Voyager 1 reaches previously unexplored region of space

[snatchel]

Agreed. TAM, we had a name for doing that...

When someone was overdoing something, we would you would usually respond with: "Listen man. You're nuking this with the expensive handles and whatnot. Just put the dowel through the hole and move his heavy piece ten feet to the left. "

[jimlongley]

My FIL was a gyroscope specialist, and he built the guidance package for Voyager I on his workbench in his lab at JPL. He also built the guidance packages for Voyager II and pretty much every other unmanned exploratory spacecraft built by JPL until Casini, which was his last project before he retired.

I have a funny story about the Galileo guidance package involving my FIL.....who was an eminently practical man. When he still had the finished Galileo package on his workbench and his crew was gearing up for Casini, the project director came to him and asked him to design a set of removable handles that could be bolted to the Galileo package so that it could be picked up from the workbench and set down elsewhere to clear space on the bench so they could start on Casini's package. Apparently the thing was large enough that it took two men to lift it safely without risking dropping it. So the project director budgeted X thousands of dollars for machining costs and materials to accommodate his request and left if up to Bob (my FIL) to solve the problem.

About a week or so later, the project director dropped by Bob's office and noticed a 4' long piece of 2" wooden dowel leaning up in the corner of his office, and he asked Bob what it was for. Well, it was the "handle" to pick up and carry the Galileo package with. It seems that the physical architecture of the device had a sort of hole all the way through it, so Bob figured he could just go to the local Ace Hardware and buy the dowel for $1.29/foot......or whatever the price was.....and if you ran that dowel through the middle of the Galileo package, two men could each grab an end of the dowel and hoist the package up off the bench and set it down out of the way. He spent a total of $5.00-$6.00 on the job instead of the $10,000 budgeted for it. The rest of the team, also being engineers to the bone, recognized the elegance of the solution and that was the end of development on that particular request from the director. They never did make the bolt-on handles machined from exotic metals. Didn't need to.

I found out about this when my wife and I attended his retirement party after 40 years at JPL. They handed him that very piece of dowel, with a "Remove Before Flight" flag pinned to it, as a retirement gift.....and that's when the presenter told the assemblage about that particular story. If you knew Bob, you'd just smile because that was so him.

TAM, that story truly warmed my aircraft mechanic heart...something simple is often, though I do understand not always, the best solution.

I used to service 80 and 132 column high speed printers. The printers used a rapidly moving belt with type pallets on them, and fixed "hammers" that were "fired" in a system remarkably similar to a Ruger transfer bar. Occasionally the tiny little, but strong, spring that returned the hammers after they fired would break, and replacing them without disassembly was virtually impossible. The problem was reassembly, the hammers all had to be realigned in order to slip the to sub-assemblies together, both of which were large and ungainly.

I wish I could claim complete authorship of the solution.

We would take the hanger "rods" out of hanging file folders, the flat ones that slip through the sides to hang the folders from, and they were a perfect fit for holding the hammers in place. There was never a tool designed that I know of, even for factory assembly, to do that, but field engineering expediency won out.

[Dragonfighter]

Two Semi-Related incidents in the space race:

During our early ventures into space, NASA spent untold dollars developing a pen that would write in micro gravity. The Russians took pencils...elegant.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin re-entered the LEM and began pre-launch preparations, they discovered that somewhere along the suiting up, debarking or returning to the craft, the circuit breaker that had to be set in order to fire the main engine was broken off. Aldrin took apart the little gadget and used the barrel of the pen, inserted it in the now vacant hole and closed the CB.

[WildBill]

Two Semi-Related incidents in the space race:

During our early ventures into space, NASA spent untold dollars developing a pen that would write in micro gravity. The Russians took pencils...elegant.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin re-entered the LEM and began pre-launch preparations, they discovered that somewhere along the suiting up, debarking or returning to the craft, the circuit breaker that had to be set in order to fire the main engine was broken off. Aldrin took apart the little gadget and used the barrel of the pen, inserted it in the now vacant hole and closed the CB.

They call that ingenuity, do whatever it takes to complete the mission.

[The Annoyed Man]

Two Semi-Related incidents in the space race:

During our early ventures into space, NASA spent untold dollars developing a pen that would write in micro gravity. The Russians took pencils...elegant.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin re-entered the LEM and began pre-launch preparations, they discovered that somewhere along the suiting up, debarking or returning to the craft, the circuit breaker that had to be set in order to fire the main engine was broken off. Aldrin took apart the little gadget and used the barrel of the pen, inserted it in the now vacant hole and closed the CB.

They call that ingenuity, do whatever it takes to complete the mission.

There might have been just a little bit of "I sure don't want to die up here on this moon" mixed in there too.

