I find it difficult to believe but, it was ten years ago today that I posted the first article on my then-new website, Drew Ex Machina. In that first article, “A Europa-Io Sample Return Mission”, I outlined how the hardware for the Discovery-class LIFE (Life Investigation For Enceladus) sample return mission proposed by a group headed by Peter Tsou (JPL) could be adapted for a mission to return samples from the purported plumes of Europa as well as the ever-present volcanic fountains of Io. Since then, I have published another 378 articles on space history, potentially habitable exoplanets, my own work on various space projects as well as many other space-related topics. To mark this anniversary, I wanted to share the ten most popular posts published during the first decade of Drew Ex Machina 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.
#10 Apollo 4: The First Flight of the Saturn V (2017)
With the recent launches of a new generation of Moon rockets, there has been renewed interest in the Saturn V flown over a half a century ago. On November 9, 1967, Apollo 4 lifted off from Pad A of Launch Complex 39 for the first unmanned test flight of the Saturn V – the world’s largest rocket at the time which would be used to send Apollo missions to the Moon. The #10 most popular article on Drew Ex Machina took a close look at this historic mission. Unlike earlier test flights of large rockets, the decision had been made four years earlier that this first Saturn V test flight would be an all-up test with three live stages in an effort to speed the program’s schedule and help constrain costs. Fortunately, the gamble paid off with a fully successful mission ending 8 hours and 37 minutes after launch with the splashdown of the Apollo 4 Command Module in the Pacific Ocean.
#9 The Launch of Atlas-Centaur 5 (2015)
During the early years of the Space Age, Cape Canaveral witnessed some spectacular rocket failures as American engineers and scientists grappled with cutting edge technology. The #9 ranked article on Drew Ex Machina during its first decade took a close look at what was arguably one of the more spectacular failures from this time – Atlas-Centaur 5. Launched on March 3, 1965 for the fifth test flight of the cryogenic fueled Centaur, the Atlas’ MA-5 propulsion system failed just two seconds after liftoff resulting in a huge explosion fueled by the rocket’s propellant load of about one hundred tons of RP-1, liquid hydrogen and LOX. While a setback for the Atlas-Centaur program, the effects of the explosion were used to validate predictions of a hypothetical Saturn V launch failure so that facilities and personnel could be properly protected.
#8 A Lunar Model Railroad (2015)
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 46 years ago in the April 1978 issue of Model Railroader. Originally meant as an April Fool’s 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 #8 ranked post during the first decade of Drew Ex Machina was a piece I wrote about this old “joke” which influenced a lot of would-be modelers over the decades including myself.
#7 First Pictures: Voyager 1 Portrait of the Earth & Moon – September 18, 1977 (2020)
Having grown up in the ‘70s during the Golden Age of planetary exploration, I got to witness the exploration of all of the known planets. It can be argued that the crowning achievement of this era was NASA’s Voyager program which eventually visited the four outer planets of our Solar System. The #7 most popular article on Drew Ex Machina during its first decade presented the story behind the portrait that Voyager 1 took of the Earth and Moon on September 18, 1977 just as this spacecraft was starting its historic mission of exploration.
#6 NASA’s Unintentional Venus Lander (2016)
Forty-five 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 an 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 #6 ranked article on Drew Ex Machina took a close look at the Pioneer-Venus multiprobe mission and its Day Probe which became NASA’s first (unintentional) Venus lander mission – a feat NASA hopes to repeat with its DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) atmospheric probe which should reach our sister planet within a decade.
#5 The Saturn 500F: The Moon Rocket That Couldn’t Fly (2016)
Over half a century ago, NASA was gearing up for the final push to land astronauts on the Moon. One of the key milestones to reach that goal was the completion of the facilities at Launch Complex 39 where the Apollo-Saturn V would be assembled, checked out and launched. On May 25, 1966, NASA rolled out a non-flight model of their Moon rocket, designated Saturn 500F, to check out the newly completed VAB and Pad A at LC-39. This 2016 post on Drew Ex Machina tells the story of the Saturn 500F and the various tests that were performed during the summer of 1966. Immediately following the disassembly of Saturn 500F, work began on the first Saturn V flight article for the Apollo 4 test flight of November 1967 (see “Apollo 4: The First Flight of the Saturn V”).
