1.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
2.
Apollo Command/Service Module
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The Command/Service Module was one of two spacecraft, along with the Lunar Module, used for the United States Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon. It was built for NASA by North American Aviation and it was launched by itself on three suborbital and low Earth orbit Apollo test missions using the Saturn IB launch vehicle. It was also launched twelve times on the larger Saturn V launch vehicle and it made a total of nine manned flights to the Moon aboard the Saturn V. The Service Module was cast off and allowed to burn up in the atmosphere before the Command Module re-entered, the Apollo 1 flight was cancelled after a cabin fire killed the entire crew and destroyed the Command Module during a launch rehearsal test. Corrections of the problems caused the fire were applied to the Block II spacecraft. Therefore, design proceeded without a means of docking the Command Module to a Lunar Excursion Module, but the change to lunar orbit rendezvous, plus several technical obstacles encountered in some subsystems, soon made it clear that substantial redesign would be required. Block II would be the version, including a docking hatch and incorporating weight reduction. Detailed design of the docking capability depended on design of the LEM, by January 1964, North American started presenting Block II design details to NASA. Block I spacecraft were used for all unmanned Saturn 1B and Saturn V test flights, initially two manned flights were planned, but this was reduced to one in late 1966. This mission, designated AS-204 but named Apollo 1 by its crew, was planned for launch on February 21,1967. After a thorough investigation by the Apollo 204 Review Board, it was decided to terminate the manned Block I phase, the two blocks were essentially similar in overall dimensions, but several design improvements resulted in weight reduction in Block II. Also, the Block I Service Module propellant tanks were slightly larger than in Block II, the Apollo 1 spacecraft weighed approximately 45,000 pounds, while the Block II Apollo 7 weighed 36,400 lb. In the specifications given below, unless noted, all weights given are for the Block II spacecraft. The total cost of the CSM for development and the produced was $36. 9B in 2016 dollars. The Command Module was a truncated cone 10 feet 7 inches tall with a diameter of 12 feet 10 inches across the base, the forward compartment contained two reaction control engines, the docking tunnel, and the components of the Earth Landing System. The inner pressure vessel housed the crew accommodations, equipment bays, controls and displays, the last section, the aft compartment, contained 10 reaction control engines and their related propellant tanks, fresh water tanks, and the CSM umbilical cables. The Command Module consisted of two basic structures joined together, the structure and the outer structure. The inner structure was a sandwich construction which consisted of a welded aluminum inner skin, adhesively bonded aluminum honeycomb core
3.
Apollo Lunar Module
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After completing its mission, the LM was discarded. It was capable of only in outer space, structurally and aerodynamically it was incapable of flight through the Earths atmosphere. The Lunar Module was the first manned spacecraft to operate exclusively in the vacuum of space. It was the first, and to date only, crewed vehicle to land on an object in the solar system other than the Earth. Six such craft successfully landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972, a seventh provided propulsion and life support for the crew of Apollo 13 when their CSM was disabled by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon. The LMs development was plagued with problems which delayed its first unmanned flight by about ten months, despite this, the LM eventually became the most reliable component of the Apollo/Saturn space vehicle, the only component never to suffer a failure that significantly affected a mission. The total cost of the LM for development and the produced was $21. 3B in 2016 dollars. At launch, the Lunar Module sat directly beneath the Command/Service Module with legs folded, there it remained through earth parking orbit and the Trans Lunar Injection rocket burn to send the craft toward the Moon. Soon after TLI, the SLA opened and the CSM separated, turned around, came back to dock with the Lunar Module, during the flight to the Moon, the docking hatches were opened and the LM Pilot entered the LM to temporarily power up and test its systems. Throughout the flight, he performed the role of an engineering officer, at this point, the engine was started again for Powered Descent Initiation. During this time the crew flew on their backs, depending on the computer to slow the crafts forward, Control was exercised with a combination of engine throttling and attitude thrusters, guided by the computer with the aid of landing radar. During the braking phase altitude decreased to approximately 10,000 feet, during final approach, the vehicle pitched over to a near-vertical position, allowing the crew to look forward and down to see the lunar surface for the first time. Finally the landing began, approximately 2,000 feet uprange of the targeted landing site. Beginning with Apollo 14, increased LM fuel was available for the powered descent and landing, by using the CSM engine to achieve the 50. After the spacecraft undocked, the CSM raised and circularized its orbit for the remainder of the mission. When ready to leave the Moon, the LM would separate the descent stage and fire the ascent engine to back into orbit. After a few course correction burns, the LM would rendezvous with the CSM and dock for transfer of the crew, having completed its job, the LM was separated and sent into solar orbit or to crash into the Moon. The Lunar Module was designed after NASA chose to reach the Moon via Lunar Orbit Rendezvous instead of the ascent or Earth Orbit Rendezvous methods
4.
Grumman
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The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a leading 20th century U. S. producer of military and civilian aircraft. Founded on December 6,1929, by Leroy Grumman and partners, factory in Baldwin on Long Island, New York. All of the early Grumman employees were former Loening employees, the company was named for Grumman because he was its largest investor. The company filed as a business on December 5,1929, keeping busy by welding aluminum tubing for truck frames, the company eagerly pursued contracts with the US Navy. Grumman designed the first practical floats with a landing gear for the Navy. The first Grumman aircraft was also for the Navy, the Grumman FF-1 and this was followed by a number of other successful designs. Grumman ranked 22nd among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts, Grummans first jet aircraft was the F9F Panther, it was followed by the upgraded F9F/F-9 Cougar, and the less well known F-11 Tiger in the 1950s. The companys big postwar successes came in the 1960s with the A-6 Intruder and E-2 Hawkeye and in the 1970s with the Grumman EA-6B Prowler, Grumman products were prominent in the film Top Gun and numerous World War II naval and Marine Corps aviation films. The U. S. Navy still employs the Hawkeye as part of Carrier Air Wings on board aircraft carriers, Grumman was the chief contractor on the Apollo Lunar Module that landed men on the moon. The firm received the contract on November 7,1962, as the Apollo program neared its end, Grumman was one of the main competitors for the contract to design and build the Space Shuttle, but lost to Rockwell International. The company ended up involved in the program nonetheless, as a subcontractor to Rockwell, providing the wings. In 1969 the company changed its name to Grumman Aerospace Corporation, the company built the Grumman Long Life Vehicle, a light transport mail truck designed for and used by the United States Postal Service. The LLV entered service in 1986, Gulfstream business jets continue to be currently manufactured by Gulfstream Aerospace which is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics. For much of the Cold War period Grumman was the largest corporate employer on Long Island, Grummans products were considered so reliable and ruggedly built that the company was often referred to as the Grumman Iron Works. At its peak in 1986 it employed 23,000 people on Long Island, a portion of the airport property has been used for the Grumman Memorial Park. Northrop Grummans remaining business at the Bethpage campus is the Battle Management and Engagement Systems Division, under the Grumman Olson brand it made the P-600 and P-6800 step vans for UPS. Grumman manufactured fire engines under the name Firecat and aerial tower trucks under the Aerialcat name, the company entered the fire apparatus business in 1976 with its purchase of Howe Fire Apparatus and ended operations in 1992. Grumman canoes were developed in 1944 as World War II was winding down, Company executive William Hoffman used the companys aircraft aluminum to replace the traditional wood design
5.
