Aterragem do Space Shuttle Discovery hoje de madrugada, na Base Aérea de Edwards, na Califórnia

Uma das aterragens mais espetaculares de que me recordo. Durante uma das curvas para se fazer à pista, vêm-se os rastos de condensação nas pontas das asas do Discovery, o que dá muito mais a sensação da velocidade real a que está a voar!

Teste do motor do Ares I

O Ares I é o foguetão que, de acordo com os planos correntes, irá voltar a levar astronautas norte-americanos ao Espaço, a partir de 2015. Os leitores deste blog saberão que tem havido problemas e dúvidas em relação a isso, mas por enquanto os testes prosseguem. Este, em particular, decorreu há momentos, e mostra o motor principal a desenvolver só 22 milhões de cavalos!!!

Nunca a Humanidade viu tão longe!

Sabiam? Não, em Portugal não se fala de coisas importantes. Mas há já vários anos que foram feitas estas imagens, que são das galáxias mais distantes jamais vistas por seres humanos. Apontaram o Telescópio Espacial Hubble a um ponto aparentemente sem estrelas, e fizeram uma longuíssima exposição. O resultado foi o Hubble Deep Field e, mais tarde, o Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

A Humanidade nunca viu tão longe, e estas são porventura as imagens mais importantes da História.

O sucessor do Space Shuttle

É este o sucessor dos fabulosos Space Shuttles - o Projecto Constellation. Neste preciso momento, o futuro exacto deste projecto ainda está em dúvida. Apesar de já haver 3 anos de desenvolvimento, o certo é que ainda não foi feito nenhum lançamento - está um previsto para o ano que vem - e com os cortes orçamentais já feitos e previstos para os próximos anos, está em grande dúvida a sua entrada em funcionamento em 2015. E em relação a um regresso à Lua em 2020, essa data - e a própria missão à Lua - estão cada vez mais em dúvida!

O meu prognóstico é, neste momento, que a última missão do Shuttle não seja em 2010 mas sim em 2011, e que a primeira missão da Orion será apenas em 2017 ou, com muita sorte, 2016. Os EUA ficarão assim, durante 5 ou 6 anos, ou mais, dependentes dos Russos (!!!) para transportarem astronautas, equipamento e mantimentos para a Estação Espacial Internacional!

Quem diria que iríamos ficar assim, 40 anos depois das magníficas viagens à Lua?

Entretanto, os planos correntes de regresso à Lua consistem numa missão com este aspecto:

No entanto, este plano está em questão neste momento. Só daqui a alguns meses saberemos a direcção real da NASA para os próximos anos, e se realmente voltaremos à Lua em 2000 e vinte e tal.

O meu voto é de que serão os Chineses os próximos a irem à Lua, e apenas numa missão Orbital. Descer de facto na Lua é algo muito complexo, e não vejo Governos a quererem fazer esse investimento.

Voar a 21 Kms de altitude num U2

Dei de caras com o vídeo da semana logo a uma segunda-feira. Ponham de lado dez minutos, aumentem a imagem para ocupar o ecrán todo, e levantem o som para ouvirem bem a música e os diálogos.

Bom vôo!

Alguns vídeos espetaculares

Leitores de CD em gravidade zero.

Foguetão Soyuz.

Alka Seltzer em órbita!

Lançamento do Space Shuttle, de dentro.

Café em órbita.

Aterragem do Space Shuttle Endeavour, STS-126

Aqui está, com algum atraso, o vídeo da aterragem, na Base Aérea de Edwards, na Califórnia. A aterragem deveria ser na Flórida, mas foi desviada para a Califórnia devido ao mau tempo que iria persistir nos dias em que a Endeavour teria de aterrar.

