#2010
 

Facts about Shuttle Columbia:

She was known as OV-102 (Orbital Vehicle #102).

Columbia was named after the Boston, Massachusetts based sloop captained by American Robert Gray. On May 11, 1792, Gray and his crew maneuvered the Columbia past the dangerous sandbar at the mouth of a river extending more than 1,000 miles through what is today south-eastern British Columbia, Canada, and the Washington-Oregon border. The river was later named after the ship. Gray also led Columbia and its crew on the first American circumnavigation of the globe, carrying a cargo of otter skins to Canton, China, and then returning to Boston.

#2011 - Challenger is actually even more interesting.... (OV-99)

Challenger, the second orbiter to become operational at Kennedy Space Center, was named after the British Naval research vessel HMS Challenger that sailed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans during the 1870's. The Apollo 17 lunar module also carried the name of Challenger. Like her historic predecessors, Space Shuttle Challenger and her crews made significant contributions to America's scientific growth.

Challenger joined NASA fleet of reusable winged spaceships in July 1982. It flew nine successful Space Shuttle missions. On January 28, 1986, the Challenger and its seven-member crew were lost 73 seconds after launch when a booster failure resulted in the breakup of the vehicle.

Challenger started out as a high-fidelity structural test article (STA-099). The airframe was completed by Rockwell and delivered to Lockheed Plant 42 for structural testing on 02/04/78. The orbiter structure had evolved under such weight-saving pressure that virtually all components of the air frame were required to handle significant structural stress. With such an optimized design, it was difficult to acurately predict mechanical and thermal loading with the computer software available at the time. The only safe approach was to submit the structural test article to intensive testing and analysis. STA-099 underwent 11 months of intensive vibration testing in a 43 ton steel rig built especially for the Space Shuttle Test Program. The rig consisted of 256 hydraulic jacks, distributed over 836 load application points. Under computer control, it was possible to simulate the expected stress levels of launch, ascent, on-orbit, reentry and landing. Three 1 million pound-force hydraulic cylinders were used to simulate the thrust from the Space Shuttle Main Engines. Heating and thermal simulations were also done.

Rockwell's original $2.6 billion contract had authorized the building of a pair of static-test articles (MPTA-098 and STA-099 and two initial flight-test vehicles (OV-101 and OV-102. A decision in 1978 not to modify Enterprise from her Approach and Landing Test (ALT) configuration would have left Columbia as the only operational orbiter vehicle so on 1/29/79 NASA awarded Rockwell a supplemental contract to convert Challenger (STA-099) from a test vehicle into a space-rated Orbiter (OV-099).

STA-099 was returned to Rockwell on 11/7/79 and its conversion into a fully rated Orbiter Vehicle was started. This conversion, while easier than it would have been to convert Enterprise, still involved a major disassembly of the vehicle. Challenger had been built with a simulated crew module and the forward fuselage halves had to be separated to gain access to the crew module. Additionally, the wings were modified and reinforced to incorporate the results of structural testing and two heads-up displays (HUD's) were installed in the cockpit. Empty Weight was 155,400 lbs at rollout and 175,111 lbs with main engines installed. This was about 2,889 pounds lighter than Columbia.

"MPTA-098" was a designator for a set of External tank and Solid Rocket Boosters, for testing. Pathfinder, an "orbiter simulator" that never had a designation, and was never designed to enter orbit, is on permanent display at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville Alabama. It is on a specal platform and mounted to the Main Propulsion Test Article (MPTA) External Tank used for early tanking tests.

#2012

If you ever watched Dr. Who in its last two years of production (1988-1989) and looked closely on Ace's jacket, one of her patches is the Enterprise Approach and Landing Test Patch
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle.../enterprise.gif
and another was the mission patch for STS-51L (Challenger's last flight).
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle.../51-l-patch.jpg
Star Trek also honored Challenger at least once, one of the Enterprise-D's shuttlecraft during the run of the Next Generation series (1987-1994) was named the Onizuka, for one of the lost crew members (and of course Star Trek IV was dedicated to the entire crew).

