Riding Rockets - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Mike Mullane (ч. notes)

Footnotes

1

Initially the STS numbering system was straightforward, STS-1, -2, -3, etc. After STS-9, NASA instituted a new number/letter system to provide more information in the mission designator. But there was another reason for the change—superstition. Astronauts and engineers aren’t immune from it any more than the rest of the population. NASA did not want to have the bad luck number 13 hanging on a shuttle mission, particularly given the near disaster of Apollo 13. So Gerald Griffin, the JSC director, came up with a new STS mission designation system to shortstop an STS-13 label. The first number would designate the calendar year in which the mission was planned to launch. The second number would be a 1 or 2—1 designating a KSC launch and 2 indicating a launch from Vandenberg AFB in California. The letter designation would show the intended launch sequence in the calendar year, with A, B, C, D, etc., translating to the first, second, third, fourth, etc., calendar year launch. So the STS-41G label shows the mission was planned to be the seventh (G) mission of 1984 (4) and would be launched from KSC (1). It was hoped that this code would sufficiently blind the god of bad luck to the fact that STS-41G was actually the thirteenth shuttle mission. Labels were fixed at the birth of a mission on the planning manifest, years before flight. They were not later changed as the flight schedule changed due to shuttle and payload problems, so they are not indicative of the sequence of actual launches. For example, because of schedule changes, STS-51A, the first planned KSC flight of 1985 when it first appeared on the manifest, actually flew as the last mission in 1984. STS-51L, the fated Challenger flight, was supposed to be the last flight of 1985, but flew as the second mission of 1986. After Challenger, NASA reverted to the straight numerical designation, beginning with STS-26.

2

NASA uses the term L- (pronounced “L minus”) to indicate the days remaining to launch. Within twenty-four hours of launch, the term T- (pronounced “T minus”) is used to indicate the hours, minutes, and seconds to launch.

3

There were exceptions. Charlie Walker flew three missions and many of the Spacelab PSes flew multiple times too.

4

Again, there were exceptions. Most astronauts felt the European Spacelab and Canadian astronauts, as well as McDonnell Douglas’s Charlie Walker and a handful of other part-timers, were valuable additions to crews.

5

Enterprise, the first orbiter, was never designed for spaceflight. It was used in pre–STS-1 glide tests off the back of NASA’s 747 carrier aircraft.

6

It did happen. Pre-MECO OMS burns are now regularly done during nominal ascents and are part of shuttle launch abort procedures.

7

Some astronauts believe even the backpack parachute arrangement might have enabled Challenger’s downstairs crewmembers to escape. However, there probably wouldn’t have been enough time for the upstairs crewmembers to make it out.

8

The panel only bears the names of astronauts who died in the line of duty. For that reason Dave Griggs and Dave Walker are not memorialized on the panel.