VOYAGEISSUE 2 NOVEMBER 2004 £2.50

A Journey of Learning Through Space

FLYING MODELROCKETS

BUILD YOUROWN TITANLANDER

THUNDERBIRDS -from TV to film via Mercury

THE X-PRIZE

THIS ISSUE: Rockets and Spacecraft

Great Puzzles and Competitions

THE SATURN VApollo’s ride to the Moon

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1

CONTENTSROCKETS AND SPACECRAFT

Did You Know About - The Saturn V Rocket 30

34 On the Cover: Shuttle Rollout

FEATURES and COMPETITIONS

Sci-Fi Focus - Thunderbirds 20

26 The Night Sky

Future Space - Humans on Mars 28

Great Puzzles and Competitions

So, You Want to be a Rocket Scientist? 8

14 The Ansari X-Prize

It’s not just NASA or other nations that can fly rockets. You can do it yourself in model form.MAT IRVINE tells us how to get started in this world-wide hobby.

Regular space toruism may only be a matter of a few years away, and it’s getting closer as thecompetition to win $10 million hots up. STEVEN CUTTS fills us in.

PLUSMr Pilbeam’s Lab 18 Who’s Who in Space 40Voyager Card Game 24 Re-Entry: Hubble Telescope 44

Test your knowledge of space with: Get your entry in the next issue of VoyagePuzzle page on page 12 Caption Competition on page 13Giant Wordsearch on page 31 Photo Competition on page 35

WIN A Die-Cast Space Shuttle Model in our great competition on PAGE 16

The 1960s Gerry Anderson puppet show has been turned into a great all-action movie. But it also has a linkwith the early days of the American Space Program. BRIAN LONGSTAFF shows us the connection.

Ever looked up at the stars and wondered which was which? If you want to learn more about the fascinatingsights in the night sky, DAVE BUTTERY provides a great beginner’s guide.

With talk of sending missions back to the Moon and on to Mars in the near future, STEVEN CUTTS looks athow we might get to the Red Planet, and how we can survive when we’re there.

Editor:Mike Shayler

Production Assistant:Mary McGivern

Voyage Marketing:Suszann Parry

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2

The best laid plans...

It just goes to show that predicting the future is a risky business.We’ve had such a fantastic response to the first issue that manyof the articles planned and advertised for this one have had to beleft out in favour of the ones that actually made it. There’s beensuch an encouraging input of new articles for Voyage that wewere simply spoilt for choice.

Some of the items left out of this issue will appear in later ones, but we’ve learnedvery quickly not to make any predictions for the content. Issue 3 will have anastronomy theme, though, so if you’ve never tried astronomy before, have a look atthe beginners article on page 26.

We also have some great competition prizes to give away in this issue, so why nothave a go. And if you or your school would like to write something for the magazine,just drop me a line or an email at the addresses below.

Mike ShaylerEditor

COMPETITION ENTRIESSend your answers for all competitions to:

Voyage Magazine124 Lyncroft Road

BirminghamB11 3EH

OR

email: voyagemag@blueyonder.co.uk

Entries Must Be In By 14 January 2005See the competitions for how to

mark up your entries

Don’t forget to include your name,age and address or school addressYou MUST get permission fromyour parent, guardian or teacher

before entering

3

Thirty years ago in 1974, my two crewmates and I set a new Americanrecord of 84 days in space, which lasted for over 20 years. We alsotravelled 35 million miles in our Skylab space station. We were proudwhen we landed, but then we compared what we had done with whatlies in the future — travel to the stars. Light covers the 35 millionmiles that we travelled in just three minutes. Yet it takes light overfour years to reach our nearest star. Clearly, when it comes to realspace travel, we barely nudged our toe out the front door.

Are there other life forms out there among the stars? Do they think orlook like us? Are they smarter than us? Finding the answer to thesequestions is behind much of our drive to leave our home planet andreach outward. It has been calculated that the number of planets inthe universe that could support some form of life is about the same asthe number of grains of sand on all the beaches of the world. So here

we sit, on our own one grain of sand, asking, ”Could there could be other intelligent life out there?” You bet, theanswer has to be YES!

You are now just learning about science andspace, and all of us whose careers aremostly over really envy you. Your future isexciting – return to the Moon, on to Mars,then out to the rest of our Solar System.Many of us believe that as we understandmore about physics and the science ofspace travel, we will find a practical way totravel to the stars. Sixty years ago humanflight to the Moon was thought to beridiculous, if not totally impossible. Humandrive, ingenuity, and advancements inscience turned the impossible into reality.So it will be with travel to the stars.

When will we reach the stars or find lifeoutside of Earth? No one knows, but onething is sure – every step of the way will bechallenging and exciting. You can be aslarge a part of it all as you desire. Learnscience, work hard, and enjoy!

Ed GibsonScience PilotSkylab III

For a chance to win a datacard autographed by Ed Gibson, try the competition on page 35

FUN IN SPACE

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Clowning Aroundby Ed Hengeveld

It’s All Gone to His Head

Who said that being an astronaut means that you have to beserious all day? Certainly not Jim McDivitt, who is shown heretaking a break from posing for an official portrait. The model

which appears to be giving him a headache is of a Titan-2rocket that launched the two-man Gemini spacecraft in 1965

and 1966. McDivitt commanded the Gemini-4 flight in 1965 andlater Apollo-9 in 1969.

Birthday Boy

On 25 March 1970, duringthe final stages of training

for Apollo-13, astronautJim Lovell is presentedwith a cake to celebratehis 42nd birthday at theKennedy Space Center.

Behind the cake is a giantcard signed by thousands

of KSC workers. Thisalmost turned out to beLovell’s last birthday,

because three weeks laterthe Apollo-13 mission

became headline news asan explosion crippled thespacecraft on the way tothe Moon. Lovell and his

fellow-crewmen JackSwigert and Fred Haise

barely survived the crisis.

Flying Blind

It is December 1965 and these six X-15 pilots pose in a jollymood at NASA’s Flight Research Center in California’s

Mojave Desert. Left to right (you will have to take our wordfor it) are: Joe Engle, Bob Rushworth, Jack McKay, Pete

Knight, Milt Thompson and Bill Dana. On the tarmac behindthem is one of the three legendary aircraft, which earnedsome of its pilots the title “astronaut” when it flew higher

than 50 miles.

5

FUN IN SPACE

Now,this won’t hurt a bit!

Mission specialist TonyEngland appears to be

the victim of anexperiment during SpaceShuttle mission STS-51Fin August 1985. Fellow-

astronaut StoryMusgrave has an almostsadistic smile on his face

as he is taking a bloodsample. Small

consolation for Englandis that Musgrave is amedical doctor and

should probably knowwhat he is doing.

Playing Superman.

Two astronauts perform acrobatics aboardSkylab, the first US space station, in 1973.Commander Gerry Carr appears to balance

pilot Bill Pogue on his finger, but of course inthe weightless environment of space Pogue

would remain hanging there even if Carrremoved his hand.

FUN IN SPACE

6

You’ve Been Framed

Trick or treat?

Challenger commanderHank Hartsfield is

unrecognisable duringSpace Shuttle flight

STS-61A in November1985. He sports this

“jack-o-lantern” mask tomark Halloween, apopular cause for

celebration.

Tough Guys

The crew for Space Shuttle mission STS-98 dressup as a street gang in an aggressive but tongue-in-cheek approach to promoting safety among Shuttle

workers. Left to right are Marsha Ivins, RobertCurbeam, Ken Cockrell, Mark Polansky and Tom

Jones (no, not the singer).

What A Save

Apparently a soccer fan, astronaut John Blaha appears to be having a ball aboardthe Shuttle Discovery during mission STS-33 in November 1989.

7

FUN IN SPACEAs you can see, astronauts are highly trained, highly educated,serious, dedicated individuals - most of the time!

They’ll Never Find Me in Here

Apparently trying to avoid some unpleasant duty, astronaut Daniel W. Bursch squeezesunder compartments on the middeck of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, during the visit ofSTS-111 to the International Space Station in June 2002. Bursch was flight engineer of

the fourth crew aboard the ISS.

Groovy Baby

The Austin Powers movieinspired the crew of Shuttle

mission STS-92 to pose for thishilarious portrait. These gag-

portraits have becomesomething of a tradition and dateback to the Gemini programme in

the 1960s.

FEATURE

8

The atmosphere is tense. A handhovers over a red firing button. Thecountdown has begun – three, two,one – ignition. There is awhooshing sound and a rocketsoars majestically into the sky.Then, scanning the skies, yousuddenly spot it reappearing,floating gracefully down to Earth ona parachute. But this is not NASA,ESA or even the Russians,but a large field just downthe road, and the rocket isonly 30 cm tall. This is thehobby of flying modelrockets, a world-wide hobbywhere anyone canparticipate.

The rockets are light inweight, made from card tube,balsa wood and vacuum-formed plastic. The enginesare small, very safe andhighly reliable solid fuelledmotors, and the whole rocketreturns to Earth to be fittedwith a new motor and have itsparachute checked andrepacked, ready for the nextflight.

The hobby of flying modelrockets in this country is actually notas old as you may think. For many

So, You Want to be a by Mat Irvine“People have tried

burning them, sawingthem in half, and evenrunning them over ina car or firing bulletsat them.”

not by the actual launching and flying,but by the fact that putting theminiature rocket motor into the rocketwas deemed ’manufacturing’, asdefined by the Explosives Act thatwent back to the 19th Century! Noone got around to amending this Actto allow for model rocketry until the1980s when several rocketryenthusiasts banded together and hadthe appropriate tests done thatchanged the classification of themodel rocket motors. In the end itwasn’t until 1987 that the changescame into being, but now modelrocketry comes under the same typeof regulations that cover fireworks.

Model rocket motors though are muchsafer than fireworks. For a start, theyare usually far lighter than anequivalent 5 November rocket andthey are far more under control. Pluswhen they return to Earth, they havethe advantage of floating down gentlyon a parachute, not returning underthe increasing influence of 1G ofgravity – with the possibility of doingdamage!

The idea of launching miniatureversions of rockets can be tracedback to much earlier times and manyof the world’s leading rocket scientistsstarted by flying, if not what we nowcall ‘model rockets’, certainly smallversions of larger rockets. Howeverup until the 1950s, there were no realregulations or control, and certainlyno safe commercially manufacturedrocket motors. Model ‘rocketeers’were using standard explosives,probably with little regard to safety,and accidents were occurring.

The story of the ‘hobby model rocketindustry’ itself however, probablystarted in 1954 in America, with arocket engineer, G. Harry Stine. Stinewas then working at the White SandsMissile Range in New Mexico on full-size rockets, and was sent somesample model rocket engines byOrville Carlisle of Nebraska. Stinewas already a regular author on such

The entrance to White Sands Missile Range, where themajority of early testing of American rocketry went on afterWorld War II. It can also be said to be the location for thestart of Model Rocketry Flying

Parts layout of a typical flying rocket kit – this being Estes’ Saturn 1B – There is the card tube (topleft) parachute and cord (top right), vacuum-formed plastic for the fins (centre), and injection-mouldedplastic (centre bottom) for the Apollo capsule. Mat Irvine

years we were legally stopped fromparticipating in the world-wide hobby,

9

FEATURE Rocket Scientist?topics in the magazine MechanixIllustrated, and he tested thesemotors, made improvements andeventually founded the first modelrocket company – Model Missiles Inc.

Although Stine is regarded as the‘father of the modern model rocket’,the name most associated with thehobby is Vern Estes, the founder ofthe world’s largest hobby rocketcompany – Estes Industries inDenver, Colorado. Because there hadbeen a number of accidents involving‘amateur’ model rockets, unfortunatelyincluding some fatalities, Estes setabout designing and manufacturing amodel rocket engine that would besafe. He ended up with a smallcompact design for a solid-fuel rocketmotor that used a pressed blackpowder and potassium nitratecompound contained in a very strongcard tube.

The motors can only be fired usingspecially manufactured electricigniters made by the model rocketcompanies themselves. In fact, onereason why the hobby is so safe isthat it is virtually impossible to get themotors to ignite any other way. Overthe years many tests have been doneto try and ignite these motors‘accidentally’, including burning them,sawing them in half, hitting them with

sledgehammers, running them overby car and even firing bullets directlyat them! By far and away the vastmajority of these tests have failed tocause the motors to ignite. Since thebeginnings of the commercial modelrocket industries back in the 1950s,there have been many millions ofthese engines manufactured and thereis no recorded instance of a seriousaccident anywhere that they werecorrectly used.

