Now that we are at the end of 2018, I figured it was time to look back once again at this year’s material published on Drew Ex Machina and see which of the 32 new essays I posted during this site’s fifth year online, along with earlier published material, proved to be most popular to my readers. In addition to satisfying my curiosity, this exercise is an attempt to figure out what kinds of articles my readers prefer so that I can focus my attention on similar topics over the coming months when possible. What follows is a review of the Top Ten most popular articles on this site during 2018 based on a raw tally of their page views. If you are interested in checking out any of these articles for yourself, they can be accessed by clicking on the titles or the feature images in the reviews that follow.
This synoptic view of Hurricane Matthew was created from images acquired from the ISS in support of CyMISS on October 7, 2016. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
#10 CyMISS Image of the Month: A 3D View of Hurricane Matthew from the ISS
During the last four years of the CyMISS (Tropical Cyclone Intensity Measurements from the ISS) program, our team has acquired image sequences of several dozen powerful hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones scattered across the globe. Our goal has been to develop a new remote sensing method which can more accurately gauge the intensity of these destructive storms and improve predictions of their future path and intensity. As part of our program’s public outreach efforts, I started regularly publishing CyMISS Image of the Month posts where some of our most spectacular images have been shared with the public (see the CyMISS page for all articles on this project). The most popular of these posts made the #10 spot in the Top Ten of 2018. Presented are a series of images of Hurricane Matthew taken during eight overpasses of the International Space Station made between October 1 and 13, 2016 culminating in a wide area 3D view of this powerful hurricane as it was moving up Florida’s Atlantic coast on October 7.
An artist’s depiction of a Pioneer Venus probe on the surface of Venus. (NASA)
#9 NASA’s Unintentional Venus Lander
Forty years ago in December 1978, the planet Venus was the target of a veritable armada of American and Soviet spacecraft hoping to learn more about our mysterious sister planet. Included in the fleet were a pair of Soviet Venera landers and a quartet of entry probes carried by NASA’s Pioneer-Venus 1 spacecraft. While they were not expected to survive the impact after transmitting about a hour’s worth of atmospheric data during their long descent, one of these hardy probes lucked out and not only survived landing on December 9, 1978, but transmitted data from the surface of Venus for a record-setting 67 minutes. The #9 post in 2018 took a close look at the Pioneer-Venus multiprobe mission and its Day Probe which became NASA’s first (unintentional) Venus lander mission.
A still from a video showing the Soyuz T-10-1 being engulfed in flames on the pad seconds before its LES was activated pulling the crew to safety.
#8 A Brief History of Launch Aborts
One of the most dangerous phases in any space mission is launch. With rockets assembled from thousands of precisely engineered components filled with hundred of tons of volatile propellants, even the slightest problem can end in disaster. It is for this reason that all crewed spacecraft have launch abort options for most if not all phases of ascent into space. This need was dramatically demonstrated by the Soyuz MS-10 flight launched on October 11, 2018 which was aborted during ascent when a problem was encountered with its launch vehicle. The #8 article on Drew Ex Machina, published in November 2014, took a close the previous two Soyuz launch aborts where the crews left the pad but failed to achieve orbit. In both cases, the crews involved in the launch aborts of “Soyuz 18A” in 1975 and “Soyuz T-10A” in 1983 survived because of the various safeguards built into their Soyuz spacecraft and launch vehicle.
A view of LM-1 being prepared for the unmanned Apollo 5 mission. (NASA)
#7 Apollo 5: The First Flight of the Lunar Module
This past year saw the 50th anniversary celebrations of many key Apollo missions as NASA and its contractors worked hard to land on the Moon before the end of 1969. One of these important missions was the unmanned flight of Apollo 5 which tested the Lunar Module in space for the first time. The #7 most popular article during 2018 was a detailed account of this largely forgotten mission and the problems it encountered. Despite these issues, the flight was deemed a success bringing NASA one step closer to the goal of reaching the Moon.
View of Skylab from SL-4. (NASA)
#6 Christmas 1973 on Skylab
For a generation, space enthusiasts have grown accustomed to witnessing holiday celebrations in orbit most recently with the crews of the International Space Station which regularly hosts American, Russian and spacefarers from other nations. But to find the very first Christmas celebrated with Americans and Russians in space, we have to go back 45 years to the Christmas of 1973. The #6 article on this year’s Top Ten list recounts the activities of NASA’s Skylab 4 crew aboard America’s first space station as well as the pair of cosmonauts flying on the separate Soyuz 13 mission during that long ago Christmas.
A picture of a lunar railroad diorama designed by Alan Cerny and built by Bob Hayden that appeared in the April 1978 issue of Model Railroader. (MRR/Kalmbach Publishing)
#5 A Lunar (Model) Railroad
Sometimes magazine articles can have a bigger influence than their authors ever intended and one of those has got to be an article on modelling a lunar railroad which was published 40 years ago in the April 1978 issue of Model Railroader. Originally meant as an April Fools joke which played off of the public’s keen interest in space at the time, this article is still remembered by many even to this very day. The #5 ranked post on Drew Ex Machina in 2018 was a piece I wrote about this old “joke” which influenced a lot of would-be modelers over the decades including myself.