Alan Shepard
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Rear Admiral Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Shepard saw action with the navy during World War II. He became an aviator in 1946, and a test pilot in 1950. He was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959 and his craft entered space, but did not achieve orbit. He became the person, and the first American, to travel into space. In the final stages of Project Mercury, Shepard was scheduled to pilot the Mercury-Atlas 10 and he named Mercury Spacecraft 15B Freedom 7 II in honor of his first spacecraft, but the mission was cancelled. This was surgically corrected in 1969, and in 1971, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, at age 47, he became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon, and the only one of the Mercury Seven astronauts to do so. During the mission, he hit two balls on the lunar surface. He was Chief of the Astronaut Office from November 1963 to July 1969 and he was promoted to rear admiral on August 25,1971, the first astronaut to reach that rank. Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. was born on November 18,1923, in Derry, New Hampshire, to Alan B. Shepard Sr. and he had a younger sister, Pauline, who was known as Polly. He was one of famous descendants of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren. His father, Alan B. Shepard Sr. known as Bart, worked in the Derry National Bank and he joined the National Guard in 1915 and served in France with the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. He remained in the National Guard between the wars, and was recalled to duty during World War II, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1936, he went to the Pinkerton Academy, a school in Derry that his father had attended. He completed years 9 to 12 there, fascinated by flight, he created a model airplane club at the Academy, and his Christmas present in 1938 was a flight in a Douglas DC-3. The following year he began cycling to Manchester Airfield, where he would do odd jobs in exchange for the ride in an airplane or informal flying lesson. Shepard graduated from the Pinkerton Academy in 1940, because World War II was already raging in Europe, his father wanted him to join the Army. He easily passed the exam to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1940
6.
Stuart Roosa
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Stuart Allen Stu Roosa, was an American aeronautical engineer, United States Air Force pilot, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, who was the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 14 mission. The mission lasted from January 31 to February 9,1971 and was the mission to land astronauts on the Moon. While Shepard and Mitchell spent two days on the surface, Roosa conducted experiments from orbit in the Command Module Kitty Hawk. He was one of only 24 people to travel to the Moon, Roosa was born on August 16,1933, in Durango, Colorado, to parents Dewey Roosa and Lorine Roosa and grew up in Claremore, Oklahoma. Roosa began his career as a smokejumper with the U. S. Forest Service, dropping into at least four active fires in Oregon and California during the 1953 fire season. He was a graduate of the Aviation Cadet Program at Williams Air Force Base, Arizona and he also attended the Aerospace Research Pilot School and was an experimental test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in California before being selected for the astronaut class of 1966. From July 1962 to August 1964, Roosa was a flight test pilot at Olmstead Air Force Base. He was a pilot at Langley Air Force Base, where he flew the F-84F. Following graduation from the University of Colorado, under the U. S. Air Force Institute of Technology Program, he served as Chief of Service Engineering at Tachikawa Air Base, Roosa was one of 19 people selected as part of the astronaut class of 1966. He was the CAPCOM at the Launch Complex 34 blockhouse during the Apollo 1 fire on 27 January 1967, in 1969, he served as a member of the astronaut support crew for the Apollo 9 mission. On Apollo 14 he spent 33 hours in orbit around the Moon. On the Apollo 14 mission Roosa carried seeds from pine, sycamore, sweet gum, redwood. The seeds were germinated on his return and planted throughout the United States and he was assigned to the Space Shuttle program until his retirement as a Colonel from the Air Force in 1976. Roosa logged 5,500 hours of flying time,5,000 hours in jet aircraft and he also logged 217 hours in space. After leaving NASA and the Air Force, Roosa held a number of positions in international and U. S. businesses and he completed the Harvard Business Schools Advanced Management Program in 1973. On December 12,1994, Roosa died at age 61 in Washington D. C. from complications of pancreatitis and he was survived by his wife Joan, three sons and a daughter, and seven grandchildren. Son Jack Roosa attended the USAF Academy and became an F-16 squadron commander, Roosa is buried in section 7A of Arlington National Cemetery. His wife Joan died on October 30,2007 in Gulfport and she was interred at Arlington with her husband
7.
Edgar Mitchell
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Edgar Dean Ed Mitchell was a United States Navy officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, ufologist and NASA astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14, he spent nine hours working on the surface in the Fra Mauro Highlands region. Mitchell was born on September 17,1930, in Hereford and he came from a ranching family that moved to New Mexico during the Depression and considered Artesia, New Mexico as his hometown. He first learned to fly at 13 and was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second highest rank and he was also a member of DeMolay International, part of the Masonic Fraternity, and was inducted into its Hall of Fame. Mitchell was a member of Artesia Lodge #29 in New Mexico and he enjoyed handball, tennis, and swimming, and his hobbies included scuba diving and soaring. He graduated from Artesia High School in 1948, Mitchell received a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management from the Carnegie Mellon University in 1952. The following year he joined the U. S. Navy and he was twice divorced, and had three children, three stepchildren, and nine grandchildren. In May 1953, after completing instruction at the Officer Candidate School at Newport, Rhode Island and he qualified as a research pilot and flew with Air Development Squadron Five until 1959. From 1964 to 1965 he served as Chief, Project Management Division of the Navy Field Office for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, from 1965 to 1966 he attended Aerospace Research Pilot School in preparation for astronaut duties, and certification as a test pilot, graduating first in his class. Mitchell served as an instructor in advanced mathematics and navigation theory for astronaut candidates, Mitchell was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, and carried one of the orders badges to the Moon, it is now kept at his home chapter of Kappa Sigma at Carnegie Mellon University. He accumulated 5,000 hours flight time, including 2,000 hours in jet aircraft and he resided in Palm Beach County, Florida from 1975 until his death. Mitchell was selected in 1966 as part of NASAs fifth astronaut group and he was assigned to the support crew for Apollo 9, then was designated as backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 10. During the Apollo 13 crisis, Mitchell was a part of the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team and he worked in an Apollo simulator to help bring the crew back. One issue he worked on was how to fly the Lunar Module with an inert Apollo Command/Service Module attached to it. He then went to serve as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 14, landing with Shepard aboard the Lunar Module Antares on February 5,1971, in the hilly upland Fra Mauro Highlands region of the Moon. They stayed on the Moon for 33 hours, deployed and activated lunar surface scientific equipment and experiments, in completing his first space flight, Mitchell logged a total of 216 hours and 42 minutes in space. He was subsequently designated to serve as backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 16, during the mission, he took photos, including the one with Shepard raising the American flag. In the photo Mitchells shadow is cast over the surface near the flag
8.
