The Europa Files.net

Stardate – 65716.8

Stardate – 65600.8

John Glenn joined the proud, surviving veterans of NASA’s Project Mercury on Saturday in celebrating the 50th anniversary of his historic orbital flight.

The first American to orbit the Earth thanked the approximately 125 retired Mercury workers, now in their 70s and 80s, who gathered with their spouses at Kennedy Space Center to swap stories, pose for pictures and take a bow.

“There are a lot more bald heads and gray heads in that group than others, but those are the people who did lay the foundation,” the 90-year-old Glenn said at an evening ceremony attended by NASA officials, politicians, astronauts and hundreds of others.

“We may be up on the point of that thing and get a lot of the attention, and we had ticker-tape parades and all that sort of thing. But the people who made it work … you’re the ones who deserve the accolade. So give yourselves a great big ovation,” Glenn said, leading the crowd in applause.

Glenn and fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter, 86, spent nearly an hour before the ceremony being photographed with the retirees, posing for individual pictures in front of a black curtain with a model of a Mercury-Atlas rocket. Glenn and Carpenter are the lone survivors of NASA’s original Mercury 7 astronauts.

Earlier in the day, the Mercury brigade traveled by bus to Launch Complex 14. That’s the pad from which Glenn rocketed away on Feb. 20, 1962.

Some retirees were in wheelchairs, while others used walkers or canes. Most walked, some more surely than others. But they all beamed with pride as they took pictures of the abandoned pad and of each other, and went into the blockhouse to see the old Mercury photos on display and to reminisce.

As retired engineer Norm Beckel Jr. rode to the pad Saturday, he recalled being seated in the blockhouse right beside Carpenter as the astronaut called out to Glenn right before liftoff, “Godspeed John Glenn.”

But there’s more to the story.

“Before he said that, he said, ‘Remember, John, this was built by the low bidder,’” Beckel, 81, told The Associated Press.

The Mercury-Atlas rocket shook the domed bunker-like structure, although no one inside could hear the roar because of the thick walls.

“Nothing was said by anybody until they said, ‘He’s in orbit,’ and then the place erupted,” Beckel recalled.

Beckel and Jerry Roberts, 78, a retired engineer who also was in the blockhouse that historic morning, said almost all the workers back then were in their 20s and fresh out of college. The managers were in their 30s. “I don’t know if I’d trust a 20-year-old today,” Beckel said.

“They don’t know it, but we would have worked for nothing,” said Roberts, who spends the winter in Florida.

Bob Schepp, 77, who like Beckel traveled from St. Louis, Mo., for the reunion, was reminded by the old launch equipment of how rudimentary everything was back then.

“I wonder how we ever managed to launch anything in space with that kind of stuff,” Schepp said. “Everything is so digital now. But we were pioneers, and we made it all work.”

The Mercury team included women, about 20 of whom gathered for the anniversary festivities. One pulled aside an AP reporter to make sure she knew women were part of the team.

“Most of the women here are wives,” said Lucy Simon Rakov, 74. But not her.

“We weren’t secretaries. We were mathematicians,” said Rakov, a pioneering computer programmer who traveled from Boston for the reunion.

Patricia Palombo, 74, also a computer programmer, said working on Project Mercury proved to be the most significant thing she’s done in her career.

Glenn’s flight was the turning point that put America on a winning path that ultimately led to the moon.

“It’s been downhill from here,” Palombo said with a laugh. She lives near Washington, D.C.

Roberts praised the wives who endured the hardships back then. He recalled how he and his colleagues worked 16- and 18-hour days, seven days a week, especially after the Soviet Union grabbed the prize of first spaceman with Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Gagarin reached orbit on his mission; another Soviet cosmonaut also rocketed into orbit before Glenn’s voyage.

Many marriages ended in divorce because of the excessive workload, Roberts noted. Turning to his wife, Sandra, he said proudly, “This gal’s been with me for 57 years.”

“Not that many,” she told him. “We’re going to be 55.”

“Fifty-five. That’s right, that’s right,” Roberts muttered.

“Golly, gosh, when you get old, you forget about numbers,” Schepp piped up.

NASA’s celebration of Glenn’s three-orbit, five-hour flight aboard the Friendship 7 capsule began Friday at Cape Canaveral. The festivities move to Columbus, Ohio, on Monday, the actual anniversary. Glenn will be honored at a gala at Ohio State University; its school of public affairs bears his name.

His wife of 68 years, Annie, who turned 92 Friday, and their two children are accompanying him to all the festivities.

