Volume 36, Issue was 1 AIAA Houston Section www.aiaa-houston.org May 2011 Robert McCall, Artist, 1919-2010 Hubble Revisited on NASA’s 50th Anniversary A Bright Future for People in Space Who’s who in the 1979 mural at NASA/JSC AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 1 May 2011 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S From the Chair 3 HOUSTON From the Editor 4 From the Assistant Editor 6 Horizons is a quarterly publication of the Houston section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Press Release: Virgin Galactic 7 Douglas Yazell Feature: Robert McCall: Who’s Who in the NASA/JSC Mural 8 Editor Feature: EAA/AIAA Profile: Lance Borden 16 Past Editors: Jon Berndt & Dr. Steven Everett Assistant Editor: Robert Beremand The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport 34 Editing staff: Don Kulba Contributors: Ellen Gillespie, Lance Borden, Dr. Steven Dinner Meetings (2): Accidents Happen, Congressman Pete Olson 37 Everett, Alan Simon, Don Kulba, Daniel Adamo Captain Andrew Hobokan: Apollo Lunar Module Testing 44 AIAA Houston Section Executive Council Event Report: Wings Over Houston Airshow 2010 47 Private Space Flights: A New Era, 3AF TMP, our French Sister Section 49 Sarah Shull From Aerospace America: A Boost For Commercial Human Spaceflight 53 Sean Carter Irene Chan Chair-Elect Secretary Staying Informed & Section News 57 Calendar 61 Ellen Gillespie John Kostrzewski Past Chair Treasurer Upcoming Event: Annual Technical Symposium, Friday, May 20, 2011 62 Dr. Larry Friesen Satya Pilla Co-located with Engineers as Educators Vice-Chair, Operations Vice-Chair, Technical Cranium Cruncher 63 Operations Technical The Environmental Impact of Future Suborbital Vehicles of Space 65 Dr. Gary Turner Dr. Albert A. Jackson Lisa Voiles Dr. Zafar Taqvi Tourism: 3AF TMP, Our French Sister Section Svetlana Hanson William West Dr. Benjamin Longmier Dr. Steven E. Everett The Back Cover: 1964 Portrait of NASA Hal Beck Group in Houston 66 Joel Henry Chester Vaughan Douglas Yazell Dr. Kamlesh Lulla Horizons and AIAA Houston Web Site Melissa Gordon BeBe Kelly-Serrato AIAA National Communications Award Winner Angela Beck Bill Atwell Rafael Munoz Sheikh Ahsan Mathew Easterly Paul Nielsen Gary Cowan Gary Brown Michael Frostad Ludmila Dmitriev Councilors 2005 2006 2007 Mike Lammers Shirley Brandt This newsletter is created by members of the Houston section. Opinions expressed herein other than Sarah Barr by elected Houston section officers belong solely to the authors and do not necessarily represent the Daniel Nobles position of AIAA or the Houston section. Unless explicitly stated, in no way are the comments of Donald Barker individual contributors to Horizons to be construed as necessarily the opinion or position of AIAA, Julie Read NASA, its contractors, or any other organization. All articles in Horizons, unless otherwise noted, Holly Feldman are the property of the individual contributors. Reproduction/republishing in any form except lim- Gabe Garrett ited excerpts with attribution to the source, will require the express approval of the individual au- thors. Please address all newsletter correspondence to [email protected]. More information at http://www.aiaa-houston.org/orgchart Cover: Robert McCall, artist, and his 1979 mural (signed by Robert McCall and Louise McCall) at NASA/JSC Building 2 Teague Auditorium. Credits: NASA AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 2 Page 3 Plans, Recent Successes, and New Opportunities From the Chair SARAH SHULL The 2010-11 year marks us at our annual outing to the the teacher they are paired the 49th year for the Houston Wings Over Houston Airshow. with and once per year visit Section of AIAA and as you This year, as we did last year, that educator and his/her stu- know we have a busy year we partnered with Col- dents in person. Once we get underway. The AIAA year lectSPACE and EAA to have a the logistics of this initiative started out strong with our display table at the Airshow on worked out, expect a call for executive council retreat in Saturday, October 23rd. volunteers via e-mail. mid-August. At this annual half-day meeting, your Hou- Other events held this fall If you are interested in ston Section officers set goals and winter included the contin- getting more involved with the for the coming year and began uation of the Space Center Lec- Houston Section of AIAA, to plan out a variety of activi- ture Series (http:// don‘t hesitate to contact me at ties for the coming year. As www.spacecenterlectureseries. [email protected]. We Section Chair my main goal com) , our second annual out- often have openings on our for the year is to help you, our ing to the George Observatory section executive council that section membership, to realize for an evening of star gazing, we are looking to fill. the value of AIAA member- the annual Yuri‘s Night cele- ship in these uncertain