Saturn V
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The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA between 1967 and 1973. The Saturn V was launched 13 times from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with no loss of crew or payload, to date, the Saturn V remains the only launch vehicle to launch missions to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit. A total of 15 flight-capable vehicles were built, but only 13 were flown, an additional three vehicles were built for ground testing purposes. A total of 24 astronauts were launched to the Moon, three of them twice, in the four years spanning December 1968 through December 1972 and it was known that Americas rival, the Soviet Union, would also try to secure some of the Germans. Von Braun was put into the design division of the Army due to his prior direct involvement in the creation of the V-2 rocket. Between 1945 and 1958, his work was restricted to conveying the ideas, finally, they turned to von Braun and his team, who during these years created and experimented with the Jupiter series of rockets. The Juno I was the rocket launched the first American satellite in January 1958. The Jupiter series was one step in von Brauns journey to the Saturn V. The Saturn Vs design stemmed from the designs of the Jupiter series rockets, as the success of the Jupiter series became evident, the Saturn series emerged. Between 1960 and 1962, the Marshall Space Flight Center designed a series of Saturn rockets that could be used for various Earth orbit or lunar missions. NASA planned to use the C-3 as part of the Earth Orbit Rendezvous concept, the C-4 would need only two launches to carry out an EOR lunar mission. On January 10,1962, NASA announced plans to build the C-5. The three-stage rocket would consist of, the S-IC first stage, with five F-1 engines, the S-II second stage, with five J-2 engines, the C-5 was designed for a 90, 000-pound payload capacity to the Moon. The C-5 would undergo component testing even before the first model was constructed, by testing all components at once, far fewer test flights would be required before a manned launch. The C-5 was confirmed as NASAs choice for the Apollo program in early 1963, the C-1 became the Saturn I, and C-1B became Saturn IB. Von Braun headed a team at the Marshall Space Flight Center in building a vehicle capable of launching a spacecraft on a trajectory to the Moon. Before they moved under NASAs jurisdiction, von Brauns team had begun work on improving the thrust, creating a less complex operating system. It was during these revisions that the decision to reject the single engine of the V-2s design came about, the Saturn I and IB reflected these changes, but were not large enough to send a manned spacecraft to the Moon
9.
Kennedy Space Center
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The John F. Kennedy Space Center is one of ten National Aeronautics and Space Administration field centers. Since December 1968, Kennedy Space Center has been NASAs primary launch center of human spaceflight, Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources, and even own facilities on each others property. Additionally, the center manages launch of robotic and commercial missions, researches food production and In-Situ Resource Utilization for off Earth exploration. Since 2010, the center has worked to become a multi-user spaceport through industry partnerships, there are about 700 facilities grouped across the centers 144,000 acres. There is also a Visitor Complex open to the public on site, the military had been performing launch operations since 1949 at what would become Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. In December 1959, the Department of Defense transferred 5,000 personnel, President John F. Kennedys 1961 goal of a manned lunar landing before 1970 required an expansion of launch operations. On July 1,1962, the Launch Operations Directorate was separated from MSFC to become the Launch Operations Center, therefore, the decision was made to build a new LOC site located adjacent to Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island. NASA began land acquisition in 1962, buying title to 131 square miles, the major buildings in KSCs Industrial Area were designed by architect Charles Luckman. Construction began in November 1962, and Kennedy visited the site twice in 1962, on November 29,1963, the facility was given its current name by President Lyndon B. Johnson under Executive Order 11129. Johnsons order joined both the civilian LOC and the military Cape Canaveral station under the designation John F. Kennedy Space Center, spawning some confusion joining the two in the public mind. Located on Merritt Island, Florida, the center is north-northwest of Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic Ocean and it is 34 miles long and roughly six miles wide, covering 219 square miles. KSC is a major central Florida tourist destination and is one hours drive from the Orlando area. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex offers public tours of the center, Center workers can encounter bald eagles, American alligators, wild boars, eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, the endangered Florida panther and Florida manatees. From 1967 through 1973, there were 13 Saturn V launches, the first of two unmanned flights, Apollo 4 on November 9,1967, was also the first rocket launch from KSC. The Saturn Vs first manned launch on December 21,1968 was Apollo 8s lunar orbiting mission, the next two missions tested the Lunar Module, Apollo 9 and Apollo 10. Apollo 11, launched from Pad A on July 16,1969, Apollo 12 followed four months later. From 1970–1972, the Apollo program concluded at KSC with the launches of missions 13 through 17, on May 14,1973, the last Saturn V launch put the Skylab space station in orbit from Pad 39A
10.
Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39
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Launch Complex 39 is a rocket launch site at the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island in Florida, United States. The site and its collection of facilities were built for the Apollo program. As of 2017, only Launch Complex 39A is active, launching SpaceXs Falcon 9. LC-39 is also being modified to support launches of the SpaceXs Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy, as well as NASAs Space Launch System, with a new, smaller pad, C, added to support smaller launches. SpaceX leases Launch Pad 39A from NASA and has modified the pad to support Falcon Heavy launches in 2017 and beyond. NASA began modifying Launch Pad 39B in 2007 to accommodate the now defunct Project Constellation, Pad C was originally planned but never built for Apollo, and would have been a copy of pads 39A and 39B. A smaller pad, designated 39C was constructed from January to June 2015 to accommodate small-class vehicles, NASA launches from LC-39A and 39B have been supervised from the NASA Launch Control Center, located 3 miles from the launch pads. LC-39 is one of launch sites that share radar and tracking services of the Eastern Test Range. During the 1920s, Peter E. Studebaker Jr. son of the automobile magnate, in 1948, the Navy transferred the former Banana River Naval Air Station located south of Cape Canaveral, to the Air Force for use in testing captured German V-2 rockets. The sites location on the East Florida coast was ideal for this purpose in that launches would be over the ocean and this site became the Joint Long Range Proving Ground in 1949, and was renamed Patrick Air Force Base in 1950. The Air Force annexed part of Cape Canaveral to the North in 1951, forming the Air Force Missile Test Center, Missile and rocketry testing and development would take place here through the 1950s. After the creation of NASA in 1958, the CCAFS launch pads were used for NASAs civilian unmanned and manned launches, including those of Project Mercury, in 1961, President Kennedy proposed to Congress the goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. NASA began acquisition of land in 1962, taking title to 131 square miles by outright purchase, on July 1,1962, the site was named the Launch Operations Center. At the time, the highest numbered launch pad on CCAFS was Launch Complex 37 and it was designed to handle launches of the Saturn V rocket, at the time the largest, most powerful rocket then designed, required to take Apollo to the Moon. Initial plans included four pads evenly spaced 8,700 feet apart to damage in the event of an explosion on the pad. Three were scheduled for construction and two would have built at a later date. The numbering of the pads at the time was from north to south, with the northernmost being 39A, Pad 39A was never built, and 39C became 39A in 1963. With todays numbering, 39C would have been north of 39B, Pad 39E would have been due north of the mid-distance between 39C and 39D, with 39E forming the top of a triangle, and equidistant from 39C and 39D
11.
