Tag Archives: History
Gerard K. O’Neill and the Great Disappointment
Disappointments must not be forgotten. One of the great disappointments of those interested in the use and development of human space capabilities has been the inability to colonize the solar system. Emerging from the Apollo program of the latter 1960s … Continue reading
Recalling the Great NACA Fact-Finding Trip to Germany in 1936, and its Results
Eighty years ago a great adventure took place. In the first part of 1936 John J. Ide, the NACA’s European representative since 1921, fired off an alarming report on the state of aeronautical science on that continent. Ide, the sometime … Continue reading
The Current Crop of Commercial Starts-Ups in Space Were not the First
Many journalists and others have been much enamored with the activities of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson, and other entrepreneurs who have bet their fortunes, at least some of their fortunes, on the development of new space access … Continue reading
Key Developments in USA/USSR Space Cooperation During the Cold War
The post-Cold War era has seen the United States and Russia undertake fundamentally significant cooperative ventures in space. This was an enormously significant development for the pursuit of aggressive human space activities, no doubt, but it tends to overshadow a … Continue reading
Visualizing Apollo’s Exploration and the Idea of Progress
For all but a handful of space travelers the voyages of exploration into space were events participated in vicariously by the billions of humans living on Earth. It has brought a connectedness and reinforced a common set of values among … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Atmospheric Science at NASA”
Atmospheric Science at NASA: A History. By Erik M. Conway. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Acknowledgments, list of abbreviations, illustrations, notes, index. ISBN: 9780801889844. Hardcover with dustjacket. 416 pp. $57.00 USD. During the first decade of the Space … Continue reading
A Brief on the Apollo 1 (Capsule 204) Fire, January 27, 1967
What happened? The Apollo 1 (204) Command Module was on the ground at the Kennedy Space Center on January 27, 1967 when a fire broke out in the capsule. The three crew members (Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Edward … Continue reading
Redirect: “Apollo Lunar Landings Multiscreen” Video
This is pretty neat. This video depicts simultaneously the landing of all six Apollo missions that reached the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. The compiler took all of the video from the Lunar Module and realligned them to 45 degrees … Continue reading
Vikings 1 and 2 and the Failure to Detect Life on Mars
The first truly successful landings on Mars took place in 1976 when the Viking mission used two identical spacecraft, each consisting of a lander and an orbiter. Launched on August 20, 1975, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Viking … Continue reading