times. brations and various Young Whatever the coming year Professional networking may bring, I hope that the events. Houston Section of AIAA continues to be valuable to the For the remainder of the members by offering network- year we are working hard on ing opportunities, interesting planning for our section‘s An- speakers, educational lunch-n- nual Technical Symposium on learns, technical symposiums May 20th, 2011 as well as our and occasions at which mem- awards dinner on June 21, bers can socialize with others 2011 with Distinguished Lec- in the aerospace industry. turer Robert Zimmerman. Keep an eye on your e-mail I hope that everyone who and the section website for was able to attend our very further details about these ex- successful dinner meetings in citing events; I hope to see you August and March enjoyed the there! moving live performances by Grammy Award Winning Art- One new initiative our ist John Jarvis and Grammy section hopes to implement this nominated Artist Lyd- year is the pairing of our edu- ia Salnikova as well as the cator associate members with update on aerospace related professional members. The happenings on the hill given Houston Section presently has by Congressman Pete Olson over 100 educator associates and update on the State of JSC (K-12 teachers) who are large- given by Director Coats. The ly disconnected from our pro- ―August is for Aerospace‖ and fessional members. It is our ―State of the Center‖ events hope to better serve these edu- are an annual tradition within cators, and by association the AIAA that the Houston Sec- students they inspire, by pair- tion enjoys participating in. ing each one with a profession- During the month of October, al member who can serve as we hope you were able to join an e-mail mentor/resource to AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 3 Page 4 From the Editor A Newsletter ReBoot DOUGLAS YAZELL Welcome to Horizons for Borden. Lance kindly al- James A. Baker III Institute April 2011, my first issue as lowed us to use quite a few for Public Policy. Three or editor, a role I started on images from his collection four panelists discuss space Monday, April 11, 2011. for the first time, telling a shuttle history and making With help from quite a few story of aviation in his family the space shuttle program a people, we can continue this since 1929. These images commercial venture. The great newsletter tradition. For will be used one day in a panel‘s moderator is Mr. about 15 issues ending in late book he is writing. The other George Abbey, a former 2007, Jon Berndt served as feature article is a tribute to NASA/JSC Center Director. editor and made Horizons the late space artist Robert Robert F. Thompson gets great in surprising ways. I McCall. He was prolific and quite a few respectful rounds then served as acting editor influential. He left an inspir- of laughter during his unor- for three issues, followed by ing legacy few can match. thodox presentation, a lecture Dr. Steven E. Everett who We found a Houston connec- that I find educational. The served as editor for two years tion for this article: who‘s web page address for this and seven issues. Horizons who in the mural he painted video is http:// averages about 6,000 hits per in 1979 at JSC. bakerinstitute.org/events/u.s.- issue. Our section has about human-spaceflight-continuity 1,100 members. AIAA has 90 Robert Pearlman of Col- -and-stability. corporate members over lectSpace.com explains in his 35,000 members. public lectures that collecting Our back cover contains a space memorabilia and arti- 1964 NASA group portrait of We apologize for our tar- facts in private collections is some Space Task Group diness with this quarterly very important to our com- members in Houston. Our issue. Its publication online munities around the world, section‘s web site contains a was aimed at September 30, since many such items are page for Chester Vaughan‘s 2010, and will more likely be owned legally, morally, and history technical committee. a few days after April 30, ethically, but are not appro- That web page already shows 2011. We will aim for our priate for museums. I pur- the results of some good next quarterly issue to be chased a space souvenir from work, including documents online by June 30, 2011, as in a coin store on Bay Area which will help with our sec- past years. We are returning Boulevard last year. It‘s a tion‘s celebration of our 50th to our quarterly schedule. If 1975 medallion celebrating anniversary in 2012. The possible, we will change that the first American space- photo on this issue‘s back to a bimonthly schedule. walk‘s 10th anniversary. It cover can be a part of that was created to raise money work, helping to match I helped with two feature for the Ed White Youth Cen- names and faces for some articles in this issue. Richard ter in Seabrook, here in our those pioneers who did such Sessions, a past president of