Model rockets can be bought readymade, and virtually ready to fly,though the original idea was that youbuilt your own, which is much morefun! Although Estes still remainsprobably the largest supplier, thereare other companies around the world– including Quest, Aerotech, PML,Apogee, Rocketvision – that havejoined in and supply kits of parts thatcan vary from the very simple to theextremely complex – and thenonwards and upwards to wherevirtually all the rocket is custom built.The designs can also varyconsiderably. At the simpler end thereare generic, (generalised, non-specific), rockets that basically ‘look’

A scale model of the Gemini-Titan II launchercaught before it has ‘cleared the tower’ (Or inthis case the end of the rod). Note the length ofthe exhaust – it is not that great. Mat Irvine

Some of the full scale models are so detailedit is difficult to tell them from the real thing.This is Estes Mercury Atlas, and from thisangle, it’s difficult to tell that it is a model!

Mat Irvine

Many of the model rockets are created to bescale replicas of the real thing. These are someof Estes full scale rockets, (l-r) Saturn 1B,Scout, Mercury Redstone, Titan IIIE- Centaur.

Mat Irvine

Some of the many ‘generic’, non-specific rocketsthat have been available from this company. Thepicture does include the infamous ‘Egg Lofter’(centre right) designed for launching a hen’segg. Mat Irvine

FEATURE

10

like a rocket, but are not meant torepresent any real rocket in particular.Then there are what are termed ‘semi-scale’, where the model generallylooks like a real missile or launchrocket, but some compromises havehad to be made to get the thing to fly.Lastly there are the true scale models,which are true miniatures of the fullsize rocket down to the smallestdetail.

However complex the finished rocketmay be, the starting point for virtuallyall these models is the same - acentral body formed from a thin butstrong card tube. To this is added theexternal details – fins, stabilisers andthe nose cone. Inside there are theactual working parts – the engine andits holder at one end, and theparachute and recovery system at theother.

At this point it is worth explainingexactly how the whole system works,for it involves slightly more than ‘just’firing the rocket off the launch pad. Allin all there are three parts to astandard (and here we are talkingabout single stage) model rocketlaunch and recovery. There is the liftoff, then the cruise stage, thenparachute deploying, and all of this isdetermined by the rocket motorclassification (see ‘The TechnicalBit’).

Once the rocket has launched, then itis a matter of choosing someone torace off across the field to find wherethe rocket is landing. It is howeveralways advisable to try and lookwhere you are going – it is verytempting to keep gazing upwardsfollowing the parachutes, not realisingyou are just about to fall in a ditch,run into a tree or hurtle headlong intoa cow!

set the general direction of travel or toallow for a slight wind (it isunadvisable to fly rockets in anythingmore than a light breeze – mainly asyou probably won’t see them again!).The rod is supported by some methodso that it – somewhat obviously –doesn’t fall over. The commerciallaunch pads usually stand on a simplethree-legged base – and the larger themodel rocket, the larger the stand.However experienced modelrocketeers usually end up devisingand building their own launch pad,some attached to portable work-benches for working space andstability, or maybe adapting cameratripods, with pan and tilt heads toallow for the adjustment.

At the base of the launch rod is a flatmetal plate. This is to deflect therocket exhaust on lift-off and protectsthe stand. All the combustion actuallytakes place within the motor casing sothe resulting exhaust is purely theexpanding gases. Standard blackpowder motors have an exhaust gastemperature of around 230oC at aspeed of around 850 m/s. Thisextends to around 23-33 cm from themotor nozzle, and although once therocket is in the air it is containedwithin a small space, it is certainly hotenough to burn or melt plastic supportstands on the initial firing, as will beseen by the progressive blackening of

“After launch, justchoose someone torace across the fieldto find where therocket lands - butmake sure they lookwhere they’re going!”

The general layout of the launching section of a model rocket site. Note that it is a good distance fromthe nearest houses. The rocketeers set up their launch systems within the taped off area, usinglaunch stands that are normally based on camera tripods. At launch, the rocketeer (in blue on the left)stands a safe distance away from the rocket. Mat Irvine

The rockets are fired from speciallaunch pads. All the majormanufacturers make them, althoughfrom experience some are moresubstantial than others. What isrequired at the very least is a verticalrod, which the rocket slides over –usually by means of two small tubesglued to the side of the main body.The rod sets the initial trajectory forthe rocket, and most can be angled to

11

FEATURE

The Technical Bit

Rocket motors are classified by a seriesof letters and numbers, an internationallyrecognised standard that should befound on any model rocket motormanufactured anywhere in the world.The motors are first classified by theirtotal impulse (their total power) indicatedby a letter of the alphabet. Each increasein the letter equals a doubling of power.So a ‘B’ engine is twice as powerful asan ‘A’ and a ‘C’ twice as powerful as a‘B’. The power is measured in Newtonseconds – Ns – and is set for each sizeof motor. For example, an A motor has atotal impulse of 2.5 Ns; a B has 5 Ns; aC has 10 Ns and a D has 20 Ns – so youcan see the power doubles as the lettersprogress.

The letter is followed – usually – by twonumbers, separated by a hyphen, eg C6-4. This is because the motor fires notonly at lift-off, but also has a built incruise stage and a final ejection chargethat fires in the opposite direction. Fromthe classification you can therefore workout the total power, the duration of thethrust and the duration of the cruisingstage, in sequence.

In our example the ‘C’ is the ‘size’ of therocket motor, which for C motors is amean thrust of 10 Newton seconds.From the next digit – the ‘6’ in ourexample – you can work out the firingtime in seconds. To get how long themotor actually fires (in seconds) youdivide this first number into the totalimpulse, in this case 10 (for the 10Ns of‘C’ motors), divided by 6, which equals1.6 seconds. This may not seem a verylong time, but the thrust is concentratedinto a very short firing time – which is themain reason why model rockets leave thelaunch pad as fast as they do.

The last number after the hyphen is thecruise time, or delay time when therocket is cruising along with no power.The charge in the motor is still burningthough, producing a smoke trail to allowyou to track the rocket – which by nowcould be at a couple of thousand metresand not exactly visible to the eye! Then,after the seconds indicated by the lastnumber, the final ‘ejection charge’ fires.This is a very brief burst in the forwarddirection to create a sudden expansion ofgases. This literally pushes off the nosecone, and releases the parachutes.

Web Sites:Both the national organisations mentionedabove work through the British Model FlyingAssociation

www.bmfa.org

The UK Rocket Association also has itsown ‘Site

www.ukra.org.uk

this plate! Incidentally although theexhaust is hot, the exterior of themotor casing remains cool throughoutthe burn, so there is really no dangerof setting the model itself alight. Notealso these motors are single use only– the casing cannot be re-loaded, sothere is no possibility of mistakesoccurring during such a process.

The motors are fired using tinyelectrical igniters placed up inside themotor. Firing the rocket fires theigniters, which in turn ignites thesolid-fuel mix. The voltage for mostsmall igniters is usually said to beadequate at 3 volts. However morereliable firing takes place using ahigher voltage, and 12 volts isgenerally recommended. The firingline is attached to the igniter wires viavery small crocodile clips that pullaway as the rocket leaves its launchpad.

Although the hobby of flying modelrockets is very safe, obviously onehas to take care with many aspects –especially when loading the motors,fitting the igniters, attaching the leadsand the firing itself. The firing boxmust be disconnected from thebatteries when attaching leads to theigniter, (some commercial boxes havea built-in ‘key’ to help with this.) Inaddition, common sense dictates thatyou obviously don’t stand directly overa rocket when pressing the firingbutton and that the firing lead is longenough to stand a respectable

(left) Estes rocket igniters – electrically fired and about the only way you are likely to get the rocketmotors to fire! (right) A selection of solid fuelled rocket motors, with some of the numbering. Top is anA8-3, next a B6-4, then a C6-7 and at the bottom a smaller ‘A’ engine – an A10. The top two are singlestage engines, the bottom two are upper stage engines. Mat Irvine

distance away. Commercial firingboxes usually have a set length ofcable, which gives you the sort ofrecommended distance. However fornewcomers – and even experiencedflyers – the best course is to join aclub. There are local clubs, but thetwo main national flying model rocketorganisations in the UK are the BSMA– British Space Modelling Associationand UKRA – United Kingdom RocketAssociation. The former is mostly forthe ‘smaller’ end of the hobby, whilethe latter specialises in more powerfulrockets. The organisations will alsohelp with finding suitable launch sites,for – as already emphasised -although the hobby is safe in that therockets are very light and far saferthan Guy Fawkes rockets – you donot want to fly them when there arepower lines around, near roads orwater, with animals in the field, orreally in any built-up area. Officialclearance is also required past acertain altitude or in certain areas,and again the official clubs knowthese details.

PUZZLE PAGE

12

ANAGRAMSSolve the anagrams using the clues to each word. Then see if you can fit the words into the grid to find the key wordin the yellow boxes

MONO (Our planet’s natural satellite) __ __ __ __

HEART (The planet we live on) __ __ __ __ __

RAMS (The next planet after ours) __ __ __ __

FILE (There’s lots of this on our world) __ __ __ __

ITEM (Seconds, minutes and hours) __ __ __ __

The hidden key word is: __ __ __ __ __(clue: extra-terrestrial)

WORD SEARCHCross out or circle the hidden words in the grid as you find them from the list. When you find the words marked with

an asterisk (*) use a different coloured pen or highlighter. When you have completed the puzzle, these words willreveal an image. Answers on page 42/43.

Q W U R P T Y S P O I U Y R R

O R B I T D A F P G H J K A L

A S D F G L G H J A K L M T N

G H G F T S S A Z B C X C S V

A Z X A C A V E B L N E M L K

L T Y E R T D G S A D F G H J

A A S D F E G A H C J P K L P

X S L C V L S Y D K C L V B N

Y Q U W E L R O T H T U Y U S

B B N N M I T V Y O U T I O R

S M A C B T X C V L B O N M A

P T R D F E S D F E G H J P M

E S D F S G H Y J K U L Z X C

E T Y U R Q K W A E R F T Y U

D M N B V S S D F D Q W O E R

Atlas*Black Hole*Day*GalaxyLunarMarsOrbitPlutoSatellite*Sky*Space*SpeedStarSun*UFO*Voyage

13

CAPTION COMPETITIONTell us what you think these astronauts are thinking or saying. You can have more than one of themspeaking but please keep your answers short — and nothing rude please!

In this photo are: (left to right) Pavel Vinogradov (Russia), Gennedy Manakov (Russia), John Blaha(NASA) and Claudie Andre-Deshays (France)

The best answers will be printed in the next issue and the one we consider the funniest will win.

THE PRIZEWe have 4 copies of the Voyager card game for the winner (see page 24). Runners up will receive a copy ofthe next issue of Voyage. Please mark your entry Caption Competition 2 and send to the address on page 2

LAST ISSUE

Winner:David Steel, Nottingham

“You should have gone to Specsavers”

Runners Up:Jonathan Davis, Crawley

“Look at these great pictures of us in Voyage”

Claire Randall, Milton Keynes“Yes, but it doesn’t keep your breath fresh does it?”

FUTURE SPACE

14

The Next X-Prizeby Steve Cutts

October 2004 – Rutan’s team winsthe X Prize

These days, it’s unusual for anaerospace record to hit theheadlines, but in October 2004, BurtRutan’s team did exactly that, takingthe $10 million dollar X-Prize for thefirst commercial space craft to fly tothe edge of space.

For the other competitors in this race,Rutan’s victory must have been a bitterpill to swallow but almost immediately,the Ansari X-Prize was re-issued, with astaggering $50 million dollar prize onoffer for the first team to build a privatespace craft capable of reaching lowEarth orbit.

The original Ansari X Prize was areward of $10 million for the first teamto fly a piloted spacecraft beyond theEarth’s atmosphere. When it wasannounced, many in the industrydismissed the whole idea as gimmick.In fact, the prize initiated a whole stringof innovative, low cost designs for amanned space craft capable ofachieving a height of over 100 kms.

The issuing of prizes in aerospacehistory is not without precedent. Forexample, the Schneider Trophy wascentred around a race around the Isleof Wight in the 1930s. On oneoccasion, the legendary Britishcompany Super Marine managed to winwith an aircraft which would becomethe forefather of the Spitfire.

The people who set up the initial AnsariX prize were both challenging andrealistic about the rules. They requireda privately funded reusable machine tofly to a height of 100 kilometrescarrying three people. To prove that thevehicle is reusable they had to repeatthe same journey within two weeks. Amore substantial challenge would havebeen beyond the capabilities of anysmall private organisation.

