Jan 26 2007
From The Space Library
Timothy Shank, a researcher on board the Alvin submersible, located 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) deep in the Pacific Ocean, placed a telephone call to Sunita L. Williams, a NASA astronaut living aboard the ISS. The call—the first placed from deep sea to space—did not break scientific ground. However, scientists believed the experiment could help pave the way for future interplanetary communication. To place the call, the crew in the Alvin submersible had communicated with a surface ship named Atlantis via acoustic transponders, a type of underwater telephone. The Atlantis had an on-board telephone connected to a satellite telephone, which could contact anyone on shore. Atlantis had telephoned NASA’s JSC in Houston, Texas, where a high-powered dish transmitter had contacted the ISS directly. Oceanographers and astrobiologists were equally enthusiastic about the telephone call because much of the information oceanographers learn researching the sea floor applies to space exploration. Astrobiologist Richard Shand of Northern Arizona University described the feat of communicating with people who are not currently on Earth’s surface, using three different media—water, air, and vacuum—as an astonishing accomplishment. Apollo astronauts, who had called Houston from a distance of 384,400 kilometers (238,855 miles), retained the record for a long-distance call. The call from the Alvin submersible to the ISS was a 253-kilometer (157-mile) long-distance call.
Christina Reed, “Houston, We Have a Phone Call,” Science Now, 26 January 2007.
The government of Sweden announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the suborbital-space tourism company Virgin Galactic. The agreement established plans for Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle to launch from a site in Kiruna, Sweden, during the midsummer and midwinter, so that the craft could fly through the aurora borealis. In preparation for future flights, Swedish Space Corporation authorities planned a March 2008 demonstration launch of a small sounding rocket equipped with cameras. SpaceShipTwo designer [[Burt Rutan]] would collect data to determine the possible effect of the aurora borealis on passengers or on electronics aboard the spacecraft. The MOU did not call for any exchange of funds, because the Kiruna facility was the site of suborbital sounding rocket and atmospheric balloon launches. Swedish officials stated that the site had sufficient infrastructure to accommodate Virgin Galactic craft without new investment.
Peter B. de Selding, “Virgin Galactic Strikes Deal with Swedish Government,” Space.com, 28 January 2007, http://www.space.com/news/070128_sweden_virgin.html (accessed 9 November 2009).
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