Clear Lake community in the historic work on Mercury, the Houston Chapter of The Houston area. The artwork Gemini, Apollo, and later Experimental Aircraft Asso- shown in this image is im- space programs. From Harold ciation (www.eaa12.org) sug- pressive (mostly taken from a (Hal) Beck‘s brief e-mail gested we start a series of NASA photograph), using note of Friday, April 22, profiles of people active in high relief and a bit of artistic 2011, used with his permis- general and experimental license to add the Gemini sion: aviation in Houston, profiles crew capsule to that picture. of EAA and/or AIAA mem- ―The people in the photo bers. Our first feature article I am enjoying a video are those members of the is a treasure, the first in that presentation of a panel dis- Mission Analysis Branch of series, a profile of Mr. Lance cussion at Rice University‘s the Space Task Group at AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 4 Page 5 Langley who moved down to ciate even more today – in ject Manager, Robert Gilruth From the Editor Houston in early 1962. The light of the decline in the Mission Analysis Branch was manned spaceflight pro- ―August 1959- STG or- originally structured and grams. We were very, very ganization further defined managed by John Mayer and fortunate to have been a small • The first seven NASA Carl Huss. The organization part of that great experience. astronauts were named on the grew and later became the Such accomplishments will org charts Mission Planning and Analy- never be repeated! • Mission Analysis sis Division (MPAD) at JSC. Branch appears within the The photo was taken in 1964, ―For reference, the fol- Ops Division (Mathews/ just before the organization lowing is an abbreviated Kraft) – John Mayer head of moved from the Houston timeline related to the early the Mission Analysis Branch Petroleum Center (HPC) days of NASA: building on the Gulf Freeway ―September 1961- Hou- (at South Wayside Drive near ―October 1, 1958- NASA ston named as location for the Griggs) to the Manned became operational, The Na- STG Spacecraft Center (MSC) site tional Aeronautics and Space in Clear Lake. Administration (NASA), re- ―November 1961- Space placed The National Adviso- Task Group is designated ―The early history of the ry Committee for Aeronautics Manned Spacecraft Center Mission Analysis Branch is (NACA, founded in 1915)] not very well documented. In ―Early 1962- most of the Below: A non-profit the 1959 – 1960 timeframe ―November 1958- Space members of the Mission group‟s space souvenir John Mayer and Carl Huss Task Group (STG) formed– Analysis Branch moved to medallion from 1975 cele- helped define the basic func- 36 people transferred from Houston.‖ brating the 10th anniver- tional requirements for mis- Langley Research Center to sary of NASA‟s first (1965) sion planning and analysis. form the new organization spacewalk.. At that time, there were no Credit: Douglas Yazell text books or guidelines in ―January 1959- STG or- place that covered all aspects ganization was defined, Pro- of manned spaceflight. The ―text book‖ of the day was a thick handwritten document simply called ―Space Notes‖ which was written in the 1958 - 1960 timeframe, by ―specialists‖ within the Mis- sion Analysis Branch. The document covered most disci- plines of spaceflight, e.g., launch window design, tra- jectory planning and analysis, abort planning, rendezvous, flight dynamics, orbit deter- mination, deorbit planning, etc. The early work within the Mission Analysis Branch supported the major Space Programs, including: Atlas, Redstone, and Mercury. The early Mission Analysis Branch was a learning experi- ence for all, as was true with- in other organizations at Langley. It was an incredible experience that we can appre- AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 5 Page 6 From the Still A Bright Future in Space Assistant Editor ROBERT BEREMAND Our cover story for this man space flight today as we cial Crew Development issue is a tribute to an artist were … 50 years ago. Until ( CCDev) and Commercial who saw a bright future in our national leadership de- Reusable Suborbital Research space. It occurred to me that cides space is truly part of (CRuSR) initiatives. The some people might view the America's future, we will International Space Station subtitle, "A Bright Future for continue celebrating anniver- (ISS) has been extended and People in Space", as a mis- saries of past milestones ra- the Orion program from take given our current situa- ther than pioneering the fu- NASA‘s Constellation pro- tion. It‗s no secret that these ture." gram is being continued. Al- are tough times for the space so, though the President‘s community, particularly in However, not everything budget does reduce the cur- Houston. With the end of the has been doom and gloom. rent support for manned Shuttle program, the cancel- There have been exciting spaceflight, it has increased