger modules and payloads to the moon and Mars. All of that needed additional study, and that's something that NASA as a whole now has the talent and time to bring to bear. So I'm hoping that will come out in the results of the systems architecture study that's just now being published.

And I guess that's the more official title of this, the system architecture study. That's the way I understand it. Exploration Systems Architecture Study, I believe, is the full title. Let's talk about that Kruik exploration vehicle. How does it differ from the space transportation system commonly known as the space shuttle? Oh, in many ways. For example, the space shuttle, which I have to, I should point out, most people believe it's an excellent vehicle and has done a fine job for the purposes for which it was designed.

But it basically takes about 200,000 pounds plus into orbit in order to deliver about 40,000 pounds of that as payload. And so it is a heavy lift vehicle, but unfortunately it only takes payloads of about 40,000 pounds at a time. And so the first CEV will focus on just the crew transport, not the ability to do everything all at once, namely crew and cargo together. It will focus on mostly crew with perhaps a little cargo along,

and it will have the capability to go to low Earth orbit, a space station, for example. And some versions, as I understand it, the architecture study may actually have a CEV, not too much larger, with the capability to go as far as the moon and lunar orbit is concerned. So that's something the architecture study can provide. But basically, the shuttle is a winged vehicle, very heavy payload capability, but only about 40,000 pounds of real cargo or payload can be carried in the payload bay. And the CEV will separate the cargo from the crew and hopefully make that a more efficient transportation system. Oh, and we're just about out of time.

I hope we'll be able to talk to you again when that study does come out of NASA and get your additional comments. Well, I would be pleased to do that, and I'll be anxious to read it myself in some detail, decide to hear and understand just how the NASA experts have come down with respect to all of these very important issues facing the extension of human presence into the solar system. Any parting words or good wishes for your fellow astronauts who are about to return to flight in Space Shuttle Discovery? Nothing other than just the best wishes that you've indicated in your question.

They've got their hands full. They're very busy right now getting ready for launch. And they all have the best wishes from all of their previous flyers and I'm sure all of the NASA team as well. Owen, thanks very much. Surely. Pleased to talk with you. Owen Garriott was one of the first six scientist astronauts selected by NASA. He flew on Skylab and then went back up for Space Lab 1 in 1983.

We are speaking to him at his home in Huntsville, Alabama, and we will do so again sometime soon. Talk to you again, Matt. You bet, Owen. Thanks again. We'll be back with Bruce Betts and this week's edition of What's Up right after this return visit from Emily. I'm Emily Lakdawalla back with Q&A. The solar system contains a trillion comets, but not many are visible from Earth because they are very small, very dark, and very far away. Once in a while, a gravitational nudge sends a comet toward the inner solar system. Comets are mostly ice, and when they approach the sun, they begin to evaporate,

making their famous and sometimes spectacular tails. But this stunning display is very short-lived because it spends the comet's reservoir of icy material at a furious rate. The comet Halley, for instance, lost the top one meter of its surface during its 1986 pass by the sun. Most comets can only survive a few hundred passes by the sun. After that, they may become so weakened by the loss of material that they shatter. But many comets become coated with a refractory layer of tar-like substance that prevents further evaporation. If this happens, they become stealth comets, which are undistinguishable

from the legions of near-Earth asteroids. No one knows how many of the near-Earth asteroids are actually extinct comets. It'll probably take many more spacecraft visits to asteroids and comets to find out. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. Time once again for What's Up? So we are joined by Bruce

Betts, who's being pelted by a small baseball, by an even smaller baseball player. Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society. And we're in yet another special location. It is an exotic location. We're in the backyard of Lou Friedman's house. Lou Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society, project director for Cosmos 1, the solar sail mission. So we are here celebrating what was an excellent attempt on a nice spacecraft build and looking towards the future.

And a lot of the team is here. Greg Delorey is here. Lou's here, of course. It's his house. And a lot of children are here. Lou said that we could mention the Volna rocket poster that is being used by the children as a dartboard. Yes. And not only that, but the vice president of the Planetary Society is here, Bill Nye the Science Guy,

a special guest appearance on What's Up. Oh, it's so good to be here, Matt. Now, when you hear the occasional thud, that is somebody throwing something at the poster of the Russian submarine, a depiction, an oil painting of the submarine launching the Volna rocket, the rocket that failed and caused humankind's first solar sail to end up somewhere in the ocean. And so we're all sitting around here talking about Cosmos 2, which means we have to raise a bunch more money and we have to make a rocket decision. This is what fascinates me about being on the Planetary Society board.

I'm a member, you know, since 1980. It fascinates me you can sit around at a party with hot dogs and talk about buying rockets. It's fantastic. It's a nice avocation. Big rockets. Big rockets. If you want to take humans to the next level, pun not intended,

take us out of Earth's orbit and onto the stars, this will be the way to do it with a sail pushed by photons. Quite an astonishing idea. But we didn't even get a chance to find out whether or not it would have worked. But maybe we will. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're all for Cosmos 2. Listen, can you stick around?