#4 Habitable Planet Reality Check: Kepler 186f Revisited (2016)
In response to what I perceived to have been an unhealthy trend in the scientific community and especially the media overstating the potential habitability of newly discovered exoplanets, I started the popular “Habitable Planet Reality Check” series of articles on Drew Ex Machina shortly after the website was established a decade ago (see this site’s Planetary Habitability page for a complete listing of these and related articles). In these articles I have attempted to cut through the hype to give an honest assessment on the potential habitability of various exoplanets based on the best available analysis of the observations and the current scientific understanding of planetary habitability. For the first in this series of articles, I examined the case of Kepler 186f whose discovery was announced April 17, 2014 – just three weeks after Drew Ex Machina came online (see “Habitable Planet Reality Check: Kepler 186f“).
While I originally started out in my first review in 2014 with the intent of debunking the claim, it turned out that Kepler 186f appears to have among the better chances of being potentially habitable of all exoplanets currently known. In the fourth most popular essay on Drew Ex Machina during its first decade, I revisited the case for Kepler 186f in this top-rated essay and reassessed its potential habitability given what we had learned about it and other exoplanets over the intervening two years. The new data presented in the updated assessment published on the second anniversary of this world’s discovery only strengthens the case for this distant exoplanet’s continued promising prospects
#3 The Practical Limits of Trip Times to the Planets (2016)
Back in March of 2016, the space-related media was filled with headlines about a new laser-based propulsion technology which could allow trips to Mars in as little as a half an hour. Of course, such sensational claims deserved a sober review which was the purpose of this top ranked article on Drew Ex Machina for 2016 which comes in at #3 for the decade.
Dusting off some calculations I did as a physics undergrad over three decades earlier, I demonstrated that any conventional cargo would be destroyed by the huge g-forces experienced during a putative half-hour trip to Mars. In fact, barring any unforeseen breakthroughs in physics which allows us to invent sci-fi tech such as “inertial dampers” or the like, we are not likely to ever see trip times to Mars for human passengers of less than a day. Still, if a propulsion technology is developed that permits the construction of my hypothetical “1-g ship”, calculations show that it would be possible to reach any point in the inner Solar System in less than a week or any planet in the outer reaches of our Solar System in just a couple of weeks – far faster than our current technology allows but still fast enough to open a whole universe of possibilities for the exploration (and exploitation!) of the Solar System.
#2 A History of American Rocket Engine Development (2014)
It is not too surprising that the #2 spot for the Top Ten posts of the last decade was also the most popular post on Drew Ex Machina in 2014 and 2015. This essay recounts the origins of the most important large rocket engines developed in the US starting with the early Space Age in the late-1950s. The article concludes at the turn of this century when only two totally new engines had been developed in the US for satellite launch vehicles: the RS-68 used on ULA’s soon-to-be-retired Delta IV and the Merlin-series engine for the Falcon built by SpaceX. A resurgence in domestic rocket engine development prompted by the rise the new, low-cost commercial launch vehicle market has changed the situation for the better in the past decade.
#1 Apollo 6: The Saturn V That Almost Failed (2018)
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 (see “Rockets Falling from Orbit: The Saturn V that Launched NASA’s Skylab”), 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 (see “The Largest Launch Vehicles in Service – 1957 to the Present“). 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 over the last decade (and a perennial favorite in the annual “Top Ten” lists) 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 900,000 people from around the globe who have taken time to read these Top Ten as well as the other 369 essays on Drew Ex Machina during the past decade. 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 (what will hopefully be) the next decade and hope that all of you continue reading and enjoying them. I would also like to extend special thanks to my good friend Kristen Petrie of Mellarium who created this website for me back in 2014 and continues to help maintain it. If it were not for her pestering me through most of 2013 to set up the Drew Ex Machina site to share my work, we would not be here today celebrating its tenth anniversary.