lation of the Constellation milestones in private space funding for other areas of program, massive layoffs, flight. SpaceX recently NASA. There is no denying and the fear of future budget achieved the first ever suc- that the manned spaceflight cuts and government shut- cessful return from orbit for a community at NASA is fac- downs, it is easy to under- privately owned space ship. ing historic challenges, but I stand why it could be difficult Virgin Galactic has enjoyed am confident that things will for many people to see a successful glide tests of its improve. NASA will find a bright future in space right SpaceShipTwo vehicle. Bige- direction forward, and there now. In fact, space historian low Aerospace is continuing will still be a bright future in John Logsdon was recently to develop its private space space. quoted in the Houston Chron- station. NASA has continued icle saying, "We are as uncer- to award contracts for further tain about the future of hu- advancement of the Commer- In both images, from left to right: Marianne Dyson, Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, Hal Beck, Rod Rose, Marty Jenness, Ken Young (blue shirt), John Llew- ellyn, Glynn Lunney. Dr. Chris- topher Kraft. (Emil Schiesser was in the next seat and is not shown in these photos.) Credit: Douglas Yazell, from our section‟s 40th anniversary of Apollo 8 lunch-and-learn. AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 6 Page 7 SpaceShipTwo's First "Feathered" Flight Marks Press Release Latest Milestone for Virgin Galactic Early on Wednesday 4th test pilots Pete Siebold and smooth runway touch down, May 2011, in the skies above Clint Nichols whilst Mark approximately 11 minutes Mojave Air and Spaceport CA, Stucky, Brian Maisler and and 5 seconds after its release SpaceShipTwo, the world's first Brandon Inks crewed the pur- from VMS Eve. commercial spaceship, demon- pose built, all composite, twin strated its unique reentry fuselage WK2. All objectives for the ‗feather‘ configuration for the flight were met and detailed first time. This test flight, the After a 45 minute climb to flight data is now being ana- third in less than two weeks, the desired altitude of 51,500 lyzed by the engineers at marks another major milestone feet, SS2 was released cleanly Scaled Composites, designers on the path to powered test from VMS Eve and established and builders of Virgin Galac- flights and commercial opera- a stable glide profile before tic's sub-orbital spacecraft. tions. deploying, for the first time, its re-entry or "feathered" configu- George Whitesides, CEO SpaceShipTwo (SS2), ration by rotating the tail sec- and President of Virgin Ga- named VSS Enterprise, has now tion of the vehicle upwards to a lactic, said: "This morning's flown solo seven times since its 65 degree angle to the fuselage. spectacular flight by VSS public roll-out in December It remained in this configura- Enterprise was its third in 12 2009 and since the completion tion with the vehicle's body at a days, reinforcing the fast of its ground and captive -carry level pitch for approximately 1 turnaround and frequent test program. minute and 15 seconds whilst flight-rate potential of Virgin descending, almost vertically, at Galactic's new vehicles. We This latest flight saw a around 15,500 feet per minute, have also shown this morning 6:43AM (local) runway take off slowed by the powerful shuttle- that the unique feathering re- for VSS Enterprise, attached to cock-like drag created by the entry mechanism, probably its WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) raised tail section. At around the single most important carrier aircraft, VMS Eve. At 33,500 feet the pilots reconfig- safety innovation within the the controls of the of the space- ured the spaceship to its normal (Continued on page 15) ship were Scaled Composites' glide mode and executed a Left: Virgin Galactic‟s SpaceShipTwo‟s first feathered flight, May 4, 2011. Credit: Clay Center Observatory Thanks to Tara Hyland, one of Houston‟s Virgin Galactic‟s Ac- credited Space Agents, for the pho- tograph, caption, and press release. AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 7 Page 8 Robert McCall A Bright Future for People in Space 1919-2010 DOUGLAS YAZELL, EDITOR All image credits for this page: Robert McCall‘s art has a tors, next door to JSC. A small- McCall-JSC connetion. Former NASA strong connection to our er version of this mural is dis- United Space Alliance (USA) NASA/Johnson Space Center played in the lobby of the Gil- rendezvous instructor Ma- (JSC) community in Houston, ruth Center at JSC. This article honey recounts how a particu- Texas, USA, since his most identifies people in this breath- lar early 70s painting by famous works focus on human taking mural as much as possi- McCall of a shuttle-station space programs. He painted an ble. docking approach inspired him outstanding mural in 1979 in to work in