Sure enough, one of the leading teamsin this competition managed to pull off

a space spectacular in October 2004.Burt Rutan, of the famous companyScaled Composites, had alreadyachieved international fame byproducing the first aircraft capable offlying around the world withoutrefuelling. With that title under his belt,his company has gone on to produce anew and remarkable machine calledSpaceship One.

Using a single test pilot, Rutan’s teammade a series of flights to an altitude of62 miles or 100 kilometres. For aprivate aviation endeavour, the eventattracted a massive audience. Roadlinks to the remote dessert air stripwere packed tight with spectators asSpace Ship One returned from its trip tomake perfect landing.

The achievement has captured theimagination of the world and theflamboyant British billionaire, RichardBranson, has ordered a small fleet ofsimilar spacecraft with which he hopesto send wealthy would-be astronautsinto space. It seems as if truecommercial space travel is about tobegin.

But if we take away the excitement andmedia gloss, what is the X-Prize likelyto achieve?

Firstly, we have to acknowledge that itis truly remarkable that a privatecompany can send a manned vehicleinto space at all. Until very recently,only organisations like NASA couldeven think about doing this sort ofthing. To those of us who were weanedon the adventures of Captain Kirk andLuke Skywalker, the pace of spaceexploration has been more thandisappointing. Maybe that’s all about tochange.

Many believe that space tourism canplay a significant role in the futureexploration of outer space. Thus faronly two tourists have flown in space,and at very high cost. Dennis Tito wasan American rocket scientist in hisyouth and a successful financial expertin later life. Flushed with millions fromhis Wall Street adventures, he decidedat the age of 60 to approach theRussian space programme and offer$20 million in return for a one-weekadventure on the International SpaceStation.

The Russians agreed and eagerlycashed the cheque. Over in the USA,NASA was furious, presumablybecause they hadn’t thought of the ideathemselves, but also because Tito hadnot gone through their astronauttraining for safety purposes. When Titoflew with the Russians, he wasrestricted to their parts of the spacestation.

For their part, the Russian scientistswere grateful for all the hard currencythey could get and soon recruitedMark Shuttleworth, the South AfricanInternet entrepreneur, as their secondspace tourist at the tender age of 28.He fared much better than Tito, as hewent through full NASA training andwent up there with a full programmeof experiments to run, so his visit wasuseful as well as being newsworthy.

The UK Starchaser Industry entry to the X-Prize. Image from www.starchaser.co.uk

15

FUTURE SPACE

Since then dozens of adventurousbillionaires have made inquiries about along weekend in zero gravity. It’s beensuggested that if the cost of spacetourism could fall there might behundreds of wealthy people willing tosplash out on just such an adventureevery year.

On a more sober note, we have toremember the limitations of thesemachines. The first thing to accept isthat the original $10 million price ispeanuts in comparison to the cost ofdesigning and building a suitablerocket. All the groups involved in thiscontest have other sources of financeand other ambitions. Spaceship Onewill only be capable of launching a crewto an altitude of 100 miles. This willgive them a view revealing thecurvature of the planet and severalminutes of zero gravity, but nothingcompared to what the professionalastronauts get to experience. Thecurrent batch of X-Prize contenders fallwell short of an orbital capability.

And orbital capability is the requirementfor the next $50 million dollar X-Prize.Even the organisers have admitted thatthey don’t expect the prize to be wonbefore 2010. Here’s why.

In order to stay in space we have toachieve a horizontal speed of 28,000kph, that’s 8 km per second. Anotherway to express this is a speed of 25times the speed of sound, or Mach 25.Spaceship One was merely capable ofMach 3. These simple statistics serveto remind us that the would-be amateurastronauts of our times are still a longway from catching up with NASA.Sadly, any spacecraft designer isrestrained not just by governmentregulations, but by the much harsherrules of chemistry and physics.

Just how hard would it be tosend a single staged rocketinto orbit and then return it toearth, ready for refuelling andrepeat flight?

The best possible fuelcurrently available forspacecraft is liquid hydrogenand liquid oxygen and currentrocket engines can burn thisfuel with an efficiency of over

95%. This means that even the bestengineers can only squeeze a fewpercent more performance out of suchan engine. In order to achieve orbitalspeed, such a rocket needs to be 90%fuel at take-off. In other words, a 100-tonne rocket on the launch pad wouldconsist of 90 tonnes of fuel and 10 ofmetal, electronics and astronauts. Fromthis, we can begin to see that the idealspacecraft would be a thinnest possiblestructure, encircling its own fuel in likean egg shell surrounds the white andthe yolk of an egg.

Spaceship One, which successfully test-flew into space inJune and October this year. Scaled Compsites Inc

Unfortunately, a commercially viablespacecraft would have to be reusableand therefore would have to cram aheat shield, retrorockets andperhaps also parachutes intothe 10% of take-off weight thatcan be solid matter.

Before you get too concernedabout this, remember thatrocket scientists have been onthe edge of producing thismachine for some 30 years.For example, the second stageof the Saturn V moon rocketcould also almost have been asingle-stage rocket, althoughin that capacity it would not

Artist’s impression of the Da Vinci Project WildFire. Courtesy of www.davinciproject.com

have been able to carry any payload orreturn to Earth. The reality is thatpractically the only room forimprovement in such rockets is toreduce the weight of every componentand this laborious process is nowunderway. For example, the heavycomputers that guided the spaceshuttle of the 1980s into orbit can nowbe replaced by something the size of alaptop. Similarly, much of the electricalcabling can be replaced by lightweightfibre optics. Advances in materialstechnology mean that the likely weightof a heat shield has also been reduced.Behind the scenes, NASA has beenquietly making refinements to theSpace Shuttle and has succeeded inreducing the takeoff weight by severaltonnes over the last 10 years.

The organisers of the X Prize haveraised the public profile of a new breedof aviation heroes. Doubtless someonewill succeed in winning the $50 millionprize for orbital flight but we shouldn’tbe surprised if others fail and amidstthe excitement of it all, we shouldn’tforget that it’s an adventure that maycost the lives of some of the innovatorsinvolved. Once they’ve succeededthere’ll be other hurdles to cross and forthe average man in the street, it’s likelyto be many years before true spacetourism becomes possible.

Steve Cutts is a doctor andfreelance writer with a life longinterest in space exploration.

Artist’s impression of the Vanguard Spacecraft Eagle.Courtesy of www.vanguardspace.com

Voyage PRIZE COMPETITION

16

WIN A

This is an artist’s impressionof what we might do when we

go back to the Moon in thefuture. To win the

competition, all you have todo is answer the following

questions:

1. What year was the lastApollo flight to the Moon?

a) 1972b) 1982c) 1992

2. The picture shows a smalllander coming in to land.What was the name of theApollo 11 lander?

a) Spiderb) Columbiac) Eagle

3) Where on the Moon didApollo 11 land?

a) Sea of Tranquillityb) Sea of Crisesc) Ocean of Storms

Please mark your entryShuttle Competition andsend or email it to theaddress on page 2

ISSUE 1CD COMPETITION

The correct answers were:

1. A. International Space Station2. C. Michael Foale3. B. 9

Congratulations to:Jonathan Davis of Crawley,

who wins theSpace Station CD ROM

17

DIE-CAST SPACE SHUTTLE MODEL

MR PILBEAM’S LABORATORY No. 1

18

The ESA probe ‘Huygens’ will soonbe on its way to attempt a landing onTitan, the cloud-enshrouded moon ofSaturn.

Because the surface of Titan isobscured by its dense atmosphere, thedesigners of the probe have had tomake guesses as to just what kind ofsurface Huygens will encounter.

Will it be a solid surface such as rockor ice? Perhaps it will land in slushyhydrocarbon snow, or perhaps it won’t‘land’ at all: it may be that there arelakes and seas of methane, ethane andother chemicals, which can be liquid atthe temperatures and pressuresencountered on Titan.

To give you an insight into theproblems space engineers have to facewhen designing probes and how theyovercome them, try this (potentiallymessy) experiment.

Modelling Titan’s surface

Equipment needed: three old plasticwashing up bowls; Plaster of Paris; catlitter, sand or wax granules; wallpaperpaste; anything else you might want toadd to your ‘planet surfaces’.

Procedure: Mix up enough Plaster ofParis to make a thick layer (about 6-7cm) in one bowl and leave to set hard.Use the remaining dry Plaster of Parispowder to make a layer just as thick inthe second bowl. Make up a good thickgooey load of the wallpaper paste in thethird bowl, to the same depth as theother two.

The surfaces now need to be made tolook as similar as possible. To do this,scatter sand or cat litter over the top ofeach surface until they look the same(this won’t be completely possible withthe wallpaper paste, as the moisturewill eventually soak into the surface

material - other items such as waxgranules used for making candles willdo just as well).

You don’t have to follow theseinstructions exactly – as long as youhave at least three different types of‘planet’, you can use any materials youhave available.

Designing the probe

Equipment needed: a raw egg;general craft construction materials(card, balsa wood, paper fasteners,paper clips, rubber bands, suitableglues and tools etc); reference picturesof various landers.

To simulate the probe’s delicate (andexpensive) electronics, a raw egg isuseful and you can run a few testsbeforehand to show how eggs survivedrops on concrete, grass, water etc.You now need to turn your egg into a

Landing

There will be another greatexperiment from Mr Pilbeam’s

Laboratory in the next issue. We’dlike to hear how your experimentswent, so if you want to send in aclass report, or pictures of yourspacecraft designs, we’ll put the

best ones in the magazine.

Mr Pilbeam’s Laboratory presentsa variety of interactive activitiesranging from the Victorian era to

the Space Age, includingpresentations on the phenomenaof reflection, the exploration of

Mars, rockets and robots.Although primarily aimed at ablechildren in Key Stages 2, 3 and 4,

the activities are suitable for awide range of audiences,

including special interest groupsfor adults or children.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE MRPILBEAM’S LABORATORY TO

VISIT YOUR SCHOOL, CONTACTTREVOR SPROSTON AT

sproston@ntlworld.com

You can use Balsa wood or thick card for thesolar panels. Make your hinges from tape andtension them with rubber bands glued in place.

Top ViewBottom View

Egg ‘Payload’

19

MR PILBEAM’S LABORATORY No. 1

space probe. It will need some form ofstructure which will survive landing ondifferent surfaces, and be able todeploy a sampling device to examinethe surface it lands on. To make it a bitmore challenging, your probe designshould leave the egg exposed, and useas little material as possible (as is thecase when building real spacecraft).

Cosmic “Splat the Rat”

Space probes often end up wider thanthe rocket which carries them. This isbecause delicate items like solar panelsneed to be big to catch enoughsunlight, and rockets are normally of afixed diameter. So any satellite or probehas to fold up to fit into a limited space,and then unfold when it reaches itsdestination.

on TitanGet hold of about 15 cm of plasticdrainpipe, large cardboard tube orsomething which will let an egg passthrough without touching the sides. Thisrepresents the container which hasprotected the probe during its journey toyour planet, and limits the size of theprobe which can go through it. It alsocreates a control element into the test,in that the tube provides standardconditions for each test.

Now decide on the unfolded width ofthe probe, but it must be at least 33%wider than the tube. You have to designit so that it folds up to fit through thetube, and then unfolds when it comesout of the end, ready for landing on thesurfaces. How you design your probe isup to you, but the aim is that the eggshould remain upright on all of thesurfaces, sink in as little as possible,and also remain intact. If you have

added a sampler arm, this should alsodeploy.

Finally, fasten the tube to a convenientplace, such as a fence or a stepladder,so that the top is about two metresabove the ground. Fold up your probe,drop it through the tube, and see if itunfolds before it hits the surface, andthat it lands upright. Test it without anegg first, using plasticene to simulatethe weight of the egg. If it works asexpected, add the egg.

Now place one of the bowls on theground, underneath the tube. Drop yourprobe and see what happens.Everything should unfold before it hitsthe surface. If the egg survives andremains upright, recover it and move onto the next tray. If not…well, at leastyou will get another chance; Huygenswon’t.

Approx

2 MetresSuggestion for the basis of your design.You can make it look as hi-tech or assimple as you want. Experiment withdifferent designs to see what works best.

