Slashdot Mirror
Last Titan Launch from Florida
The Breeze writes "Driving along San Diego's freeways, I often passed a large Lockheed Martin facility that had big ATLAS and TITAN logos on them - it looked like it was still operating, even though I thought the Titan missile had been retired years ago. Well, according to CNN, the last Titan to be launched from Florida just took off with a classified military payload. I had no idea that they were still using 50-year old technology to launch stuff into space. If you are not adverse to MS Word documents, Patrick AFB, (the Air Force station at Cape Canaveral) has some press releases about the launch. Interested parties might want to click here for more info on Titan, along with links to the Titan Missile Museum where you can actually see a Titan in a silo -- and where Zeframe Cochrane launched his first warp ship from."
Good by Titan, and thanks for all the memories.
But it's not the last Titan, just the last to launch from Cape Canaveral. According to the article on Florida Today: "This Titan is the last of a family of 168 to be launched from Cape Canaveral. One last flight is scheduled to take off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California."
Quite the powerhorse. Congrats to all who worked on it over the years for jobs well done.
Why does this make me think of "Remember the Titans?"
The last Skylark rocket is to be launched on Sunday. It's also a 50 year old rocket!
Amazing to think there was a British space program once!
Have physics and the law of gravity changed in the last 50 years?
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
sometimes older and simpler is better than supersuper complicated stuff. Soyuz puts the shuttle to shame in the reliability department for example.
So I'd say if Titan rockets worked, why change them?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
What will the Air Force use now?
The Booster that flew was a Titan 4B (and is not the last Titan-4B to fly, just the last at the Cape--One more will fly from Vandenberg) The Titan 4B first flew in 1997 and was an upgraded verson of the Titan 4 that first flew in the mid 80s. The Titan 4 was primarly used as a replacement for Mil Payloads after Challenger. The Titan 3 was a workhorse of launchers during the 70s (Including Voyager and Viking). The Titan 2 serverd as the bases of the following lines and was an ICBM and booster for Gemini. The Titan Rocket that flew is not old tech wise, its old in the same sense as the cars we drive today being based on improved designs of the past. Please google before you post something without knowing all the facts.
I hope they'll keep one or two handy. You never know when you can use Warp technology, and I'd hate disapointing Captain Picard.
Even Hondas suffer from this problem. If I must have the most reliable vehicle, I would choose a Civic model in its last year of production over a brand new, completely redesigned Civic.
Since the Titans have been in use for a long time, the engineers have already fixed any outstanding, serious problems. The Titan is a reliable workhorse and should be the delivery vehicle for a military payload. Such payloads are vital to the national security of the United States, and we absolutely must avoid mishaps, especially given the emerging threat from China.
Last night I was at disney's grad nite, and we saw the rocket and at first we thoguht it was like a plane with sparks coming off the end or something, I dont know, it didnt look like anything we had seen, except for a shuttle, but we knew they werent launching a shuttle. But now I know it was the titan. Its pretty cool to have seen what was probably the last titan to ever be launched.
50 year old technology is proven technology. If you are going to risk a multi-billion dollar satelitte- something that has had thousands of launches under its belt sounds good to me.
"...and where Zeframe Cochrane launched his first warp ship from."
No. It's where Zeframe Cochrane WILL launch his first warp ship from. Get your facts straight.
Ah...Titan was NOT reliable. It had a success rate of only 86% (http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/titan4b.htm) Atlas has a near perfect record for the last few decades.
The Titan II was even Man rated. The Titan 3 was supposed to be. The old Deltas and Atlas's where even older. The Delta was based on the Thor and the Titan I was the next generation ICBM after the Atlas. The current Atlas and Deltas are totally new rockets with old names.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
How is it that a guy from Alpha Centauri could do that on Earth?
Sounds to me like someone's lying.
Jesus ain't down with that...
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Beautiful launch on a beautiful launch and a fitting end to a legacy and a tradition in space.
A memorable night there for those who attended and worked many years at the Cape.
Parent is right AND wrong about 50-year old technology. The basic premise is the same in processing but the avionics and software are FAR from ancient and are in fact very recent. Titan is too expensive however now because of the previous use of hypergolics transitioning to newer and safer fuels as well as refinements in processing and launching that were implementing in the Atlas V.
Long live the Titan.
Reliable rocketry hasn't advanced far since Goddard's time. The Titan is a perfect example of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" technology.
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program
by Jay W. Kelley
I have this book. Its heavy on the detail of the missile silo development and the cold war time it was developed.
There was no other missile in the US arsenal that could loft the 9MT warhead it carried. Still to this day it is the heavyweight leader.
Hedley.
