Update for Thursday, Jan 17, 2008

Well, another day has gone by without an opportunity to launch. Yesterday and today were both too windy and we were "out" for winds again. In terms of science, we had a period of very good ion outflows yesterday and would have launched if we had been able to. That's the way it goes, sometimes.

We will keep charging ahead, as patiently as ever. We have 3 more days before our window is closed.

In the meantime, maybe it will be interesting to learn just a bit about the history of space flight. Here, we can use youtube for some help.

The first satellite that was ever launched was called Sputnik and was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. The satellite itself looked like a ball and was so small that you could hold in your arms. It was a very simple satellite that only sent out constant "beeps" and stayed in orbit for a few days. Compared to what we do now, this seems very insignificant, but it started a international "space race" with this country. The launch of Sputnik made people in this country very nervous, since it seemed that the Soviet Union, a country that was not very friendly to the US, had developed some incredible technology. In reality, though, various teams in the US HAD developed the rocket motors needed to do the job.

Here is a link to a youtube movie explaining the launch of Sputnik.

One of the teams in the US that had been working on getting a satellite launched was a combination of the US Navy and a nonmilitary group. They developed the Vanguard launch vehicle that got the "go ahead" for the first satellite mission from this country. Unfortunately, the launch failed and the satellite acquired the nickname "Flopnik" as a result. To be fair, the US was very open about all of its launch attempts; the Soviet Union was very secretive, so the outside world did not generally hear about their failures.

Just a few months later, a group from the US Army got their chance to show that the US also had developed the capability for launching a satellite, using the Redstone vehicle (more). Actually, in some important ways, this satellite, called Explorer, was much more impressive than Sputnik because it did so much more than just send out "beeps". This satellite had instruments that were built to measure radiation in space and that very quickly discovered Earth's "radiation belts", regions of very energetic particles that we are still trying to understand. This was quite an amazing discovery for the first US satellite mission!!

In those days, NASA did not exist. The launch of Explorer was done using technology developed by the US Army. Afterwards, though, the decision was made to create a space agency that was not based on military research, promoting the exploration of space for peaceful reasons. The best way to do this was to simply change the name (and purpose) of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) that had existed since 1915 to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

About that same time, launches of the Vanguard vehicle had improved and the second US satellite went into orbit on the Vanguard 1, launched in early 1958. The only youtube link I could find for this is at Vanguard, but the sound doesn't seem to work. Interesting things about this satellite are that 1) it was the first solar-powered satellite and 2) the launch was much more successful than anyone expected. In fact, the vehicle flew to much higher altitudes than planned and is still orbiting Earth as the oldest satellite still in space!!!

When NASA took over the Vanguard program, its first mission was an attempt to get a satellite to fly around the moon. Things did not go quite right and the rocket returned to Earth after about 2 days. During that time, it went "straight up" but never achieve escape velocity, so returned to Earth. The interesting thing about that "failed" mission is that it led to the discovery that Earth's radiation belts did not extend too far out into space -- the instruments on that rocket actually measured the outer boundary of Earth's radiation belts.

The pace and excitement with anything having to do with space was incredible in those early days. All sorts of new ideas were being developed, including the use of satellites for communications and for monitoring weather on Earth. A good summary is here.