USS New Orleans (LPH-11)
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USS New Orleans was an Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship in the United States Navy. She was the third Navy ship to be so named, and is the first named for the Battle of New Orleans, New Orleans was laid down on 1 March 1966 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was launched on 3 February 1968 and sponsored by Mrs. Arthur A. De la Houssaye and she was commissioned on 16 November 1968 with Captain G. M. New Orleans made her first appearance in the Western Pacific in August 1969 as flagship for Amphibious Ready Group Bravo and her embarked Marine helicopter squadron and battalion leading team were ready to be landed within hours. In October, she hosted the Eighth Vietnamese Awards, later that month, she participated in Keystone Cardinal Operation, a retrograde movement of Marines out of Vietnam. The ships first deployment terminated in March 1970, two other interesting assignments were given to New Orleans prior to her next Western Pacific deployment. In August 1970, she became flagship for Commander First Fleet and provided support for president Richard Nixons visit to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, then, in late 1970, she prepared for the recovery of Apollo 14. On 9 February 1971, she picked up astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa and this deployment was completed in November of that same year. Following a rather extensive yard period, New Orleans began her next Western Pacific deployment on 17 July 1972 under the command of Captain R. W. Carius and she became flagship for Amphibious Squadron Three and later Amphibious Ready Group Alfa under Commodore W. H. Ellis. During late July and early August, New Orleans and her embarked units participated in the Philippine flood relief operations, CTF78, headed by Rear Admiral Brian McCauley, was tasked with de-mining operations for the coast and harbors of North Vietnam. She ceased operations in Haiphong Harbor on 17 April 1973, New Orleans next participated in recovery operations for the Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4 missions. She was also present for the recovery of astronauts Thomas Stafford, Deke Slayton, in 1980, the ship deployed and spent several months in the Indian Ocean during the Iran hostage crisis. She completed an overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in 1981. Deployments and exercises in 1982 and 1983 included RIMPAC82, Exercise Kernel Usher 83-1, Operation Team Spirit 83, from May to December 1984, New Orleans sailed the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, participating in eight major amphibious operations. She also served as the medical and communications support ship for president Ronald Reagans trip to Bali, upon her return to home port, New Orleans participated in two major exercises leading to her thirteenth deployment to the Western Pacific. During this time, she participated in four exercises, including Cobra Gold 88, Valiant Usher 89-1. The ship called on the port of Perth, Australia, during that countrys bicentennial, in 1989, she made port visits to Mazatlán and Seattle, Washington, for the Seattle Sea Fair. She also conducted a relief effort in Cabo San Lucas
12.
Lunar orbit
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In astronomy, lunar orbit refers to the orbit of an object around the Moon. As used in the program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth. The Soviet Union sent the first spacecraft to the vicinity of the Moon and it passed within 6,000 kilometres of the Moons surface, but did not achieve lunar orbit. This craft provided the first pictures of the far side of the Lunar surface, the Soviet Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to actually orbit the Moon in April 1966. It studied micrometeoroid flux, and lunar environment until May 30,1966, the first United States spacecraft to orbit the Moon was Lunar Orbiter 1 on August 14,1966. The first orbit was an elliptical orbit, with an apolune of 1,008 nautical miles, then the orbit was circularized at around 170 nautical miles to obtain suitable imagery. Five such spacecraft were launched over a period of thirteen months, all of which successfully mapped the Moon, the most recent was the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, which became a ballistic impact experiment in 2014. The Apollo programs Command/Service Module remained in a parking orbit while the Lunar Module landed. The combined CSM/LM would first enter an orbit, nominally 170 nautical miles by 60 nautical miles. Orbital periods vary according to the sum of apoapsis and periapsis, the LM began its landing sequence with a Descent Orbit Insertion burn to lower their periapsis to about 50,000 feet, chosen to avoid hitting lunar mountains reaching heights of 20,000 feet. These anomalies are significant enough to cause an orbit to change significantly over the course of several days. The Apollo 11 first manned landing mission employed the first attempt to correct for the perturbation effect. The parking orbit was circularized at 66 nautical miles by 54 nautical miles, but the effect was overestimated by a factor of two, at rendezvous the orbit was calculated to be 63.2 nautical miles by 56.8 nautical miles. The Apollo 15 subsatellite PFS-1 and the Apollo 16 subsatellite PFS-2, PFS-1 ended up in a long-lasting orbit, at 28 degrees inclination, and successfully completed its mission after one and a half years. PFS-2 was placed in a particularly unstable orbital inclination of 11 degrees, list of orbits Mass concentration Orbital mechanics
13.
Apsis
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An apsis is an extreme point in an objects orbit. The word comes via Latin from Greek and is cognate with apse, for elliptic orbits about a larger body, there are two apsides, named with the prefixes peri- and ap-, or apo- added to a reference to the thing being orbited. For a body orbiting the Sun, the point of least distance is the perihelion, the terms become periastron and apastron when discussing orbits around other stars. For any satellite of Earth including the Moon the point of least distance is the perigee, for objects in Lunar orbit, the point of least distance is the pericynthion and the greatest distance the apocynthion. For any orbits around a center of mass, there are the terms pericenter and apocenter, periapsis and apoapsis are equivalent alternatives. A straight line connecting the pericenter and apocenter is the line of apsides and this is the major axis of the ellipse, its greatest diameter. For a two-body system the center of mass of the lies on this line at one of the two foci of the ellipse. When one body is larger than the other it may be taken to be at this focus. Historically, in systems, apsides were measured from the center of the Earth. In orbital mechanics, the apsis technically refers to the distance measured between the centers of mass of the central and orbiting body. However, in the case of spacecraft, the family of terms are used to refer to the orbital altitude of the spacecraft from the surface of the central body. The arithmetic mean of the two limiting distances is the length of the axis a. The geometric mean of the two distances is the length of the semi-minor axis b, the geometric mean of the two limiting speeds is −2 ε = μ a which is the speed of a body in a circular orbit whose radius is a. The words pericenter and apocenter are often seen, although periapsis/apoapsis are preferred in technical usage, various related terms are used for other celestial objects. The -gee, -helion and -astron and -galacticon forms are used in the astronomical literature when referring to the Earth, Sun, stars. The suffix -jove is occasionally used for Jupiter, while -saturnium has very rarely used in the last 50 years for Saturn. The -gee form is used as a generic closest approach to planet term instead of specifically applying to the Earth. During the Apollo program, the terms pericynthion and apocynthion were used when referring to the Moon, regarding black holes, the term peri/apomelasma was used by physicist Geoffrey A. Landis in 1998 before peri/aponigricon appeared in the scientific literature in 2002
14.
