WELCOME to Wes Oleszewski's Space blog: Growing up with Spaceflight

The Home of the "GROWING UP WITH SPACEFLIGHT" book series

Some people got to experience America’s space program up-close and personal, hands-on, steeped in the excitement of the peaceful advancement of human civilization. 

The rest of us had to watch it on TV.

Hello. Wes Oleszewski here and this is my space blog where you'll find cool picture, fun facts and, of course, shameless self promotion of my books.

Get your copy HERE!

Growing Up With Spaceflight is a series of print books and e-books that looks back across the years at America's manned space program as seen through the eyes of a kid who went from being semi-interested child, to a rabid space-buff adolescent, to an adult standing in the footprints of the newsmen who brought us all into the world of NASA and spaceflight. That person is, of course, the author of this series of books is ... me... Wes Oleszewski. 

If you are seeking a "serious as Gene Kranz" telling of the history of United States manned spaceflight, these are NOT the books for you. If, however, you are looking to be taken back to your own childhood days of watching America's space program, you have indeed come to the right place.

The full series of "Growing Up With Spaceflight" was released beginning in early 2016 and links for obtaining your copy are published here.

The first of the six book series was "Apollo Part 1" simply because it was the first book completed. It was, of course be followed by "Apollo Part 2" because the universal law of books requires that you must follow a Part 1 with a Part 2. Next came "Skylab ASTP" followed by "Space Shuttle." Finally there was "Mercury" and at length, "Gemini."

The "Gemini" and Mercuyt" books in the series does something really spacial. Since the author was real busy flunking the third grade and then repeating that same grade during project Gemini and was too young to recall much about Mercury, his memories consist largely of looking out the classroom window, being hit with a ruler and being publicly chastised for cartooning while not doing his "work."  Thus, he needed help with bringing the Gemini era back to life. That is where those of YOU who also were growing up during Gemini came into the picture. Wes asked for those of you who wanted to share your personal memories of Gemini and Mercury with him to send them into him so he could publish them in the Gemini and Mercury volumes of Growing Up With Spaceflight. So those two volumes contain the memories of other space-buffs as well as those of the author. And some of your memories are REALLY cool.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author W. Wes Oleszewski was born and raised in mid-Michigan and spent most of his life with an eye turned toward aviation and spaceflight with an occasional side-track toward the Great Lakes. Since 1990 he has authored 17 books on the subject of Great Lakes maritime history, specifically shipwrecks and lighthouses. 

                 Now he has turned his attention and writing talents toward spaceflight.

                Noted for his meticulous research, Oleszewski has a knack for weeding out the greatest of details from the most obscure events and then weaving those facts into the historical narratives which are his stories. His tales of actual events are real enough to thrill any reader while every story is technically correct and highly educational. Oleszewski feels that the only way to teach history in this age of computer and video games is through “narrative.” The final product of his efforts are captivating books that can be comfortably read and enjoyed by everyone from the eldest grandmother to the grade-school kid and future pilot, or historian.

                Born on the east side of Saginaw, Michigan in 1957, Wes Oleszewski attended public school in that city through grade nine, when his family moved to the town of Freeland, Michigan. In 1976 he graduated from Freeland High School and a year later entered the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona, Florida. Working his way through college by way of his own earned income alone, Oleszewski graduated in 1987 with a commercial pilot’s certificate, “multi-engine and instrument airplane” ratings as well as a B.S. Degree in Aeronautical Science. He has pursued a career as a professional pilot as well as one as an author. He holds an A.T.P. certificate and to date has filled more than three logbooks with flight time most of which being in airline category and jet aircraft. Recently he gave up the life of a professional aviator and now enjoys his job as a professional writer.

Apollo 15- A half century ago today... Launch Day!

 The following is an excerpt from Wes Oleszewski's book "Growing up with Spaceflight, Apollo Part Two" It is protected by copyright 2015 Wes Oleszewski, no part may be reused without the author's permission- publication here does not imply such permission.

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On March 10th, 1971, just one month after the conclusion of the Apollo 14 mission, a chartered C-130 aircraft delivered a very special package to NASA. Contained in the dark gray convex hexagon-shaped box was the most unique vehicle to be flown in space since the Lunar Module itself; the first flight-ready Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). This was an event that went unnoticed by the news media and unknown to those of us outside of NASA. It had been mentioned in passing during the Apollo 14 mission, but otherwise went completely overlooked by the general public.

Conceived in 1964, before anyone had set foot on the lunar surface, the idea of a roving vehicle languished at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) until April 7th 1969 when a Lunar Roving Task Team was formed there. When the word went out that NASA was seriously looking for a lunar rover, a number of companies came forward seeking a contract. In the end General Motors and Boeing ended up with the contract to design and build the LRV. Although the roving vehicles that had been suggested in years past were usually huge and heavy, the one that would be practical for an operational Apollo mission had to be small and lightweight. Additionally, in order to ride on the lunar module it needed to fit into a space that measured five feet tall, five feet wide and five feet deep. The problem thus became how do you build a car that can operate in a vacuum on a soft powdery surface a quarter of a million miles from the nearest gas station, have it weigh less than 500 pounds and fit into a triangular space that measured five feet in all three directions. The person who, for the most part, solved the problem was a Hungarian engineer from General Motors by the name of Ferenc Pavlics. His concept was for a lightweight flat chassis vehicle that folded up upon itself. This allowed the LRV to fit into the unused space of the LEM descent module’s Quadrant 1. Shortly after the first LRV was delivered to NASA, it was shipped to KSC and loaded into the Apollo 15 LEM. Lunar exploration was about to take on a whole new and exciting look.

