APOD: Space Shuttle and Space Station... (2011 Jun 08)

[APOD Robot]

Space Shuttle and Space Station Photographed Together

Explanation: How was this picture taken? Usually, pictures of the shuttle, taken from space, are snapped from the space station. Commonly, pictures of the space station are snapped from the shuttle. How, then, can there be a picture of both the shuttle and the station together, taken from space? The answer is that during the Space Shuttle Endeavour's last trip to the International Space Station two weeks ago, a supply ship departed the station with astronauts that captured a series of rare views. The supply ship was the Russian Soyuz TMA-20 which landed in Kazakhstan later that day. The above spectacular image well captures the relative sizes of the station and docked shuttle. Far below, clouds of Earth are seen above a blue sea. The next and last launch of a US space shuttle is scheduled for early July.

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[bystander]

Portraits of Shuttle Endeavour at Space Station
Space.com | Image Album | Tariq Malik | 2011 Jun 07

[Beyond]

WOW! It's always amazing to see all that size and weight just lift right off the launch pad. Not only that, but it also goes from 0 to 2600mph in about 60-seconds!! I would imagine if you are close enough, the ground must really vibrate at lift-off.
The only thing that i have ever experienced that comes no-where close to a lift off, would be standing at the end of a quarter mile dragstrip when the AA fuel dragsters were running. I could hear the roar of the engines in the loudspeakers. As the dragsters, which happened to be neck-in-neck right through the lights, came down the track, the roar from the speakers got drowned out by the real thing and i could feel the ground vibrate through my feet. By the time they got to the lights, (it took all of maybe 6-seconds,) i couldn't hear my friend standing right next to me, and the ground vibrations were so strong, it was amazing. once they hit the lights and turned off their engines, the "LOUD" silence was sort of hurting my ears. I suppose i 'could' call that a mini horizontal launch experience.

[bactame]

Nice job APOD and thank you Soyuz.

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

The Photobooth: Timeless Self-Portrait Vending Machine
BY TIM GARRETT, AUGUST 10, 2006

<<New York City. The year is 1926. A 33 year-old slugger by the name of George Herman "Babe" Ruth has been lighting up the scoreboards all year and drawing record numbers to the three-year-old Yankee Stadium. While the Yanks and Cardinals are duking it out in a 7-game World Series that October, a 33 year-old inventor by the name of Anatol Josepho is about to attract a similar crowd to his modest storefront just a few miles away in lower Manhattan. Mr. Josepho has just completed his four-year project: a coin-operated portrait vending machine he calls Photomaton. In a few weeks, curious New Yorkers will line up around the block waiting to pay twenty-five cents for a strip of eight sepia portraits. Next year, Babe Ruth will hit a record-breaking 60 homeruns and command a staggering $52,000 a year salary. The same year, Anatol Josepho will sell his invention for $1 million.

Josepho's claim on the photobooth's invention is not so clear-cut. While it is true that Mr. Josepho, a Siberian immigrant, filed a patent in 1923 for an "automatic camera for taking timed sequences of portraits," there were others who had similar products and inventions at the same time. Patents abound for similar automatic portrait machines including a patent filed as early as 1918 by SJ Sussman for a "photographic developing machine." Josepho was simply the first to bring a mostly-reliable photobooth to market, and create an economically viable business around it. Instead of film, the camera in his booth utilized a light-sensitive strip of paper. After the paper was exposed, it was sent through a series of rollers and subjected to a chemical reversal process. In a reversal process, the negative image is developed first, then is chemically "reversed" leaving a positive image behind. (this is similar to how slide film is processed) There is no negative left in the machine, nor is there a copy made. Each photo is one-of-a-kind.

The photobooth received an internal redesign in 1941 when Phillip S. Allen filed his patent for a new and improved photobooth. The look and feel of the booth remained unchanged, as did the chemistry, but the internal mechanism changed in one significant way: instead of processing the exposed strip through rollers, the chemistry and washes were arranged on a carousel of tubs. The exposed paper would then be agitated in each of these tubs by a mechanical carrier arm before being delivered to the outside. The company that built itself around Allen's redesign is a company that still exists today: Photo-Me.