I worked on my first Titan-Centaur in 1989, and at that point there were already end-items assigned out 10+ years. Launch vehicles are based on methodical and tested revisions to proven platforms. Mistakes are expensive. For context, I got the task to replace a program that managed end item change tracking. I was given the original source code on green-bar; the change note entries were in double letters by 1959.
according to what I read, some dude from space.com seems to know all about it and says nasa isn't doing any other space launches and the satellite launch is the only thing it could be.
These arent tears, we are puking through our eyeballs.
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
While the Titan's might be '50 year old technology' they are much better at launching payloads into space than the much newer shuttles. In fact, there has been a lot of criticism about America's unhealthy focus on reusable vehicles i.e. the shuttles. They are relatively wimpy in the payloads they can lift (they can barely get satellites to geosynchronous orbit and don't go there themselves). So, newer is not necessarily better.
Not really pedantic.
The editor of a publication with the huge number of readers, should know the difference between "adverse" and "averse."
It's really rather an embarrassing reflection of his intelligence, and/or education.
They might be old, but the fewer parts they use and the simpler the technology is less things will go wrong or brake. Why for instance is the russian space agency so good? They use old stuff. Without the almost 40 year Soyuz spacecraft the ISS would have long gone down the gravity drain...
I suppose the Titan is far more reliable and fault-proof than the Space Shuttle.
Please deliver your classified military payload safely. May the death, destruction and oppression contained in your hallowed cylinder bring freedom to all 'muricans!
Just like the Global Position System (GPS) does, which is a military payload. Bringing better lives to millions.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
we've used titans for 50 years now to put spy satellites in polar orbit.
Better tighten your tinfoil hat.
Clear, Dark Skies
I live in Titusville, FL and work in Cocoa Beach as a subcontractor to the military. Patrick Air Force Base is a different and separate entity to Cape Cavanaveral Air Force Station.
As a badged and cleared employee, I've walked around the base of the gantries from which they launch Titans, after attaching the boosters, the payload, then the command (autopilot, etc.) module on top.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
The current theory, supported by the orbit it was launched into, is that its the 5th in a fleet of radar imaging satillites, known as "LACROSSE".
I know that it can be tough to know what tense to use given that there was a temporal cold war and all that, but it should be:
where Zeframe Cochrane will launch his first warp ship from.
and not:
where Zeframe Cochrane launched his first warp ship from.
Then again...
if you were there when it happened before, but in the future, then I guess you could use the past tense.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Saw it last night from my driveway here in Daytona, first launch I've ever seen. We saw three lights... I'm assuming it had boosters? (they dropped off after a while)
FAA Certified Flight Instructor
Also I had the pleasure of taking apart an one of these Titan guidance computers. It was about the size of a big suitcase. Built to take many G's-- it had a aluminum case about 3/4 inch thick. All thge modules inside were potted in a tough pink styrofoam.
An amazing device with about 300 credit-card sized PC boards all plugged in and soldered into a backplane. Each PC board had what looked like four to six Westinghouse flat-pack IC's, probably DTL logic, maybe four gates max per chip. Amazing what they could do with that little hardware. The memory was some PC-board version of magnetic wire memory, as cores probably couldnt take the g's and vibration. Sobering to be poking through a device designed to land 9 Megatons on the Ruskies.
A friend and I were on our way to Orlando and accidentally drove around 70 miles too far West. While we were driving back north east to find our way back onto the turnpike we saw the whole launch. At first we thought it was a really bright light above a farm house in the distance, until we got out of the car and saw the trail of smoke. The rocket appeared to break off into 3 pieces near the end of it's visibility. I am assuming these were some of its lower stage boosters? An unbelievable thing to see by accident, makes me think i should get lost more often.
Titan Shipping Company
The US Military promised to blow up the rocket should it veer off course and potentially endanger Canadians off the coast of Newfounland.
0 /titan-missile050430.html
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/04/3
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Well that an 50 year old cars have terrible gas milage, put out way more pollution than a modern car (orders of magnitude), and require near constant maintence to keep running. People romanticize about old cars all the time, but forget that it used to be rare for a car to make it 100,000 miles, a feat that is commonplace today, even among cheap and nasty cars. The old hardware isn't worthless, but the new stuff is considerably better in most areas. The only major area where modern cars continually score worse than older cars is in maintainability by shade-tree mechanics. Old cars are a lot simpler and don't need sophisticated tools to be worked on, unlike many modern cars.
I read the internet for the articles.
Right, old cars are not as good as new cars -- I never said they were. But they do the job. And so does an old rocket booster.
Maybe that's just me...
Older tech is proven, but someone's got to make it. If your suppliers end-of-life on you, you're out of luck.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
http://satobs.org/p_chien.html
But it states "lacrosse" is no longer the codename used for the project.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Sobering to be poking through a device designed to land 9 Megatons on the Ruskies.
;)
Wow... that's hardcore. When I have to sober up, I just drink coffee.
Let's not forget about the Internet, nuclear power, and the airplane.