Some kids looked forward to Christmas, some kids looked forward to their birthday and some kids looked forward to the last day of school... I looked forward to every Apollo launch as if it were all of those rolled into one. So it was that on the morning of July 26th, 1971 I was in what had become my standard “Apollo-watchin’ position.” This may have been the standard position for tens of thousands of space-buffs around the country; sitting cross-legged about 18 inches away from the picture tube of our family TV, glued to Walter Cronkite. It was launch day for Apollo 15 and even though I had recently turned 14 years of age, I had slept the night before like a little kid waiting for the sounds of Santa hitting my rooftop. Up before dawn and busily dialing between the three networks I went looking for any snip-it of information on the mission.

While most of the kids in our subdivision of Sheridan Park were deep into their normal mid-Michigan summer activities, namely swimming, biking and just plain hanging out, I had been distracted from all of that lately by the upcoming Apollo 15 mission. In fact the afternoon before the launch I had gone with some of my pals to the theater to see “The Andromeda Strain” and while the movie was terrific my mind was on Apollo 15. I had a special plan of attack for getting as much as I could out of the flight. For Apollo 14, I had hijacked my little sister’s new cassette tape recorder and recorded portions of the mission coverage off the TV onto two 30 minute tapes. Having played those over and over every day since the mission ended, I found that a total of 60 minutes of Apollo was simply not enough. Thus, for Apollo 15 I had purchased, with my last dollar, a three pack of cheap-O 60 minute cassettes. I was now so broke that my Mom actually had to give me the money to go to the movie the day before the launch! Still, I sat through the movie quietly planning exactly what parts of the Apollo 15 mission coverage I would capture on each cassette. Indeed in my teenage mind I had it planned out just like NASA planned the mission... well, almost.

Late into the evening prior to launch-day I decided to do a flight readiness test of my recording equipment. Suddenly- A GLITCH! My, or rather- my sister’s, external microphone had failed! This was before they started putting built-in microphones on recorders- so I was really screwed. It was 9:45 at night- there wasn’t a store in the Saginaw Valley that was open- especially not one with a microphone. Worse yet, I had spent my last dime on the tapes! I scrambled for a solution. Wiggle the wires... no use. Tap on it- no good. Take it apart... now it’s REALLY busted! Sheridan Park- we have a problem!

 Perhaps, I pondered, when the store opens at 9:00 in the morning, I could get there and, after negotiating some sort of a lawns-to-be-cut-later deal with my parents, I could buy a new microphone, and make it back home within the 26 minutes between the time the store opens and the launch takes place... okay... that was nuts. There was no way that was going to happen, just the negotiating the lawn-cutting part with my parents alone was on a par with negotiating with North Vietnam. I sat there looking at the disassembled microphone and I thought “What would Gene Kranz do?” Simple. He’d call a meeting of his engineers and controllers and he would tell them to go out and find a solution to the problem with what they had.”

With what they had... hummm...

It was then that the thought struck me that several months back I had accidentally stuck an earphone into the microphone jack and it fit; in those days both had 1/8 inch jacks. And an earphone had the same basic elements to it as the microphone that was now laying in pieces in front of me. I knew that because I had dissected plenty of earphones. In short order I was rooting through the family “junk drawers” and had scrounged up an earphone that I had not yet dissected.

I tested it in the microphone jack; IT WORKED!

Sure, the sound had a lot of tin in it and some 60 Hz hum, but it recorded! Using a four inch by six inch railroad “pounding card” that Dad had brought home from work, some electrician's tape and a hand full of tissues I had a microphone that the boys in the backroom at Houston would be proud of. 

I added a small measuring stick to give me the optimum distance from the TV speaker and I was “Go for the launch of Apollo 15!”

Oh Ha Ha... Please Further Demonstrate How Little You Know About Aerospace

On July 20th, 2021 Blue Origin launched four humans on a sub-orbital flight to space and then returned them by parachute and their booster by way of a powered landing. It was a great event and got more media coverage that some previous Space Shuttle missions.

Then someone said Send In The Clowns and the cyber idiots and media meat puppets came calling.

It was an easy joke to make... and it was nothing new. In fact since the design of the New Shepard vehicle was first revealed it was quickly compared to Dr. Evil's phallus-shaped rocket from the movie "The Spy Who Shagged Me." It was comical then... but now it's as old as most internet spoofs. Yet the media exploded with it once more.

Oh, ha, ha, ha, now please further demonstrate how little you know about aerospace... and so they do... by the millions. From tweets to FaceBook Memes to posts in forums by people who hide behind usernames to news media meatpuppets on 24 hour cable channels, they came out in droves following the flight.

Why?