O momento em que se perdeu um saco de ferramentas em órbita

Foi mesmo um daqueles acidentes que só acontecem porque as pessoas estão habituadas a porem coisas de lado e elas não fugirem. Infelizmente, no Espaço, é diferente. Heide Piper, astronauta da missão STS 126, neste momento ainda em órbita, teve de limpar o interior de um saco de equipamento, por ter escapado óleo de uma ou mais das pistolas que seriam utilizadas para lubrificar um dos painéis solares da Estação Espacial Internacional ISS. Ao fazê-lo teve de tirar momentaneamente um saco de ferramentas desse saco maior, e o saco escapou. Vê-se perfeitamente o momento em que a astronauta ainda tenta agarrar o saco, sem sucesso.

As ferramentas foram avaliadas em cerca de 100.000 dólares.

Buran, o Space Shuttle Soviético

Fez há dias 20 anos que se realizou o único vôo de uma máquina absolutamente revolucionária, o Space Shuttle soviético 'Buran'.

Em certos aspectos era - e é ainda - superior ao seu equivalente americano. Nomeadamente era capaz de vôos não tripulados, era capaz de transportar mais 5 toneladas de carga, por virtude de não ter os foguetes principais na nave, e podia ser lançado e aterrar em condições mais adversas que o Space Shuttle. Adicionalmente, o seu foguetão podia ser usado para transportar outras cargas que não o Buran.

Só vantagens, com 7 anos de atraso em relação ao programa americano, e ficamos com a idéia de que se desperdiçou muito génio.


Fonte: BBC

Buran - the Soviet 'space shuttle'

By Anatoly Zak Russianspaceweb.com

Despite its looks, Buran was not a facsimile of the US shuttle

Some 20 years ago, on 30 September 1988, many readers of the Pravda newspaper - the official mouthpiece of the Soviet communist party - could not believe their eyes.

Published somewhat inconspicuously on the second page, there was a photo depicting the familiar shape of the US space shuttle, but with Soviet insignia on its wings.

Finally, years of rumours about a Soviet "copy" of the shuttle had been confirmed.

However, the official Soviet press was quick to point out that despite its superficial resemblance to the US counterpart, the Russian shuttle, dubbed Buran or "snowstorm", was better and more capable.

Within days, the new ship got a chance to prove it.

On November 15, 1988, as snowy clouds and winds were swirling around Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Buran orbiter, attached to its giant Energia rocket, thundered into the gloomy early morning sky.

" They obliterated this crowning achievement of the Soviet space programme "

Three hours and two orbits later, the 100-tonne bird glided back to a flawless landing just a few miles from its launch pad.

Despite the kind of strong winds that would rule out any launch or landing attempt by the US space shuttle, Buran touched down just 3m off the runway centreline.

And this planet-wide ballet was performed with its "pilots" safely on the ground.

Born of paranoia

Buran's pioneering mission was the culmination of an effort by more than 600 Soviet institutions which, since 1976, had secretly laboured on this largest of Soviet space projects.

Upon the spacecraft's triumphant landing, the Soviet newspapers promised a new era in space exploration. Few could predict at the time that it would be Buran's only mission.

Unlike Nasa, Soviet developers never had any grand illusions about replacing traditional rockets with a reusable space truck.

Instead, the Soviet shuttle was conceived primarily as a "symmetrical response" to the perceived military threat from America's winged orbiters.

A fully assembled Energia rocket with the first flown Buran orbiter, in 2002

Years after a sceptical Pentagon had given up on the shuttle, even as a delivery truck for spy satellites, the Russian officials continued whispering to journalists that the US orbiter had a secret capability - to make an undetected "dive" into the Earth's atmosphere and suddenly glide over Moscow dropping nuclear bombs.

Never mind that such a scenario was not supported by physics or by common sense.

Energia-Buran's chief architect, Valentin Glushko, hardly tried to educate warmongers at the Politburo about the questionable merits of the re-usable orbiter as a weapon.

Glushko was one of the first generation of Soviet rocket pioneers, who were experimenting in the 1930s under the tutelage of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky - one of the "fathers" of spaceflight. Like many of his contemporaries, he had little interest in designing weapons.

