University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, September 28, 1988
9
The Space Shuttle Returns
Prof's testing helped ready shuttle runway
By Katy Monk
Kansan staff writer
Discovery's Landing Pad
Three thousand miles from Cape Canaveral, on the high desert of Edwards Air Force Base, NASA has put months of preparation into a successful effort to the crucial moment to launch tomorrow at 9:59 a.m.
One of the most significant parts of that preparation was performed by a KU professor.
In June, David C. Kraft试耕 the windswept soil of the Rogers Lake Bed landing site for its ability to recover the impact of the Discovery at touchdown.
Kraft, professor of civil engineering, is the developer of the automated cone penetrometer, the only equipment capable of completing the tests at speeds NASA deemed necessary. Kraft and two other engineers in linear feet of shuttle runnin in 290 foot intervals over five days.
Any other method of testing would have taken a month, Kraft said.
"There simply isn't any other instrument that could get that kind of production," he said.
Gary Kratchwell, NASA project engineer for the lake bed testing program, said officials were concerned because of an incident that
occurred with the Challenger in November 1985.
After touchdown, the orbiter was be towed over a taxiway when it broke through the lake bed's crust and became stuck in a shallow fissure. The Challenger was not damaged, but airfield crew and equipment had pushed plywood sheets over the fissure to finish towing the Challenger.
No problems with the lake bed crop up in his backyard, landscaped and kindled. Kristoff said fissures had appeared in action runsys but had been avoided.
But Kraft said officials were concerned that two could form a massive ground. If the shuttle landed on such a weak spot and broke through the surface, Kraft said the trauma could rip off the landing
The shuttle touches down at about 180 knots, similar to the speed at which an airplane lands. It is possible that about 200,000 pounds. By comparison, a Boeing 747 at takeoff, with fuel and passenger weights, weighs
But 747s and other commercial airliners land on paver runways. The shuttle, which glides to a landing without power to pull up if
it should overshoot the runway, need a margin of error in length or width, and thus it. Thus a lake bed — with literally room of miles — is an ideal landing spot.
Runway 17, the main runaway at Rogers Lake Bed, is 21,000 feet long and several hundred yards wide.
Kraft and a team of two—Adam Mghamia, Kansas City, Kau. graduate student in civil engineering, senior engineer at Managing Technology Inc., a Kansas City firm owned by Kraft, tested every item on the truck bed. Kraft said. They worked 12 hours or more a day in temperatures that approached 100 degrees.
the penetrometer, a hydraulically-driven slender rod attached to the ground and small boles 30 inches into the ground and measuring the force required to drill to 30 inches. The computer records force stronger than the ground. The computer records force at depths every fraction of an inch and plots the
The penetrometer, powered by a small, portable gasoline engine, was hooked to the front of a truck for the tests.
Kraft developed the instrument in 1980, but since then technology has changed. He began rebuilding the peterometer, with help from Valencia, and with help from Vienna.
Valencia said the team added computer-enhanced extraction of the increased encrypted data the data. They also replaced the entire key system and added the one hive.
During the rebuilding, NASA came to Kraft with a $25,000 contract to test the shuttle landing site.
"This next flight is really, really important because they have to again establish the credibility of the program." Valencia said. "They don't want it go wrong, from beginning to end. We
think that perhaps (the soil testing) contributes to the success of the space shuttle flight."
Kratchovil, the project engineer, affirmed the symbolic importance of the Discovery's flight.
"Obviously, psychologically it's very important," he said. "In terms of a critical mission, I guess it's of average importance. Perception most significant is re-establishment of a successful space flight."
Kratochvil said NASA would probably want to test the lake bed at least once a year at the end of the winter, which lasts through the winter.
Nancy Lovato, public affairs officer for NASA, said Monday that runaway conditions were excellent.
Lovato said a light rain between now and the landing date — Oct 3, four days and one hour after launch — would not cause problems. In the case of heavy rain at the surface, the shuttle is diverted to Harbor in New Mexico. Saira Space Harbor in New Mexico, she said.
Lovato said the likelihood of rain at Edwards this early in the year was slim.
"As far as landing goes, we're in good shape." she said.
Engle says space travel bears risks
By Katy Monk
Kansan staff writer
People make their decision to take a risk, and sometimes they pay a price for it.
But risks must be taken nonetheless.
So goes the gospel according to
Gen. Joe Engle, veteran of two and 1962 and 1964 graduate of the University of Engle to speak about the shuttle program in a film from Lack
land Air Force Base, Texas, on Monday.