Well it's a common reaction of those who have essentially no knowledge of the actual engineering that went into the vehicle itself. So, making that sport of the flight is a good way for those whose level of aerospace knowing is far less than their ability to play video games on their phone. It makes them cyber cool while addressing an event of which they have only a superficial understanding. The same goes for the meat puppets who do the news casts. It fills some precious ratings minutes and offers an opportunity to take a shot at a billionaire like Bezos while at the same time not having to know the difference between hypersonic and hypergolic (Tucker Carlson would now have his staff look that one up.) 

The cold had fact is that a large degree of complex engineering went into making this flight happen. There are a great deal of developmental steps forward that came into play. There are also many hazards that have been opened up along the way as well.

Steps forward range through the aerodynamics in the sub-sonic, trans-sonic and hypersonic fields of flight. Guidance and stabilization in those areas appear to have been honed to a very fine edge. The actual "look" of the vehicle is a factor of those areas of concern. Keep in mind that those regions are in play not only during the boost, but also during the return. One clever step was selecting a non-ballistic trajectory. It's a long-known mode that prevents the vehicle and it's passengers from being exposed to excessive G-loads on reentry. Likewise the booster has the return mode as much in its design as boost. But the heart of the flight is in the onboard avionics and computer systems as well as the light level of redundancy needed to make it look easy.

Yet, the one thing that, in my very humble opinion, I find to be an open door to hazard is the total dependence on autonomy. Yes, I know, computers and systems are now so advanced that it can handle every possible emergency... until the emergency pops up that the programmer never imagined. Sorry folks but I had it trained into me that you never trust that damned autopilot, because when you do, it'll take you to a smokin' hole in the ground. Yet, today we see more and more aircraft trusted to automation to a growing degree and the New Shepard is a far extension of that trust. I hear the argument, "well elevators used to have operators and many trains run by automation, why not aircraft and spacecraft?"  Elevators and trains have one huge difference from flight vehicles; they are both always in contact with the ground. 

A pilot is a human circuit-breaker. We are the ones who, at the greatest degree, separate the vehicle from electronics and fly it. When you take us out of the loop and depend completely on the computer, well... garbage in, garbage out- and at hypersonic speeds and realm of space, it only takes one tiny bit of garbage and then it's a long tumble back to that smoking hole in the ground.

Instead of six passenger seats- the vehicle should have five passenger seats and one pilot's seat as well as an abort handle and a control handle.

I've always looked at flight of any sort by what I call my 50/50 rule... anytime you elevate the human animal above 50 feet or accelerate it beyond 50 knots, or both... you can kill it. 

But hey, I'm old fashioned- thinking in the stone age... let's all just make some more Dr. Evil's rocket memes... right!

 

Toy shelf

It strikes me that every space kid needs a space shelf... even if the kid is over 60.

On my shelf is stuff which likely pre-dates many of you who are reading this.

For example, the black plastic bag that you see pinned to the wall contains a piece of a crashed SR-71 from 1967.

Central to this post, however, is the little vehicle seen on the farthest right, directly in front of the Gemini reentry module.

That piece dates back a half century to the summer of 1971.

Considering that when the summer began the Apollo 15 mission was about to take place, and that they had the coolest mission patch EVER, and that their command module pilot was from Michigan where I lived, and that they were landing in THE most amazing spot on the lunar surface plus they had given their lunar module the beyond cool name of "Falcon," well it simply drove 14-year-old me into space buff insanity. I decided that I had to make a Falcon lander of my own... and put ants into it... and then land it some place remote, unreachable and preferably with a rille in which to land.

There was just one problem... making a "lander" and finding that location. After all I had just turned 14 and I didn't have a dime to my name, so I'd have to kluge something up from scratch.

From July 26th to August 2nd 1971 the Apollo 15 mission took place- and I was glued to every second of it. My rocket pal Cj Vanston joined me in the insanity. During the EVAs we were camped out in my room glued to my little portable black and white TV because family members kicked us off of the big, color, living room TVs. The coverage on all three networks was continuous, but regular family members could stand just so much and then Cj and I have to retreat to my room. When the mission was off the air we were launching model rockets or trying to do weightless simulations in my backyard above ground pool or his backyard built-in pool. It was the greatest event of that summer.

Afterward some of my friends were goofing around on "the big D" which was a small traffic island on the cul de sac of our street. There was a man-hole there and they were dropping fire crackers into it. I went to have a look, and down about 15 feet was the worn cement bottom with some large cracks and peppered with stones that kids had dropped down through the few two and one quarter inch holes in the manhole cover. What stood out the most was an eight inch wide drainage trough that ran through the middle. Suddenly, in my space program insane mind... It had a rille!

Of course to a 14-year-old space nut who'd just watched the expanse of Hadley Rille on live TV, this was enough to inspire the building of a lander and naming it Falcon. This is that actual lander from 1971.

The body was made from a disposable salt shaker that I'd nabbed from a recent wedding reception

And the leg struts were made from toothpicks covered in the same gold foil that a brand of breath mints were wrapped with. The legs were just the right size to be angled through the vent hole in that manhole cover.

Likewise the descent stage was also wrapped in that same foil to disguise the fact that it was an inverted piece from a cheap game of checkers.