Moon
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The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth, being Earths only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, following Jupiters satellite Io, the Moon is second-densest satellite among those whose densities are known. The average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 384,400 km, the Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. It is the second-brightest regularly visible celestial object in Earths sky, after the Sun and its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt. Its prominence in the sky and its cycle of phases have made the Moon an important cultural influence since ancient times on language, calendars, art. The Moons gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and this matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future. The Moons linear distance from Earth is currently increasing at a rate of 3.82 ±0.07 centimetres per year, since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft. The usual English proper name for Earths natural satellite is the Moon, the noun moon is derived from moone, which developed from mone, which is derived from Old English mōna, which ultimately stems from Proto-Germanic *mǣnōn, like all Germanic language cognates. Occasionally, the name Luna is used, in literature, especially science fiction, Luna is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry, the name has been used to denote personification of our moon. The principal modern English adjective pertaining to the Moon is lunar, a less common adjective is selenic, derived from the Ancient Greek Selene, from which is derived the prefix seleno-. Both the Greek Selene and the Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia, the names Luna, Cynthia, and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as apolune, pericynthion, and selenocentric. The name Diana is connected to dies meaning day, several mechanisms have been proposed for the Moons formation 4.51 billion years ago, and some 60 million years after the origin of the Solar System. These hypotheses also cannot account for the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. This hypothesis, although not perfect, perhaps best explains the evidence, eighteen months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips, and Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists, You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to computer, do whatever you have to. Dont come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moons birth, at the 1984 conference at Kona, Hawaii, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most popular. Afterward there were only two groups, the giant impact camp and the agnostics. Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early Solar System, computer simulations of a giant impact have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the present angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system
15.
Fra Mauro formation
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The Fra Mauro formation is a selenological formation on the near side of Earths Moon that served as the landing site for the American Apollo 14 mission in 1971. It is named after the 80-kilometer-diameter crater Fra Mauro, located within it, the formation, as well as Fra Mauro crater, take their names from a 15th-century Italian monk and mapmaker of the same name. Apollo 13 was originally scheduled to land in the Fra Mauro highlands, Fra Mauro is thought to have been formed from ejecta, or debris, from the impact which formed Mare Imbrium. Data from the mission has helped to determine the age of Mare Imbrium. Fra Mauro is a widespread hilly geological area covering large portions of the surface around Mare Imbrium. The area is composed of relatively low ridges and hills. Much of the blanket from the Imbrium impact is covered with debris from younger impacts. Debris found in the formation may have originated from deep beneath the original crust, the petrology of the formation, based on data obtained on Apollo 14, indicates a history of impact and ejection possibly spanning over approximately 500 million years. A relatively recent impact created Cone crater,1,000 feet across and 250 feet deep, one of the main objectives of that mission was to sample the original Imbrium material located on its rim. Samples obtained of the Fra Mauro formation during Apollo 14 suggest that the impact that formed the Imbrium basin is no older than 4.25 billion years, most of the samples returned from the Moon from Fra Mauro are classified as breccias from the vicinity of Cone crater. Studies conducted upon samples from Apollo 14 have shown that the samples do not support the possibility that the site is floored by volcanic rocks. Basalts are sparse in samples of Cone crater ejecta, but somewhat abundant in samples recovered farther west and it is believed that the former seems more likely, as the basalts are similar to the basalts recovered at Cone crater. The Apollo 14 crew members sampled boulders in the ejecta of Cone crater and these boulders appeared to be layered and fractured breccias, contrasting from the appearance of the surrounding area because of their older age. As these boulders increase in size and number closer to Cone crater and these boulders show what is believed to be general characteristics of the Fra Mauro formation, clastic texture, stratification, and jointing or fracturing. As Apollo 14 was an early Apollo mission, landing sites were restricted to regions for technical reasons. After Apollo 12 demonstrated the ability to land at a landing zone, mission planners considered landings in rough. The aborted Apollo 13 mission was scheduled to land at Fra Mauro. After Apollo 13 failed to land, it was decided to re-target Apollo 14 to Fra Mauro, there, Apollo 14 had the objective of sampling ejecta from the Imbrium impact to gain insight into the Moons geologic history
16.
Apollo program
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Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon, Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first manned flight in 1968. It achieved its goal of manned lunar landing, despite the setback of a 1967 Apollo 1 cabin fire that killed the entire crew during a prelaunch test. After the first landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow-on landings with a plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical exploration, Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. The crew returned to Earth safely by using the Lunar Module as a lifeboat for these functions, Apollo set several major human spaceflight milestones. It stands alone in sending manned missions beyond low Earth orbit, Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while the final Apollo 17 mission marked the sixth Moon landing and the ninth manned mission beyond low Earth orbit. The program returned 842 pounds of rocks and soil to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moons composition. The program laid the foundation for NASAs subsequent human spaceflight capability, Apollo also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry and manned spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and computers. The Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in early 1960, while the Mercury capsule could only support one astronaut on a limited Earth orbital mission, Apollo would carry three astronauts. Possible missions included ferrying crews to a station, circumlunar flights. The program was named after the Greek god of light, music, and the sun by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who later said that I was naming the spacecraft like Id name my baby. Silverstein chose the name at home one evening, early in 1960, in July 1960, NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden announced the Apollo program to industry representatives at a series of Space Task Group conferences. Preliminary specifications were laid out for a spacecraft with a mission module cabin separate from the module. On August 30, a feasibility study competition was announced, and on October 25, meanwhile, NASA performed its own in-house spacecraft design studies led by Maxime Faget, to serve as a gauge to judge and monitor the three industry designs. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Soviet Union in the fields of space exploration and missile defense. Beyond military power, Kennedy used aerospace technology as a symbol of prestige, pledging to make the US not first but, first and, first if. Despite Kennedys rhetoric, he did not immediately come to a decision on the status of the Apollo program once he became president and he knew little about the technical details of the space program, and was put off by the massive financial commitment required by a manned Moon landing. On April 12,1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, Kennedy was circumspect in his response to the news, refusing to make a commitment on Americas response to the Soviets
17.
Apollo 13
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Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The mission was commanded by James A. Lovell with John L. Jack Swigert as Command Module Pilot, Swigert was a late replacement for the original CM pilot Ken Mattingly, who was grounded by the flight surgeon after exposure to German measles. The story of the Apollo 13 mission has been dramatized multiple times and that crew was composed of L. Gordon Cooper, Jr, Donn F. Eisele, Edgar D. Mitchell. Deke Slayton, NASAs Director of Flight Crew Operations, never intended to rotate Cooper and Eisele to another mission and he assigned them to the backup crew simply because of a lack of flight-qualified manpower in the Astronaut Office at the time the assignment needed to be made. Slayton felt Cooper had no more than a small chance of receiving the Apollo 13 command, if he did an outstanding job with the assignment. Thus, the original assignment Slayton submitted to his superiors for this flight was, shepard, Jr, Stuart A. Roosa, Edgar D. Mitchell. Seven days before launch, the Backup Lunar Module Pilot, Charlie Duke and this exposed both the prime and backup crews, who trained together. Mattingly was found to be the one of the other five who had not had rubella as a child. Three days before launch, at the insistence of the Flight Surgeon, Mattingly never contracted rubella and was assigned after the mission as Command Module Pilot to Youngs crew, which later flew Apollo 16, the fifth mission to land on the Moon. Vance D. Brand, Jack R. Lousma, Joseph P. Kerwin, Gene Kranz – White Team, Glynn Lunney – Black Team, Milt Windler – Maroon Team, Gerry Griffin – Gold Team. The astronauts mission insignia was sculpted as a medallion titled Steeds of Apollo by Lumen Martin Winter and was struck by the Franklin Mint. Mass, CSM Odyssey 63,470 pounds, LM Aquarius 33,490 pounds, Perigee,99.3 nautical miles, Apogee,100.3 nautical miles, Inclination,31. 817°, Period,88.19 min. The Apollo 13 mission was to explore the Fra Mauro formation, or Fra Mauro highlands and it is a widespread, hilly selenological area thought to be composed of ejecta from the impact that formed Mare Imbrium. The next Apollo mission, Apollo 14, eventually made a flight to Fra Mauro. April 14,1970 UTC Oxygen tank explosion,03,07,53 UTC,173,790.5 nmi from Earth CSM power down, Crew was on board the USS Iwo Jima 45 minutes later. The mission was launched at the time,02,13,00 PM EST on April 11. An anomaly occurred when the second-stage, center engine shut down two minutes early. The engine shutdown was determined to be caused by severe pogo oscillations measured at a strength of 68 g, the vehicles guidance system shut the engine down in response to sensed thrust chamber pressure fluctuations
18.
Apollo 15
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Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission in the United States Apollo program, the fourth to land on the Moon, and the eighth successful manned mission. It was the first of what were termed J missions, long stays on the Moon and it was also the first mission on which the Lunar Roving Vehicle was used. The mission began on July 26,1971, and ended on August 7, at the time, NASA called it the most successful manned flight ever achieved. Commander David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin spent three days on the Moon, including 18½ hours outside the spacecraft on lunar extra-vehicular activity, the mission landed near Hadley rille, in an area of the Mare Imbrium called Palus Putredinus. The crew explored the area using the first lunar rover, which allowed them to travel farther from the Lunar Module than had been possible on missions without the rover. They collected 77 kilograms of lunar surface material, Scott had attended the University of Michigan, but left before graduating to accept an appointment to the United States Military Academy. The crewmen did their work at either the United States Military Academy or the United States Naval Academy. C. Gordon Fullerton Joseph P. Allen Robert A. Parker Karl G.5 km Apogee,171.3 km Inclination,29. 679° Period,87. There had been a rivalry between that prime and backup crew on that mission, with the prime being all United States Navy. Originally Apollo 15 would have been an H mission, like Apollos 12,13 and 14, but on September 2,1970, NASA announced it was canceling what were to be the current incarnations of the Apollo 15 and Apollo 19 missions. To maximize the return from the missions, Apollo 15 would now fly as a J mission and have the honor of carrying the first lunar rover. One of the changes in the training for Apollo 15 was the geology training. Although on previous flights the crews had trained in field geology. Scott and Irwin would train with Leon Silver, a Caltech geologist who on Earth was interested in the Precambrian, Silver had been suggested by Harrison Schmitt as an alternative to the classroom lecturers that NASA had previously used. Among other things, Silver had made important refinements to the methods for dating rocks using the decay of uranium into lead in the late 1950s, crews began to wear mock-ups of the backpacks they would carry, and communicate using walkie-talkies to a CAPCOM in a tent. The CAPCOM was accompanied by a group of geologists unfamiliar with the area who would rely on the descriptions to interpret the findings. The decision to land at Hadley came in September 1970, the Site Selection Committees had narrowed the field down to two sites — Hadley Rille or the crater Marius, near which were a group of low, possibly volcanic, domes. Although not ultimately his decision, the commander of a mission always held great sway, to David Scott the choice was clear, with Hadley, being exploration at its finest
19.
Moon landing
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A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions, the first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Unions Luna 2 mission, on 13 September 1959. The United States Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969, there have been six manned U. S. landings and numerous unmanned landings, with no soft landings happening from 22 August 1976 until 14 December 2013. To date, the United States is the country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon. Since then, twelve Soviet and U. S. spacecraft have used braking rockets to make landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface. In 1966 the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the surface during the Luna 9. The U. S. followed with five unmanned Surveyor soft landings, the Soviet Union achieved the first unmanned lunar soil sample return with the Luna 16 probe on 24 September 1970. This was followed by Luna 20 and Luna 24 in 1972 and 1976, following the failure at launch in 1969 of the first Lunokhod, Luna E-8 No.201, the Luna 17 and Luna 21 were successful unmanned lunar rover missions in 1970 and 1973. Many missions were failures at launch, in addition, several unmanned landing missions achieved the Lunar surface but were unsuccessful, including, Luna 15, Luna 18, and Luna 23 all crashed on landing, and the U. S. Surveyor 4 lost all radio contact only moments before its landing, more recently, other nations have crashed spacecraft on the surface of the Moon at speeds of around 8,000 kilometres per hour, often at precise, planned locations. These have generally been end-of-life lunar orbiters that, because of system degradations, japans lunar orbiter Hiten impacted the Moons surface on 10 April 1993. The European Space Agency performed a controlled impact with their orbiter SMART-1 on 3 September 2006. Indian Space Research Organisation performed a controlled impact with its Moon Impact Probe on 14 November 2008. The MIP was a probe from the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. The Chinese lunar orbiter Change 1 executed a crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009. The rover mission Change 3 was launched on 1 December 2013, a total of twelve men have landed on the Moon. Cernan was the last to step off the lunar surface, all Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the Command Module. The last three missions had a rover for increased mobility, in order to go to the Moon, a spacecraft must first leave the gravity well of the Earth
20.
