Category Archives: Space History

In The Beginning…

Here’s a Youtube video (via Rob Coppinger) of the Apollo VIII Christmas-Eve broadcast from the moon, forty years ago tonight. I expect to have a piece up about that mission some time this evening, over at Pajamas Media.

[Evening update]

Don’t bother looking for it tonight — it won’t go up until early tomorrow morning (probably about midnight Pacific). Like a gift from Santa…

[One more thought]

I wonder if astronauts read from the Bible today to the world on Christmas Eve, if the ACLU would sue NASA for violating separation of church and state? It’s a lot different world today than it was forty years ago.

[Christmas morning update]

The piece is up now.

Forty Years Ago

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Apollo VIII. Paul Spudis has some thoughts. As he notes, though we didn’t necessarily realize it at the time, that was probably when we won the moon race, in that it resulted in the Soviets dropping out and pretending they had never been racing. Of course, Johnson had already canceled the program even before the flight, though we hadn’t yet achieved Kennedy’s goal. That would happen seven months later, in July of 1969.

More SpaceX Perspective

Clark has a round up of links.

It was a little strange, and sad, descending into the LA basin yesterday. I had a left window seat, and I looked down at the old Rockwell/North American (and back during the war, Vultee) plant in Downey, which had been abandoned back in the nineties, and saw that Building 6 appeared to be no longer there. A lot of history in manned spaceflight took place there, but now there’s almost no manned space activities left in southern California at all. Not in Downey, not in Huntington Beach, not in Seal Beach. It’s all been moved to Houston, and Huntsville.

Except, except. A minute or two later, on final descent into LAX, I saw Hawthorne Airport just off the left wing, and quite prominent was the new SpaceX facility, which had previously been used to build jumbo jet wings.

So perhaps, despite the indifference of local and state politicians, the era of manned spaceflight in LA isn’t quite yet over. And of course, Mojave remains ascendant.

If We Can Put A Man On The Moon…

…why can’t we kick the fossil fuel habit? Well, we can, but not the way we put a man on the moon, and certainly not within a decade. On the thirty-ninth anniversary of the first landing, I explain.

[Afternoon update]

It’s interesting to note that the original landing was on a Sunday as well. I don’t know how many of the anniversaries have fallen on a Sunday, but I would guess five or so. It’s not too late to plan to commemorate the event with a ceremony at dinner tonight, with friends and family. Also, a collection of remembrances here. If you’re old enough to remember it yourself, you might want to add one.