The descent engine came from a really crummy model that tried to pass it off as a Saturn V J-2 engine.

Inside was the cockpit with its couches for the F-4B ant space suits (A) and it even had a mid-deck (B) which I then called the "Egress Deck."

The inner structure was constructed so that the crew could see out through the windows- neglecting the fact that ants actually do very little with their eyes.

In the top, which was actually a cheap wheel from a rubber-band powered airplane that I'd wrecked, was a big screw eye used to hook and lower the lander down to the Apennine Sewer.

According to my crude notes of the time the first landing and recovery went very well. On the second mission- a 3 day stay- the entire crew croaked.

Darn.

Thereafter the little craft did survive for 25 years in a shoebox among tons of other childhood insanity trinkets and another 25 years on my space toy knick-knack shelf that denotes my insane, but fun childhood. I think the only thing sillier that the fact that I built and operated this thing was the fact that I've kept in for a half century.

They say that AD/HD people never grow up... here you have my proof.

Happy anniversary Falcon

Visit www.authorwes.com and check out "Growing up with Spaceflight" or look for them on Amazon

 

STS-1: THE DREAM IS ALIVE AGAIN

On the night before the second launch attempt we got a later start out of Daytona than we had the first time. We stopped and ate and this time we were all armed with sleeping bags. Just as we had planned Friday morning, almost everyone parked where they had been for the scrub. This time, however, some of us crawled into our sleeping bags and grabbed a few hours of sleep. I have to admit that I kept waking up, looking at the Shuttle in the spotlights and then covering back up thinking “Wow, this is so cool.” I would run through my mind all of the other manned launches that I had watched on TV and remembering how much I always wanted to be where I was at this moment.

As dawn broke folks began milling around again. This time there was a different feeling in the air. I had a sense that the Shuttle was gonna go today. There was an exhilaration among the crowd rather than anticipation, as if we all had our fingers poised on some sort of launch button and were certainly going to push it. A few hucksters were walking up and down the crowd, just as they had done on the day of the scrub, trying to sell assorted souvenirs. One guy had a simple black and white bumper-sticker that had a rough Shuttle image on it and the words “I SAW IT.” Someone, I believe it may have been Jennings, shouted to him,

“What if it blows up?”

Without missing a beat the huckster reached into his pocket and pulled out a large black marker. He pointed to an open space on the right hand corner of the bumper-sticker and he said,

“Then you take this marker and over here you write BLOW UP.”

He was apparently a huckster with the Right Stuff.

Our friend with the mobile Space Shuttle flight following station in the trunk of his car had taken his place right next to us again. Just like on scrub day, I had remembered to bring along my tape recorder. I’d been taping manned launch broadcasts from the TV since I was 13 years old and had recorded Apollo 14, so I was determined to get this one too. I asked our pal with the battery powered TV if I could place my tape recorder next to his TV at launch time and pick up some of the broadcast. He happily agreed and we all waited as the countdown passed every milestone that it had stumbled upon during the first launch attempt. No one knew what to expect. In fact, the damned thing just might blow up.

We saw nothing but a silhouette of the Shuttle and Pad 39A as the sun came up. It was a bit hazy and so our view remained that of a silhouette against a stunning orange sky while the count ticked down. Like expectant parents we paced a bit and alternated between looking at the pad in the distance and focusing on the little TV set. I kept running through my mind the fact that this was indeed history that could be considered on the scale of witnessing Freedom 7, or Friendship 7, or Gemini 3, or Apollo 8 or perhaps even Apollo 11. Countless space firsts were about to take place right in front of our eyes. I just had to hope that I would not forget to turn on my tape recorder.

As the countdown hit the two minute mark I hit the record button and set the tape recorder down next to the TV. Oddly, about that same time no one was looking at the TV set, every eye that had a view of the pad was focused toward the silhouette of the Shuttle backed by the now amber sky. Everything seemed to get quite still. For the first time there was very little talking among all of us on that riverbank- it was as if we all collectively held our breath.

At main engine start we saw the silhouette of the steam cloud billowing from the engines working against the sound suppression water. Six seconds later the solids lit and we saw what looked like a second sunrise. Then the STS-1 stood up on two stilts of flame as bright as the sun. Everyone was screaming “GO!... Go Baby GO!... GO!” I heard myself screaming it and I heard it echoing up and down the riverbank. What I did not hear- was the Shuttle. 

Then I remembered something I read in Mike Collins’ book “Carrying the Fire.” He described watching the first Saturn V, Apollo 4, launch. Collins wrote that about the time he said to himself “You can’t hear it,” the sound hit him. And just as I had that thought, the sound hit us.

Although there were certainly a few Saturn V veterans present, most folks who were there to witness STS-1 had never experienced anything like the Shuttle. It reached out, took hold of you and shook your senses as well as the ground under our feet. My tape recorder picked up the sound of the items in the trunk of the car rattling. The only thing louder was the sound of the shouts, screams, squeals and rebel yells coming from the crowd. People were jumping up and down and punching their fists into the air as STS-1 ripped into the sky. You really had to work to hear any of the calls coming from Mission Control. The whole thing kept going for over two minutes and then we heard the “Go for SRB sep.” call. It was then that everything seemed to grow comparatively quiet with just a smattering of “Hoots” and “Whoooos.” A few seconds later at SRB separation we saw the translucent white plume and then saw the two solids dropping away. At that moment a spontaneous cheer went up followed by a rolling applause produced by the near million or so people who now lined the riverbank as far as the eye could see. It was as if the home team had made a fantastically great play in front of a sellout crowd. It was sudden and it was contagious. I found myself clapping as if someone in NASA could actually hear me. That applause was actually captured on my tape. We applauded NASA, the Shuttle and our nation.