Artit’s impression of a transiting exoplanet. (ESA/ATG media lab)
#4 Habitable Planet Reality Check: Kepler’s K2-155d
Although NASA’s Kepler spacecraft was finally shutdown on November 15, 2018 when it ran out of attitude control propellant, astronomers are still finding new exoplanets as they continue the analysis of 9½ years of data the spacecraft collected including some which might be potentially habitable (see the Kepler Mission page for articles on this mission’s discoveries). The #4 ranked article on Drew Ex Machina during 2018 took a close look at the recently discovered K2-155d. Circling a comparatively bright red dwarf located about 200 light years away, this roughly Earth-size exoplanet discovered during Kepler’s extended “K2” mission seems to orbit at the inner edge of many definitions of the habitable zone. Unfortunately, the uncertainties in the properties of the host star and K2-155d, not to mention in the models scientists use to predict its possible climate state, make it difficult to make any definitive statements at this stage. Fortunately, K2-155 is a relatively bright red dwarf making it an excellent target for future ground and space-based studies. And the data scientists gather about this and similar worlds will allow them to validate and refine their climate models bringing us one step closer to understanding how common habitable exoplanets are.
The launch of the first Falcon Heavy on February 6, 2018. (SpaceX)
#3 The Largest Launch Vehicles Through History
The launch of the first SpaceX Falcon Heavy on February 6, 2018 was accompanied with headlines that it was the most powerful launch vehicle currently flying with a LEO payload capability of almost 64 metric tons. But the Falcon Heavy is only the latest launch vehicle to make this claim during the over six-decade history of the Space Age. The #3 article on the Top Ten of 2018 takes a close look at the largest launch vehicles through history starting with the Soviet’s Sputnik rocket in 1957, through the Soviet and American space program’s various “Moon rockets” to the Space Shuttle program and beyond. It will only be a matter of time before another rocket currently being developed assumes the title of “The Largest Launch Vehicle”.
An artist’s depction of the view from the surface of one of the exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. (ESO/M. Kornmesser)
#2 Alien Skies: The View from TRAPPIST-1e
On May 2, 2016 the TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) team led by Michaël Gillon (University of Liège – Belgium) announced the discovery of three Earth-size planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 accompanied by the dubious claim that two of them were potentially habitable (see “Habitable Planet Reality Check: TRAPPIST-1”). Using additional observations from ground-based instruments and NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, on February 22, 2017 Gillion et al. announced the discovery of a total of seven exoplanets in this system all with about the same size as the Earth. An initial assessment of this new group of exoplanets shows that three of them orbit inside reasonably conservative definitions of the habitable zone making this system a prime target for the future studies of such worlds (for a full discussion of the discovery of these worlds and an initial assessment of their potential habitability, see “Habitable Planet Reality Check: The Seven Planets of TRAPPIST-1”).
For the #2 ranked article for 2018 on Drew Ex Machina, I took a closer look at the view from one of the exoplanets, specifically TRAPPIST-1e, which many believe has the best prospects for being potentially habitable. Unlike here on Earth where the planets are mere points of light, these exoplanets would appear as distinct disks when viewed from TRAPPIST-1e which would change in size, phase, brightness and position on time scales of many days to just a matter of hours owing to their tight, short-period orbits. Included in his popular post are details of the appearance of these exoplanets and their host star including synthesized images comparing them to the Sun and Moon as seen from the Earth.
Apollo 6 shown during its ascent as debris is seen coming off of its spacecraft launch adapter (SLA). (NASA)
#1 Apollo 6: The Saturn V That Almost Failed
Space enthusiasts fondly remember the Saturn V rocket which sent nine Apollo crews to the Moon including a dozen astronauts who actually landed on the lunar surface between July 1969 and December 1972. Retired after thirteen flights when it launched NASA’s Skylab space station into Earth orbit on May 14, 1973, it is frequently claimed that the Saturn V had a perfect flight record – an unequaled achievement for what was the largest launch vehicle of its day. While it is certainly true that no Saturn V suffered a catastrophic failure which resulted in the total loss of a mission, NASA’s famous Moon rocket did experience its share of problems.
The most popular article on Drew Ex Machina for 2018 related the details of the unmanned Apollo 6 mission. Launched on April 4, 1968, the second Saturn V to fly experienced more than its share of problems during its flight culminating with the failure of the S-IVB third stage to reignite to send the spacecraft on a simulated trajectory to the Moon. Fortunately, the causes of the problems were quickly assessed and fixes confidently identified eliminating the need for a third unmanned test flight of the Saturn V and keeping NASA’s schedule on track to land on the Moon before the end of 1969.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the almost 62,000 people from around the globe who have taken time to read these Top Ten as well as many of the other 250 essays on Drew Ex Machina during 2018. The many comments and feedback on this site as well as in other forums have also been greatly appreciated. I intend to continue posting interesting essays on space-related topics during 2019 and hope that all of you continue reading and enjoying them.
Happy New Year! Drew LePage
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