Through years of growth and various acquisitions, Photo-Me and its sister companies became the dominant player in the photobooth world. At their peak, they had nationwide contracts with Woolworth's and K-Mart, as well as numerous malls, arcades, and shopping centers. Photo-Me eventually introduced a color chemical booth that used the same camera and development mechanism, only with different paper and chemistry. This allowed them to easily convert their black and white booths to color. Due to this conversion, the eventual closing of Woolworth's and Kmart, and the development of digital alternatives there are now fewer than 150 black and white photobooths in North America.>>

[orin stepanek]

I was surprised at the size of the shuttle in comparison to the ISS!

Click to view full size image

[hpfeil]

Be proud! Be very proud!!

[neufer]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPS1q3QBBDo&NR=1[/youtube]

[Star*Hopper]

Nice job APOD and thank you Soyuz.

Click on the APOD image & check out the full-rez version....exquisite detail! Scroll its length slowly & give it a good study.

Does anybody besides me find it just incredible that in this short time we've hauled all that into outer space & put it together? What a wonderful project this has been! Man accomplishes SO much more when we cooperate than when we're warring against each other. When will we ever learn that simple fact?

[Star*Hopper]

I've told this before....but I went down for the formerly-planned final launch of Atlantis last year....and despite all the smoke & flames, shaking & quaking they try to portray in movies & other film media, I'm here to tell ya there ain't nothing....NOTHING like being there and experiencing the real thing first hand!

Another thing that is so impressive - the speed. Again, the media comes nowhere near capturing it as when it's seen in its grandest scale. That suckah BOOKS, y'all!! It's really kind've shocking how quickly it's "over", and all you have left is a contrail against a big blue sky.

Cell-cam shot; ~T+30 seconds

---

That tiny white spark of the exhaust flames? So bright, even at this altitude, I felt a slight pain in my eyes.

...Not only that, but it also goes from 0 to 2600mph in about 60-seconds!! I would imagine if you are close enough, the ground must really vibrate at lift-off. "

The AIR vibrates! And we were 9 miles away! And while yes, she's fast...I'm afraid she doesn't quite live up to your expectations, Beyond!
From NASA's 'Space Shuttle Basics':
• To achieve orbit, the shuttle must accelerate from zero to a speed of almost 18,000 miles per hour (28,968 k/h), a speed nine times as fast as the average rifle bullet.
• It takes eight seconds for the engines and boosters to accelerate the ship to 100 mph (161 k/h).
• But by the time the first minute has passed, the shuttle is traveling more than 1,000 mph ( 1,609 k/h) and it has already consumed more than one and a half million pounds of fuel.
• After 2 minutes, the shuttle is about 28 miles (45 kilometers) high and traveling more than 3,000 mph (4,828 k/h), the propellant in the two boosters is exhausted and the booster casings are jettisoned.

[NoelC]

Wow, that space station is big.

I wish I had that many solar panels on my house. I'd save $400 a month in electric bills.

Star*Hopper, you might enjoy this one:

-Noel

[bystander]

NASA Video: Shuttle Endeavour Docked to Station

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

ESA Multimedia Gallery: Mission: MagISStra (Astronaut Nespoli)
ESA: The story behind Paolo Nespoli’s Space Station photos

[bactame]

I'm no expert on the ISS but the image appears to point out that the station has xyz axes. Indeed it appears that the station has a mechanism to absorb the slow motion impact of docking spacecraft. Having taught junk like that it i would judge that the ship impact was counter-balanced by one of those long arms. Anybody know?

[v13]

Hello,

Here's a 3d image made from two of the images that were posted. It's not perfect but it shows the 3d aspect of ISS.

note: Move away from the screen to see "more" 3d.

[kshiarella]

I've told this before....but I went down for the formerly-planned final launch of Atlantis last year....and despite all the smoke & flames, shaking & quaking they try to portray in movies & other film media, I'm here to tell ya there ain't nothing....NOTHING like being there and experiencing the real thing first hand!