Following SRB separation we turned our attention to the tiny TV set once more, watching and listening as STS-1 headed for its target in orbit. In the distance out over the Atlantic the vehicle looked like a very bright star hanging in the sky. As the boost continued we had the illusion that the vehicle was actually heading downward toward the horizon, because that was what it was actually doing. Soon the star simply faded into a pinpoint. A glance at the TV and then a look back toward the sky found the Shuttle lost to the eye. At Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) everyone seemed to snap back to reality.

There was pure joy in the crowd and you heard a lot of “Man! Did you see that?” as if someone there could have missed it. We patted one another on the back, smiled and felt great, even though we had done nothing more than be there and watch. Even complete strangers found one another, smiled gleefully and offered congratulations on a great launch. One fellow coined it all when he grinned widely and said,

“Gee… I wish they had another one.”

Even the ride home was conducted as a festive traffic jam. People were filled with pride, and in our car the clogged roadway simply gave us more time to chatter about the launch.

I got back to Kmart in time to start my Sunday shift on schedule. Over in the appliance department a small crowd had gathered around the TV sets. One of guys working in that department had thought ahead and set one of the VCRs to record the launch which was playing over and over again as customers stood and watched, over and over again. On that Sunday the folks that I worked with all heard that I had been there and the guys in the appliance department told their customers,

“The guy over there in cosmetics was down there for it,” and pointed toward me.

As I stocked my shampoo, denture cream and glycerin suppositories, dozens of people came up to me and asked “How was it?”

The best I could do was to simply reply that it was indescribable and urge them to go down and see one.

For myself, I simply went about my mindless job with a perpetual smile upon my face. After 31 United States manned space launches, all of which I witnessed on TV while growing up with spaceflight, I finally got to be “there” and “see one!” Nearly a million other people who had crowded the length of the Space Coast that morning were thinking that same thought at that same time. Best of all was the feeling that after more than five years without the ability to launch humans into space, our country was finally back in the manned spaceflight business. It was the most exhilarating feeling of my life up to that point, and I could not wait to see the next Shuttle launch. 

Indeed, the dream was alive again.

For more like this check out my book at www.authorwes.com

Or get the e-book at Amazon

STS-1: I’M GONNA STRANGLE JULES BERGMAN

  

        A month and seven days following the Flight Readiness Firing, NASA announced officially that the launch date for the first Space Shuttle would be April 10, 1981. Standing there in the Daytona Kmart cosmetics department and wearing my nametag and badly worn tie as I held a price sticker gun, I decided that I was not going to miss it. I told Andy the pharmacist that I was gonna be down there to see it. Andy asked what I was going to do if I could not get the day off?

            “I’ll quit the job,” I replied

Knowing I only had a bicycle for my personal transportation he asked, “How’re you gonna get down there?”

I answered that if I could not get a ride, I would ride my bicycle and get as far south as I could. He just shook his head and snickered. The fact was that I had spent nearly my whole life passionately following spaceflight and nearly every bit of that had been sitting in front of a TV set. There was no way I was going to be this close to that piece of spaceflight history and again have to watch it on TV. I was going to be THERE to witness it first hand, even if I had to ride my bicycle. The only problem was that the best eyewitness location for the launch was almost 50 miles away, a bit longer than the distance I usually rode my bicycle.

As luck would have it, launch day for STS-1 happened to fall on my day off, so now my only problem was getting down to the Space Coast. A day before the launch I ventured to the Avion student newspaper office on Embry-Riddle’s campus, and was told that AIAA was chartering two buses to go from the campus to KSC for the launch of STS-1. I hustled down to buy a ticket, but found that the tickets had sold out almost immediately. Dejected, I returned to the newspaper office and began to plot my bicycle ride down US1 to Titusville. I figured it would take me most of the night to get down there, and although riding a bicycle down US1 in the middle of the night to see a space launch may seem a bit nuts, the term “A bit nuts” is denoted on my birth certificate.

Just as I was about to head out and start peddling, my girlfriend of that time stopped me and said that she knew of two guys in her dorm who were driving down. She suggested that we should go to their room and she could introduce me to them. If they had an extra seat, it may keep me from becoming a road pizza on US1. As it turned out the two guys were happy to have me ride along. They were, in fact, both space-buffs just like me and we instantly became friends. Jennings, who owned the land-boat of a car that we drove down in, was from Michigan, just like me, and to this day I consider him to be a good friend. Brian, the other guy, was an expert in everything that flies, and would go on to not only work at the National Air and Space Museum as a photo archivist as well as becoming the author of a most comprehensive book on rockets and missiles, but would also serve as the best man in my wedding seven years later. Together, the three of us headed out that Thursday evening to witness aviation history… or so we thought.

