Open source is NASA's next frontier, FCW

"The challenges to government's adoption and participation in open-source communities is often thought to be a simpe culture clash, but in reality it goes deeper than that, accordning to NASA's newly-appointed chief technology officer. "The issues that we need to tackle are not only cuture, but beyond culture," said Chris Kemp, formerly chief information officer at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "And I think we need new policy and support from the administration and Congress to help us tackle" them."

NASA Names Chief Technology Officer for IT

"NASA Chief Information Officer Linda Cureton announced Chris C. Kemp as the first NASA Chief Technology Officer, or CTO, for Information Technology, a new position established to lead IT innovation at the space agency."

NASA's Ames director envisions role of 'interplanetary Internet', San Jose Mercury News

"In a recent conversation with the Mercury News, Worden talked about how an upcoming Ames moon mission could be a first step toward an "interplanetary Internet," and said Obama's recent decision to cancel NASA's plans for a moon landing does not mean America is going to stop sending people into space. Quite the contrary - he hasn't given up on the dream of going himself."

Stay tuned to NASAHackSpace as we provide updates on the Titan 1 restoration, the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project, and other radical or unusual things happening at NASA Ames Research Center - and elsewhere in and around NASA.

The Titan 1 has arrived at Building 596 at NASA Ames Research Center. Photos by Matt Reyes (via Twitpic) show the process of loading things onto the transport trucks. Photo (above) by Dennis Wingo shows the final installation.

As the current plan goes, the move of an aging Titan 1 ICBM from its current location at NASA ARC to its new home next to Building 596 starts around 7:30 AM PST on 18 March 2010. This Titan 1 was brought to ARC in 1969 and was used in a variety of tests to study buffeting of launch vehicles during atmospheric ascent. The rocket has been sitting outside since the early 1980s as an exhibit next to the (former) Ames visitor's center.

A team has been assembled that will restore this rocket and upgrade it to serve as an educational tool as well as a smallsat payload integration testbed - much in keeping with its original appearance at Ames 41 years ago. This project will be undertaken at NASA Ames Research Center at Building 596 aka "McMoons" where the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) has been under way for 2 years.

The Titan 1 team includes SpaceRef Interactive Inc., SkyCorp Inc, and the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. The intent is to involve a wide range of local groups and citizens of all ages in this project in a crowd-sourced, participatory exploration format.

As the current plan goes, the move of our Titan 1 from its current location to its new home next to Building 596 starts around 7:30 AM PST on 18 March 2010. This map (click to enlarge) shows the route that the Titan 1's two stages will take. Once loaded onto its transport, it will head south on R.T. Jones Road. Then it will take a left and go through Gate 18 and head straight on King Road. It will then go right around the back side of Building N243 and then head through the back gate of N243 onto Bushnell Rd. It will then veer left onto Bushnell Rd., enter the Hangar 1 site through the northeast gate onto Sayre Ave, and head past Hangar 1. After it passes Hangar 1 it will veer right around the south end of Hangar 1. and exit the West Gates on to Westcoat Road. It will then head west and turn left into the back parking lot of Building 596 ("McMoons").

We'd love to have folks Twitter if they see our Titan go past them - use #titan1 to tag if you do post a Tweet or a picture. You can also email images to kcowing - at - spaceref.com and we'll post them here.

According to Glenn E. Bugos, Ph.D. from the NASA Ames History Office: "The Titan I was brought to Ames in 1969, along with an Atlas missile, and they were among the last items tested in the Structural Dynamics Laboratory (N242).  The SDL was built to study buffeting during atmospheric ascent.  A photo ran in the Astrogram (24 December 1970), of the Atlas moving into the vacuum tower.  The tests, on active vibration control, were run by Jerome Pearson, with help on the mounting from Bruno J. Gambucci.  Both worked in Code SVS, the Structural Dynamics Branch run by Al Erickson and Henry Cole, which was part of the Vehicle Environment Division run by Al Seiff and David Reese.  Pearson and Gambucci published one paper on the set up of the tests.