Another thing that is so impressive - the speed. Again, the media comes nowhere near capturing it as when it's seen in its grandest scale. That suckah BOOKS, y'all!! It's really kind've shocking how quickly it's "over", and all you have left is a contrail against a big blue sky.

Cell-cam shot; ~T+30 seconds

---

That tiny white spark of the exhaust flames? So bright, even at this altitude, I felt a slight pain in my eyes.

...Not only that, but it also goes from 0 to 2600mph in about 60-seconds!! I would imagine if you are close enough, the ground must really vibrate at lift-off. "

The AIR vibrates! And we were 9 miles away! And while yes, she's fast...I'm afraid she doesn't quite live up to your expectations, Beyond!
From NASA's 'Space Shuttle Basics':
• To achieve orbit, the shuttle must accelerate from zero to a speed of almost 18,000 miles per hour (28,968 k/h), a speed nine times as fast as the average rifle bullet.
• It takes eight seconds for the engines and boosters to accelerate the ship to 100 mph (161 k/h).
• But by the time the first minute has passed, the shuttle is traveling more than 1,000 mph ( 1,609 k/h) and it has already consumed more than one and a half million pounds of fuel.
• After 2 minutes, the shuttle is about 28 miles (45 kilometers) high and traveling more than 3,000 mph (4,828 k/h), the propellant in the two boosters is exhausted and the booster casings are jettisoned.

I had an opportunity to see a shuttle launch in 1982. It is a feast for the senses at low frequencies. The most powerful part of the action is beneath auditory perception and you just feel the vibration. It just vibrated my sternum, bones and guts in a way that was novel to me. As for what you can hear, it is very low rumble that crackles. One would not mistake it for thunder. It is low frequency, but it doesn't roll smoothly like thunder, it had a sharpness or crackle to it. Very glad I got to experience it.

[alter-ego]

I'm no expert on the ISS but the image appears to point out that the station has xyz axes. Indeed it appears that the station has a mechanism to absorb the slow motion impact of docking spacecraft. Having taught junk like that it i would judge that the ship impact was counter-balanced by one of those long arms. Anybody know?

CMGs provide such control to maintain ISS attitude to correct for several environmental changes including docking.

The ISS employs a total of four CMGs as primary actuating devices during normal flight mode operation. The objective of the CMG flight control system is to hold the space station at a fixed attitude relative to the surface of the Earth. In addition, it seeks a Torque Equilibrium Attitude (TEA), in which the combined torque contribution of gravity gradient, atmospheric drag, solar pressure, and geomagnetic interactions are minimized. In the presence of these continual environmental disturbances CMGs absorb momentum in an attempt to maintain the space station at a desired attitude.

[Star*Hopper]

I had an opportunity to see a shuttle launch in 1982. It is a feast for the senses at low frequencies. The most powerful part of the action is beneath auditory perception and you just feel the vibration. It just vibrated my sternum, bones and guts in a way that was novel to me. As for what you can hear, it is very low rumble that crackles. One would not mistake it for thunder. It is low frequency, but it doesn't roll smoothly like thunder, it had a sharpness or crackle to it. Very glad I got to experience it.

This. It's visceral!

[Beyond]

Star*Hopper Wrote--> The AIR vibrates! And we were 9 miles away! And while yes, she's fast...I'm afraid she doesn't quite live up to your expectations, Beyond!
From NASA's 'Space Shuttle Basics':
• To achieve orbit, the shuttle must accelerate from zero to a speed of almost 18,000 miles per hour (28,968 k/h), a speed nine times as fast as the average rifle bullet.
• It takes eight seconds for the engines and boosters to accelerate the ship to 100 mph (161 k/h).<--

Doesn't live up to my expectations Are you kidding?? A 'AA' fuel dragster will beat the hell out of it in a quarter 'horozontal mile, But the Shuttle gets into 'Superman' speed Faster than a speeding bullet, powerful enough to 'shake' the air 9-miles away,able to leap from a tall platform to outer space.
What's there to be disappointed about - except the cost. Drat! There seems to be a fly in every ointment.
Superman's cost was almost non-existant, then, 10-cents a copy. A rifle costs a whole lot more. A-'AA' fuel dragster costs a small fortune, and of course the cost of the space shuttle program is Astonomical, in keeping with the 'out-of-this-world' purpose of it.