Glenn served in the U.S. Senate for 24 years, representing his home state of Ohio. He ran for president in 1984. He returned to space in 1998 aboard shuttle Discovery, becoming the oldest spaceman ever at age 77.

Carpenter told the crowd Saturday that he’s still waiting for his first shuttle ride, drawing a big laugh.

The Mercury 7 astronauts were immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book about the space program, “The Right Stuff,” which was later made into a movie.

Although Wolfe suggested the nation will never see another hero of Glenn’s stature, Carpenter noted, “Maybe one day before too long the great hero John Glenn himself may be replaced by another national hero who represents the command of a Mars crew returned safely.”

“John, thank you for your heroic effort and all of you for your heroic effort,” Carpenter told the Mercury old-timers. “But we stand here waiting to be outdone.”

Stardate – 65169.2

NASA has selected the design of a new Space Launch System that will take the agency’s astronauts farther into space than ever before, create high-quality jobs here at home, and provide the cornerstone for America’s future human space exploration efforts.

This new heavy-lift rocket-in combination with a crew capsule already under development, increased support for the commercialization of astronaut travel to low Earth orbit, an extension of activities on the International Space Station until at least 2020, and a fresh focus on new technologies-is key to implementing the plan laid out by President Obama and Congress in the bipartisan 2010 NASA Authorization Act, which the president signed last year. The booster will be America’s most powerful since the Saturn V rocket that carried Apollo astronauts to the moon and will launch humans to places no one has gone before.

“This launch system will create good-paying American jobs, ensure continued U.S. leadership in space, and inspire millions around the world,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “President Obama challenged us to be bold and dream big, and that’s exactly what we are doing at NASA. While I was proud to fly on the space shuttle, tomorrow’s explorers will now dream of one day walking on Mars.”

This launch vehicle decision is the culmination of a months-long, comprehensive review of potential designs to ensure the nation gets a rocket that is not only powerful but also evolvable so it can be adapted to different missions as opportunities arise and new technologies are developed.

“Having settled on a new and powerful heavy-lift launch architecture, NASA can now move ahead with building that rocket and the next-generation vehicles and technologies needed for an ambitious program of crewed missions in deep space,” said John P. Holdren, assistant to the President for Science and Technology. “I’m excited about NASA’s new path forward and about its promise for continuing American leadership in human space exploration.”

The SLS will carry human crews beyond low Earth orbit in a capsule named the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. The rocket will use a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuel system, where RS-25D/E engines will provide the core propulsion and the J2X engine is planned for use in the upper stage. There will be a competition to develop the boosters based on performance requirements.

The decision to go with the same fuel system for the core and the upper stage was based on a NASA analysis demonstrating that use of common components can reduce costs and increase flexibility. The heavy-lift rocket’s early flights will be capable of lifting 70-100 metric tons before evolving to a lift capacity of 130 metric tons.

The early developmental flights may take advantage of existing solid boosters and other existing hardware. These flights will enable NASA to reduce developmental risk, drive innovation within the agency and private industry, and accomplish early exploration objectives.

“NASA has been making steady progress toward realizing the president’s goal of deep space exploration, while doing so in a more affordable way,” NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said. “We have been driving down the costs on the Space Launch System and Orion contracts by adopting new ways of doing business and project hundreds of millions of dollars of savings each year.”

NASA elected to initiate a competition for the booster stage based on performance parameters rather than on the type of propellant because of the need for flexibility. The specific acquisition strategy for procuring the core stage, booster stage, and upper stage is being developed and will be announced at a later time.

Stardate – 64837.5

It seems whenever NASA is up to something like Endeavour STS-134, British physicist Stephen Hawking is not far behind. Today is no exception. A while back I wrote a post titled – Stephen Hawking Leaving God. About the time of the STS-133 Discovery launch. Today I give you the next installment in that saga.

Stephen Hawking may think that heaven is a mere “fairy story,” but he’s hard-pressed to find those who share his perspective on this side of the pond.

This weekend, the U.K.’s The Guardian newspaper published an interview with Hawking in which the celebrated scientist said, “there is no heaven. …that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

Hawking has expressed similar beliefs in books and previous interviews, but the statement sparked headlines in the U.S., where a large percentage of the population believes in a religious afterlife — both good and bad.

The 68-year-old Hawking, who was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, when he was 21, is not unfamiliar with contemplating the possibility of an afterlife. He told The Guardian that he’s lived with the prospect of an early death for nearly five decades.

