Tuesday 17th January 2006

I was watching the television news this evening when they moved to a story about NASA launching a rocket that would travel to Pluto. Apparently the launch was imminent yet I didn’t think any more about it until I was clicking away on the internet a few minutes later. I went to the NASA website and was impressed that I could watch a detailed, live feed from the launch pad, which would cut away to different angles or show footage of the control centre. Over this, you had a NASA bloke telling you what was going on, as well as the live discussions of the engineers and managers watching the big screens.

There was seven minutes until launch and I found myself getting quite excited. It’s a miracle that we can send something accurately out of the Earth’s atmosphere and have it zip off to Pluto at 235,000 miles per hour. That’s not a made up figure, that’s how fast this bad boy goes. It’s the fastest space craft ever made and reaches the moon within nine hours, and yet will still take nine years to reach Pluto.

Anyway, when they showed a view of the rocket from the bottom looking skyward, you could clearly see high clouds moving across the screen quite quickly. It was obviously very windy. I thought to myself ‘They shouldn’t be launching a rocket in high wind, should they? What it if gradually just gets blown over during it’s decent and then comes hurtling back down? That would be a right palaver.’

A few moments after this, the commentator said that the launch had been put back twenty minutes to the very end of the ‘window’ of opportunity they have in which to launch, because of high winds. I could have told them that! How is it that someone watching events on a laptop in Liverpool could spot the obvious high wind in seconds but the top scientists at NASA got caught out? It was surprisingly gratifying, yet understandably worrying, to know that I clearly know more about space exploration and the workings of rockets than those employed by NASA. It got be thinking that perhaps they should be paying me some sort of consultation fee?

I used the extra twenty minutes to empty the washing machine and hang up the damp clothes, as I expect most of the NASA scientists took the opportunity to do, before settling down again to catch up with events at Cape Canaveral. There was still concern over the wind and yet the main guy in charge had come to the brave decision to start the four minute countdown whilst still monitoring it. The countdown started and I felt myself considering all the things that could go wrong. The wind wouldn’t help, certainly.

It’s true that we watch space launches for two reasons; 1. To see the spectacle of these machines power out of our world with unimaginable force. But 2, I’m sorry to say, because there’s a chance something could go wrong. Ever since we saw Challenger disintegrate there’s that strange feeling of watching a craft, especially a manned one, arc upwards in what is – essentially – a controlled explosion. There’s part of you convinced that it’ll blow at any second. Thankfully, of course, it doesn’t happen.

But it’s for that macabre reason I found myself glued to this launch. I’m not suggesting I wanted it to blow up, of course not, but the chance it could is compelling.

This wasn’t a manned flight, needless to say. I don’t know who would volunteer for a one way mission to Pluto. Perhaps some suicidal astronaut might think it would be a great way to die, being the first man to travel past the moon – and then some. It’s impossible to even keep someone alive for those nine years anyway, surely? And then there might be the problem of the previously depressed astronauts looking back on the Earth from Space and realising what an incredible world it is, how life is amazing and precious, and how he doesn’t want to die after all. That would be a bit of a downer. Which might then make him suicidal with regret which would only be a good thing.

The other weird thing about this mission is that there’s some debate over Pluto’s existence. It’s so far away that scientists don’t really know what it is. Perhaps just some gas, which means it isn’t a planet at all and therefore been ripping us off with it’s planet status for decades. I think this mission has cost NASA something like two and a half billion dollars. That’s a hell of a price tag to go somewhere that might not exist. There will be some red faces in nine years when the craft beams back some incredible images of nothing.

Why are we spending that on going to Pluto? Why not invest in the Big Mumma of all space projects, a manned flight to Mars? People say that the main problem with that mission is that it would be impossible to get back to Earth even if you could get a manned flight to go that far. I would argue along the same lines as using suicidal astronauts, but perhaps invite those who are terminally ill to do it. Is that morbid? I think it makes sense. I’m not talking about forcing people to do it, I just think that there are some eminent astronauts who would give anything to travel to Mars, and if they found out they only had five years to live on rubbish Earth, I’m sure they’d give it some serious consideration. Again, I think NASA should be paying me.

They may think twice about paying me when they learn I am one of the huge number of moon landing disbelievers. We landed on the moon in the 60’s? Without computers? And drove around in a car for a bit? Then came home? And we’ve not done it since? Yeah, Jimmy Hill!

We’ve not done it since because in the 1960’s people were easily duped – these days we’d see through it and ask some obvious questions that weren’t asked then. Like… How come the flag is flying on the moon’s service when there isn’t any atmosphere? And where does that second shadow come from when the only source of light is The Sun?

A good site on the moon landing conspiracy can be found here;

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm

That said, in the interests of fair and balanced journalism, here’s a link to a sight supposedly proving we HAVE landed on the moon;

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm

I’m a cynic, but cynics also tend to look at logic. We’d have been back if it was possible.

Anyway, back to the launch. Things were getting quite tense at NASA with two minutes to lift off. They were going through a fascinating list of checks and all of this was being sent live to my little ol’ computer. I felt privileged and ‘in’ on the action.

Most of the dialog was very to the point and scientific but then, in true American style, someone said “We’re at T-minus 2 minutes, Atlas Five New Horizons is good to go.� This wasn’t a very scientific thing to say and the man who said it clearly thought he was in a film. He thought he was Denzel Washington or Tommy Lee Jones.

Anyway, once they’d fired him for thinking he was in a film the countdown continued. Then, with only a minute or so to go, someone quite calmly said “No go. Red line monitor failure.�

And that was that. No launch, not for today at least. People in the control centre didn’t start putting their heads in their hands or anything, they just got on with their work, pressing buttons and checking their screens. I did feel quite sorry for them. I imagine they would feel similar to how a child would feel if their holiday to Disneyland was cancelled at the last minute because the car wouldn’t start. Except these were not children, but highly trained scientists. It will be interesting to see if they manage to launch the rocket tomorrow. And also interesting to see if I’m abducted by FBI agents for cruelly exposing their moon hoax. Hang on, there’s someone at the door…

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