A Funny Thing Happened on the way to Station!

As you know if you've been anywhere near me online this morning around noon ET the SpaceX Dragon capsule docked with the International Space Station (ISS).  The news you'll hear is that this was a historic and unique moment because SpaceX became the first private company to accomplish this feat. This is of course certainly true.

What's interesting is that as I watched the truly unbelievable images beaming down from space this morning I realized something, I had stopped thinking of this mission as the first time a private company visited the space station with a spacecraft, and started thinking of it as once again a uniquely American story of perseverance and technical ingenuity triumphing in the pursuit of the beckoning frontier.

Ironically a few days ago I was trying to rationalize my thoughts about that perhaps someday in the future humans may step foot on the surface of Mars (something I have desperately longed to see most of my adult life) but they might do so under the banner of private enterprise and not the flag of a country. Is that a bad thing? Will they not still be representatives of humanity? Time will tell I suspect but I've seen nothing this past week to make me anything other than optimistic about that future.

The NASA PAO made the comment that this was the first US craft to visit the space station since Space Shuttle Atlantis had been there in July of 2011. I'll admit that hearing this, frankly, it moved me and my immediate thoughts were, YES this is it! America is back in space!

I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out here to the SpaceX team that designed and built Falcon and Dragon. They faced some tests on this mission with the check-valve on launch and the LIDAR testing today. As I've said before though from everything I've seen, and admittedly I'm just and interested observer, from the outside they've done exactly that you would expect. Work the data to a solution in a professional and methodical manner. I have a hard time imagining Gene Kranz expecting anything more of this troops. So hats off to the SpaceX team in the best steely-eyed tradition.

I caught myself thinking throughout the day, a bit sheepishly, that this really is the start of a new day. It sounds hyperbolic but not I'm not so sure that's the case. I fervently hope that the predictions of SpaceX founder will come to forition and that someday we will look back on this day as the one when the wagon trains started west again. I personally look forward to someday in the not to distant future, sitting on a space liner to Mars reminiscing about that mission the kickstarted something special. At the absolute least I think we have reason to be hopeful and hope is something that can never be in to short a supply.

Congratulations again to everyone involved. I've said it many times over the last few days but I will keep on saying it, it was an absolute privilege to watch the NASA and SpaceX teams do their jobs.

SpaceX launches proverbial 'bar' into Orbit

It's no secret that I've been pretty caught up in the excitement/fever happening around the recent successful launch of the Falcon9 rocket and Dragon Capsule by SpaceX. It is funny how things can alter your perspective and I've been doing a lot of thinking about why it's had such an impact on me personally and what it might mean in a larger context. I suspect that this altered perspective will wane in time as is human nature so I am trying to capture it here before it does.

On the personal side I think it has to do with a couple of things.  The first is that I have always believed, since I was a teenager and read the Mars Trilogy that colonization of Mars should be the ultimate goal of humanity. Now for the first time in SpaceX founder Elon Musk there is someone with not only that same belief but a credible chance of doing something very legitimate about it.  The second reason is that we are seeing real development of new space exploration technologies, and demonstrable progress and results. My generation has only ever really identified with the space shuttle as a launch vehicle and to a lesser extent Soyuz but in both of those cases we'd been flying that hardware for thirty-plus years. There's a new kid on the block and to some extent I think this is my generations Apollo -> Space Shuttle, we get to watch a new generation of spacecraft being developed in real-time. Perhaps it's more simple and just the fact that space has always trumped all for me, it's the one interest, one passion, one belief that I can pretty honestly say has never wavered. 

The other thing that I've been thinking a lot about lately is the problems we bring technology to bear on. I guess this comes partiality out of the tweet that was making its way around the net on the idea that SpaceX's entire development has essentially cost less than what Facebook paid for Instagram. I know it oversimplifies complex issues but I have often wondered what the world might be like if we spent the same amount of energy worrying about issues like BioTech, Space Exploration, Alternative Energy as we do about the next big app or smartphone announcement.

I listened to a podcast today where Elon Musk posited the following (I'm paraphrasing): If you asked someone in 1969 what would be more likely a phone that you could carry around in your pocket and access limitless amounts of information with OR a human Mars mission they would laugh at your nieveness...Mars of course!

In the wake of Apollo it is the only answer that would make sense. In 1969 the fact that Americans had walked on the moon was the embodiment, the pinnacle of America's technological prowess and spirit of innovation. Today it's things like Facebook, iPads, and Angry Birds most commonly cited as examples of the same. Certainly the internet and the ability to access limitless amounts of knowledge from anywhere have fundamentally changed the world, I would not deny that. It is a subjective analysis but I guess I just can't make my brain accept that they are on the same plane as quite literally stepping into the next frontier. It is quite simply, that small step or giant leap, that has enabled the existence of those modern day examples of innovation and technological advancement. I think it's time we took the next leap.