On the trip down toward the launch site we chattered about spaceflight history. Then, as we came within a dozen miles of Titusville, we suddenly saw spaceflight history. Above the trees the darkness was slashed by the crossed white beams of the pad spotlights. Although we could not yet see the shuttle, it was an image that we had always seen in books, magazines and on television. In spite of yourself, it made your heart stop and your jaw drop.

Entering the town of Titusville we suddenly discovered that we had no idea where the hell we were going. Where would we park? What about private property? Collectively we decided just to turn toward the river. Driving down Grace Street we hit Riverview Street and the riverbank itself. For a few minutes we cruised up and down Riverview calculating a good place to park. I spotted a county pumping station and suggested we should park near it. That way if any of the locals gave us a hard time, we could just go onto county property. We pulled in, bailed out of the car and just stood there frozen by the sight of the white Space Shuttle bathed in those crossed spotlight beams. For a moment, all three of us were kids again gazing at the wonder of spaceflight.

Snapping out of the Shuttle’s spell for a moment, I saw that it was just after 10 pm and I decided to hike up Grace Street to the Mister Doughnut shop up on US1. There I found a pay phone and I called my folks up in Michigan to ask “Guess where I am tonight?” Being the parents of a rabid space-buff, it was an easy guess for them. When I returned to the car I was amazed to see that in the past 20 minutes, nearly every parking spot along the riverbank near us had been taken, and there were more cars coming. Clearly, there would be no problems with the local residents tonight.

Opening the trunk of his car, the guy who had parked right next to us, revealed a sort of mobile Space Shuttle flight-following station. Attached to the underside of the trunk lid he had a poster depicting each phase of the STS-1 flight profile. He had charts and table that listed each mission event, as well as assorted abort profiles and abort destinations. He had Shuttle cut-away diagrams that detailed every component. Most importantly, however, he had a small portable TV that ran off of his car battery. In 1981 such TVs were not rare, but in our present location his TV was the center of attention.

Several hours into the night I decided to go for a walk up US1 and see what may be happening. The streets were busy as I strolled along, and every sign that could have its letters rearranged had a Shuttle best wishes message. After about a mile or so I came upon the local mall. Even though it was the middle of the night, the parking lot was filled as if it were the day before Christmas. The doors to the mall were propped open and people were coming and going. I went inside and was amazed to see that many of the stores were open and doing a good amount of business. Most noticeable was the local toy store which had set up a table just outside of their door. Upon the table was a cash register and stacks of Space Shuttle models which were apparently selling like crazy.

When I got back to the riverbank everyone was standing around gazing at the distant Shuttle or talking spaceflight. We talked about every aspect of spaceflight past, present and future. Most of us simply agreed that we had no idea as to what STS-1 would do, or what the Shuttle’s future would really be. It was like going to a space-buff convention. 

There was, however, only one problem with our space-buff paradise: access to a bathroom.

On a later trip up the road to buy a cup of tea I found out that the guy running the Mister Doughnut shop up on US1 did not mind folks using his restrooms, as long as they bought a doughnut “or somethin’.” When I got back to the riverbank I spread the word and soon folks were strolling up the road to Mister Doughnut and returning “rested” with coffee, or a pastry, or both in hand. STS-1 was already helping the local economy, and the guy running the doughnut shop could testify to that.

Shortly after dawn the countdown hit the first in a series of holds. The TV in our little mobile Space Shuttle flight following station seemed to pick up the local ABC station the best, so we were glued to Jules Bergman and Gene Cernan. The issues started with a fuel cell problem and then a problem with the back-up computer. The guys on the TV knew about as much about the problems as we did, but Bergman kept down-talking the prospect of a launch today. As countdown recycles and holds folded up on one another, Bergman kept talking about NASA officials stating things such as their “…expectation of having to go through multiple launch attempts over several days.”

It was bad enough waiting out the assorted re-cycles in the countdown, but Bergman simply intensified our frustration. We had never seen anything like the Shuttle and at the time of STS-1 we had no idea just how dependant COLUMBIA was on its computers. This was 1981 and desktop computers were just coming out of the “Basic” and “DOS” era. Talk of a misplaced bit or bite gumming up a spacecraft’s launch seemed quite strange. In fact two days later we would be told that a simple timing error of 40 milliseconds between the four primary computers aboard COLUMBIA and the vehicle’s back-up computer was the cause of the problem. It was easily solved the day following the first launch attempt by shutting everything down and restarting the system. That simple re-boot, however, could not be done at the point in the count where we were on Friday morning. So, we were stuck with Bergman throwing the cold water of truth on our protracted hopes for a Friday launch.

“I’m about ready to swim across the river,” Jennings growled, “and strangle Jules Bergman.”

Of course, Bergman was correct in one sense. We were not going to see the Space Shuttle fly today.

Over on NBC, the ever spaceflight-dense Robert Bazell was interviewing Jim Lovell concerning problems in space.

 “What was the worst kind of problem that you ever had?” Bazell asked the Apollo 13 commander.

Across the nation every space-buff watching NBC must have chuckled and said, “What!? Is he kidding? He’s asking the commander of Apollo 13 what was the worst problem he ever had?” The laughter must have lightened up the on-going holds and delays.