Rubber Band Actuator

a b c

SCI-FI FOCUS

20

Thunderbirds -by Brian LongstaffThe first Americans flew in space

over forty years ago, but thanks to arecent film and a TV series from the1960s, you probably know the firstnames of most of the astronautsfrom NASA’s Project Mercury. WhenGerry Anderson wanted names forthe sons of former astronaut JeffTracy in ‘Thunderbirds’, he chose tohonour those early astronauts byusing their names.

Five…John Tracy was named after John H. Glenn,Jr. John Glenn flew the first Mercurymission to actually orbit the planet on 20February 1962. Named ‘Friendship 7’, thespacecraft orbited the Earth three timesduring the flight, which lasted only 4 hours55 minutes and 23 seconds.

His second time in space came over 36years later, when he joined the crew of theSpace Shuttle Discovery on STS-95 – anine-day mission covering 134 Earth orbits(3.6 million miles). Glenn was 77 years oldat the time, which makes him not only thefirst American to orbit the Earth, but also theoldest astronaut of all!

Four…Like Gordon Tracy, L. Gordon Cooper, Jrloved adventure, with hobbies such asskiing and boating. While Gordon Tracy wasinvolved in a hydrofoil speedboat crashwhich put him in hospital for four months,Gordon Cooper’s Mercury flight on 15-16May 1963 was far from trouble-free. Afterthe 19th orbit of Earth, a faulty indicator lightcame on. During the 20th orbit, he lost allreadings on how high above the planet hewas. On the 21st orbit, his control systemlost power, and it was decided to end themission. After 34 hours 19 minutes and 49seconds, his Mercury capsule, ‘Faith 7’,splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, southeast of Midway Island.

Cooper’s second flight was on the Gemini 5mission two years later, when he and

Charles Conrad set a new space endurancerecord with a time of 190 hours and 56minutes.

Three…Alan Tracy was trained as an astronaut andit is said that his abilities in space wereoutstanding. Alan B. Shepard, Jr also hasquite a record when it comes to space: On 5May 1961, he piloted ‘Freedom 7’, hisMercury spacecraft, to become the firstAmerican in space. With a sub-orbital flight*of 302 miles and a height of 116 miles, theflight lasted only 15 minutes and 28seconds but it put him in the history books.

He was also spacecraft commander onApollo 14, making him (like Jeff Tracy) one

21

SCI-FI FOCUSMercury is Go!of the first men to land on the Moon. Hishonours include The Congressional Medal ofHonor (Space); two NASA DistinguishedService Medals; NASA Exceptional ServiceMedal, and many more.

Two…Virgil Tracy is a graduate of the DenverSchool of Advanced Technology, and hislack of fear and iron nerve make him one ofthe bravest pilots in the International Rescueteam. Virgil I. ‘Gus’ Grissom not onlyexcelled as a pilot, gaining him theDistinguished Flying Cross and Air Medalwith cluster, but also studied AeronauticalEngineering at the Air Force Institute ofTechnology before becoming an astronaut.Grissom was pilot of the ‘Liberty Bell 7’spacecraft, the second and final sub-orbitalflight* before John Glenn’s first orbitalmission. It lasted 15 minutes and 37seconds, and took him to a height of 118miles before landing 302 miles downrangefrom the launch pad at Cape Kennedy.Unfortunately, his capsule sank aftersplashdown.

Grissom also served as command pilot onthe first Gemini flight, Gemini 3, which henicknamed ‘Molly Brown’, who (according to

the musical) was “unsinkable”! VirgilGrissom was due to be in the crew of thefirst Apollo mission, but there was a fire inthe capsule during a test and he and his twocompanions, Ed White and Roger Chaffeewere all killed.

One…Scott Tracy was named for M. ScottCarpenter, the second American astronautto orbit the Earth in the Mercury 7spacecraft ‘Aurora 7’ on 24 May 1962. LikeJohn Glenn before him, Scott orbited theEarth three times, taking 4 hours and 54

minutes from lift-off to splashdown.

During a leave of absence from NASA,Carpenter took part in the US Navy’s Man-in-the-Sea project, living and working in aseafloor habitat for 30 days, making him anaquanaut as well as an astronaut. Returningto NASA, he helped design the Apollo LunarLanding Module, as well as helping trainastronauts for EVA** by workingunderwater.

Who…?One of the flown Mercury astronauts didn’tmake it into ‘Thunderbirds’ – Walter M.Schirra, pilot of the Mercury spacecraft‘Sigma 7’. His flight lasted for nine hours, 15minutes and nine orbits on 3 October 1962.He then went on to be command pilot onGemini 6, which made space history when itrendezvoused with Gemini 7. Finally, hewas command pilot on the first successfulApollo Mission, Apollo 7, making him theonly astronaut to fly in all three projects.

Why his name was not chosen to be one ofthe Tracy family is not known. We can onlyguess that perhaps “Walter Tracy” doesn’thave the same ring to it as the other names.We can, however, thank ‘Thunderbirds’creator Gerry Anderson for an interestingway to remember the Project Mercuryastronauts.

From Left to Right:John Glenn and John TracyGordon Cooper and Gordon TracyAlan Shepard and Alan TracyVirgil Grissom and Virgil TracyScott Carpenter and Scott TracyWalter Schirra

Astronaut images courtesy of: NASAThunderbirds images courtesy of: ITC Productions

Thunderbirds is a trademark of CarltonInternational Media Ltd

*A sub-orbital spaceflight (or sub-orbitalflight) is a space flight that does not involveputting a vehicle into orbit.

**EVA – Extra-vehicular Activity is workdone by an astronaut away from the Earthand outside of his or her spacecraft, suchas a spacewalk.

22

ON THE COVER

This picture shows the US Space Shuttleon its way to the launch pad. Theseparate parts of the Shuttle launchvehicle, known as the ‘Stack’, arebrought together in a huge buildingcalled the Vehicle Assembly Building, orVAB. This photo was taken from the roofof that building. The Stack consists ofthe Orbiter vehicle (the bit that looks likean aircraft) plus two Solid RocketBoosters (the two tubes on either side)and the External Tank (the big orangefuel tank).

The Stack is taken from the VAB to thelaunch pad on top of this crawlertransport. The pad is 5 km away from thebuilding and the crawler transport is veryslow. It was originally built to carry thegiant Saturn V rocket (see page 30)which weighed almost 3 million kg.

The Shuttle stack is lightweight incomparison, but still weighs on averagealmost 2 million kg. The crawler has tocarefully take the whole load down to thelaunch pad, so it can’t accelerate veryquickly or come to a sudden stop. Thebest speed it can manage is about 0.8kph, so it takes almost six hours to getto the launch pad.

With that much weight at such a slowspeed, you certainly wouldn’t want thecaterpillar tracks to run over your foot!

23

SHUTTLE ROLLOUT

There have been six American SpaceShuttles altogether, including one that wasused only for testing and was never able tofly in space. The six vehicles are: Atlantis,Challenger, Columbia, Discovery,Endeavour and Enterprise. How much doyou know about the Space Shuttle programand its vehicles? Answers on page 42/43.

a) Which shuttle was the first one to fly inspace?

b) Which shuttle flew most of the Americanmissions to the Russian Space stationMir?

c) Which shuttle has never flown in spaceand was only used for testing?

d) Which two shuttles are named aftersailing ships commanded by CaptainCook the explorer?

e) Which shuttle was the first one lost in alaunch accident in 1986?

f) The very first space shuttle flight was on12 April 1981. That was the 20thanniversary of a very important flight.What was it?

g) The very first American woman to gointo space flew aboard the SpaceShuttle on a mission called STS-7. Whatwas her name?

h) Most of the Shuttle Stack can be usedagain on later missions. Which is theonly part that always has to bereplaced?

RESOURCES

24

Everyone knows that students atschool like to play games in theclassroom, but can playing a gameactually help you learn somescience? To answer this question,a card game called ‘Voyager’ wasdeveloped to inform students aboutthe many scientific satellites thereare and the large involvement ofthe UK in space science andastronomy.

The game consists of 32 cards, eachdetailing a scientific satellite, giving acolour picture, the satellite’s full name,the countries involved with itsconstruction and operation, a briefdescription of what the satellite doesand the six characteristics required toplay the game.

The game is simple to play and usessix satellite statistics: Launch, Lifetime,Mass, Power, Range and Orbit. Thefirst player chooses one of thesecategories from their top card andcompares the value to that on theiropponent’s card. The player who hasthe highest value wins the round, takingtheir opponent’s card and putting it tothe back of their own deck. The aim ofthe game is to win all 32 cards.

The satellites chosen for the game arefrom the past, present and future,covering a wide range of differentscientific goals including Earthobservation, Optical, X-ray andGamma-ray astronomy.

Cards include the Hubble SpaceTelescope, The International SpaceStation, XMM-Newton and ENVISAT.Each card in the game also includes asatellite specific web address allowinginterested students to find out furtherinformation.

In order to see if students would enjoyplaying the game, if teachers would findthe game suitable for use in sciencelessons and if students would actuallylearn anything from playing the game,‘Voyager’ needed to be tested inschools. Thanks to funding from theParticle Physics and Astronomy

Research Council (PPARC) in 2001,several copies of the initial game wereproduced and tested in three differentschools.

Over 140 students aged between 9 and13 took part in the ‘Voyager’ testing.Feedback was obtained by talking tothe students and teachers and also bytheir completion of a shortquestionnaire. Some questions wereasked both before and after the game

was played to see what information thestudents had learned. All the commentsand suggestions given during the testswere used to develop a final version of‘Voyager’, complete with a set ofcompanion notes containing ideas forprojects and further classroom activitiesusing the card game as the startingpoint. The notes also give informationabout the relevance of ‘Voyager’ to theNational Curriculum and include acomplete list of the web addresses oneach of the satellite cards for easyreference.

Comments received by studentsincluded: “I didn’t know that there areso many satellites around”; “I reallyenjoyed playing this game. I think it isfun as well as educational”; “I think thatit is a good game and anyone can enjoyit”; “I thought it was really good fun andyou learn lots. I would like to playagain”; “I didn’t think science was fununtil today!”

The ‘Voyager’ card game was very wellreceived by both students and teachersat the three schools, with studentsbeing interviewed about the game by alocal radio station and by the localpress. Interest generated by the mediacoverage resulted in the remaining fewcopies of the trial game being quickly

Voyager Card Game

An example of a card from the game. Actual sizeis 6.5 x 9.5 cm

25

RESOURCES

handed out to interested schools.

The success of the school trials and thepopularity of ‘Voyager’ showed thegame had the potential to be a veryuseful and fun educational tool. Thequality of the cards was then improvedand 8 new cards added to the game. Asecond funding award from PPARC atthe end of 2003 meant that over 3000

Centre in Leicester for schools visitingthe space museum.

Over 1500 copies of ‘Voyager’ havebeen distributed at the time of writingthis article and many comments aboutthe game and suggestions forclassroom activities involving the gamehave been obtained from both studentsand teachers.

Other activities have includedstudents creating their own satellitemodels and even doing smallresearch projects about their favouritesatellite in the game, using the webaddresses included on the cards toobtain more information. A number ofteachers even designed their owncards on different topics using thesame principle as ‘Voyager’ toaddress other areas of the sciencecurriculum.

The development of ‘Voyager’ hasshown that playing games in theclassroom and learning some scienceat the same time is indeed possible.‘Voyager’ has proved to be a usefuleducational tool and a number ofideas for future ‘Voyager’ card gamesare currently being investigated.

For further information about‘Voyager’ and to obtain copies ofthe game, please contact DavidSmith at:

Dr David Ryan SmithDept Electronic and ComputerEngineeringBrunel UniversityUxbridgeMiddlesexUB8 3PHUK

Email: David.Smith@brunel.ac.ukThe ‘Voyager’ webpage for moreinformation about the game is:http://www.star.le.ac.uk/classroomspace/Voyager.htm

WE HAVE 4 COPIES OF VOYAGERTO GIVE AWAY TO ONE SCHOOLIN OUR CAPTION COMPETITION

ON PAGE 13

Students at Thomas Estley Community College,Hinckley trying out the Voyager game.

copies of ‘Voyager’ and the companionnotes could be produced. These copiesare available free of charge to anyschool teacher or science educator whowould like to try the game out.

A webpage containing informationabout ‘Voyager’ was created to informpeople about the game and so farduring 2004, copies of ‘Voyager’ havemade their way to a vast number ofschools throughout the UK, with somecopies even going to schools in Europeand the US. The game has also beenmade available at the National Space

One response included a number ofletters from students who had writtentheir views and feelings about the gameas part of a writing exercise: “I amwriting to you because I enjoyedVoyager. I think it was the best cardgame in the world. I enjoyed it becausewhen you finish the game you can findout more about your favourite card onthe internet”, “ Thank you for makingthe game Voyager. I enjoyed playingthe game because it is scientific, funand the cards are colourful and havelots of information”.

