By Ben Evans This article continues the history recounted in Part 1: The Fateful Launch of Skylab The month of May 1973 quickly turned from one of euphoria into, potentially, one of the darkest in NASA’s history. After closing out its Apollo lunar landing program in spectacular style, the space agency turned to the launch of the Skylab orbital station, a [...]
Post Tagged with: “Apollo”
Bezos Recovers Apollo F-1 Engines From Ocean Floor
Jeff Bezos has successfully recovered enough components to reconstruct 2 Saturn V main engines from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com had been planning to locate and raise the 3.76 meter diameter Rocketdyne F-1 engines since 2012, and on 20th March 2013 the mission was declared a success. Bezos and the crew of the [...]
Riding Shotgun on Apollo 16 Lunar Rover
In April 1972, Apollo 16 carried astronauts John Young, Charles Duke, and Ken Mattingly on the fifth manned mission to the Moon’s surface. This converted film records what became known as the “lunar rover Grand Prix.” Enjoy the view with Young and Duke as they trundle around the lunar highlands in the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) at 10 km/h: Staff WritersMore [...]
NASA’s Orion Lands Safely on Two of Three Parachutes in Test
Source: NASA NASA engineers have demonstrated the agency’s Orion spacecraft can land safely if one of its three main parachutes fails to inflate during deployment. The test was conducted Tuesday in Yuma, Ariz., with the parachutes attached to a test article. Engineers rigged the parachutes so only two would inflate, leaving the third to flag behind, when the test capsule [...]
Columbia and the Day of Remembrance
NASA commemorates its fallen each year in the week that saw the loss of three of its spacecraft. The Day of Remembrance this year will be observed on February 1, 2013, the tenth anniversary of the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia and the seven members of the STS-107 crew: Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel [...]
A Week of Tragedies: Remembering Challenger
In a coincidence nearly odd enough to make even a rocket scientist wonder about fate, all three of NASA’s multi-astronaut fatalities occurred within a span of six calendar dates. On January 27, we took a look back at the Apollo 1 fire. Today, we remember the loss of Challenger on January 28, 1986. Challenger STS-51-L NASA’s second major tragedy was the disintegration [...]
A Week of Tragedies: Remembering Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia
In a coincidence nearly odd enough to make even a rocket scientist wonder about fate, all three of NASA’s multi-astronaut fatalities occurred within a span of six calendar dates. Over the course of this week, we will take a moment to look back and learn from these safety failures on the anniversaries of the losses of Apollo 1, Challenger STS-51-L ,and Columbia STS-107. [...]
Preventing a Repeat of Columbia
The disintegration of Space Shuttle Columbia following reentry of STS-107 on February 1, 2003 was a disaster and a tragedy. But it is important to remember that this tragedy did not stand on its own; it followed 17 years after another Shuttle disaster, the explosion of Challenger moments after its launch. Although the direct technical causes of the two accidents [...]
Exploring the Overview Effect
On the 40th anniversary of the December 7, 1972 Blue Marble photograph of Earth taken by Apollo 17 crew, a new film released seeking to explore the impact of seeing one’s home planet from space on a person’s philosophy and outlook. The organization Planetary Collective put together the short, which features several astronauts discussing their personal experiences with the Overview Effect, [...]
Mercury Program Director Dies Aged 91
Dyer Brainerd Holmes, NASA’s director of human space flight program in the early ‘60s, died on January 11 at the age of 91. Holmes, who is survived by his wife and two daughters, passed away due to complications from pneumonia. “When a great nation is faced with a technological challenge, it has to accept or go backward,” said Mr. Holmes [...]