We'll see if you can answer the trivia question this week. Bruce, what's up? Well, up in the night sky, we've got Venus still looking like the brightest star-like object up there. Look in the west just after sunset. What are birds dropping things on your glasses? I'm afraid so, yeah, between that and the ice cream that's making my fingers sticky. Well, okay. Anyway, also you can find Jupiter looking a little less bright, but still a bright star-like object up above it, kind of in the west, but higher up from Venus in the evening sky. And in the pre-dawn sky, you can see Mars getting brighter and brighter

over the next two or three months, right now in the southeast before dawn. Let's go on to random space fact. Astronauts aboard the space shuttle experience a maximum G load of approximately three Gs during launch. And that is about three times the acceleration of Earth's gravity. It's nothing. It's nothing. It's a walk in the park. For most of these people, yes, it is a walk in the park. It's way below those levels where you pass out and things like that. It really is a fairly gentle vehicle on the humans aboard.

I'm ready to go. I'd have gone this week if they'd have invited me. I apply every year. I apply to be an astronaut every year. Do you really still? I knew that you had done that in the past. Well, sure, you send in your stuff, and they send you a postcard. We're not accepting applications right now.

And the other thing, if any of you out there want to be astronauts, there's a little quiz. How many PhDs do you have? A, 100 to 300. B, 300 to 1,000. C, more than 1,000. And the kind of people that get to be astronauts these days are just, I would call them overachievers. The kind of people that get to be astronauts these days are just, I would call them overachievers. They're very successful, mostly academics with astronautics or aerospace engineering backgrounds.

And I thought this would be cool, science guy on the shuttle, but I don't think it'll ever happen. I'd say you have a better shot than me, so good luck. But don't take my seat. Let's go on to the trivia contest. luck but don't take my seat uh we let's go on to the trivia contest we asked you what was the name of the spacecraft that the european space agency sent to halley's comet how'd we do matt okay first we gotta ask bill do you know do you remember there's a planetary radio t-shirt in this for you if you win actually no we're still giving this is the last solar sail poster i'm sorry solar sail poster i just had one mounted just had a. I just had one mounted. Just had a solar sail. I digress. You're not talking about Deep Space One.

No, this is a European. Well, I would have called it Halley. I would have called it Kahootek. I love this. We stumped Bill Nye the science guy. I'm racking my brain. I really don't know. Don't know.

Bruce? You're harsh, dude. The answer is Giotto. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So anyway, let's go on. You still get a chance, in this case, to win a Glorious Planetary Radio t-shirt by answering the following. Well, don't tell them yet

because somebody else won, too. No, it's too late. If Bill didn't get it, we cancel the contest. He's the vice president. That's so unfair to Alan Dietrich of Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, who did get it right. I think you go, Alan. ESA sent the spacecraft Giotto to Halley's Comet about 20 years ago. July 2, 1985 is when it was launched. Congratulations, Alan. Long-time listener.

Okay, now give Bill another chance. All right. A lot of people know that John Glenn was the oldest astronaut to fly aboard the space shuttle. Who was the youngest? Who was the youngest astronaut to fly aboard the space shuttle? To answer that question, go to planetary.org slash radio. Find out how to email us your answer and win a fabulous Planetary Radio t-shirt. And get that answer to us by July 18, 2005.

That's Monday the 18th at 2 p.m. Pacific time. Bill, you know the answer. Don't give it away. No, I can't give it away. There's no chance. Thank you for joining us on What's Up Today. Oh, it's so good to be here. I would have guessed somebody, but if I say it, that will contaminate the results, right?

Yes, it would. Yeah, that would be the end. The answer is actually John Giotto. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm joking. Are we done, Matt? Take a night, Bruce. All right, everybody. Go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about juggling.

Thank you, and good night. Are you going to juggle? Would you get up? Let us hear some of those balls or rings or something going around. It's the most visual medium. Here it is. That's the closest we'll come. But now grab the other two. Come on.

He's Bruce Betts. He's the closest we'll come. But now grab the other two. Come on. He's Bruce Betts. He's the director of projects for the Planetary Society. He joins us each week here for What's Up. And Bill will let you do the play-by-play. So the director of projects, Bruce Betts, is juggling spheres. They're irregular. They're beanbags. And this is governed to any sort of reasonable approximation

by the physics of Isaac Newton. But now we all rely on global positioning system. We make jokes about GPS and this and that. And those satellites, that constellation of satellites and the systems associated with it, depend on the physics of Einstein, both general and special relativity, to get the right answers. Quite a striking thing.

So next time you're juggling, think about space and your place in it. Boy, that's just like how Bruce ends the show. We'll just listen to Bruce juggle here and fade away as we head into the end of this edition of Planetary Radio and this edition of What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. Join us next time for a deep impact update. That big crater we made in Comet Temple 1

is already beginning to reveal secrets about these dirty snowballs that date back to the beginning of our solar system. Have a great week, everyone.