THE NIGHT SKY

26

Of all the various sciences,astronomy is the one that soimmediately fills the observerwith wonder. It becomes veryenticing!

In this series of articles, I’m going toshow you how to start in thefascinating hobby of Astronomy.There are many resources such asbooks, CD ROMs, videos, magazinesand hundreds of web sites dedicatedto this topic, so where are we going tostart?

Eyes OnlyWell first of all, despite what manyastronomers say, my advice is don’tget either a telescope or binoculars(we’ll look at equipment later on). Thebest way to start any hobby or interestis to lay a nice firm foundation and inAstronomy, the foundation is to learnthe night sky. Don’t get confused withco-ordinates, setting circles, azimuth,declination and all the other fancywords that you will find in manybooks. The best starting point issimply to look up on a clear night andsee what you can see. You’ll seepatterns of stars, constellations, theMoon, and maybe what appears to bea brighter than normal or strangelycoloured ‘star’ which is in fact aplanet. Under a really dark sky wellaway from city lights, you can alsosee a band of cloudy grey stretchingacross the sky. This is our galaxy, theMilky Way, as we can see it from oursmall world.

Naked eye astronomy is, in myopinion, the only way to start. Why?It’s quite simple really. Once you canidentify the major constellationsvisible throughout the year, you knowhow to navigate the sky and then youcan begin to search for more exoticobjects, such as the great nebula ofOrion, or our closest galacticneighbour the Great AndromedaGalaxy. You can also observe starclusters such as the Pleiades, orSeven Sisters as it’s sometimesknown. All these objects and manymore are visible to the naked eye

1. Starting Out:By Dave Buttery, FRAS

under the right circumstances.

Not only will this method of startingset very strong foundations for lateron when you have optical equipmentsuch as binoculars and telescopes,but it will also save you spending a lotof money on expensive equipmentthat you may never use if you decideyou don’t want to carry on after all.

Hubble You ‘Ain’tOne thing to say before we go anyfurther; images such Figure 1 cannotbe seen using amateur telescopeswithin the budget of most ordinarypeople, for two reasons. Firstly, withnaked eye observations, you willnever see the colours the wayphotographs capture them. This isbecause most pictures such as thisone of the Cone Nebula in theconstellation of Monoceros, havebeen taken using very long exposures

in order to capture both the detail andthe colour. Secondly of course, thispicture was taken by the HubbleSpace Telescope using lenses andmirrors costing millions of pounds,and this sort of equipment is waybeyond anything an amateur canpurchase! You have to be realistic inyour expectations. Sadly these days,with professional equipment such asHubble and the European SouthernTelescope, we are spoilt, and manythink this sort of quality image iswithin the grasp of back gardentelescopes. Sorry, they’re not. Figure2 shows the same area of the skytaken with an 18" telescope costingthousands.

But don’t despair, there are stillwondrous sights to see, albeit insmaller versions, on any clear night.In fact under very clear night skies,this nebula is just visible as a fuzzypatch of light using only binoculars.But remember to begin with, we’re notgoing to be using optical equipment atall, just our eyes.

“The best way tostart is just to gooutside on a clearnight, look up andsee what you cansee.”

Figure 1: Hubble Image of the Cone Nebula.

Figure 2.

On the left is animage similar towhat the naked eyewould see, on theright is a longexposure photo

[Images courtesy ofthe Astronomy club

of Nashville]

27

THE NIGHT SKYBeginning AstronomyStar ChartThe first, and one of the mostimportant pieces of equipment in yourinventory should be a decentplanisphere (star finder) or star chart.You can buy these from most largebookshops and stationers, as well asvirtually all reputable astronomy/telescope dealers. Alternatively, youcan download the information frommany web sites, such as http://school.discovery.com/schooladventures/skywatch/howto/planisphere1.html or http://skymaps.com/downloads.html andthen make your own. But you mustmake sure you are getting one for the

correct latitude of your location(Northern Europe / 52 degrees isfine). This is a simple mistake tomake, but very frustrating if you areplanning a night under the British skyarmed with your newly boughtplanisphere, only to find that yours isfor the New Zealand sky!

Now, try and identify the patterns/constellations on the star wheelagainst what you can see in your sky.It may take a little while to see them,for a number of reasons. Firstly, mapsof the sky and the actual sky look verydifferent; secondly, some of theconstellations are very faint (such asAries) or are very hard to spot(Cancer); and finally, you may well belooking at them upside down (youwouldn’t be the first)! One other really

useful piece of equipment is a torch.Not a normal one though, you needone that shines RED light (this can beas simple as sticking red paper orcellophane over an existing torch, oras exotic as a variable intensity LEDdesign). The reason for this, what Iconsider vital ‘bit of kit’, is simple: youneed to be able to see where you’regoing and read your star wheel, BUTyou don’t want to be using a normalwhite light source. Why, I hear youask? Well, white light causes yourpupils to contract, and for goodstargazing you need them as dilatedas possible (so no popping backinside to a hot coffee; make a flask of

it and take it withyou).

So, suitablyarmed with ourred torch, starfinder and flask ofcoffee, we set offinto the dark(wearing warmclothing andgloves of course).What do we donow? Well thefirst thing to do isto work out the

date/time on your star wheel, andthen look at it and compare it to thesky. Remember to view the correcthorizon on the star wheel as you gazeupwards. You should easily make outthe bright stars and constellations and

be able to find them on your starwheel. You’re now well on your way!

You will find that your star wheel willhave the Ecliptic and the CelestialEquator marked on it (or should haveif it’s a good one). What do thesewords mean? It’s very important toknow the difference. Astronomersrefer to the stars, planets andgalaxies as being in the CelestialSphere (another strange phrase). Inreality, it’s just the universe as seenlooking out in ALL directions fromEarth (fig 3). It’s very similar to theway the ancients thought of theuniverse, with Earth at the centre(because it is when you’re looking out,if you think about it). Therefore thewhole sky is like a big sphere with ourfragile little planet in the middle.

The Ecliptic is the path taken by theSun as it apparently travels aroundthe sphere and is very different to theCelestial Equator, which is really aprojection of the Earth’s equator outonto the sphere. Finally, your Zenithis what is directly over your head, notthe North Pole (unless you’reactually standing there), and thereforechanges depending on your viewinglocation. You don’t need to worryabout the other numbers and phrasessuch as RA (Right Ascension) or Dec(Declination), we’ll look at thoseanother day.

Before we begin our session, one finalnote. ALL star wheels and charts givetime as Universal Time (UT). This is

Figure 3: The Celestial Sphere, showing planet Earth in the centre

THE NIGHT SKY

28

based on Greenwich Mean Time(GMT), so when the clocks goforwards for summer, you have toallow for this or your sky will be onehour out!

Star HoppingThe next step is to learn to ‘Star Hop’– no it’s not a dance for astronomers!It’s a great way of moving from oneconstellation to another withouthaving to look down. It takes a bit ofpractice, but it’s well worth it (fig 4).

Use the sky map to find the BigDipper (or Plough) and then the NorthStar, Polaris, by following the two‘pointer stars’ that make up the frontof the Plough’s blade (or Big Dipper’sladle). Once you find Polaris, you willhave also found the Little Dipper (avery faint constellation under citylights). Using the two brightest starsin the Little Dipper, follow themacross the sky to the W- or M-shapedconstellation of Casseopia.

Now, go back to the Plough and thistime follow the curved handle of thePlough and “arc to Arcturus”, thebrightest star north of the celestialequator and the fourth brightest starin the entire sky. About halfwaybetween Arcturus and the western

horizon lies the zodiacconstellation Leo. Itdepicts a crouching lion –the backward questionmark, or Sickle, is Leo’shead and chest, and thetriangle-shape his rearand tail. Leo can also befound by following theArc of the Ploughforward. See how easystar hopping can be. Ofcourse here we are using very brightstars and constellations, but theprinciple holds true for dimmer starsand fainter constellations as well.

Before we move on, one final areaneeds to be covered. It’s not easy,and to be honest, it confuses manyexperienced amateurs! It’s known asDegrees (°) of RA or Dec (I know Isaid we would look at these anotherday, but I think it’s important to havea brief look here), in view of degrees(°) of separation, or to put it anotherway, how far apart the stars appear!(see Figure 5)

MagnitudeTo put it simply, magnitude is thebrightness of stars (as we see them).The light from stars has travelledmany millions or billions of years

before it reaches us (except for ourSun, whose light takes about eightminutes). As it travels across space,even really bright stars appeardimmer than our Sun. Astronomersrefer to how bright a star appears asits Magnitude. This scale ofbrightness was first written by theancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus(190-120 BC), who classified the starsinto six brightness classes.Hipparchus said that the brighteststars he could see were 1stmagnitude (or biggest), slightly fainterstars were 2nd magnitude, and so onto magnitude 6 (the faintest visible).Around AD 140, Claudius Ptolemycopied this system in his own star list,which became the basic text forastronomers until the invention oftelescopes in the middle ages.Therefore, everyone used a sixmagnitude system.

Then along came Galileo. Using histelescope, he could see much fainterstars: “Indeed, with the glass you willdetect below stars of the sixthmagnitude such a crowd of othersthat escape natural sight that it ishardly believable,” he wrote in 1610.The magnitude scale soon becameopen-ended, and remains so today.Most naked eye observers cannot seestars below the 6th magnitude (somesay 8th is possible under clear darkskies with very good eyesight).Binoculars enable us to see to the 9thand small telescopes to the 13th. Bycomparison, the Hubble SpaceTelescope has seen as low as the31st magnitude!

Figure 5.Working out how farapart the starsappear:

Figure 4: Star Hopping around the Night Sky

1o 5o 10o

15o 25o

Casseopia

Polaris

The PloughBootes

Arcturus

Leo

29

THE NIGHT SKY

As science and astronomy progressedfurther, a TRUE definition ofmagnitude (rather then Hipparchus’snaked eye judgement) was neededand by the middle of the 19th century,astronomers realized there was apressing need to define the entiremagnitude scale more precisely. Theyhad already determined that a 1st-magnitude star shines with about 100times the light of a 6th-magnitudestar, so the resulting magnitude scalewas logarithmic, in neat agreementwith the 1850s belief that all humansenses are logarithmic in theirresponse to stimuli. The decibel scalefor rating loudness was likewise madelogarithmic.

Backwards ScaleNow that star magnitudes wereranked on a precise mathematical

“The next step is tolearn to ‘Star Hop’ -no, it’s not a dancefor astronomers!”

Dave Buttery is a Fellow of theRoyal Astronomical Society and amember of many Astronomicaland Educational groups.

He is the senior partner in AURIGAAstronomy, an astronomicaleducation service for schools,which helps teachers with theastronomical components of theNational Curriculum via his mobileplanetarium ‘The Auriga StarDome’.

For further details on what Davecan offer your school, call

01909 531507 or visit AURIGAAstronomy’s website

www.auriga-astronomy.com

scale, another problem becameunavoidable. Some ‘1st-magnitude’stars were a lot brighter than others.Astronomers had no choice but toextend the scale out to brighter valuesas well as faint ones. Stars like Rigel,Capella, Arcturus, and Vega aremagnitude 0, an awkward statementthat sounds like they have nobrightness at all, but it was too late tostart again from scratch. Themagnitude scale extends even furtherthan this, into negative numbers:Sirius shines at magnitude –1.5,Venus reaches –4.4, the full Moon isabout –12.5, and the Sun blazes atmagnitude –26.7.

Before we finish, one final point onmagnitude. Up to now we have talkedabout ‘apparent magnitude’ or to put itanother way, how we see the stars.As we said earlier, the light from starsis ‘diluted’ as it travels through space.We don’t know how intrinsically brightan object really is until we also takeits distance into account, soastronomers built the AbsoluteMagnitude scale. An object’s absolutemagnitude is simply how bright itwould appear if placed at a standarddistance of 10 parsecs (32.6 light-

years). At this distance, our Sunwould be magnitude 4.85, and quiteunimpressive. On sky maps, absolutemagnitudes are always written with acapital M and apparent magnitudeswith a lower-case m.