Since we were watching ABC I missed out on that little meat-puppet moment until it was on the internet decades later. Finally, after what seemed like an entire day of holds and recycles, the word came across the loop that they were going to once again recycle to T-20 minutes and go out and remove the crew. Some two-and-one-half-hours after the scheduled launch time, the effort came to a halt. Shortly after that came the official scrub announcement. Frankly, it was almost a relief. We had all been awake for more than 24 hours and other than a bag of doughnuts that I’d retrieved from Mister Doughnut, none of us had eaten. Everyone up and down the riverbank agreed to meet in the same place Saturday night for Sunday morning’s attempt at a launch.

The next day at work I went into the personnel manager’s office and told Mary Jane, our personnel manager that although I was scheduled to work on Sunday, I would be at the Shuttle launch and if it was late, I would be late too. Unexpectedly, she simply smiled sweetly and said,

“No problem, I understand, have fun.”

It’s funny how folks who live in central Florida have a different view of spaceflight than other people around the country. Of course, most of the country had watched the whole scrub live on TV and from the White House to my parent’s house every American seemed to suffer through the recycles with us. 

Most of them, however, were much closer to a restroom than those of us on the riverbank.

For the whole Shuttle Program experience check out my book!

You can get yours autographed and personalized at www.authorwes.com

or on Amazon in e-book form Growing up with Spaceflight- Space Shuttle

STS-3; DTOs and the Myth of the "Wheelie Landing"

 

The following is an excerpt from my book "Growing up with Spaceflight- Space Shuttle" and is protected by Copyright 2015 Wes Oleszewski. No part of this may be reproduced in any manner without expressed permission of the author.

    Dawn at White Sands revealed absolutely perfect weather for the landing. This segment of the mission was scheduled to be test piloting to the greatest degree as the final DTOs (Designated Test Objectives) would be accomplished. Jack Lousma was required to test the auto-land system to a point far beyond normal operation and far beyond any previous flight. He was to take over manually at scheduled points during the entry and put in some small control inputs such as forward stick to neutral stick to back stick than to neutral again, all at one second intervals. Then he was to reach up on the glare shield and punch the button that would activate the auto-land. In each of these cases the crew was to note how the auto-land responded. Lousma estimated that he did this procedure about 10 times. Interlaced with that series of tests, a similar test sequence was performed in the roll axis as well as with the body flap. The same exercise had been performed in the simulator numerous times, but what the crew of STS-3 was to discover was that the simulator and the actual orbiter did not perform alike at some points.

In addition to the auto-land response DTO, the crew also was scheduled to test the auto-land all the way down the flight path, nearly to the ground. It is worth making a note at this point in the story that the computer’s auto-land software had not yet been written for the final flare, touchdown and rollout. The auto-land software had only been written to the point of intercept of the inner glide slope. For those of you reading who have not flown high performance or heavy aircraft, that sort of an approach may sound like a milk run, but in fact it is not. Most pilots of such aircraft would rather hand-fly it down. Personally, I prefer to hand-fly a turbo prop from about 10,000 feet down and a jet from 18,000 feet down. Every Shuttle pilot I have talked to feels the same way and would rather hand-fly as much as they can all the way down. But in the case of STS-3, Jack Lousma’s DTO was to ring out the auto-land, and so he did.

CDR Lousma executed the testing through reentry and the switchovers appeared to be normal. Then, as directed by the mission profile, he engaged the auto-land at 12,000 feet on the outer glide slope. At that time the Shuttle approach PAPI, a series of lights located beside the runway that gives the pilot visual information concerning his glide slope, indicated two red and two white on a 19-degree glide slope and on center line.

"That was the last time I saw a stabilized airspeed,” Lousma recalled, “although the automatic system controlled OGS (Outer Glide Slope) well, including the transition from OGS to IGS (Inner Glide Slope)."

Unexpectedly the auto-land system made a slight right roll correction, probably to nullify the effect of a right crosswind at that altitude. Then the crew felt the speed brakes close immediately. This was abnormal and allowed the orbiter to accelerate to 285 knots. These “speed brakes” consisted of the rudder splitting in half vertically and hydraulically  extending out into the airflow symmetrically to each side and thus providing a high degree of drag. Normally in a hand-flown approach the Shuttle pilots use the speed brakes in degrees to manage the orbiter’s energy and blend airspeed and altitude. As the auto-land computer sensed the speed increase, it opened the speed brakes again to a greater than normal degree. Now the airspeed slowed to a speed which was below a software set-switch that would automatically fully close the speed brakes at 4,000 feet if the speed was too low. The speed brakes were not designed to move suddenly from highly open to fully closed and then back again, but that was what the auto-land was commanding. In this critical portion of the approach the auto-land was over-correcting the travel of the speed brakes. On a manual approach the crew would have closed the speed brakes at 2,500 feet to prevent them from cross-coupling with the pre-flare pull-up at 1,750 feet. On the STS-3 auto-land approach the computer commanded the speed brakes closed 1,500 feet early, which caused an acceleration prior to entering the pre-flare that was carried to the end of the pre-flare.