He did dream, however, about building a permanent base on the surface of the Moon.

Unfortunately, after losing the Moon race to America in 1969, Soviet leaders had little appetite for another deep-space adventure.

The launch and test facility where the Energia rocket first took off in 1987

Still, Glushko probably hoped to exploit Cold War paranoia about the threat of the US shuttle as an opportunity to lay a detour road to the Moon, and possibly even to Mars.

Glushko carefully steered the Soviet shuttle project away from being a carbon copy of the American design, which could not be easily modified.

Instead, he proposed a winged orbiter along with a fully functional rocket which could carry any cargo - including lunar landers, orbital tugs and even pieces of a Martian expeditionary complex.

In the end, Kremlin bosses had committed to the monumental expense of money and human talent with only vague hopes that real tasks for the grandiose vehicle would emerge as it came online.

Instead, after long delays and cost overruns, the Buran appeared on the scene in the last act of the Cold War and amid a crumbling Soviet economy.

The Berlin Wall had come down just a year after its first flight, and the Soviet Defence Ministry was suddenly more preoccupied with resettling thousands of troops returning from Eastern Europe than with servicing orbital anti-missile platforms and deploying killer satellites in space.

The first stage of the Energia rocket inside Building 112 in Baikonur

The collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 sealed the fate of the Energia-Buran system.

There was a flicker of hope for Buran's giant booster - Energia - when Russia joined the effort to build the International Space Station (ISS).

Still unfinished today, after a decade of efforts and dozens of assembly flights, the ISS could have been hauled into orbit by only a few Energia boosters, had international partners adopted it into the program, say the rocket's proponents.

In the mid-1990s, a flight-ready Buran orbiter, which made the historic trip in 1988, had been mounted on the back of a fully assembled Energia rocket at Baikonur's Building 112.

This eye-popping display became a popular stop for journalists and foreign tourists, who periodically "invaded" Baikonur for high-profile launches.

To the untrained eye, the gargantuan rocket and its orbiter looked all but ready for a rollout to the launch pad.

Last resting place

In 2001, this spectacle, combined with the optimistic and mis-translated comments of a Russian guide, had such a profound effect on one Western reporter that he filed a story claiming that the Energia-Buran programme was about to be re-started.

The article proved that a decade after its demise, the Buran had already become a legend.

However, if one looked closely in Building 112 it was possible to see water dripping from the high ceiling on a rainy day and accumulating on the floor, under the dead torsos of Energia rockets.

The keeper of the facility, who showed reporters around the building, said that he could hardly find money to send repair men to patch up the giant roof.

Rescue workers search the devastated hangar at Baikonur

Eventually, a repair team, believed to include eight people, did make it to the roof, climbing on top of Building 112 on May 12, 2002.

According to eyewitnesses, at about 0920 local time, the entire structure shook violently, as if hit by an earthquake, and enormous pieces of debris plunged dozens of metres to the ground below.

They obliterated this crowning achievement of the Soviet space programme.

But the Energia-Buran programme did leave a lasting legacy.

The cavernous launch facilities at Baikonur and a state-of-the-art mission control centre in Korolev have continued serving the Russian space programme and its international partners.

The rocket technology developed for Energia-Buran has been put to use in other launchers.

A mighty RD-170 engine, originally developed for the first stage of Energia, today powers the Ukrainian Zenit rocket.

This engine's scaled-down descendants - the RD-180 and RD-190 - have been adopted for the US Atlas booster and Russia's next-generation Angara rockets.

While the US space shuttle will soon share the fate of the Buran orbiter - as a museum exhibit - emerging plans for lunar exploration have revived concepts of super-heavy rockets, on both sides of the Atlantic.

If they are ever built, their creators will have to re-trace the path once made by Valentin Glushko and his colleagues.

Espectacular! Camera de carro da polícia canadiana filma queda de meteoro!

Astrónomos estão neste momento a tentar encontrar restos do meteoro.