Finally, what can we see thisAutumn?Autumn is a great time for stargazing. The nights are not too cold,and it gets dark nice and early. Thereare few planets around this year; Marsis on the wrong side of the Sun,Jupiter is in the daytime sky (notvisible), Venus can be seen beforesunrise in the EAST shining asbrightly as it did in the West lastwinter. Only Saturn is a night objectbut before Christmas, it rises just inGemini at around 10 pm.Constellation wise, the autumn sky istruly superb, from Hercules in theWest (setting early evening) to Taurusin the East. The main southern sky isdominated by the Andromeda legend,with all the characters Perseus,Cassiopeia, Cetus, Cephus,Andromeda and Pegasus visible.Under a clear dark sky, theAndromeda galaxy M31 is visibleeasily to the naked eye. The northernsky sees the plough sitting in its‘traditional’ position, blade forward.

DID YOU KNOW ABOUT..?

30

Deep FreezeThe insulation of the coldstorage fuel tanks of the SaturnV was so good that if you putice cubes inside, they wouldtake eight years to melt.

THE APOLLO SATURN V MOON ROCKET

Storage SpaceEach of the fuel tanks in the firststage was big enough to hold threedouble decker buses at one go andtogether they could store enoughliquid oxygen to fill 54 railway tankertrucks

One Year LongThe Saturn V was 111 m (365feet) tall from the base of thefive huge F1 engines to the tipof the launch escape tower.Weighing 2,750 tonnes it burned54.5 million litres of fuel in 11minutes and contained2,000,000 working parts. Theonly part of the whole ‘stack’that returned to Earth was the3.5 m tall Command Modulethat splashed down in the oceanat the end of the mission

HeavyweightThere were 2,500,000 solderjoints inside the moon rocketand if just 1 mm too muchwire had been used on each ofthose joints, it would haveadded 40 tonnes to the weightof the rocket

Fill Her UpTo launch a Saturn V required26,500,000 litres of liquid nitrogen,16,000,000 litres of liquid oxygen,9,000,000 litres of liquid hydrogen, and395,000 litres of liquid helium. The totalfuel weight was 500 times the weight ofthe Apollo spacecraft at the top, withsome of it stored at -221oC to keep it

Put the Light OnThe rocket generated enoughthrust at launch to power thewhole of New York for 1.5 hours

Ground ForceThe power and thunder of aSaturn V launch was soimmense that watchers nearbysaid it felt like Florida wassinking a few inches

OvertimeIt took four months and 5000workers to construct therocket stack, check it, moveit to the launch pad andlaunch it

31

GIANT WORDSEARCH - AMERICAN ASTRONAUTSHidden in this grid are the names of all the American astronauts up to the end of the Apollo missions, along with someof their vehicles and places. Cross out or circle the words in the list as you find them, looking forwards, backwards, up,down or diagonally for the answers. When you’ve found all the words, you will have some letters left over. When readfrom left to right and top to bottom, these extra letters spell out the names of eight space ‘firsts’. They’re not all Americanand they’re not all people, but they are the first of their kind in space. Answers on Page 42/43.

N E D R O W N A T I T L L E H C T I M

H A M T R E G I W S Y L G N I T T A M

E C A P S C A N A V E R A L L A I T K

D R O F F A T S C H M I T T A G E L D

R E T N E P R A C O L L I N S A I A A

A S O O R M E R C U R Y O U N G S S R

M A R R I H C S N O T Y A L S G E A N

A R I S N A V E T I H W N O H T L E O

H R E I S B G H L O V E L L E C E M C

G K W B O E N L O N M L R E P O O C H

N R E R M O I V N A O O M L A L E D A

I A M I D U K E S P O N O N R U O I I

N A N R Q V L C A R I A S N D M D V S

N I O N E G O S H G A N S R M B A I E

U G A O R T S M R A L R I N S I A T L

C R S A T U R N A N D E R S Y A U T T

T R A K C I E W H C S C G N I R D L A

AldrinAndersApolloArmstrongAtlasBeanBormanCanaveralCarpenterCernanCollinsColumbia

ConradCooperCunninghamDukeEagleEiseleEvansGeminiGlennGordonGrissomHaise

WORD LIST

IrwinLovellMattinglyMcDivittMercuryMitchellMoonRoosaSaturnSchirraSchmittSchweickart

ScottShepardSlaytonSpaceStaffordSwigertTitanTranquilityWhiteWordenYoung

32

SPACE HISTORY

One of the last places on Earthwhere you would expect to meet aspaceman is Iceland. Yet one day,many years ago, I stood beside asteaming hot spring far from thecapital, Reykjavik, as a group of USastronauts splashed happily in thebubbling water.

They were taking a little rest andrecreation after a hard day on the lavafields. Apollo astronauts were trained inlecture rooms, laboratories, insimulators, factories and in tropicaljungles (the latter just in case theycame back on the wrong trajectory fromthe Moon). But they also carried outpart of their training for the incrediblejourney to the Moon in an improbableplace – Iceland.

Now you may think that this cold, bleakisland in the North Atlantic is probablynot the place you would expect to visitto prepare you for a trip to the Moon –but there is a very good reason why it isan ideal training ground. Iceland hasbeen formed over the past few millionyears as molten rock has been forcedup to the surface between two of the‘tectonic plates’ that make up theEarth’s crust. The North American plateand the European plate are movingvery slowly away from each other andas they do so, molten rock wells upfrom the sub-surface ‘mantle’. This hasforced up the Mid-Atlantic ridge, ofwhich Iceland forms a part.

It is an island of huge glaciers and red-hot lava, violent eruptions and new landwhich is still coming out of the sea. Thehot springs in which we bathed at theend of the day on that long-ago trip area by-product of the volcanic activity.The underground water is heated by thehot rocks under the surface and itbubbles up like the water boiling in akettle.

Because the surface of the Moon wasthought to be partly built up byvolcanoes, a party of twenty or soApollo astronauts were sent there in1966 to make sure that when they wentto the Moon they would recognise

volcanic rocks when they saw them. Asit happens, they also visited theHawaiian Islands in the Pacific, wherethey studied the different types ofvolcanoes which have built up theisland chain over millions of years.

In fact, one of the biggest debatesabout the origin of the Moon beforeastronauts went there was whether thelunar surface was formed by the impactof thousands of meteorites or byvolcanic eruptions. As we shall see, thequestion was largely answered in thelate 1960s and 1970s by some of theastronauts whom I accompanied toIceland. As a science writer, I was luckyenough to be sent there to tour theisland with them and observe theirtraining. No-one knew three yearsbefore the Apollo 11 landing in July1969 who would be the first man to setfoot on the Moon, but as luck wouldhave it a modest, quiet-spoken civiliantest pilot called Neil Armstrong was oneof the party and as the world knows, itwas he who made that first small stepfor a man in the Sea of Tranquillity.

Iceland’s days are long in June, as it isnot far south of the Arctic Circle. Themidnight sun is not quite a reality there(it only happens north of the ArcticCircle), but it sets not long before 12and rises again not long after, so wehad long days as our four-wheel drivevehicles toured the empty, grey ashfields and lava flows of Iceland. It wasstrange to tour the streets of theIcelandic capital and see childrenplaying on the corners in almostcompletely broad daylight aftermidnight. It seems that even having

been born and grown up there, thechildren of Iceland find it hard to sleepwhen there is really no darkness! (Inthe winter, of course, the opposite istrue, for there is then little daylight asthe Sun stays stubbornly below thehorizon for most of the day and night.)

The astronauts were well prepared fortheir trip. An Icelandic professor ofworld renown with a special knowledgeof the way Iceland has been formedtaught the astronauts how to find andidentify volcanic rocks and myphotographer and I trailed along behindthem. On the first night we camped withthe astronauts on a stretch of lavabeside a gushing stream of melt waterfrom a glacier. They kindly offered usone of their modern, metal-framedtents, which we shared with a Frenchjournalist. Little did we know that thetent was not really designed forIceland’s weather. It might have beenfine in the deserts of Arizona – but atorrential storm hit Iceland’s far wetterterrain during the night.

We watched with trepidation as dripsbegan to accumulate on the roof of thetent and when we woke in the morningthere were several inches of rainwaterin the bottom of the tent. Our sleepingbags were soaked and it was obviousthat we couldn’t spend several morenights in the tent.

The next night we did better. We hadengaged the services of an Icelandicschoolteacher who was skilled andexperienced as a traveller on the roughterrain of the island and he had broughtwith him a little, unsophisticated ‘Boy

Astronauts in Icelandby Arthur Smith

33

SPACE HISTORYScout’ tent – the sort of thing that hasthe shape of an old-fashioned haystack.Our guide offered us the hospitality ofhis tent and so the four of us, sleepinglike sardines in a tin, remainedcompletely dry. I never did ask theastronauts how they had fared in theirtents, similar to the one they had lentus, but I suspect that they spent a fairlyuncomfortable time in them.

The astronauts toured the various areasof volcanic rocks and even made a briefexcursion to the huge Vatnajokullglacier – although they didn’t expect tofind anything like that on the Moon! Inthe middle 1960s, a series ofunmanned photographic probes calledRanger had been sent by NASA tocrash on the surface of the Moon. In theminutes before they crashed, they sentback brilliant and unprecedentedly clearphotographs of the lunar craters, rillesand ‘seas’. Obviously the astronautswere familiar with these pictures andone of the features which they pickedout concerned rocks that had rolleddown slopes on the Moon.

Not much has happened on the lunarsurface for several billion years butthere are ‘moonquakes’ occasionally,similar to our own earthquakes butmuch smaller in power. This wasproved later when the instrumentsplaced on the Moon by Project Apolloastronauts included seismometers. Anumber of naturalmoonquakes have been recorded, aswell as an artificial one caused by

crashing the third stage of a Saturn Vrocket on the surface.

One of the results of the naturaltremors is that boulders lying on slopesare sometimes dislodged and rolldownhill, leaving a trail behind in thedust. Some of these trails may havebeen made thousands or even millionsof years ago, for the surface of theMoon is almost unchanging.Throughout their trip, whenever theyhad a spare moment, the astronautswould try to emulate these trails on theIcelandic ash by rolling bouldersdownhill. (I don’t think that any of themtried this manoeuvre when they went tothe Moon – that would have been veryunscientific – but on Apollo 17, forinstance, the crew did find some ofthese boulder trails as they toured thehighlands in their lunar rover.)

The astronauts worked long and hard tostudy and understand the rocks on thelava flows and ash fields and it wasvery late in the evening when they hadfinished their supper. Then several ofthem showed that they were determinedto enjoy their visit to Iceland and wentoff to nearby streams with rod and lineto fish for trout and salmon. As for me,I didn’t show the same devotion to dutyand by midnight I was snuggled downin the little white tent and slept soundlydespite the near daylight conditionsoutside.

What was the conclusion of the greatsearch for volcanic rocks on the Moon?

Well, they did find them, includingseveral of those on the Iceland trip wholater flew Apollo spacecraft a quarter ofa million miles on the most hazardousjourney ever undertaken.

As well as Neil Armstrong, our pictureshows several of the men who landedon the Moon in the late 1960s and early1970s. Prominent among them, secondfrom the right, is Jack Schmitt, the onlygeologist to be included in ProjectApollo. He flew on the very lastmission, Apollo 17, and he had aparticular aim.

In the photographs from orbit, therewere dark areas on the part of theMoon where Apollo 17 was landing.Schmitt thought they might show signsof recent volcanic eruptions but whenhe got there, he found that like virtuallyall the rest of the lunar surface, the darkareas were well over three billion yearsold.

That’s the trouble; nothing hashappened on the Moon for so long.There have been plenty of lava flows onthe surface and if you look up on amoonlit night you will see dark areasknown as the ‘seas’ (maria in Latin),which are full of lava. But they, too,flowed almost four billion years ago andtrue volcanic activity on the surface ofthe Moon has been found only rarely.Even so, that trip to Iceland helped toprepare those twenty-one spacemen forthe task of sorting out the jumble ofrocks they found when they wentacross the gulf of space.

There’s a weird coincidence in thepicture. Fred Haise, the little chap in themiddle wearing a black hat and peeringfrom behind two other astronauts, wasone of the crew of the ill-fated Apollo13, which almost came to grief whenthe Service Module exploded on theway to the Moon. And, would youbelieve it, he is standing 13th from theleft in the row of astronauts. I’m notsuperstitious and I’m sure it was just acoincidence; Jack Swigert, another ofthe Apollo 13 crew, is standing fourthfrom the right.

