I know, comments are still broken (though I think you may be able to comment if you have a TypePad account). I’m going over to Naples for the weekend, though, so no solution until Monday (which is also the Challenger anniversary).
Category Archives: Space History
A Grim Anniversary
Much hoopla was made of the fiftieth anniversary of Sputnik a couple months ago.
I haven’t seen anyone mention that a half century ago today, the first Vanguard mission, the American response to Sputnik, was a spectacular (and televised) failure on the launch pad, which simply heightened the concern we had about the Soviets being ahead of us in space (“Our rockets always blow up”). I wonder if history might have been much, or any different had it succeeded?
The First Space Pioneer
I hadn’t noticed, or noted it last week, due to my travel schedule and poor internet connectivity, but last Monday was the sesquicentennial anniversary of the birth of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. He was the first, even before Goddard, to lay out the mathematical and physical foundations of spaceflight.
But unlike Goddard, he was a theoretician only, and never built any hardware. So I don’t think he ever said “Hold my vodka, and watch this…”
Don’t Know Much About History
The only moon landing in history is NASA’s Apollo expedition in 1968.
Well, it did happen a long time ago. Probably the twit who wrote this hadn’t even been born. Anyway, I wonder where the Russians will get the money for a manned moon mission?
Don’t Know Much About History
The only moon landing in history is NASA’s Apollo expedition in 1968.
Well, it did happen a long time ago. Probably the twit who wrote this hadn’t even been born. Anyway, I wonder where the Russians will get the money for a manned moon mission?
Don’t Know Much About History
The only moon landing in history is NASA’s Apollo expedition in 1968.
Well, it did happen a long time ago. Probably the twit who wrote this hadn’t even been born. Anyway, I wonder where the Russians will get the money for a manned moon mission?
That Was A Quick Decade
It’s been ten years since the Mars Pathfinder Mission.
Too Visionary?
With less than a week to go until the centennial celebration, Dwayne Day has an interesting bit of space history about Robert Heinlein over at The Space Review.
Alert To Modelers
Scott Lowther is now selling a kit for the DC-X.
The Myth Of The “Mercury 13”
Jim Oberg debunks it:
In late 1958, as NASA begin defining how to select astronauts, President Eisenhower directed that test pilots be the pool from which candidates were selected. The actual flight experience of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions in hindsight validated that standard. Because of the intimate integration of the pilot in the spacecraft