Also, the fortieth anniversary of Doctor Who is coming up this November, the day AFTER the 40th anniversary of the assassination of JFK.

#2013

Back to the Shuttles:
The third one launched was Shuttle Discovery, OV-103

Discovery, the third orbiter to become operational at Kennedy Space Center, was named after one of two ships that were used by the British explorer James Cook in the 1770s during voyages in the South Pacific that led to the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands. Another of his ships was the Endeavour, the namesake of NASA's newest orbiter.

#2014

Atlantis is OV-104

Atlantis, the fourth orbiter to become operational at Kennedy Space Center, was named after the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts from 1930 to 1966. The two-masted, 460-ton ketch was the first U.S. vessel to be used for oceanographic research. Such research was considered to be one of the last bastions of the sailing vessel as steam-and-diesel-powered vessels dominated the waterways.


#2015

OV-105, Endeavour

Endeavour, the newest addition to the four-orbiter fleet, is named after the first ship commanded by James Cook, the 18th century British explorer, navigator and astronomer. On Endeavour's maiden voyage in August 1768, Cook sailed to the South Pacific (to observe and record the infrequent event of the planet Venus passing between the Earth and the sun). Determining the transit of Venus enabled early astronomers to find the distance of the sun from the Earth, which then could be used as a unit of measurement in calculating the parameters of the universe. In 1769, Cook was the first person to fully chart New Zealand (which was previously visited in 1642 by the Dutchman Abel Tasman from the Dutch province of Zeeland). Cook also surveyed the eastern coast of Australia , navigated the Great Barrier Reef and traveled to Hawaii.

Cook's voyage on the Endeavour also established the usefulness of sending scientists on voyages of exploration. While sailing with Cook, naturalist Joseph Banks and Carl Solander collected many new families and species of plants, and encountered numerous new species of animals.

Endeavour and her crew reportedly made the first long-distance voyage on which no crewman died from scurvy, the dietary disease caused by lack of ascorbic acids. Cook is credited with being the first captain to use diet as a cure for scurvy, when he made his crew eat cress, sauerkraut and an orange extract.

The Endeavour was small at about 368 tons, 100 feet in length and 20 feet in width. In contrast, its modern day namesake is 78 tons, 122 feet in length and 78 feet wide. The Endeavour of Captain Cook's day had a round bluff bow and a flat bottom. The ship's career ended on a reef along Rhode Island.

#2016

#2017

FYI, all information/facts about the US Shuttle Orbiters came from NASA's website for the Kennedy Space Center.

#2018

Onward then, I think I threatened some phonetic alphabets.

Rather than do 6 batches of 26, I'm going to do one batch of 26, with six 'definitions' in each. Remember, the source for this is a German calendar/diary for the year 1993, so take this with a grain of salt.

#2019 - A

German: Anton
(and Ärger for the Ä vowel)
English: Andrew
American: Able (they spelled it abel, but I think the former is correct)
International: Amsterdam
Aeronautical: Alpha (spelled Alfa here)
NATO: Alpha (alfa)

#2020 - B

German: Berta
English: Benjamin
American: Baker
International: Baltimore
Aeronautical: Bravo
NATO: Bravo

#2021 - C

German: Cäsar
(and Ch believe it or not has its own - Charlotte)
English: Charlie
American: Charlie
International: Casablanca
Aeronautical: Coca (? maybe they meant Cocoa?)
NATO: Charlie

#2022 - D

German: Dora
English: David
American: Dog
International: Denmark (given with the German spelling of Dänemark)
Aeronautical: Delta
NATO: Delta

#2023 - E

German: Emil
English: Edward
American: Easy
International: Edison
Aeronautical: Echo
NATO: Echo

#2024 - F

German: Friedrich
English: Frederick
American: Fox
International: Florida
Aeronautical: Foxtrot
NATO: Foxtrot