But the internationally known scientist and author said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

In a 2010 interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, when asked if there was a way to reconcile religion and science, he said, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”

While Hawking’s views on religion and heaven may be relatively consistent with the views of his countrymen, research from The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests he’s at odds with the prevailing American perspective.

According to a 2007 Pew study of religious beliefs across the country, 92 percent of Americans said they believe in a god or universal spirit and 74 percent said they believe that there is a heaven.

“The first thing to know about the U.S. is that the U.S. is a nation of believers,” said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at Pew.

When asked about their views on an afterlife, 74 percent of Americans affirmed their belief, with 50 percent saying they believed with “absolute certainty.”

But other studies show that the world doesn’t necessarily share the United States’ frenzy for faith.

A 2010 Pew survey found that while 58 percent of American respondents said religion was “very important ” to their lives, just 17 percent of British respondents gave the same reply.

“In general, the U.S., by a variety of measures, seems to be more religious than many European countries,” Smith said.

That point of view has turned the book “Heaven Is for Real” — the account of a 4-year-old son of a pastor who enters heaven during emergency surgery and survives to tell the story — into a national bestseller

Written by the boy’s father, Todd Burpo, the book is listed is as nonfiction and currently holds the No. 1 spot on the New York Times’ list of bestselling Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction. It has made the list for the past 15 weeks.

Heaven is also apparently more popular than hell. While 74 percent of Americans believe in heaven, just 59 percent believe hell, Smith said.

“We also shouldn’t overlook the fact that there is some diversity in the nature and certainty with which people hold those beliefs,” he said. Not all people are absolutely certain of their faith, and some say they believe in an impersonal spirit over a personal god.

David Bromley, a religious studies and sociology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the U.S. has historically been an exception in a more secular world.

“There is a kind of historical strength to an ‘In God We Trust’ kind of generic religion, which some sociologists call civil religion,” Bromley said. “That belief that America is a city on a hill, God’s chosen nation, the flag and God being connected — those kinds of things have a historical rooting. So when you ask people, ‘do you believe in God?’ It’s almost un-American to say ‘no.’”

He said it isn’t surprising that books on heaven and angels succeed in our culture.

Still, while “Heaven Is for Real” remains a publishing phenomenon, it has also attracted some criticism.

In March, author and Washington Post On Faith blogger Susan Jacoby wrote, “Only in America could a book like this be classified as nonfiction.”

Pointing out the difference in the book’s placement on Amazon book lists in the U.S. and the U.K., she said the book’s commercial success attests to the “prevalence of unreason among vast numbers of Americans.”

“In this universe of unreason, two plus two can equal anything you want and heaven is not only real but anything you want it to be,” she wrote. “At age four, the inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality is charming. Among American adults, widespread identification with the mind of a preschooler is scary.”

Stardate – 64829

Teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida continue to prepare space shuttle Endeavour for a liftoff on Monday at 8:56 a.m. EDT. Everything is going on schedule reported NASA Test Director Jeff Spaulding.

“I’m really proud of our teams working so hard over the last couple of weeks,” said Spaulding. “All the teams here at Kennedy and all the other centers have done an outstanding job to get us ready for this launch on this historic and final flight of space shuttle Endeavour.”

Joe Delai, STS-134 payload manager said all is ready to go and he and his teams are ready to support this launch.

Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters reported that the current forecast calls for a 70 percent chance of acceptable conditions a launch time. There may be some storm disturbance around the time the rotating service structure is to be rolled back, now scheduled to begin at noon on Sunday, but launch day is looking good for Kennedy and also for booster recovery and abort landing sites.

NASA Managers will conduct a prelaunch news conference scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday and will air on NASA TV and www.nasa.gov/ntv.

Stardate – 64789.9

NASA space shuttle managers met at 5:45 a.m. EDT and gave a “go” to begin loading shuttle Endeavour’s external tank with more than 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The operation is set to begin at 6:22 a.m. Launch is targeted for 3:47:55 p.m.

There is a 70 percent chance of favorable weather for launch. The primary weather concern is for low cloud ceilings and crosswinds at the Shuttle Landing Facility. A front will pass through Kennedy between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m., bringing a chance for showers. After the front passes, high pressure will build into the area and winds will shift to the northeast and be near the peak limit for crosswinds. The Transatlantic Abort Landing site at Istres, France, is “go.”

NASA Television will provide live commentary of external tank loading beginning at 6:15 a.m. and launch blog and commentary will begin at 10:30 a.m. You may watch all of the related activities here at this Europa Files Link. The actual launch will be carried live on the homepage.

The crew members for space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-134 mission are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori.

During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre.