Showing posts with label space travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space travel. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Buzz Aldrin Says He Had to Clear Customs After Coming Back from the Moon - http://clapway.com/2015/08/04/buzz-aldrin-says-he-had-to-clear-customs-after-coming-back-from-the-moon-343/

Buzz Aldrin, one of the coolest men in space, is on the loose on social media. Over the past few days Aldrin has taken to Twitter to bring us some very cool, and very interesting, insight into the smaller details on his trip to the moon.


Buzz Aldrin and His Crew Had to Clear Customs After Their Little Trip to the Moon


The newest piece of information Aldrin has released is a document showing that the famous astronaut and his colleagues, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, still needed to clear through customs after coming back from their mission to the Moon.


In this picture, you can clearly see a general declaration form from customs that indicates the crew claimed “moon dust samples” and “moon rocks” as a few souvenirs they picked up on their round trip flight. What’s even more interesting to note — besides the fact that these men needed to be sent through customs in the first place — is written inside a section marked “any condition on board which may lead to the spread of disease.” This section had a humorous note scribbled on it: “to be determined.”


According to Aldrin, the crew had to be kept in quarantine for three weeks after coming back to Earth. Just as a precaution.


Aldrin Claimed $33.31 in Travel Expenses During His Trip


In an earlier #TBT tweet from Thursday, Aldrin posted a copy of an expense reimbursement voucher for travel while on his way to the moon.


On the form, listing “travel and other expenses” between July 7, 1969 and July 27, the astronaut somehow managed to claim $33.31. Unfortunately, the crew didn’t manage to find a pit stop along the way that accepted Mastercard. It’s more likely that Aldrin picked up some stuff on the road to the Kennedy Space Center, or heading back to Houston after arriving back on Earth.


Why You Should be Following Buzz Aldrin on Twitter


Aside from posting souvenirs from the moon, Aldrin is a very active Twitter user; adapting incredibly well to the social media platform. He makes frequent posts about previous missions he was involved in along with freely talking about some of the more interesting details of space travel. And if you ever needed a few strong opinions about space travel, Aldrin’s got them.



 


If your kids are inspired by Buzz Aldrin, get them started with Space Scouts:




Buzz Aldrin Says He Had to Clear Customs After Coming Back from the Moon

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

What went wrong with #SpaceX #Falcon9 #rocket discovered. - http://clapway.com/2015/07/21/how-a-2-foot-strut-brought-down-spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-122/

Three weeks after the SpaceX rocket Falcon 9 blew up just minutes after launch, the company believes it’s finally found the culprit — a 2-foot steel strut.


The Weakest Link


Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX, said on Monday that initial investigation has lead the company to believe that a 2-foot long steel strut is what inevitably brought down their latest unmanned rocket, the Falcon 9. This strut, measuring in at only an inch wide, had one job — to hold down a high-pressure helium bottle in the liquid oxygen tank. Engineers believe that the strut snapped, which launched the bottle to the top of the oxygen tank. The result of which can be seen here.


The faulty strut is manufactured to support 10,000 pounds of force, which is well above the 3,500 pounds of force that the struts handle during an actual launch. “The strut failed five times below its normal strength, which is crazy,” said Musk.


How a 2-Foot Strut Brought Down SpaceX


In the news conference, Musk iterated that these were only preliminary results and that nothing was exactly definitive yet. During the conference Musk also stated that the strut wasn’t manufactured by SpaceX and that they had tested “some enormous number” only to discover that some could only support 2,000 pounds of force. Musk declined to provide the name of the supplier.


Misplaced Confidence Could Also be the Blame


The Falcon 9’s original mission was to resupply the ISS, but also staying intact so that SpaceX could retrieve the rocket in order to reuse it. For commercial spaceflight companies, this is a way to decrease the cost of future missions. Unfortunately, this is the third time in the last eight months that the rocket has experienced a failed launch.


“To some degree the company became a little bit complacent in the course of 20 successes in a row,” said Musk. “This is certainly an important lesson and something we will take with us into the future.”


According to Musk, many of the company’s employees believed Musk was being “paranoid” by his stringent attitude towards potential flaws. A behavior that has proven to be well justified.


Looking Forward to the Future


All of SpaceX’s main systems and rocket engines are made in-house, and Marco Caceres, director of space studies for Teal Group, believes that this is an important achievement.


“There is not a fundamental flaw in the design of the rocket itself. A strut is a specific part… Going forward, they will be much more careful about testing everything that goes on the vehicle,” said Caceres.


SpaceX is currently still trying to retrieve Dragon, the cargo spacecraft attached to the Falcon 9, and currently has no plans to cease its mission, though the launch schedule will need to be revised.



 


A space adventure that won’t go wrong awaits:




How a 2-Foot Strut Brought Down SpaceX"s Falcon 9 Rocket