WHERE TO GO

34

This map of the UK is going to build into a guide to all the places that you can go to experience space and sciencedisplays, shows or interactive days out. It only has a few entries at the moment, so we’d like your help to fill it up. Ifyou or your school have been to a science centre near you, tell us about it and we’ll add it to the map.

If you are a space or science centre, we want to let people know you are there, so send us some details about yourcentre to let schools and students know what you do. We will be featuring different centres in future issues.

Aberdeen: Satrosphere01224 640340 www.satrosphere.net

Edinburgh: Royal Observatory0131 668 8405 www.roe.ac.uk/vc

Newcastle: Discovery Museum0121 232 6789 www.twmuseums.org.uk/discovery

Halifax: Eureka! the Museum for Children01422 330 069 www.eureka.org.uk

Leicester: National Space Centre0870 607 7223 www.spacecentre.co.uk

Norwich: Inspire01603 612612

www.science-project.org/inspire

Hailsham: Observatory Science Centre01323 832731 www.the-observatory.org

London: London Planetarium0870 400 3010 www.london-planetarium.com

Weymouth: Discovery01305 789 007www.discoverdiscovery.co.uk

Bristol: At-Bristol0845 345 1235www.at-bristol.org.uk

Glasgow: Glasgow Science Centre0141 420 5000 www.gsc.org.uk

Cardiff: Techniquest02920 475 475 www.techniquest.org

Oxford: Curioxity01865 247004 www.oxtrust.org.uk/curioxity

Birmingham:Thinktank at Millennium Point0121 202 2222 www.thinktank.ac

Macclesfield: Jodrell Bank01477 571 339 www.jb.man.ac.uk/scicen

Armagh: Armagh Planetarium028 3752 3689wwwarmaghplanet.com

35

PHOTO COMPETITION - WHAT IS ITThis picture was taken by the astronauts aboard the Skylab space station that hosted crews in 1973 and1974, including Ed Gibson. All you have to do is tell us what you think it’s a picture of.

The winning answer will be printed in the next issue of Voyage.

LAST ISSUE:Nobody correctly guessed that Dr Adam Bakerwas holding a piece of solid rocket fuel in lastissue’s photo, so we will carry over the prize

to this issue.

The winner of the competition will receive twoautographed Data Cards; one of Ed Gibson

and one of Jack Lousma, both former Skylabastronauts

THE PRIZESigned copies of Ed Gibson AND Jack Lousma’s Data Cards (see page 3).Runners up will receive a copy of the next issue of Voyage.Please mark your entry Photo Competition 2 and send to the address on page 2

FUTURE SPACE

36

The recent spate of robotic probes toreach Mars has captured theimagination of a new generation.Hollywood has already opened ourminds to the idea of spaceexploration, but amid the hype, it’sworth pausing for a moment andasking some serious questions.

Could human beings really follow inthe footsteps of probes such as Spiritand Opportunity and if we did, mightthey merely suffer the fate of Beagle2? Even if we arrived safely at ourdestination, what would be thechances of establishing a mannedsettlement there?

Besides the Earth, there are two otherplanets in the solar system that mightbe suitable for colonisation. The firstis Venus.

Hell PlanetVenus is a promising little planet,almost exactly the same size as theEarth, with a dense atmosphere andplenty of clouds. If you could stand onthe surface of Venus, the force ofgravity would be more or less thesame as on Earth and its proximity tothe sun would certainly keep the placesunny. Unfortunately you’d also boilto death in seconds. Venus is ahellishly hot planet where a block ofsolid lead would melt and turn toliquid if you put it on the floor.

In the long term, Venus probablyoffers the best hope of a second,Earth like home for mankind.Unfortunately, we would first have totame its ferocious atmosphere.Incredible though it may sound, thereare scientists working on this problemright now and some of their planssound almost feasible. The process ofturning a hostile, alien planet into anEarth-like world has even been givena name, terra forming, but it wouldprobably take century or more towork.

So what about Mars?The force of gravity on Mars is aboutone third of the Earth’s. For a first

destination, this is actually anadvantage since it wouldn’t be toodifficult to fly back from. What woulda mission to Mars be like and whatsort of world could we build when wegot there?

Would a manned mission to Marsbe dangerous?The spacecraft would have to belaunched in separate components andassembled in orbit around the Earth.The crew would be flown to thecompleted ship by ferry vessel andtransferred over to their quartersready for the flight. You would expectthem to smile for the televisioncameras but none of them will beunder any illusions as to the risksinvolved. Catastrophic failure wouldbe unsurprising in a mission of thiskind.

The ferry would retreat to a safedistance and the Mars vessel wouldfire its motors to break out of Earthorbit and set off on a trajectory thatwill take it to Mars. Once the rocketmotors have fired, it will beimpossible to turn back. Usingpresent day rockets, it will take aboutsix months to get to Mars, and thereturn journey will take a similarperiod. To justify such a long flightand in order to wait until the two

planets are in a suitable position topermit the flight home, the crew wouldhave to spend at least three to sixmonths on the surface of the planet.In essence, we’re talking about aneighteen month space mission. Is thispossible?

More than a year in spaceBasically, yes, but it’s not easy. TheRussians have kept people in orbit forover a year and although thecosmonauts developed some medicalproblems, they did recover.Unfortunately, a mission to Mars isvery different from a long durationmission in low Earth orbit. Theastronauts heading to Mars wouldhave no hope of a rapid return toEarth. If any thing went wrong theywould be beyond hope of rescue.

During the flight, they would beexposed to the dangerous radiation ofinterplanetary space. It’s even beensuggested that the first astronautswould be people approachingretirement, who already had grown upchildren and who, essentially,wouldn’t mind becoming infertile ordeveloping long term illnesses.

Lifeboats and RescueMost plans to visit Mars involve acrew of at least six. If the resourceswere available, it would make senseto send two ships separated by a fewmiles. If one ship malfunctioned, theother could rescue the strandedastronauts and function as a life boat.But conditions on the space craftwould be cramped. The crew wouldhave to fly to Mars surrounded by vaststock piles of equipment, spare partsand food parcels. These parcelswould serve the additional purpose ofprotecting them from the radiationfound in outer space and in time, theymight ‘eat their way’ into a moregenerous living space by throwingtheir empty bottles and cansoverboard.

Carbon dioxide can be filtered fromthe atmosphere quite quickly, but the

Humans on Marsby Steven Cutts

37

FUTURE SPACEair would soon begin to taste stale.It’s also difficult to shower in spaceand the odour of a chemical toiletwould be impossible to eliminate. Theinteriors of current manned spacecraft are filled with white noise fromwhich there is literally no escape andto add to that, some plannersenvisage taking chickens to providefresh eggs and meat. Drinking waterwould have to be recycled.

If men and women were sent together,sexual tensions might developbetween the astronauts. If marriedcouples were sent and therelationships broke down, the warringparties would be trapped with theircrew mates in an inescapableconfined space, compelled tocomplete the mission in the allottedtime. Medically, we would also haveto come up with better ways toprevent muscle weakness andcalcium loss in the bones.

What about Mars itself?Well, we’ve known for some time thatthere’s an atmosphere on Mars andbefore the first probes visited the

planet, there was a hope in somequarters that it might allow people tolive there. Even if the surfacepressure was as tenuous as the top ofMount Everest, the astronauts couldbreathe oxygen from gas cylinderslike scuba divers, perhaps wearingthermal insulation for warmth.Unfortunately, the first robotic space

missions confirmed that theatmosphere is far too tenuous for thisand any astronauts will have to wearcumbersome space suits with sealedgloves and helmets.

On the other hand,having a tenuousatmosphere isn’t allbad. The crew coulduse the Martianatmosphere as abrake to slow downtheir space craft. Todo this using rocketfuel would beimmenselyexpensive, but thistechnique, calledaerobraking, hasalready been usedon several robotic missions. As theastronauts enter the atmosphere, allradio communications with theircolleagues back on Earth will be lost.If the heat shield failed, all theastronauts would die. Mission Controlwould simply never hear from themagain. If they survived re-entry andsucceeded in deploying parachutes or

retrorockets, theywould be unable touse the air bagtechnique used inthe recent roboticlandings, but ahuman pilot wouldbe able to observethe landing zonecarefully andmanoeuvre awayfrom any unwantedcliffs, slopes andboulders. In anycase, the landingzone would almostcertainly have beenscouted out byrobotic buggiesbeforehand. Radiobeacons from the

buggies could direct the spacecrafttowards an area already known to beflat and safe.

Once on the planet, the crew couldemerge in full pressure suits andproceed to explore the new world.Every few hours they would have toreturn to the mother craft change their

oxygen cylinders.

Is there anything the crews coulddo to improve their chances?It’s likely that each crew to visit Marswould try to set up a small base. Thejourney outward would have beencramped, but collapsible habitatscould be stored on board the spacecraft, inflated some distance from thelanding site and partially covered withdust as protection against radiation.Kevlar walls would protect againstmeteorite penetration and a Perspexroof could allow in sunlight. Thehabitat could provide a much morespacious and psychologically pleasantenvironment for the crew and latercrews could add further sections toenlarge the base further. Mars has asimilar day/night cycle to Earth and areasonable approximation of normalhuman lifestyle could emerge. Plantscould be grown in small greenhousesto provide oxygen and fresh food andby unfolding solar panels, electricalpower could be generated by day.During the night, batteries would haveto maintain life support systems untildawn.

It’s likely that earlier, automatedrockets would have landed supplies offood, fuel and oxygen ready for theastronauts to use. However, plans arealready afoot to extract fuel from theMartian atmosphere. By sucking thevery tenuous gas into compressors,some of the components of the

FUTURE SPACE

38

atmosphere could be used to makerocket fuel. If the first astronautscould refuel as they reach the planet,this would vastly ease the engineeringchallenge of sending a return missionMars. At the time of writing, NASAscientists are planning to sendminiature ‘fuel making’ devices toMars on robotic probes todemonstrate the feasibility of thistechnique.

The surface of Mars is very cold,about as cold as Antarctica by day,and much colder at night.Realistically, the first manned landingwould be on the equator but therewould be a strong incentive to travelfrom there to the polar ice caps.

Water and IceMars is known to have considerableice at both poles. Most of this ice isfrozen carbon dioxide, but there isemerging evidence that it may alsocontain water ice. If this is true, theexploration of Mars would becomeconsiderably easier, with the crewmelting the ice and converting it to

oxygen andhydrogenrocket fuel.

We know thatMars once hadflowing water onits surfacebecause theoutlines of rivershave beenclearlydemonstratedfrom orbit. Wealso know alsothat it’simpossible forwater to exist ina near vacuum.If you tried tomake a cup oftea on Marstoday, the waterwould evaporatewithin seconds of you pouring it out ofthe kettle. And yet, if Mars once hadrunning water, it must also have had anatmosphere capable of allowing thatwater to exist. It’s likely that both thewater and the atmosphere still exist butthat they have become trapped in thepermafrost under the surface of therocks.

A LargeColony?If laterexpeditionscould reliablyobtain watermuch largersettlementswould be viable,with theastronautsgrowing theirown food ingreenhouses,tended to byminiaturerobots. There isalso thepossibility ofterra formingMars! It wouldinvolvepersuading thewater ice at theNorth and Southpoles to melt

and evaporate back into theatmosphere, dramatically increasingthe surface pressure. Long before thepressure was high enough to explorewithout space suits, very hardy,genetically engineered plants wouldhave been bred that might flourish in anenvironment still too hostile for man.These plants would convert carbondioxide atmosphere into oxygen as theyonce did on our own planet.

But it would be naive to suggest thatthis would be easy. One year after thePilgrim Fathers arrived in their ownNew World, they settled down to aservice of Thanksgiving. On that day,those who were still alive knew thatmore than half of the people on theMayflower had already died. Building aNew World has never been easy andgoing to Mars is one of those thingsthat either gets you or it doesn’t. Manypeople look at those pictures of an alienwasteland and struggle to understandthe attraction, but as long as there arepeople alive who are willing to go, thedream will live on. Fantastic as it mayyet seem, a new generation of PilgrimFathers may yet found another worldfor mankind.All the artwork used in this article was createdfor NASA by various artists for concept studiesinto potential missions to Mars and the systemsand hardware that might be created for suchmissions. NASA does not yet have any firmplans for human missions to Mars

39

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Who’s Who in Space

40

Konstantinby Neil Fairweather

A variant on this idea was a sort ofcluster rocket, which would start with(say) four engines firing at full power.Then, after half the fuel in each wasused up, fuel from two of the engineswould be transferred to the other twoand the empty engines would beejected. This could be repeated toreduce the engines from two to one,thus making the best possible use ofthe engines as well as the fuel.

