The Ride Of Your Life
01-02-99
| Hi Astronomy Interest Group members I thought you'd be interested in this brief description of what it's like lifting off inside the Space Shuttle. It is by Dr Mary Cleave, an astronaut who's flown on two NASA space shuttle missions: (attached are two accompanying pictures) ------------------ "It was the BEST ride, just the greatest ride, it's just incredible! You come off with the main engine start, and you can feel a"twang" as the spacecraft actually dips, comes back up, and then there's the big solid rocket motors that hit, and it's like somebody kicked you in the back of your chair. And then for the first couple of minutes that you're on those big solids it's like you're in an air popcorn popper - you can't really do much - you're just along for the ride; you know the computers are in control and you hope it all works. Then those big solid rocket motors come off and are separated by rockets; in themselves so strong there is a BIG bang, and then it's a really smooth push all the way - until 8 minutes and 10 seconds when the main engines shut off and you're just floating around. Now I could feel myself going heads down, just after you're coming off the pad because that's how the shuttle goes, it turns so you're upside down and on my second flight I really felt like I was upside down so at main engine cut off when I went to get out of my chair I had to fight with myself to undo my little seatbelt 'cause I really felt like I was gonna fall on my head even though I knew that there wasn't any gravity up there. It's really amazing. When you first get up on orbit, you can see out of the overhead windows and if you happen to be in the right orientation you can see the planet which everybody's always excited about. It's just . ..it's beautiful. We live on a beautiful blue planet. But you're travelling at 25 times the speed of sound so this beautiful blue planet that seems to be infinite when you're on the surface becomes very finite and VERY small real fast. Sunrise, sunset every 45 minutes -- they're gorgeous. But you also get an appreciation for just how small the atmosphere is. It's just a very thin layer that separates us and our planet from a really nasty vacuum out there. So you get real respectful for how we should treat the atmosphere, how we should treat the oceans, how we should treat the land." ------------------------------ Quite the ULTIMATE experience don't you think? Did you know we are lucky enough to be alive at a time when THIS experience is actually within the reach of the average (wealthy) person? Soon, commercial flights will be taking sightseers into space at the cost of just under a million dollars (about R6 million). So, start saving today! Regards Mario |
 Solid booster rocketsseparating |