Politics / opinion aside, I think too few people realize that military technology often translates into useful civilian technology. The corollary to beating swords into plowshares is better swords make better plowshares.
Ok, your post was theoretically scored as a troll for it's likelihood of provoking pointless argument, so let's get to the point. You consider the Titan launch an escalation of space militarization. Assuming the most likely case, that it's one reconissance bird replacing another, what's the issue? Don't see any value in nations keeping an eye on each other? Ever use Google maps or Keyhole? If so, how are you or I any different than the US DoD, unless you're assuming it increases the odds that the DoD will use the information to whack someone.
Really, space-based information gathering is old, old news. If you really thought the bird was packing heat, then your comment could rise above it's (-1).
Luke, help me take this mask off
"...US misuse of space..." This is a wildly sanctimonious sentiment. Just what is this misuse of space, anyway? The only proper use is what you think it should be used for? Or only for scientific experimentation? Not for national defense --- that's illegitimate? Oh, please.
If the use of space does not result in harm to others, then it is not a misuse. Keep in mind that if what bothers you is that US spy satellites can see what's in your backyard, that isn't a genuine harm. Just cover it with a tarp and they won't be able to see a thing.
"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."
Patrick is in fact about half an hour south of Cape Canaveral AFS.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
It is the responsibility of the editors to edit the posts before they publish them. If they can't even be bothered to verify the accuaracy of reader submissions, why are they being paid?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
April 19th, the scheduled date of the launch, i was out there at 8 pm, waiting to see it. We waited accross the banana river, on the shore close to the launch site. Me and my brother waited for 3 hours but never saw it go up. I wanted to say good-bye
flying in to Florida for the Hitchhiker's movie:
"This is your captain speaking. I've been advised to take a south route through Ft. Lauderdale due to a missle launch, so expect to see some fireworks after the turbulence. I'll keep you all advised..."
(later on)
"Ladies and gentlemen if you look over the left wing you'll see the rocket, it's quite a sight."
(people jump over to left windows, plane rolls a few degrees)
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
a) This was not quite 50 yr old tech - it was a Titan IV (a *big* sucker).
b) Other than the Shuttle, this has been our heavy lifter.
c) the launch...(as seen from 17 mi. from the pad): huge flame, and the details from my wife, the former NASA engineer and hypergol expert, says Titans are straight hypergols, no solids or cryogens. Seperation...then, about the time it hit mach 2, it went through a high cloud layer, and it looked as though it had blown up, a white-ish ring suddenly and rapidly expanding around it, but the bright flame of the main engine still burning strongly.
Wow.
mark
"US misuse of space" is not sanctimonious. It's a fact. I'll quote JFK to help illustrate my point if you don't mind: "We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding."
So you see, it's absolutely nothing to do with paranoia or "what's in my back yard". It's very simple really. I object to weapons in space. I object to any kind of nationalism in space. I object to any nation believing it has the right to dominate, militarily or otherwise, space. I'm entirely expecting to repeatedly get modded down by US patriots but frankly this is the kind of thing that I'll always happily burn karma on.
However, the idealist in me also sees reality. And the reality is that they who have the power make the rules. And like it or hate it, there is no power on earth that can make the use of space completely outside any kind of nationalism, unless that power itself is outside nationalism, i.e. a neutral, non-national power that would enforce equal access and be able to forbid domination by any one or group of nations.
BUT, in order to be able to do such a thing, that neutral, non-national power would have to have the ability to project force in very uncomfortable quantities -- and it would have to be able to project that force from space. Which defeats both your idealism, and mine.
The sad fact of the matter is simply this, we live in an imperfect world, where He Who Has The Gold Makes The Rules, and unless and until something happens here on earth to diminish man's desire or lust for power over his fellow man, somebody will have weapons, or weapons-related artifacts, in space. Just pray it is someone who has some scruples, or willingness to allow others to lead their lives largely unmolested.
Despite the shrill cries of outrage, the United States is currently the only power on earth which is both able to dominate space, and has no real interest in using that domination to run everyone else's lives. Note I do not say, is unwilling to use its advantage in its national interest. But typically the national interest of the USA does not translate out to invading peaceful nations, or forbidding the use of space to anyone else with peaceful intent.
"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."
Remember just a couple of years ago when possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction, especially fictitious ones, was justification for starting a war? Now we're back to the Good Old Days, when Weapons of Mass Destruction are a *good* thing, protecting our country from the *bad* people, making us *safer*....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
the same as the russians, chinese, japanese and europeans then, yeah.
Clear, Dark Skies
But typically the national interest of the USA does not translate out to invading peaceful nations, or forbidding the use of space to anyone else with peaceful intent.
Unfortunately the former point is debatable and the second point open to interpretation - and if the US' recent example of how it interprets its intelligence is anything to go by, then your idealism is at much at risk as mine.