Word: spacecrafts
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...recreational vehicle that they parked just 100 yards from NASA's press center. Cate, who has covered ten Gemini and two Apollo space missions, was not surprised by the postponement of the shuttle liftoff. Says he: "NASA has hardly ever had an on-time launch of a new spacecraft. A glitch was sure to creep into the countdown...
...debacle of Three Mile Island to Detroit's apparent defenselessness against the onslaught of Japanese cars. The flaming power of Columbia's rockets seemed to lift Americans out of their collective sense of futility and gloom. At last they had a few things to cheer: an extraordinary spacecraft-the most daring flying machine ever built-and two brave and skilled men at its helm. As President Reagan told the astronauts, "Through you, we feel as giants once again...
...these TV views also revealed a possible hitch: a handful of the spacecraft's 30,000 or so silica tiles, essential for insulating Columbia against the flaming, 2,400° F heat of re-entry into the atmosphere, had fallen off. Apparently they were shaken loose during maximum vibrations in the first few moments of the launch, possibly when the solid-fuel rockets were kicked away. The tiles, about a dozen in all, came from the area just above the orbital maneuvering engines on either side of the rudder. Mission controllers quickly pointed out that this was a noncritical...
Indeed they were not. More than any spacecraft before it, Columbia depends on computer memory and problem-solving skills. It carries six computers in all, four primary, plus a back-up and a spare. This electronic brainpower has total command of the ship, navigating it, controlling fuel consumption, firing its rocket engines and many small, jetlike thrusters. Even when an astronaut is operating the controls, as in the final plunge back through the atmosphere, he is in effect flying the computers rather than the ship itself. Whatever maneuver he calls for, it is the computers that turn the commands from...
...part of Columbia's fail-safe system, all four primary computers are programmed-that is, mathematically instructed-to perform in exactly the same way. Such redundancy protects the spacecraft against computer breakdowns. Though any one of the computers can operate the ship on its own, mission rules require all the computers to be in perfect order on launch. Extra computers provide another kind of insurance. If one of the look-alike machines suddenly goes berserk, issuing wild commands, its three brethren will promptly veto those instructions. In other words, the majority outvotes the minority. If the four cannot resolve...