We do not know where Ames got the missile.  Ames did a variety of studies related to the Titan in the early 1960s--notably Don Buell's work in the 12 foot on wind gusts around the upright missile, and work on the POGO phenomenon for the Gemini program.  But all of that work was done on scale models; there was no full scale Titan here before 1969.  The Titan I was retired from active service in 1965, and the USAF likely considered this one scrap.  Pearson and Gambucci's test was paid for by the Space Shuttle program office.

As early as November 1974 the two Titan I stages were on static display with the Atlas in the parking lot between N204, N237 and N206.  The Atlas had been dented during the tests, and it was not kept  on display very long.  Sometime between 1980 and 1984 the Titan was moved to the static display area of the then-new Ames Visitor Center."

Dr. Bugos also incuded a copy of this paper which describes how this Titan 1 was originally used at Ames as part of a test stystem to simulate rocket launches.

"A Unique Model, Suspension, and Excitation System for Launch Vehicle Dynamics Studies", TMX 67397, Jerome Pearson and Bruno J. Gambucci, Ames Research Center, NASA. Abstract: "A description is given of a flexible model, feedback-controlled suspension, and modified electromagnetic shaker for use in launch vehicle dynamics studies. Test results indicate the effectiveness of the system in simulating the launch phase of liquid-fuel vehicles. Tests are now under way to develop a large vehicle system, using an Atlas and a Titan 1 with an 89,000 Newton (20,000 lb) force thruster."

Update: According to a May 2010 posting on the Yahoo missile_talk discussion group, our Titan 1, 61-4492 (SM-65) was based at Larson AFB in Washington.

Update: Photos of Titan 1 #61-4492 Arriving at NASA Ames in 1969

This a Titan ICBM 1 first and second stage in the location where they have sat neglected for 40 years. We are going to restore this rocket and upgrade it to serve as an educational tool as well as a smallsat payload integration testbed. This project will be undertaken at NASA Ames Research Center at Bldg 596 aka "McMoons" where the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) has been underway for 2 years. The rocket is slated to be moved to its new location on Thursday 18 March.

Titan 1 first and second stage in the location where they have sat for 40 years.

More photos below

Keith Cowing's note: On Thursday, 10 December 2009, we conducted a live webcast from the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) at "McMoon's" i.e. Building 596 at the NASA Ames Research Park.

Dennis Wingo and I give you a tour of our project including a walk through of the abandoned McDonald's that has been our base of operations since 2008. We show you how we rack tapes, play them back, capture the data on a computer, and then stitch the image framelets together. You can look over our shoulders and see the imagery as it appears on one of our old TV monitors. We've picked an especially interesting tape to show you. Eventually this image will be posted online at LPI and submitted to the NSSDC.

This project has been funded and supported by a bunch of imaginative folks at ESMD, IPP, NLSI, ARC, SkyCorp, SpaceRef Interactive, and Odyssey Moon with assistance from a range of people ranging from retired Lunar Orbiter project personnel and Lockheed Martin employees to local high school and college students. Soon, we expect to have two tape drives fully operational and to be able to produce images on a daily basis.

Oh yes, in case you are wondering, I donate my time (and money) to this project. What fun. Its like bringing a time machine back to life in a high tech junkyard. We are looking to begin some pervasive EPO in coordination with NLSI and the Challenger Center for Space Science Education in the very near future.

"Dennis Wingo: I thought this was interesting and since I am always looking for spares for our LOIRP FR-900's I check it out on eBay. ... When I looked I was pretty certain that these were boards from our FR-900 machines. It had the right part numbers, so I called Ken Zin at home the night before Thanksgiving and asked him to verify, which he did and noted that these are newer version boards of the ones that we have!! So I bid on them and won them today." [More at MoonViews]

Dennis Wingo from the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP), hosted at NASA Ames Research Center in the NASA Research Park, will be teaching a class at HackerDojo in 4 November 2009.

HackerDojo is located at 140 South Whisman Road in Mountain View, CA (Map) from 6 to 7:30 pm.

We hope to stream this presentation live.