Engle's manners of speech evoked the breezewish Air Force test pilots made famous by the Tom Wolfe novel 'The Right Stuff'. But the Chapman native, a test pilot for many years, was killed in his defense of space exploration
"We knew there was a risk involved," he said of the Challenger accident. "We knew there were a lot of systems that had a very small margin of error. But you have to be willing to want to get this country into space."
Engle, a brigadier general in the Air National Guard and a NASA Center in Houston, defended NASA in an area that has drawn much criticism.
He said he had always had confidence in NASA's safety measures. As for NASA's administrative decision-making processes, which also have their own set of rules, thought everyone had been doing their best to make the right decision.
In response to a recent segment on "West 57th," in which a Morton Bentley admonition that the writer still extremely unsafe, Engle said only, "You'll always find somebody there."
Engle said the shuttle flight set for liftoff at 9:59 a.m. tomorrow would be safe.
"I'd go Thursday if they let me," he said.
Despite his busy schedule, Engle said he planned to come to KU to speak at the engineering school sometime this year.
He said being a shuttle astronaut was a tremendous honor, similar to representing one's country in the Olympics. He said he wanted to do very badly, he said.
Engle飞-Fs and fighters in the Air National Guard as training for air combat, and he said he probably was not a pilot when he year. But for the man who had wanted to be a pilot since childhood, the apperance of flight, despite its still strong
The New Shuttle
VITAL STATISTICS:
Engle was commander of the Columbia in November 1981, the last time he had flown and shuttle flight, in 1985, was aboard the Discovery, the flight due to lift
observations vary between the enterprise Enterprise (high transit), Columns (low transit), Strayer (discovery tax missions), and Under construction (under construction) Average Empty weight: 165,000 pounds Empty weight on other and other factors. Maximum Empty weight on other factors.
Before the launching of the Challenger's last mission, priorities were different at NASA, he said.
Solid rocket boosters
Empty weight: 182,000 pounds
Fuel load: 1.11 million pounds
Thrust: 3.3 million pounds
External tank:
Empty weight: 78,100 pounds
Total volume: 145,200 gallons held at minus 297 degrees F.
Hydrogen tank: 36,900 gallons held
"There certainly was a lot more concern and push on meeting launch dates," said Duncan. "That obviously was one of the primary problems of getting boxed in."
KU prof creating 'sensitive' robot for NASA
By Katy Monk
Kansan staff writes
The machine has a formidable description — two-armed bilateral force feedback robot — but Barr's aim is to make it a virtual extension of the human body, capable of moving in environments to humans.
Barr and several students are developing sensing devices to attach to the arms of an already existing robot. The sensory devices could give the robot the ability to detect speed and rate of speed and to feel heat. The robot can already interpret pressure and see.
This year, Barr's is one of many U research projects funded in partnership with the university provides hundreds of thousands of dollars in research grants.
Bill Barr, KU professor of mechanical engineering, is creating a robot with a human touch.
NASA has provided a $50,000 grant for the first phase of Barr's project.
The operator watches the robot through TV screens. Through a joystick, the operator guides the robot to interact with something to feel what the robot encounters.
The robot, used in space, undersea and in high-radiation areas, does its work guided by an operator at a remote location. For example, a robot inside a space capsule and use the arms to build a space station
Rob Haberlein, Lawrence graduate student working with Barr on the sensors, has worked with the robot.
"It is icier. It's like it'is alive, because it's taking the motion from your hand," *taberlein* said. He hopes to vastly improve its sensitivity with the new sensors. It will up an egg in the dark," he said.
From July 1987 to June 1988, KU's research support and grant
Barr said NAA gave grants, such as the one for the robot, for research that would help not just learn to advance technology in general.
administration office lists the total awards from NASA, including support other than grants, at $473,778.
Herb Baker, procurement data manager at NASA headquarters in Washington, over $250,000, worth a total of $479,900, active from September 1987 through August 1988. That manner is for the funds under $250,000.
NASA paid more than $178 million in grants to universities in fiscal year 1988. Baker said.
But the 12 grants to KU in that period do not reflect the number of students who have received NASA support at KU, because the fiscal year limit exclusions
For example, the Center for Research, in at KU reported that for 1966-67, NABA sponsored 23 new research projects and were ongoing, for a total of $863.99.
Dana Miller, Dodge City graduate student, left; Bill Barr, professor of mechanical engineering; Brian Greenway, Prairie Village graduate student; and Terry Faddis, associate professor of mechanical engineering, are doing research for the NASA space shuttle program.
NASA has a long history of support at KU. The space technology center in Nichols Hall on West
Campus was built with money from a 1967 NASA grant. Barr, director of the center, said NASA
grant of $2 million was one of the largest it gave to any school for that purpose.