Personal Growth / Mind / Science/Math

Space Flight


There's a whole universe out there, and you can cruise it. We're talking about the unbounded expanse of space overhead. And we're also talking about the unbounded Web. There's a lot of Web coverage of thepast, present, and future of space flight. You can even watch the progress of a mission on-line. Keep in mind that the URLs of the following sites will change with each mission. The ones here were obviously from the STS-70 mission. Also, the automatic image updates are performed through the Pull facility of Netscape 1.1, so you have to be using that version or later of Netscape and have its memory cache turned off.

The Best

You can keep up with what the space shuttle is doing through The NASA Shuttle Web Archives. During missions, you can see live scenes from the shuttle itself (updated every couple of minutes) and tracking information, as well as links to photos, video clips, and press releases current to that day. More often, admittedly, this page shows Mission Control or other related activity. When there is no mission underway, the site offers information, pictures, and videos from the most recent flights and information about upcoming flights. Other features here include The Distributed Earth Model and Orbiter System map , which shows the shuttle's location on a picture of the globe with a diagram of its attitude (direction it's pointed relative to the surface) and outlines of the resulting views out its windows. Again, an automatic update is posted every few minutes. You can also access the raw numbers used in ground track-plotting programs. The site also includes links to (but does not endorse) free and shareware tracking programs. Should you be left hungering to learn every possible detail about the space shuttle, from trim tabs to post-mission parachute refurbishment and crew apparel, look at the Shuttle Reference. It even covers (albeit euphemistically) personal hygiene in space. Alas, the manual is light on graphics, and the chronology stops in 1988. But you'll see a link to shuttle crew biographies and other background material. For live video of a mission in progress, you can turn to NASA Television (NTV). If you're using Netscape, you'll get screen images grabbed from the NTV mission video feed every couple of minut es. Unfortunately, random screen grabs without sound can be inscrutable, and as you'd expect, the image quality varies. For a slow-scan version of what NTV is broadcasting, download CU-SeeMe software from this site.

For general background information on manned space flight, the NASA Kennedy Space Center is a good place to start. You'll find links to the shuttle information mentioned above, plus an annotated, hyperlinked version of the sci.space and sci.astro FAQ files written by participants in those newsgroups. You'll find information here that NASA would never post, such as how the Challenger astronauts died.

The trick to cheap space flight is cheap access to orbit, and some think there must be a better solution than the space shuttle, with its $40 million throw-away fuel tanks, and its 40,000-member ground crew. One answer may be the Delta Clipper , which will land vertically, throw away nothing, and have a 600-member ground crew. This page, which includes photos and news bulletins, is a good overview of the subject. NASA's take on the subject is explained in a page that covers the whole range of experimental Reusable Launch Vehicle technology, including the X-33 and the X-34.
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The International Space Station Bulletin Board , which replaced previous plans for a U.S.-only Space Station Freedom, hasn't been launched yet, but NASA's launched a Web site for it. You'll find a large assembly of information about the project, including photos, videos, and a picture of the station you can click on to learn about its various components. Some of the explanations are pretty cryptic: "This is the ARCV," was one total response. You can also read all about the launch schedule, the 51.6-degree orbital inclination, the 6-person crew complement, the various modules from various nations, the Canadian Remote Manipulator System, and the two Russian Soyuz crew return vehicles.

Every NASA facility seems to have its own site, and you can get a clickable map to find them. Keep in mind that many of the facilities have little or no material of interest to outsiders; just information about the activities of that installation. But this site's collection of links also makes it a good place to start surfing. For instance, you'll find links to the national space agencies of the Netherlands, Brazil, Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, and other countries.

It's not exactly space flight, but it comes close. The NASA Dryden Research Aircraft Photo Archive near Edwards, CA, has photos of the unique research craft that have flown there from the 1940s until the present. You'll see coverage from the X-1 through the X-15, the SR-71, the X-29, and the space shuttle. Don't miss the snapshots of the controlled impact demonstration.

To get involved in supporting the funding of space exploration (and oppose space spending that appears to be unmitigated pork), check out the Space Activism home page. Or look at a hyperlinked FAQ listing of space societies and organizations.

The Rest

Want to be an astronaut? You can bone up on the jargon with NASA's Basics of Space Flight Learners' Workbook. Learn about Hohman transfer orbits, gravity-assisted acceleration, orbital elements, and space navigation. You'll need a computer to juggle some of the numbers. But hey, you already have access to one. NASA also offers a glossary of terms.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory , while mostly related to unmanned missions, has a good guide to NASA's on-line material, including both astronomy and space mission information. The Johnson Space Center also has a guide of NASA organizations on the Internet.

NASA's Liftoff to Space Exploration includes both cool links such as reviews of the movie Apollo 13 and FAQs with hard technical information, such as launch windows and orbit coordinate systems.

Check out the progress of the engineering students and professors at Stanford University drawing up plans to go to Mars at the Stanford International Mars Program (SIMP) site. They'll need many things to get there...including a new acronym.

If you're serious about putting settlements in space, check out the First Millennial Foundation's home page. The foundation aims at colonizing the galaxy using as its guide the book, The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in 8 Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage.

The NASA Space Science Education home page has a lot of background information concerning ongoing NASA projects, such as the Cosmic Background Explorer, the Hubble Telescope, and the Compton Gamma Ray Explorer, including fact sheets and photo galleries. But this site also spends a lot of effort touting NASA's achievements of the past fiscal year.

The High Speed Civil Transport may someday provide space travel for anyone with a sufficient credit limit. The transport is intended to carry 300 passengers at 2.4 times the speed of sound. Check its progress at the Douglas Aircraft Co.

The declared mission of The Lunar Resources Company is to engage in commercial space flight, but it appears to be mostly involved in starting a magazine called Artemis concerning the Artemis Project. Its Artemis site offers information about the project itself, which involves putting a self-supporting colony on the moon.

The Luna City BBS states that the site will eventually be moved to the moon. Meanwhile, it lists some good links to commercial space sites.

Meanwhile, the Lunar Institute of Technology appears to be already on the moon. It lists a School of Starship Design founded in the year 2032. See if you can figure it out.

Teachers might want to try the Teacher Resource Laboratory posted by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA offers current NASA astronaut biographies , sometimes including photos. Also included are biographies of Russian cosmonauts on loan to NASA.

NASA's material on orbital space settlements (basically, collected plans) is on-line.

For hints on the way space planners operate, try the site of the Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration of the Space Studies Board of the National Research Council.

Check out what NASA is doing in the field of virtual reality. You'll also find background material on VR hardware and software.

by Lamont Wood

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Internet Life Vol.1 No.1 Winter 1995