Certainly it's not like SpaceX has landed on Mars and there's quite a bit to do before they have a legitimate shot of doing so. As they work towards that goal, I look forward to the efforts of all players as they bring their own efforts to bear towards the same goal (including NASA I might had who I believe still has a evolving but vital role to play and hope will get back in the game themselves in time). In the near term though, SpaceX has taken the bar and not simply just raised it but launched it into a new orbit. Regardless of what is next, I do hope that we can collectively hold on to the reminder the world has been given that the limitless frontier that's right outside our doorstep, is no just a little bit more accessible, and is only out of our reach for as long as we allow it to be. 

SpaceX's Success Today

My alarm went off at 4am this morning...on a Saturday. Picture the scene from the classic movie Apollo 13 and the exchange between two engineers, one sleeping on the floor in a back room of mission control, "Is it AM or PM?"..."AM very very AM!" So it is for us space geeks to chase launches. Today was the first targeted opportunity for SpaceX to attempt to launch their Falcon9 rocket carrying the fully equipped Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. I pulled out my laptop, fired up TweetDeck to ensure the count was proceeding and made my way to the living room to pull NASATV up on the big screen.  More on how things went in a minute.

SpaceX is one of several new companies attempting to lower the barriers of access to low earth orbit (LEO) and create a real commercial market for that access.  SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk who also founded a few other companies like oh PayPal and the electric car company Tesla. I think it is fair to describe Elon Musk as guy with a lot of drive, ambition, and some big dreams (Cool side note, Musk also served as inspiration for Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man, no really). While the sights of SpaceX initially are set on fulfilling NASA contracts for cargo and then crew transportation to the ISS, Elon Musk himself has stated that the goal of SpaceX is nothing short of providing the infrastructure humanity needs to become multi-planetary. A believe I personally have shared for just about my entire life, and I believe it needs to happen sooner rather than later. 

In my opinion, purely as an passionate observer, SpaceX is the farthest along of the slate of so called "new space" companies all driving towards the same goal. They successfully launched the Falcon1 in 2009 and in 2010 successfully launched the Falcon9 rocket and then successfully launched the Dragon capsule into LEO becoming the first private company/non-state entity ever to do so. Of course they had their share of bumps along the road it took four launches of the Falcon1 before it flew successfully with attempts starting as far back as 2006.  The last launch that put Dragon in orbit also had an abort but the count was recycled (within a few hours) and the launch proceeded nominally. Space is a hard business to be in it always has be and it always will be but the fact remains SpaceX today is the only private company to have made it as far as they have.

Back to this morning (very morning) the count proceeded very smoothly with no issues and everything given a "Ready"/Green as the final minutes then seconds approached. To understand what happened next it is important to understand that the Falcon9 designed in a very specific way that is different in the final seconds then the vehicle most are probably used to seeing, the shuttle. At T-0 the Falcon9's Merlin engines (there's 9 of them go figure) all powerup, but the rocket it self doesn't go anywhere it is held down to the pad by a series of hold-down bolts. As the engines power up a series of automated checks is run by software that is making sure all critical parameters are nominal and performance is as expected. In the event something is out of range, by virtue of the Falcon9 being a liquid fueled rocket, the firing can then be aborted Falcon9 remains on the pad and is safed while engineers troubleshoot the troublesome data that caused the computer to power down the engines. This is essentially what happened this morning, because Falcon9 has an "instantaneous" launch window (this effectively means you have to go at the exact time to make the right orbit so any delay pushes you to the next window) for the ISS a second attempt will not occur until the 5/22 window at the earliest to give time for troubleshooting. SpaceX is still searching for a root cause but generally speaking there was a parameter that violated a software check and the engines were powered down. Watching it can be a bit confusing we're accustomed to "T-0 annnd liftoff" in fact T-0 happens and liftoff happens only after the computers have verified it is safe to do so. 

Falcon9 was very consciously designed this way. You will probably hear/see lots of stories in the media about how this was a failure and the launch had already been beset by numerous delays. Space is very unforgiving and once you jump off the pad on a trail of flame it isn't going to show you even the slightest mercy. I think it is important to understand that this is a completely new vehicle. We aren't accustomed to seeing that much these days. The shuttle was all we had known for 30 years and Soyuz has been flying even longer than that. Building something new requires a lot of troubleshooting, you look at the data, make the appropriate adjustments, and try again.  This is exactly what development of a new vehicle should look like. So Falcon9 today did exactly what it was designed to do and it did it successfully. However that action was not a launch to orbit.

I fear the nay-sayers will rally and the media will say whatever they want. Consider as one final point that the only entities ever to accomplish what SpaceX is attempting today are countries. When the United States was attempting to build its first launch vehicles we were using repurposed ICBMs and on many of the first attempts to launch them they behaved much more like the missiles they were. To be frank their aborts typically ended with an explosion, SpaceX's Falcon9 stands ready on the pad to try again...that in itself is a non-trivial technical accomplishment.

Perhaps most importantly though I think SpaceX has shown it is up to the task with its performance to date, yes they have had setbacks, yes they have had delays, but each time they've done what you do when you are engineering something, worked the data, to find the problem and corrected it. For that I believe they deserve the time they need to get it right, and I believe they will. Perhaps Tuesday perhaps in a few more tries but this is what the business of pushing the limits and being a space fairing civilization looks like. If SpaceX serves to remind us all of that and of a time when we thrived on such challenges, well then that is a nothing but a success.