the space program. the lobby of NASA/JSC‘s Bob Mahoney's recent While here at JSC, Mahoney Building 2, at the entrance to essay in The Space Review served on the training team for the Teague Auditorium. At the (http:// STS-63, the first mission (as time, Building 2 was the JSC www.thespacereview.com/ Visitor Center. Now we have article/1669/1) highlighted a (Continued on page 9) Space Center Houston for visi- very personal and unique Above: The artist, Robert McCall, in front of the lower left corner of the mural. Below: The entire 1979 mural by artist Robert McCall AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 8 Page 9 Robert McCall (Continued from page 8) is a quote from Mr. McCall page 17 of our last issue), the part of the Shuttle-Mir pro- about a bright future for people last planned flight for Space 1919-2010 gram) to ever execute such a in space. One memorable story Shuttle Discovery, and other shuttle-station approach. Inspir- in this article by Mr. Pearlman Space Shuttle missions. He also All image credits for this page: ing indeed! highlights Mr. McCall‘s art- created the Apollo 17 mission NASA work on a space mission patch patch and the patch for the Houston resident Robert that will never fly, since the NASA Mission Operations Di- Pearlman‘s web site, candidate astronaut, Barbara rectorate (MOD), both of which www.collectSPACE.com (and Barrett, was a backup for pri- appear in this mural near the it works without the www, too: vate ISS astronaut Guy Laliber- bottom left corner. His space- collectSPACE.com), contains te, of Cirque du Soleil fame. themed artwork is on quite a an excellent obituary and trib- few stamps from the United ute to Robert McCall (http:// Mr. McCall created mis- States Postal Service. collectspace.com/news/news- sion patch artwork for STS-1, 022810a.html). Its conclusion STS-3, STS-133 (shown on (Continued on page 10) Left: The astronaut in the mu- ral with his raised arm point- ing to our left is Alan Shepard (deceased). From a NASA biography at JSC: Shepard was one of the Mercury astro- nauts named by NASA in April of 1959. He was the first American to journey into space. He was also a member of the Apollo 14 crew. On the scaffold, Mr. and Mrs. John Young pose with the art- ist in 1979. From a NASA bi- ography at JSC: Astronaut John Young is the first person to launch into space six times from Earth, and the first to launch into space seven times counting his lunar liftoff. Far left: The artist with a por- trait of Judith (Judy) Resnik, a 1979 astronaut candidate who later perished in the Challeng- er accident, mission 51-L. She was also a crew member on the earlier Space Shuttle mis- sion STS-41-D. Left: The artist and Judith Resnik, who is painted in the center of the mural next to John Young. AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 9 Page 10 Robert McCall (Continued from page 9) in this 1979 mural. If you know later showed a draft of this arti- 1919-2010 One of his most famous the identity of anyone shown in cle to artist Alan Bean, an works is a painting for the 1969 this mural (including correc- Apollo astronaut, the fourth blockbuster movie 2001: A tions, additions, suggestions, person to walk on the Moon. All image credits for this Space Odyssey. No doubt this etc.), please write to us at edi- This article includes a photo of page: NASA art and movie inspired many in [email protected], or ai- Bean adding the astronaut pin our industry, including the crea- [email protected]. design to the mural. He men- tors of a Houston-area engi- tioned to Al that he also added neering firm, Odyssey Space With one or two other peo- the same thing to the McCall Research. ple, AIAA Houston Section mural at the Air and Space Mu- council member Dr. Albert A. seum in Washington, DC. This article fails to identify Jackson got the ball rolling for (Continued on page 11) some of the real people shown the creation of this article. He Right: The artist with the portrait of astro- naut Gus Grissom. From a JSC biography: Virgil I. Grissom (deceased) was one of the seven Mercury astronauts selected in April of 1959. He piloted the Liberty Bell space- craft, the second and final suborbital Mer- cury test flight, on July 21, 1961. He later served as command pilot on the first manned Gemini flight. Grissom was named to serve as command pilot for the AS-204 mission, the first 3-man Apollo flight. Lieu- tenant Colonel Grissom died on January 27, 1967, in the Apollo spacecraft flash fire during a launch pad test at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Far right: Ed Fendell, Inte- grated Communications Of- ficer (INCO) posing for the artist. We can see Mr. Fen- dell in the mural even better in the picture below this one. Far right bottom: Glynn Lun- ney poses while the artist adds him to the mural. Right: Dr. Christopher Kraft (JSC Center Director in 1979) and the artist. AIAA Houston Horizons May 2011 Page 10