[Dave2]

Two Semi-Related incidents in the space race:

During our early ventures into space, NASA spent untold dollars developing a pen that would write in micro gravity. The Russians took pencils...elegant.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin re-entered the LEM and began pre-launch preparations, they discovered that somewhere along the suiting up, debarking or returning to the craft, the circuit breaker that had to be set in order to fire the main engine was broken off. Aldrin took apart the little gadget and used the barrel of the pen, inserted it in the now vacant hole and closed the CB.

They call that ingenuity, do whatever it takes to complete the mission.

There might have been just a little bit of "I sure don't want to die up here on this moon" mixed in there too.

Yeah, that's what my friends and I call "strong motivation"...

[seamusTX]

The early astronauts and test pilots seem to have had ice water in their veins.

Can you imagine being in an experimental spacecraft that suffered an explosion and was heading in the general direction of the moon with no propulsion? And they said, "Houston, we have a problem."

I like to think I can cope with emergencies, but I probably would have been screaming like a little girl.

- Jim

[The Annoyed Man]

The early astronauts and test pilots seem to have had ice water in their veins.

Can you imagine being in an experimental spacecraft that suffered an explosion and was heading in the general direction of the moon with no propulsion? And they said, "Houston, we have a problem."

I like to think I can cope with emergencies, but I probably would have been screaming like a little girl.

- Jim

There is a story, possibly apocryphal, about one of the Mercury astronauts.....I think it was either Armstrong or Shepard, who was running a simulation in a mockup capsule when the test administrators deliberately dropped about a ton of gravel on an angled piece of sheet steel, making an enormous and unexpected racket. The astronaut's heartbeat didn't even register a slight uptick, and he kept on with running the simulation. When the test was over, he found the responsible party and cussed him out.

[seamusTX]

I wouldn't doubt that story, but Neil Armstrong was not in the Mercury program. He came in later. He had more than enough credit for steady nerves, though. The first moon landing could well have ended up creating a new crater. Nixon supposedly had a speech prepared for such an event.

I also find it remarkable how the early astronauts were all but saints in their personal lives and careers after NASA. There was none of the "substance abuse," philandering, opportunism, or general arrogance that is so characteristic of public figures nowadays.

- Jim

[jimlongley]

. . . I also find it remarkable how the early astronauts were all but saints in their personal lives and careers after NASA. There was none of the "substance abuse," philandering, opportunism, or general arrogance that is so characteristic of public figures nowadays.

- Jim

According to a friend who was in a position to know, there was plenty of philandering, among other things, but NASA was so determined to maintain the squeaky clean image that they laundered everything quickly and carefully.

[The Annoyed Man]

"Flight: My Life in Mission Control" by Chris Kraft is a pretty interesting autobiographical book by a guy who was intimately involved and new the astronauts well. I read it a few years ago, and I still have it on the shelf somewhere around here.....

[seamusTX]

According to a friend who was in a position to know, there was plenty of philandering, among other things, but NASA was so determined to maintain the squeaky clean image that they laundered everything quickly and carefully.

Maybe in the 1960s P.R. could be controlled more effectively, but everyone seemed to know about the Kennedys, Johnson, and every bit of gossip surrounding rock stars and movie actors.

- Jim

[RPB]

The Mayans first ship returned from Space today

Houston & Texas >
News >
Houston

Mysterious green flash streak across sky
By Dale Lezon | December 7, 2012 | Updated: December 7, 2012 8:56am
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas ... 099311.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
All over Houston reporting seeing something in the sky bright green light then explosion of colors

The streaking green glow was reportedly seen about 7 a.m. arching across the sky by people in Sugar Land, Tomball, Crosby, Shelton and dozens of other spots, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Some reports had the light being spotted as far north as Dallas.

Deputies said patrol units also reported seeing the flash and burst of green

rpb

9:41 AM on December 7, 2012

It's just the MAYANS coming back home from their trip to space, that's why no one knew what happened to them historically ... they left; now they are coming back.

[ELB]

My turn to zombify a thread.

Voyager 1: 'The little spacecraft that could'
Original 5-year mission is on year 37

Voyager 1 and 2 are still coasting along. Altho the OP of this thread was that V1 had reached the heliosphere back in 2010, this article has a couple of scientists claiming t'aint so, or at least not verified so. I dunno the real answer, but I guess you don't make a name agreeing with everyone else. Heliosphere or not, 37 years and still functioning in space is pretty amazing.

Tie-in to the gun community and trivia question: What is the relationship between Voyager 1 and 2, and the Heller decision?

[seamusTX]

Tie-in to the gun community and trivia question: What is the relationship between Voyager 1 and 2, and the Heller decision?

I dunno, but does it have to do with the phrase "the outer limits"?

- Jim