This has not actually been done yet, astransferring the fuel would beexcessively complicated, but it doesbear some resemblance to the idea ofthe booster rockets strapped onto theside of a spacecraft such as the SpaceShuttle, which provide extra thrustduring launch and are ejected as soonas their fuel is used up.

The Moon in StagesTsiolkovsky had ideas about how spacetravel would develop in general. Onesuggestion of his, which was popularamong space travel theorists for quitesome time, was that before missionswere sent to the Moon and beyond, alarge space station near to the Earthwould be the first thing needed. (Thiswas sometimes poetically referred to asa “city in the aether”, aether being aterm at the time for what we would nowthink of as empty space.)

This wasn’t how the Moon waseventually reached, as the Americansneeded to get there quickly in order tobeat the Russians, but it determined theRussian attitude to the way forwardsthrough most of their space program’shistory and links in with currentAmerican plans for the ISS before theymove onwards. Quite apart from theuses of spacecraft for observing ourplanet’s surface (although this wouldtend nowadays to be done withunmanned spacecraft due to moderntechnology), launching spacecraftonwards would be far easier fromspace stations than from the surface ofthe planet, simply because most of thegravity would already have beenovercome - something starting off at aspace station would be two-thirds of theway to escape velocity already! Also,

At one time, the Soviet Union triedto convince the world that itspopulation had invented all sorts ofimportant things. One of the morejustifiable examples they gave wasthat of Konstantin EdouardovichTsiolkovsky, “the father of spacetravel.”

Ideas and TheoriesOn his own, Tsiolkovsky, who was ateacher in Kaluga in Russia, dreamedup many scientific and technical ideas.Some of his ideas had already beenthought up by other people, but manyof them were new, and a lot of theserelated to space travel. A lot of theseseem very imaginative even now, letalone when he first published them overa hundred years ago, but asTsiolkovsky himself said, “Theimpossible of today will become thepossible of tomorrow.”

Tsiolkovsky realised, supposedly fromlooking at an untied balloon, the way inwhich rockets would work, and alsorealised that they wouldn’t need any airto push against, making them ideal foruse in space.

Rocket TrainFollowing on from this came one of themost well-known of Tsiolkovsky’s ideas,the multistage rocket (or rocket train, ashe called it). Given what was possiblewith the materials of the time, herealised that a rocket would notphysically be able to carry all the fuel itneeded to get into orbit around theEarth, let alone further, but themultistage rocket gets around thisproblem by dropping away each of itssections as the fuel in them is used up,meaning that there is less mass to pullas the journey goes on and thus, lessfuel is needed to pull it.

Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky 1857-1935

41

Tsiolkovskyspacecraft would not need to bedesigned to enter an atmosphere ateach end of their journey, as they wouldonly need to travel between spacestations; travellers would change todifferent craft in order to go down to thesurface.

Zero GravityTsiolkovsky saw some of theimplications of living in space. Heimagined structures which wouldn’tcollapse under their own weight, nomatter what their size. He realised that‘up’ and ‘down’ would be meaninglessin space and that movement wouldrequire throwing things or pushing off inone direction to move in the oppositedirection by reaction. The idea of usingrockets followed naturally from there.He also realised that the forces ofacceleration when going into spaceneeded to be prepared for, andsuggested the use of centrifuges tosimulate these effects, putting hugeforces onto trainee space travellers(human or animal) by spinning themround in a circle at high speed...

The Purpose of Space TravelPerhaps Tsiolkovsky’s most insightfulidea was about “The Purpose of Space

Travel” (this beingthe title of a bookhe wrote). Peopleask the point ofgoing into anunnatural, artificialand highlydangerousenvironment whenwe have the Earth,with itsatmosphere, at ourdisposal.

Tsiolkovskyturned this on itshead by pointingout all thedisadvantages ofthe atmosphereand the resultantweather, and bypointing out howmuch better itwould be if wecould control ourair, temperatureand so on, not tomention being able to use all theenergy falling on us from the Sun,rather than having it wasted oncreating the weather or just reflectedback into space. In fact, he made itsound as though the Earth was aspaceship without any of theadvantages!

In the 1890s,Tsiolkovsky publishedseveral books on thetheoretical problems ofusing rocket engines inspace.

His ideas were veryadvanced and took intoaccount many aspectsof space travel by rocketthat have since beenproven accurate by ourspace programs.

These includednavigation, re-entryheating, fuelrequirements and theuse of multistagerockets

Above: In 1903, the same year the WrightBrothers successfully flew the first poweredaircraft. Tsiolkovsky published a report thatsuggested the use of liquid fuels as rocketpropellants. He theorised that this would give arocket greater range, as he believed that thespeed and range of a rocket were limited by thevelocity of its exhaust gases.

Basically, Tsiolkovsky predictedmany of the ways in which spaceflight would come to pass, andspeculated on many which willhopefully come about in the future.He had an idealistic view of thefuture, considering our progressonwards and upwards to beinevitable (something which madethe Soviet Union eager to publicisehis work, as this fitted in very wellwith their political system ofbeliefs), and inspired severalgenerations of enthusiasts andpioneers through his writings andtalks. He also left us with one of themost famous quotes about why weshould reach for space. It has beentranslated and quoted so manytimes that I am not sure exactlyhow he phrased it, but here is oneversion: “The Earth is the cradle ofthe mind... but man can not liveforever in his cradle...”

42

SOLUTIONS

WORD SEARCH PLUS PAGE 12

Q W U R P T Y S P O I U Y R R

O R B I T D A F P G H J K A L

A S D F G L G H J A K L M T N

G H G F T S S A Z B C X C S V

A Z X A C A V E B L N E M L K

L T Y E R T D G S A D F G H J

A A S D F E G A H C J P K L P

X S L C V L S Y D K C L V B N

Y Q U W E L R O T H T U Y U S

B B N N M I T V Y O U T I O R

S M A C B T X C V L B O N M A

P T R D F E S D F E G H J P M

E S D F S G H Y J K U L Z X C

E T Y U R Q K W A E R F T Y U

D M N B V S S D F D Q W O E R

MONEY WORRIES

NASA’s current budget is £15billion. That may seem like a lot,but there are businessmen andcelebrities who are worth more

than that.

The US government expects tohave spent $543 billion in 2004 onits Department of Health, and theUS Senate has passed a fundingbill for defence for 2005 of $416

billion.

Compared to this, money spent onspace flight is really insignificant

The anagrams in order are: They should be fitted into the grid as:

MOON MARSEARTH LIFEMARS TIMELIFE EARTHTIME MOON

To give you the hidden word: ALIEN

ANAGRAMS PAGE 12

SPACE CAVEMEN

If the cavemen had built aspace rocket and flown to the

nearest star outside oursolar system, they would stillonly be halfway there today!

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

The Russians were never really known for their pristine cleanrooms at launch time, unlike the Americans.

When the first Westerners visited the Russian launch site in the1970s, they were amazed to see Russian hardware covered in

dust and sand from the desert steppes. When asked about this,the Russians replied: “We rollout the rocket, stand it up, launch

it and the dirt just falls off. No more problem!”

43

SOLUTIONS

HOME SWEET HOMEGetting used to life back on Earth again after a long time in space can be quite tricky.

One astronaut got out of bed in his home expecting to float but broke his arm as he fell on the floor!

Another astronaut kept dropping plates in the kitchen because he let go thinking they would float. He broke so manythat his wife served his food on paper plates until he got used to being on Earth again!

a) COLUMBIAb) ATLANTISc) ENTERPRISE

d) DISCOVERY and ENDEAVOURe) CHALLENGERf) First ever man in space, Yuri

Gagarin 12 April 1961g) SALLY RIDE

h) The orange External Tank

All the letters in the grid are used, so the solution above shows only theletters you need to make up the eight extra names. These are:

HAM - the first chimpanzee in spaceLAIKA - the first living being in space (a Russian dog)GAGARIN - the first man in spaceTERESHKOVA - the first woman in spaceLEONOV - the first person to do a spacewalkRIDE - the first American woman in spaceSHARMAN - the first British astronautSALYUT - the first ever space station

GIANT WORD SEARCH PAGE 31

N E D R O W N A T I T L L E H C T I M

H A M T R E G I W S Y L G N I T T A M

E C A P S C A N A V E R A L L A I T K

D R O F F A T S C H M I T T A G E L D

R E T N E P R A C O L L I N S A I A A

A S O O R M E R C U R Y O U N G S S R

M A R R I H C S N O T Y A L S G E A N

A R I S N A V E T I H W N O H T L E O

H R E I S B G H L O V E L L E C E M C

G K W B O E N L O N M L R E P O O C H

N R E R M O I V N A O O M L A L E D A

I A M I D U K E S P O N O N R U O I I

N A N R Q V L C A R I A S N D M D V S

N I O N E G O S H G A N S R M B A I E

U G A O R T S M R A L R I N S I A T L

C R S A T U R N A N D E R S Y A U T T

T R A K C I E W H C S C G N I R D L A

ON THE COVERPAGE 22

RE-ENTRY: A look back at significant moments in space history

44

Co-operative VentureIn 1946, astronomer Lyman Spitzerat Yale University was the first toexplain in detail the benefits of aspace telescope, but it would beseveral decades before his ideacame to fruition. Although originallyan American project, in 1977,NASA agreed to share thedevelopment of the spacetelescope with the European SpaceAgency (ESA), which wouldcontribute one of the scienceinstruments - the Faint ObjectCamera (FOC) - and the solarpanels.

Getting off the GroundNamed in 1983 after astronomerEdwin Hubble (1889-1953), who wasthe first to demonstrate that spiralnebulae were galaxies in their ownright, the telescope was finallylaunched into Earth orbit on 24 April1990 aboard the Space ShuttleDiscovery. The telescope, whichorbits the Earth about every 96minutes, reaches a maximum altitudeof 610.44 km (apogee) and aminimum altitude of 586.47 km(perigee) in its elliptical orbit.

The Hubble Space TelescopeOur Eye on the Universe

HardwareThe original intention was to build thetelescope with a 3 m primary mirror,but it was eventually launched with asmaller 2.4 m one. The telescope is15.9 m long and 4.2 m in diameter,with two solar panels each measuring7.1 m x 2.6 m that power Hubble’scomputers and scientific instruments.The latest solar panels are the mostrigid and generate 20% more power,allowing all of the science instrumentsto be turned on at once.

Why was it Needed?So, why put a telescope in space in the

first place? It’s a good question. Infact, in the 1960s before Hubble wasbuilt, many astronomers wereopposed to space telescopes,sometimes due to the cost andsometimes for other reasons.Nevertheless, even the critics werewilling to accept that a spacetelescope had some advantages.Since Earth’s atmosphere absorbsalmost all the radiation that reachesit from space, astronomicalphenomena could only be seen withground-based telescopes at thosewavelengths to which the

atmosphere is transparent, principallyvisible light and radio waves.

A space telescope lets astronomersview the universe using light that doesnot easily reach the Earth’s surface, ifat all: for example, in infra-red andultra-violet light. Infra-red light can beused to see stars and other objectsthat would be hidden to visible lightdue to dust and gas. In fact, usinginfra-red, Hubble has peered throughthe thick atmosphere of Saturn’slargest moon, Titan, to give us viewsof its surface, something the earlierVoyager spacecraft couldn’t do.

Short-Sighted Telescope

Hubble returned its first images in May 1990, but therewas something wrong. The images were slightly blurredand the telescope couldn’t focus. It was eventuallydetermined that the device used to build the primarymirror had been faulty and had made the mirror too flat,only by about 1/500th of a millimetre (or 1/50th thewidth of a human hair), but enough to prevent thetelescope doing its job properly. The error was correctedduring a shuttle repair mission in December 1993, whichalso replaced the solar panels.

End of the Mission?

It was hoped that the Hubble Telescope would remain inuse until about 2010. Unfortunately, on 16 January2004, NASA announced that there would be no moreshuttle repair missions to the Hubble telescope forsafety reasons and cancelled the fourth servicingmission. Alternatives are being explored in the hope ofextending Hubble’s lifetime, because without the abilityto repair and maintain it, the telescope’s performance isexpected to degrade in the next few years.

by Ian Favell

ASTRO INFO SERVICE LIMITEDSCHOOL PRESENTATIONS 2004/2005

AT HOME IN SPACEJOURNEY ROUND THE SOLAR SYSTEM

ONE SMALL STEP

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