In short, the auto-land system was causing wide swings of the speed brakes during the most critical portion of the landing, rather than mimicking the inputs of a manual approach. It was later discovered that the software in the simulator that everyone had considered to be the mirror image of the software in the orbiter was not that at all.

As directed in the flight plan, Lousma took over manual control when the orbiter was stabilized on IGS. This took place between 200 and 150 feet AGL. As he took control he noted that the controls “felt different” than they should at that point. The vehicle was carrying more airspeed than normal at that phase of flight. Although he was 5 knots over the gear deploy speed he called for the gear and Fullerton lowered the landing gear. It is important to note here, again for any non-pilots who may be reading this, that deployment of landing gear is normally dependent on speed and not the observations of persons on the ground or the proximity of the aircraft to that ground. In the case of STS-3, to people on the ground it appeared as if the gear had come down low and late. In fact it was deployed somewhat early as the vehicle was 5 knots too fast.

Another result of the higher speed was that the touchdown point was now farther down the runway than desired. Like any good test pilot, Lousma negated the error by simply planting the aircraft on the runway. It is important here to also note one thing about the Shuttle that a lot of people do not understand. When rolling with all of their wheels (two main with a total of four wheels and the nose gear with its two wheels) on the ground the Shuttle orbiters had a negative Angle Of Attack (AOA). Thus during the landing rollout after the main gear was on the ground and the vehicle began to slow the nose would drop through from a positive AOA, to a neutral and then to a negative AOA very rapidly. The pilot was required to compensate by consciously "flying" the nose down to the ground. Originally the orbiter’s nose gear had been designed with a longer strut to compensate for this characteristic, but a subsequent weight scrub had negated that idea. Lousma was well-prepared for this characteristic, but as COLUMBIA's main gear contacted the runway the nose immediately began to go down. The plan, however, had been for the CDR to hold nose up and perform aerodynamic braking from the point of touchdown until slowing to 165 knots. Instead, the COLUMBIA's nose gear was now headed toward the runway at 220 knots. Instinctively, Lousma made a quick pitch-up input with the rotational hand controller, but the nose continued down. He immediately entered a second input which was greeted with a rapid nose up response. He corrected by putting an additional nose down response and this time regained authority and the nose wheels were placed on the runway. The orbiter rolled to a stop 13,723 feet down the runway.

It was later discovered that there was a divergence in the longitudinal contrast software for the Shuttle’s landing configuration. That, combined with the additional speed that the auto-land system had left the orbiter conflicted with the gain setting in the software. This caused the fly-by-wire system to impose an abnormal delay between the pilot’s inputs into the hand controller and the movement of the control surfaces. In simpler terms, (engineers please forgive me for this simplification) the first stick input to counter the dropping of the nose was delayed because the software sensed that the orbiter was going too fast for such a command to be executed. Then when the second input was made the software added it to the first command and then that total was transmitted to the control surface which responded by commanding the total movement to the aerodynamic control surfaces. Lousma had nothing to do with this process other than making intuitive corrections. Had he done nothing, the nose gear would have hit the runway at 220 knots and may very well have been damaged or sheared off.

Of course to the uninformed observer, such as most reporters in the TV news media and some present-day Internet "experts," it appeared as if Lousma had botched the landing. In one good example of this misconception CBS news’ reporter Terry Drinkwater hyperbolized on the evening news that day by reporting that this was;

"The Shuttle’s least perfect landing." He then went on to further to mindlessly exaggerate; "The landing gear is programmed to come down when the spacecraft slows to 311 miles per hour, (270 knots,) but when the speed finally dropped to that, the COLUMBIA was extremely low. There were only 5 seconds between wheels down and touchdown. Close! Next, as the nose seemed to be gently settling, suddenly it lifted again. Then apparent control, but the force of the forward speed and the weight on the nose gear was close to its tolerance." He added that this was,"...likely caused by of a gust of wind or more likely a computer error, or pilot mistake."

Frankly, the only parts of that statement that were correct was the gear speed and the term “computer error.”

Thus began the myth of the "wheelie landing."

Some people then and now picture Jack Lousma in a state of embarrassment immediately after the landing of STS-3. In fact, quite the opposite is true. He was happy and excited and somewhat tickled that on this test flight, during the entry, approach and landing, the crew had uncovered a series of flaws in the auto-land system as well as the impact of those flaws on the software for the fly-by-wire system. Those problems could now be corrected so that future Shuttle pilots would not experience the same problems. That was the purpose of his flight: to test. It is also worth denoting the fact that on the previous two flights, as well as all of the ALT flights, the crews had only tested the auto-land for very brief periods of flight, and no one prior to STS-3 had tested it all the way down to the IGS, let alone exercised it as had been done by the STS-3 crew. This was flight test at its best and the results improved future missions.

        Yet, even as of this writing, more than three decades after STS-3, you can look on YouTube and find videos of the “wheelie landing.” And if you have a strong stomach, you can read the moronic comments about it left by people whose total flight experience extends no farther than their computer’s keyboard, and whose research into the event goes no farther than repeating the quips that others have posted. 

    The same is sadly true of most Internet spaceflight forums and their self-certified Shuttle “experts.”