NASA’s space program has a local connection

© Mark Ollig

Powell F. Sams provided his expertise during the time of NASA’s Space Shuttle program.
 
I was fortunate to speak with his son, Jon, who lives in Winsted and works at the Howard Lake Waverly-Winsted high school.
 
Jon’s family is originally from West Virginia, near the Ohio River. He was born in Parkersburg, WV, and moved to Minnesota in 1958 when he was seven years old.
 
His father served as a pilot during the Korean War. One of the things that greatly bothered him was seeing soldiers suffering dysentery and other ailments caused by eating ill-prepared and improperly stored foods.
 
Powell wanted to improve how the government supplied the military with food. So not long after returning from Korea, he moved to Minnesota and began working as a nutritional research and development engineer at the Minneapolis-based Pillsbury Company.
 
The Pillsbury Company processed wheat grain into baking flour, packaged biscuit dough, and produced other food-related products.
 
At the start of the 1960s, Pillsbury Company wanted to diversify from the baking flour market, and so the company spent a year producing a solid “space food cube” to be used by NASA for their astronauts.
 
Jon sometimes found himself the “guinea pig” for evaluating the taste and quality of repackaged brownies, M&M’s, and other food items his father would bring home from the lab.
 
He filled out answers to specific questions about each packaged “space food” item on a typed paper provided by his father, who would then check the answers in the lab and make any needed quality adjustments.
 
On May 24, 1962, Mercury-Atlas astronaut Scott Carpenter would become the 6^th human to fly in space. NASA included some of the Pillsbury Company’s space food cubes in his Aurora 7 spacecraft.
 
While working for the Pillsbury Company, Powell and two others filed for a US Patent on July 15, 1971, for their newly-devised method for safely cooking food products packaged inside a specially sealed flexible pouch.
 
Jon told me his father's nickname for this creation is the “Pillsbury Pouch.”
 
Method For Heat Processing Food Products Packaged in Flexible Containers is the name of US Patent 3,769,028. Powell F. Sams is one of three names listed as inventors on this patent granted on Oct. 30, 1973.
 
One of the objectives written in the patent states the invention prevents the flexible mylar polyester pouch from bursting during cooking or baking.
 
You can view his US Patent at https://bit.ly/3lsBjMr.
 
Apollo 17 was launched from the NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Dec. 7, 1972, and would be the last mission of the NASA Apollo space program. 
 
The same year, NASA would select Rockwell North American (now Boeing) as the prime contractor for their new Space Shuttle program.
 
Powell learned the folks at NASA were experiencing problems with the Space Shuttle Food Feeding System, so he traveled to work in the research laboratory at Boeing.
 
Looking to ensure the absolute safety of prepackaged foods for spaceflight, NASA partnered with the Pillsbury Company to create a new, systematic approach to quality control.
 
Powell's US Patent says his invention embodies a “retort and control system” which is lightweight and flexible. The official NASA name for the Pillsbury Pouch is the Retort Pouch.
 
The Retort Pouch protects the MRE (Meal, Ready-to-Eat) contents from chemical, physical, and biological hazards during space missions, thus protecting the astronaut’s health, as well.
 
The food safety standards NASA used are today known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), an industry-standard that benefits consumers worldwide by keeping food free from a wide range of potential hazards.
 
Jon spoke of his time at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, where his father worked on food nutritional research and development for the Space Shuttle astronauts. Each astronaut had their unique dietary requirements, and Powell’s work more or less redesigned the way astronauts ate when they were in outer space.
 
Today, Jon has one of the largest personally autographed and framed Space Shuttle photograph collections, along with other space memorabilia.
 
One of the framed photographs to his father, signed by the STS-32 Space Shuttle Columbia crew, says, “Thanks For Feeding Us All So Well At All Hours.”
 
Jon told me how he and his father watched many “Star Trek” episodes during its original series days back in the 1960s, which caught my attention. As my readers know, I am a fan of Star Trek, so we spoke at length about it.
 
Jon has hundreds of space-related articles, papers, and approximately 25 framed photographs the astronauts and crew personally signed from many space shuttle missions.
 
Of the signed and framed photos, the following is a partial listing with the Space Transportation System (STS) mission number, shuttle name, and launch date:
 
STS-26  Discovery, Sept. 29, 1988.
STS-27  Atlantis, Dec. 2, 1988.
STS-28  Columbia, Aug. 8, 1989.
STS-29  Discovery, March 13, 1989.
STS-31  Discovery, Apr. 24, 1990.
STS-32  Columbia, Jan. 9, 1990.
STS-33  Discovery, Nov 22, 1989.
STS-34  Atlantis, Oct. 18, 1989.
STS-35  Columbia, Dec. 2, 1990.
STS-36  Atlantis, Feb. 28, 1990.
STS-37  Atlantis, Apr. 5, 1991.
STS-39  Discovery, Apr. 28, 1991.
STS-41  Discovery, Oct. 6, 1990.
STS-42  Discovery, Jan. 22, 1992.
STS-43  Atlantis, Aug. 2, 1991.
STS-44  Atlantis,  Nov. 24, 1991.
STS-48  Discovery, Sept. 12, 1991.
STS-49  Endeavour, May 7, 1992.
 
Jon has also preserved under glass the slide rule his father used to complete mathematical computations while working with NASA.
 
Besides Jon's interest in the NASA space program, he is an avid bird watcher and cares for his 20 bird feeders.
 
He also enjoyed playing golf with his father.
 
Jon's father is a member of 1988 Who's Who in America, a biographical dictionary of notable men and women in the United States. He also wrote two books.
 
For 25 years, Powell Sams worked at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, retiring in 1991.
 
Powell Frances Sams passed away in 2008 but left a rich history of memories, personal service, and notable contributions to NASA’s Space Shuttle Program.

Between the first launch on April 12, 1981, and the final landing

on July 21, 2011, NASA's space shuttle fleet of Columbia,

Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour flew 135 missions.

Zeitgeist: the spirit of the times

© Mark Ollig

“The general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era,” is the definition of zeitgeist from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary.

Google’s zeitgeist events and videos bring together the world’s top intellectuals and leaders to share global search information and trends.

“Hear entrepreneurs, CEOs, storytellers, scientists, and dreamers share their visions of how we can shape tomorrow,” Google describes their zeitgeist video channel on YouTube.

I watched one of the videos and noted a user comment saying, “Google Zeitgeist is a collection of talks by people who are changing the world.”

Indeed. It is like the Bob Dylan song, “The Times They Are a-Changin’.”

The spirit of the times, even the current pulse of the nation, can be somewhat understood through the accumulation and analysis of commonly-searched themes or specific word search queries Google processes.

In a world with a population nearing 8 billion, an estimated 6 billion smartphones are used to access information.

Using a smartphone, we have a portal for discovering nearly inexhaustible knowledge from the palm of our hand.

What was once thought of as science fiction is today commonplace.

We are also able to share with the world our original content immediately.

We can report and comment on news stories and events as they happen with others around the world.

“Imagine going from no information to the entire world’s information with one device,” said Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, during a conference in Paradise Valley, AZ.

Zeitgeist conferences talk about technology, what people are searching for online, and how these search results can determine the current mood of not only this country, but that of the world.

“How many of you have used Google in the last 24 hours?” Schmidt asked the audience.

Many hands went up. Schmidt responded, “I just wanted to see that; it made me feel better.”

The audience laughed.

He then went on to talk seriously about how technology and intelligent networks are changing the way we communicate with each other.

Schmidt said we now converse with others speaking different languages using universal language translation technology.

He took a smartphone out of his pocket, held it up, and said, “How many disagreements in society; wars, conflicts, prejudices, and so forth, have ultimately been because people could not communicate?”

Schmidt stated we could speak into our phone and have the language we use automatically translated via the power of the intelligent network servers in the cloud to the desired language on the other user’s phone.

“It’s extraordinary. This is really magic!” exclaimed Schmidt.

The 1960s science fiction “Star Trek” universal language translator has become a reality in 2021.

He went on to talk about how technology is helping solve specific global difficulties, assist in education and small businesses, and is being used to improve energy self-efficiency.

Schmidt suggested online search technology will eventually handle routine things we do during the day seamlessly through various forms of artificial intelligence.

He also talked about a new generation of robotics that will respond to gesture recognition and even physically represent us.

“I don’t like to stay out at night, so I’ll send my robot to the party and [it] can represent me,” mused Schmidt. “He’ll have a good time and report to me in the morning,”

The audience laughed, but Schmidt got serious again and asked, “You think I’m kidding?”

He said companies are building and using artificial robots right now, noting the robotic technology is unbelievably powerful.

Google registered the google.com domain name Sept. 15, 1997.

Ever since Google went online with its search engine a year later, the number of folks seeking information with it has soared.

Many people believe Google was the first search engine on the internet; it was not.

Archie became the internet’s first online search engine Sept. 10, 1990. It was created in 1989 by Alan Emtage at McGill University in Montreal.

The Gopher search engine was developed at the University of Minnesota and released online in 1991.

Google Zeitgeist videos are available at https://bit.ly/3En3PrF.

We live in the spirit of the times, and as Minnesota’s own Robert Allen Zimmerman wrote in his song from 1964:

As the present now

Will later be past

The order is

Rapidly fadin’

And the first one now

Will later be last

For the times they are a-changin’.

First to reach the moon

© Mark Ollig

The word, “luna,” means “moon” in Latin.

The Soviet Union used the R-7 8K71PS rocket Oct. 4, 1957, to launch its Sputnik 1 space satellite.

The R-7 rocket, essentially an intercontinental ballistic missile, was re-designed by the Soviets as the 8K72 to send the first Luna spacecraft probes to the moon.

The first attempt to reach the moon began Jan. 2, 1959, with Luna 1.

Luna 1 missed the moon’s surface by 3,700 miles and is still in orbit between the Sun and Mars.

Luna 2, aka Second Soviet Cosmic Rocket Lunik 2, launched Sept. 12, 1959, from Baikonur Cosmodrome, USSR.

When the R-7 8K72 rocket attained Earth gravitational escape velocity, Luna 2 separated from its third stage and headed to the moon at about 25,000 mph.

At about 97,000 miles from Earth, Luna 2 released bright orange clouds of sodium gas stored in its three gas-discharge containers. The gas aided in tracking the spacecraft. It was also part of an experiment to study the behavior of gaseous fumes in space.

A Geiger Counter and a Triaxial Fluxgate Magnetometer powered by a 360-volt battery are two scientific instruments carried to the moon with Luna 2.

The Geiger Counter had the primary scientific objective of determining the electron spectrum of the outer radiation belt, while the Triaxial Fluxgate Magnetometer collected positioning, navigation, and geological data.

The Luna 2 spacecraft, using radio telemetry, transmitted data to Earth while en route to the moon.

Sept. 14, 1959, at 21:02:23 UT (1:02:23 a.m. Sept. 15 Moscow Summer Time), the spherical-shaped, multiple antennae, 896-pound Luna 2 spacecraft stopped transmitting its radio signals, indicating it had impacted the moon.

The Luna 2 spacecraft contained no independent propulsion system, and so there was no controlled power descent to land safely on the moon’s surface.

Instead, the spacecraft intentionally crashed on the lunar surface east of Mare Serenitatis in the Palus Putredinus region, at 7,382 mph.

I was surprised to learn Luna 2 crashed 160 miles from where Apollo 15 would land in 1971, on the eastern edge of the Imbrium Basin in the same Palus Putredinis region.

Pentagonal-shaped metal sphere pendants with the hammer and sickle of the USSR on one side and the launch date on the other scattered the lunar surface upon the crash of Luna 2.

Luna 2 made history as the first object built by human beings to reach the moon from Earth, which on this day in 1959 is some 240,000 miles away.

To prove Luna 2 was not a “faked mission,” Professor Bernard Lovell, director of the Jodrell Bank Radio Astronomy Station in England, wrote a Sept 28, 1959 article in LIFE magazine of his tracking Luna 2 to the moon.

Lovell learned of the radio frequencies Luna 2 was using from a message sent by the Moscow Cosmos printed on his Telex (think Fax) machine.

He was then able to verify the reception of the Luna 2 telemetry signals using the giant radio telescope at Jodrell Bank.

In the LIFE magazine article, Lovell wrote he was in telephone communication with his American counterparts and said, “I held the transatlantic telephone to our loudspeaker so that they could hear the bleeps for themselves.”

The radio “bleeps” from Luna 2 were “strong and clear,” then according to Lovell, “the signals abruptly stopped without any fading. Luna 2 had hit the moon.”

Sergei Korolev, a highly respected aeronautical engineer who was an expert on rockets, directed the Soviet Union’s Luna program.

The first US spacecraft to reach the moon, Ranger 7, was launched by NASA July 28, 1964, from Cape Canaveral, FL.

The data Ranger 7 obtained was transmitted to Earth before its mission ended upon its planned impact with the moon’s surface July 31.

The first photograph of the moon’s surface from a US spacecraft occurred about 17 minutes before Ranger 7 crashed on the lunar surface. You can see it here: https://go.nasa.gov/2EABMrq.

Just before colliding with the moon in an area called Mare Cognitum, Ranger 7 took its last two photos of the moon’s surface from a height of 3,510 and 1,702 feet. You can view them at https://go.nasa.gov/2Wtgrdo.

Ranger 7 used its high-gain antenna to send 4,308 photographs of the lunar surface to Earth.

The remnants of the first spacecraft to reach the moon, Luna 2, still resides on its surface.

Luna 24 safely landed on the moon Aug. 18, 1976. After retrieving soil samples with its robotic arm, the spacecraft’s ascent stage lifted off the moon’s surface with 6 ounces of lunar soil it returned to Earth Aug. 22.

Luna 24 would be the last spacecraft used during the Luna program.

Luna 2

Pentagonal-shaped metal sphere pendant which now resides on the moon.

International Space Station continues to serve

© Mark Ollig

A space module named Zarya launched Nov. 20, 1998, aboard a Russian Proton rocket into Earth-orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport in southern Kazakhstan.

Two weeks later, a space module called Unity and two pressurized mating adapters were placed into the cargo bay of the US Space Shuttle Endeavour and launched into Earth-orbit.

The crew of the space shuttle Endeavour captured the Earth-orbiting Russian Zarya module Dec. 6, 1998, and attached it with the Unity module. Thus began construction of the International Space Station (ISS).

It would be another two years until the first three-person crew would be living inside the ISS.

A total of 42 separate space launches completed the assembly of the International Space Station; NASA sent 37 flights during its construction, while Russia sent five flights using its Proton/Soyuz rockets.

Today, the ISS is a partnership among the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, and the participating nations comprised of the European Space Agency.

As of July 11, 243 individuals have stayed aboard the International Space Station.

There is more square-footage living and working space aboard the ISS than in a six-bedroom house. In addition, there are six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms, a gym, and a 360-degree bay window cupola.

End-to-end, the International Space Station measures 357 feet, nearly the same length as a football field (including both end zones), and can simultaneously dock a total of eight spacecraft.

NASA states it is possible for a spaceship to rendezvous with the ISS as soon as four hours after launching from Earth.

It takes 90 minutes for the International Space Station to orbit the Earth, traveling at 4.76 miles per second, or 17,136 miles per hour.

Over 24 hours, the ISS would nearly travel the equivalent distance of going to the moon and back.

Today, the four types of spacecraft delivering science, cargo, and other supplies to the ISS are The United States’ Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft and SpaceX Dragon cargo craft, Japan’s JAXA’s HTV transfer space vehicle, and Russia’s space capsule Progress.

It is no surprise the International Space Station uses a lot of technology to maintain its operations. For example, approximately 50 computers using 3 million lines of software programming code on the ground support the space station’s flight software code (1.5 million lines) communicated over 100 separate data networks.

The data networks transfer an average of 400,000 signals, including various pressures, temperature measurements, valve positions, and other space station signaling data.

The ISS’s on-orbit software monitors nearly 350,000 sensors to ensure the space station’s and crew members’ health and safety.

Eight solar arrays attached to the International Space Station collectively provide 75 to 90 kilowatts of electrical energy to power the equipment and maintain life support.

During the Space Shuttle era, the 55-foot robotic Canada Arm proved very useful, and one is installed and working on the ISS.

The ISS robotic arm installed in 2001 is called Canadarm2 and has seven different joints and two end-effectors, or hands. It measures 57.7 feet long and has a diameter of 14 inches.

Canadarm2 is used to move space modules, deploy and retrieve science experiments, and assist in transporting spacewalking astronauts.

Each orbital path takes the International Space Station over 90 percent of the Earth’s population.

How long will the ISS remain crewed and in Earth orbit?

The International Space Station is currently 23 years old and is susceptible to space debris and micrometeorite impacts.

A space debris impact May 12 caused concern when the Canadian Space Agency discovered a .2-inch diameter collision hole in the thermal blanket of the Canadarm2 robotic arm’s boom section.

NASA determined there was no damage to the robotic arm’s operating capability. The Canadian Space Agency calls the collision a “lucky strike” because the robotic arm is still functioning.

Another incident this year occurred July 29, following the docking of the Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) named Nauka to the International Space Station at 8:29 a.m. CDT.

At 12:45 p.m., the ISS flight control team on the ground noticed an unexpected firing of the MLM thrusters that caused the ISS to move out of its normal orbital orientation.

Action by the flight control team successfully stabilized the thrusters, regained attitude control, and adjusted to normal the motion and stability of the International Space Station.

Benefits obtained from the ISS as an Earth-orbiting research facility include an increased understanding and development of technology, space, medicine, and science. It has also improved the cultural, social, and political relations among participating nations.

“From a technical standpoint, we have cleared the International Space Station to fly until the end of 2028,” NASA officials have stated. “Additionally, our analysis has not identified any issues that would preclude us from extending beyond 2028, if needed.”

Of course, what goes up must eventually come down, and so the day will come when the International Space Station will be retired from service. Ultimately, the un-crewed ISS orbit will decay, causing it to burn up as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere.

Over the past 60 years, from inside a Mercury space capsule to the International Space Station, astronauts have taken 1.5 million photographs of the Earth. You can check them out on the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth website at https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov.

The International Space Station continues to serve and inspire by advancing today’s technology to benefit all of us tomorrow.

International Space Station
Source: NASA