[Greyhawk]

Are there *any* plans to restart the US manned space program? It seems to us over here that the USA is abandoning it in favour of letting private companies take all the risk and blame (and glory). I was born in the year of armstrong/aldrin - to be here 42 years later and seeing no further progress, indeed now a step backwards...will we ever see those heady days again?

We so desperately need a global space program. If the most powerful country in the world cant even do it any more, who can?

We should be seeing a new generation of shuttles - not none at all.

[NoelC]

If the most powerful country in the world cant even do it any more, who can?

I wasn't aware China had any setbacks in their space program.

-Noel

[Chris Peterson]

Are there *any* plans to restart the US manned space program?

There's still talk of manned Moon or Mars programs.

Personally, I hope if falls flat. There's simply no need or value in manned space flight. Maybe someday, but for now, all it does is consume huge amounts of money better spent on other aspects of space exploration. Add a human to a mission, and you generally spend more money and reduce the scientific value of the mission.

[neufer]

We so desperately need a global space program.

If the most powerful country in the world cant even do it any more, who can?

The globe? (Was that a trick question?)

[kshiarella]

Are there *any* plans to restart the US manned space program?

There's still talk of manned Moon or Mars programs.

Personally, I hope if falls flat. There's simply no need or value in manned space flight. Maybe someday, but for now, all it does is consume huge amounts of money better spent on other aspects of space exploration. Add a human to a mission, and you generally spend more money and reduce the scientific value of the mission.

There were probably a lot of Europeans who thought the idea of travel and settlement of the New World was a waste of money and full of foolhearty risk.

I can't agree with our esteemed board guru on his stand on this point. As a species, we are deeply flawed but one of the brighter lights of being human is the pioneer spirit and drive to explore. While sending probes may give us information, it is not a replacement for "getting out there." The drive to explore and pioneer is more than a quirk, it is essential to our survival, IMO. As a species, if we lose our ability to reach out and risk and indulge that pioneer spirit then we die.

There is an entire new generation of explorers, pioneers, cowboys, puritans great land owners and robber Barons lying in wait to open the new frontier.

Knowing is great. Doing is greater.

[Chris Peterson]

There were probably a lot of Europeans who thought the idea of travel and settlement of the New World was a waste of money and full of foolhearty risk.

Bad analogy, I think. We are not currently in a position to colonize any other bodies in the Solar System. We might be able to extract some resources, but that doesn't require a human presence. I'd argue that it would have been silly for Europeans to consider colonizing the New World (had they been aware of it) before they developed reasonably mature seagoing technology.

I can't agree with our esteemed board guru on his stand on this point. As a species, we are deeply flawed but one of the brighter lights of being human is the pioneer spirit and drive to explore. While sending probes may give us information, it is not a replacement for "getting out there." The drive to explore and pioneer is more than a quirk, it is essential to our survival, IMO. As a species, if we lose our ability to reach out and risk and indulge that pioneer spirit then we die.

I agree, but that kind of reaching out comes at a great price- the loss of vast amounts of scientific data, and data about our own planet. And I don't know that humans actually have to go out there for us to share in the excitement of exploration. I felt a greater thrill and pride when the first images came back from Voyager I than I did watching Armstrong walk on the Moon.

There is an entire new generation of explorers, pioneers, cowboys, puritans great land owners and robber Barons lying in wait to open the new frontier.

I don't think so. I don't even think there's much of a new frontier- at least, not one open to us in the near future.

Knowing is great. Doing is greater.

I'd reverse the order. And doing without knowing just seems folly to me.

Make no mistake- if I controlled the budgets of the world, I'd include manned space flight along with unmanned. But I don't, and the actual budgets are limited, and right now we simply lack the resources, or the political will to commit the resources, for anything beyond token manned space flight.

[neufer]

I felt a greater thrill and pride when the first images came back from Voyager I than I did watching Armstrong walk on the Moon.

A gift that keeps on giving: http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=23914

There is also considerably less angst when things go wrong:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia