Saturday, 6 November 2010
Boating the NASA way
"What's the most exciting thing that has ever happened to us" asks Kate. My first reaction was that god awful storm we sailed through on Georgian bay. Kate says "No, I think the shuttle launch", and she was right. We left the house at 1:00 am, and drove to Titusville. We arrived a bit after 5:00 am at a large hotel's lobby jammed full of reporters, camera crews, and NASA contractors. We find our host, grab some bagels, are given our passes, and hop into his car. Every square inch of the causeway's shoulders going out the space center is jammed with vehicles. We get checked through the main KSC guard gate, and then through another check point, and drive up to the observation area set aside for employees and contractors. We are now about three miles from the shuttle, with a clear view, and as close as NASA will let unprotected personnel get. It is now about T minus 30 minutes, and counting. A long row of metal bleachers are set up with a PA system that's providing the communication feeds between the NASA centers, and the shuttle. We have our host from Morton Thiokol on one side of us, and a group from Rockwell on the other side who are translating what is happening.
Time seems to speed up, and it is now T minus 20 minutes, and holding for final briefings. In about 10 minutes, the countdown proceeds. The countdown stops again for a mandatory hold at T minus 9 minutes. The countdown proceeds. The automatic ground launch sequencer takes over, the access arm retracts (T-7), the beanie cap lifts away (T-2), It's very quiet now. All of a sudden, you can see the light from the ignited main shuttle engines, then the smoke from the just started solid fuel boosters. A wave of birds suddenly takes flight moving towards you, and oh my god the staggering volume, and intense crackling from the solid fuel boosters strikes you. The bleachers are vibrating, the light is blinding, and the shuttle starts to very slowly rise. Each one of the two solid fuel boosters will produce 1.2 million pounds of thrust with a violence that shakes you to your very core. The shuttle clears the tower, and starts a graceful rotation onto its back and heads out over the Atlantic ocean. The "Go at throttle up" command is given, the boosters separate at about two minutes, and the shuttle disappears from sight. I start to breath again, and pry my fingers away from Kate's. Even if you have seen many launches from this vantage point, I can't help but to think each one is breathtaking to behold. Such awesome techno0logy, such raw power!
When you're in the rocket business, everything is on a large scale. For example solid fuel rocket motor segments are transported in specially built over sized railroad cars, but many of the larger components, and materials can only be shipped by water. So it should not be a big surprise that the majority of NASA's manufacturing facilities are located on navigable waterways. NASA actually manages a substantial, and varied fleet of specialized vessels for this purpose.
The tugboat Clermont II was built in 1982, and is currently NASA's current primary tug. It is seen above pushing a liquid oxygen barge. The Clermont II replaced a most interesting NASA tugboat the Clermont which was launched in 1965. This unique vessel was actually designed by NASA's Marshal Space Flight Center. This tugboat had two interesting features. The first was it could function as a fire boat....
And the second feature was it was powered by a 450lb 1000hp turbine jet engine. As far as I can tell this was the first, and last tugboat so equipped. I have looked for some history about what has happened to the Clermont, but the best I have been able to dig up is this 2008 photo of her looking somewhat derelict. This would be an interesting fixer upper project for someone with a historic bent, and some jingle in their pocket.
Although the Pegasus barge isn't exactly winged she has been the primary transporter of the shuttle's external tanks from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans on the 900 mile trip to the Kennedy Space Center. At 266' in length, and a beam of 50' this crewed ocean capable barge has been in service since 1999. Its long term fate is not known, but with the shutdown of the space shuttle program it is likely to end up in the auction yard.
A lot has been written about NASA's two most known boats, the M/V Freedom Star, and M/V Liberty Star. Both vessels were built in 1981, and were designed specifically to recover the spent solid fuel boosters. The ships locate the barely floating boosters, and dive teams deploy to place caps on each ends of the boosters. Air is pumped into them displacing the water, until the majority of the seawater is removed, tow lines are attached, and the boosters are hauled back to the Kennedy Space Center. Despite the fact the each twin engine vessel has 2900hp, the vessels are also equipped with two auxiliary water jet engines that are used to protect the manatees while traversing the Banana river portion of the trip.
I'm not sure about NASA's future, funding and mission. I do know that with this weeks launch of Atlantis, for the first time in fifty years we no longer have the capability to place a person in orbit, and we now must depend on the Russians to provide transport. We have gone from being the premier creators of space technology, to just another player. Although I applaud the concept that space travel can be completely privatized, I suspect that in the long run the forward thinking vision that NASA has provided to all of us, for all these decades will just slowly start to fade away. I fear that thrilling moments in my life like Alan Shepard taking the first manned flight, the Apollo missions to the moon, and the Hubble space telescope repair mission will not be available to our future generations, and that would be a shame. Kate was right, seeing a shuttle launch up close was the most exciting thing I have ever done, bar none. I will never get to see another.
The picture above is a NASA concept drawing of a boat that could possibly be sent to Saturn's moon Titan, and would land on one of two large liquid lakes. Now that's going boldly to where no man has gone before.
Booster recovery ship operations
NASA test facility barges and boats
An article about some of the thousands of NASA's spin off technologies.
You know as I kid I thought we would all have flying cars by now. I'm not complaining, I am grateful for all of the technologies that have come out NASA's space programs, so tell congress to not be short sighted, NASA is important, and always has a huge technology payback. I think the same about NPR and Public Television, they are just as important to me.
Friday, 5 November 2010
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Saturday, 30 October 2010
Brampton Island – An eerie ghost town in paradise
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| Looking across to Pelican Island from Brampton at low tide. |
17-20 October 2015
The next stop on our way North was to be Brampton Island, a place that generated very different memories for the two of us. Rob spent a considerable amount of time on the island in his days as a floor coverings contractor working on the resort’s major redevelopment 28 years ago and has always spoken of it as one of the great Barrier Reef’s most beautiful places. Karen on the other hand has a very different reason for Brampton Island to be etched in her memory.
It was here as a nine year old child that her family took to a life raft and abandoned ship when her parent’s game fishing boat, Wahoo, was trapped anchored on a lee shore with broken steering and a cyclone bearing down on them. After three days, the increasing ferocity of the approaching tropical storm made the risk of staying aboard with two small children too great. The life raft was safely blown onto the beach and after a trek over the island’s mountainous interior they were able to shelter at the resort until the cyclone passed. When conditions eased, Wahoowas found still riding on the three anchors her father had set before making the difficult decision to leave her.
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| This area of Brampton Island held strong memories for Karen. |
Our sail from Keswick and St Bees across to Brampton was far less dramatic. The wind was almost directly astern again with a good size swell rolling under us. As we passed the bay where Karen's experience had occurred it stirred many memories.
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| The South East swell splashes on Brampton's shores. |
We rounded the western end of the island and anchored in the bay near the now mothballed resort. It provides excellent protection from South Easterly winds and was to be our home for the next four days.
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| Keswick/St Bees to Brampton Island - 18.3 Nautical Miles - 4 Hours 0 Minutes Average Speed 4.6 knots - High Speed 7.7 knots |
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| The anchorage at Brampton provides good protection from the South East trade winds. |
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| Calm water despite 20+ knots of South Easterly wind blowing. |
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| We were now just a day sail away from the Whitsunday Islands. |
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| Brampton Islands super clear water and golden beaches were just as we remembered them. |
Most of Brampton Island is National Park with the 220 bed resort and its airstrip occupying a relatively small area adjoining the shallow passage between it and Carlisle Island. It was bought by United Petroleum in 2010 and closed the following year. Since then there has been much talk about an all new, seven star resort being built in its place but not a thing has actually been done. What was once a jewel in the string of Great Barrier Reef Island resorts now resembles the set of some sort of horror movie.
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| Brampton's neglected accommodation blocks are still fully furnished. |
Karen made the comment that it looks like some alien force descended one day and abducted all the occupants leaving the place an instant ghost town totally devoid of all human life. Accommodation blocks sit fully furnished complete with paintings hanging on the walls. Jet skis sit on their trailers under an awning, Hobbie Cats rest on the sand outside the water sports centre, outdoor pool tables near reception are ready for a game of eight ball while the stage in the bar silently waits for the long gone musicians to strike up their instruments.
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| Lonely boats with no one to sail them. |
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| Jet skis ready to rock |
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| Sun umbrellas, and beach badminton racquets ready for non-existent holiday makers at the water-sports desk. |
Tennis rackets lay on the courts with strings rotting in the tropical sun and the once lush gardens are being reclaimed by nature, now overgrown and covered with fallen palm fronds. The only sign of life on the all par three golf course was a kangaroo bounding down what once a fairway. Rob was extremely sad to see what he remembered as such a vibrant, beautiful resort reduced to this.
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| Anyone for tennis? |
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| Right down the centre of the fairway. |
During our stay at the island, we swam, wandered the golden sand beaches, eat some fantastic food as always and socialised with other cruisers in the anchorage. Karen was thrilled to find Kerri, on the catamaran Quiet Achiever ,was a fellow artist and the two spent time on the beach sketching together.
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| Karen beach combing. |
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| Karen used a huge cuttlefish skeleton she found as the centre piece for a still life sketch. |
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| You can see a lot more of Karen's art on her Facebook page Karen Oberg Artist |
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| Karen's other creative outlet on Our Dreamtime is coming up with amazing new dishes such as these stuffed squid tubes. |
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| Her sundowner snacks are always popular in the anchorage |
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| Mackerel steak and Karen's hand made salsa |
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| Caprice Salad - Many of Karen's recipes can be found at the Our Galley page of our blog |
Rob got a little adventurous and tackled the climb to the top of the island. The various walks through the national park areas of the island are well maintained and take you through a nice range of native vegetation.
The tree canopy is well populated with birds while goannas and kangaroos seem plentiful. Butterflies float in the air all over the island and are found in their hundreds in groves of trees along the trail.
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| This goanna was well camouflaged in the dry undergrowth. |
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| One of the locals checking out the visitor |
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| Three of these were sighted but all scooted too fast to get a photo. |
From the anchorage, the walk to the two lookouts near the summit is almost a ten kilometre round trip and reasonably steep in places. The views from the top make all the effort worthwhile however.
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| Ten kilometres up to the top and back called for a nice refreshing dip to cool off. |
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| Note the butterflies photo bombing this shot. |
Our time at Brampton Island passed very quickly. It really is such a nice place it would have been very easy to spend quite a few more days there but the call of the North was still strong. It was time to keep moving on but we do hope to stop in again on our return trip South.
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| Two sunset shots for this blog seeing there was none for the last one. |
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| Good night from Brampton Island. |
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If you have only recently discovered our blog and would like to read how it all started, or work through our previous adventures, click the link to go back to our first blog entry. Stuff it. Let's just go sailing anyway. We hope you enjoy reading the previous posts to catch up on our story.
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