Extravehicular activity
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Extravehicular activity is any activity done by an astronaut or cosmonaut outside a spacecraft beyond the Earths appreciable atmosphere. On each of the last three of these missions, astronauts also performed deep-space EVAs on the return to Earth, to retrieve film canisters from the outside of the spacecraft, astronauts also used EVA in 1973 to repair launch damage to Skylab, the United States first space station. A Stand-up EVA is where the astronaut does not fully leave a spacecraft and its name derives from the astronaut standing up in the open hatch, usually to record or assist a spacewalking astronaut. EVAs may be tethered, or untethered. S. The Soviet Union/Russia, the United States, and China have conducted EVAs, to support this, and other Apollo objectives, the Gemini program was spun off to develop the capability for astronauts to work outside a two-man Earth orbiting spacecraft. The Soviets were able to launch two Voskhod capsules before U. S. was able to launch its first manned Gemini, by contrast, the Gemini avionics did not require air cooling, allowing the spacewalking astronaut to exit and re-enter the depressurized cabin through an open hatch. Because of this, the American and Soviet space programs developed different definitions for the duration of an EVA, the Soviet definition begins when the outer airlock hatch is open and the cosmonaut is in vacuum. An American EVA began when the astronaut had at least his head outside the spacecraft, the USA has changed its EVA definition since. The first EVA was performed on March 18,1965 by Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, carrying a white metal backpack containing 45 minutes worth of breathing and pressurization oxygen, Leonov had no means to control his motion other than pulling on his 15.35 m tether. At the end of his walk, the suit stiffening caused a more serious problem. He improperly entered the airlock head-first and got stuck sideways and he could not get back in without reducing the pressure in his suit, risking the bends. This added another 12 minutes to his time in vacuum, and it would be almost four years before the Soviets tried another EVA. They misrepresented to the press how difficult Leonov found it to work in weightlessness, the first American spacewalk was performed on June 3,1965, by Edward H. White, II from the second manned Gemini flight, Gemini 4, for 21 minutes. White was tethered to the spacecraft, and his oxygen was supplied through a 25-foot umbilical and he was the first to control his motion in space with a Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit, which worked well but only carried enough propellant for 20 seconds. White found his tether useful for limiting his distance from the spacecraft but difficult to use for moving around, no EVAs were planned on the next three Gemini flights. The next EVA was planned to be made by David Scott on Gemini 8, astronauts on the next three Gemini flights, performed several EVAs, but none was able to successfully work for long periods outside the spacecraft without tiring and overheating. Cernan attempted but failed to test an Air Force Astronaut Maneuvering Unit which included a self-contained oxygen system, on November 13,1966, Edwin Buzz Aldrin became the first to successfully work in space without tiring, on the Gemini 12 last flight. Aldrin worked outside the spacecraft for 2 hours and 6 minutes, on January 16,1969, Soviet cosmonauts Aleksei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov transferred from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4, which were docked together
21.
Moon rock
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Moon rock or lunar rock is rock that is found on the Earths moon, or lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon. During the six Apollo landing missions,2,415 samples weighing 380.96 kilograms were collected, three Luna spacecraft returned with 326 grams of samples. Since 1980, over 120 lunar meteorites representing about 60 different meteorite fall events have been collected on Earth, with a mass of over 48 kilograms. Rocks from the Moon have been measured by radiometric dating techniques and they range in age from about 3.16 billion years old for the basaltic samples derived from the lunar maria, up to about 4.44 billion years old for rocks derived from the highlands. Based on the age dating technique of crater counting, the youngest basaltic eruptions are believed to have occurred about 1.2 billion years ago, in contrast, the oldest ages of rocks from the Earth are between 3.8 and 4.28 billion years old. Almost all lunar rocks are depleted in volatiles and are lacking in hydrated minerals common in Earth rocks. In some regards, lunar rocks are related to Earths rocks in their isotopic composition of the element oxygen. The Apollo moon rocks were collected using a variety of tools, including hammers, rakes, scoops, tongs, most were photographed prior to collection to record the condition in which they were found. They were placed inside sample bags and then a Special Environmental Sample Container for return to the Earth to protect them from contamination, in contrast to the Earth, large portions of the lunar crust appear to be composed of rocks with high concentrations of the mineral anorthite. The mare basalts have relatively high iron values, furthermore, some of the mare basalts have very high levels of titanium. The main repository for the Apollo Moon rocks is the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, for safe keeping, there is also a smaller collection stored at White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Most of the rocks are stored in nitrogen to keep free of moisture. They are only handled indirectly, using special tools, Moon rocks collected during the course of lunar exploration are currently considered priceless. In 2002, a safe, containing samples of lunar. The samples were recovered, in 2003, during the court case, naturally transported Moon rocks, although expensive, are widely sold and traded among private collectors. In 1970, US president Richard Nixon gave presentation samples of Moon rock brought back by Apollo 11 as gifts to 135 countries and 50 US states. Composed of many fragments, of sizes, and many shapes, probably from all parts of the Moon, perhaps billions of years old. This rock was later labeled sample 70017, president Nixon ordered the distribution of fragments of the rock to 135 foreign heads of state and the 50 U. S. states
22.
Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package
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Apollo 11 left a smaller package called the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package, or EASEP. The instrumentation and experiments that would comprise ALSEP were decided in February 1966, P. Sonett, Marshall Space Flight Center, Jerry Modisette. Medium-Energy Solar Wind, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, C. W. Snyder, suprathermal Ion Detection, Rice University, J. W. Freeman, Jr. Marshall Space Flight Center, Curt Michel. Lunar Heat Flow Management, Columbia University, M. Langseth, Yale University, low-Energy Solar Wind, Rice University, B. J. OBrien. Active Lunar Seismic Experiment, Stanford University, R. L. Kovach, United States Geological Survey, the ALSEP was built and tested by Bendix Aerospace in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The instruments were designed to run autonomously after the astronauts left, thermal control was achieved by passive elements as well as power dissipation resistors and heaters. Data collected from the instruments were converted into a telemetry format, the ALSEP was stored in the LMs Scientific Equipment Bay in two separate subpackages. The base of the first subpackage formed the Central Station while the base of the second subpackage was part of the RTG, a subpallet was also attached to the second subpackage which usually carried one or two of the experiments and the antenna gimbal assembly. On Apollo 12,13, and 14, the second subpackage also stored the Lunar Hand Tool Carrier, the exact deployment of experiments differed by mission. The following pictures show a typical procedure from Apollo 12, each ALSEP station had some common elements. Each mission had a different array of experiments, because of the risk of an early abort on the Moon, geologists persuaded NASA to permit only experiments that could be set up or completed in 10 minutes. As a result, Apollo 11 did not leave a full ALSEP package, since there was only one 2 hour 40 minute EVA planned, the crew would not have enough time to deploy a full ALSEP, which usually took one to two hours to deploy. Both packages were stored in the LMs SEQ bay, engineers designed the EASEP to deploy with one squeeze handle, and the Laser Ranging Retro Reflector also deployed within ten minutes. Despite the simpler design, the seismometer was sensitive enough to detect Neil Armstrongs movements during sleep, the antenna gimbal assembly was stored on the subpallet. The stool for the PSE, the ALSEP tools, carrybar, because of the aborted landing, none of the experiments were deployed. However, the Apollo 13 S-IVB stage was deliberately crashed on the Moon to provide a signal for the Apollo 12 PSE, the antenna gimbal assembly was stored on the first subpackage. The stool for the PSE, the ALSEP tools, carrybar, the HTC was stored on the second subpackage. The antenna gimbal assembly was stored on the subpallet, the stool for the PSE, the ALSEP tools, carrybar, and HTC was stored on the second subpackage
23.
Golf ball
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Golf Ball is a 1962 painting by Roy Lichtenstein. It is considered to fall within the art movement known as Pop art and it depicts a single sphere with patterned, variously directional semi-circular grooves. The work is associated with black-and-white Piet Mondrian works. It is one of the works that was presented at Lichtensteins first solo exhibition, when Lichtenstein had his first solo show at the Leo Castelli Gallery in February 1962, it sold out before opening. Golf Ball was one of the works that Lichtenstein exhibited, later, Lichtenstein included Golf Ball in Still Life with Goldfish Bowl,1972, and Go for Baroque,1979. The painting exemplifies the novel superimposition of abstraction and figuration, the work also represents abstraction as a result of elimination of three-dimensionality, chiaroscuro and a landscape context. Alternatively, it may have been a reference to another of Mondrians Pre-World War I black and white paintings, such as Pier. This complementary source art was common of Lichtensteins 1960s work on frequently advertised objects, Lichtenstein describes his sources as Mondrian Plus and Minus paintings. In 1962, Lichtenstein produced several works in which he depicted. the repetitive regularity of their patterned surfaces, Golf Ball is a depiction of a golf ball using a Mondrianesque set of black and white arcs to depict the three-dimensionality of the subject. However, the neutral background manipulates the image and diminishes the volumetric characteristics by stripping the viewer of his perspective and it is described as a pure graphic mark on a gray ground as well as a totality of abstract marks. Lichtenstein described Golf Ball as the antithesis of what was thought of as having art meaning because of its lack of perspective, Golf Ball is an example of the emerging confident authority of his single-image paintings with its Rock of Gibraltar-like thereness. The frontal and centralized presentations directness lacked the sophistication to market the images of household goods for advertising but was considered daring artistically, the black and white painting on a grey background challenges both the natural perception of realism and the boundaries of abstraction. The work gives us both the impression of space and the fact of surface, furthermore, the painting leverages tensions regarding three-dimensional representation in two dimensions resulting from spatial ambiguities caused by the lack of cues in the background. Diane Waldman refers to the subject of Golf Ball as a freestanding form and this is one of the figures in which Lichtenstein demonstrates his draftsman experience. This work demonstrated his maturation as an artist with standardized contours that present uniformity and this is a strong example of presenting the tension of volumetric potential balanced against two-dimensional presentation. It also shows how placement against a neutral background diminishes three-dimensionality, despite Lichtensteins techniques to display/minimize dimensionality, the viewer imposes his or her own visualization experiences on the painting, which minimizes the effect of spatial illusion. 1962 in art Lichtenstein Foundation website
24.
Apollo 16
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Apollo 16 was the tenth manned mission in the United States Apollo space program, the fifth and penultimate to land on the Moon and the first to land in the lunar highlands. The second of the so-called J missions, it was crewed by Commander John Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke and Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly. Launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12,54 PM EST on April 16,1972, the mission lasted 11 days,1 hour, and 51 minutes, and concluded at 2,45 PM EST on April 27. Young and Duke spent 71 hours—just under three days—on the lunar surface, during which they conducted three extra-vehicular activities or moonwalks, totaling 20 hours and 14 minutes, the pair drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle, the second produced and used on the Moon,26.7 kilometers. Mattingly spent 126 hours and 64 revolutions in lunar orbit, after Young and Duke rejoined Mattingly in lunar orbit, the crew released a subsatellite from the Service Module. During the return trip to Earth, Mattingly performed a spacewalk to retrieve several film cassettes from the exterior of the Service Module. Samples from the Descartes Formation and the Cayley Formation disproved a hypothesis that the formations were volcanic in origin and he never contracted the illness, but was nevertheless removed from the crew and replaced by his backup, Jack Swigert, three days before the launch. Young, a captain in the United States Navy, had flown on three prior to Apollo 16, Gemini 3, Gemini 10 and Apollo 10, which orbited the Moon. One of 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966, Duke had never flown in space before Apollo 16 and he served on the support crew of Apollo 10 and was a Capsule Communicator for Apollo 11. Although not officially announced, the backup crew consisted of Fred W. Haise, William R. Pogue and Gerald P. Carr. However, after the cancellations of Apollos 18 and 19 were finalized in September 1970 this crew would not rotate to a mission as planned. Anthony W. England Karl G. Henize Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr. Robert F. Overmyer Donald H. Overlaying the shield is a gold NASA vector, orbiting the Moon. On its gold-outlined blue border, there are 16 stars, representing the number. The insignia was designed from ideas submitted by the crew of the mission. Apollo 16 was the second of the Apollo type J missions, featuring the use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, increased scientific capability, Apollo 14 had visited and sampled a ridge of material that had been ejected by the impact that created the Mare Imbrium impact basin. Likewise, Apollo 15 had also sampled material in the region of Imbrium and they had hoped that scientific output from the Apollo 16 mission would provide an answer. Two locations on the Moon were given consideration for exploration by the Apollo 16 expedition, the Descartes Highlands region west of Mare Nectaris. The Cayley Formations age was approximated to be about the same as Mare Imbrium based on the frequency of impact craters
25.
Germination
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Germination is the process by which a plant grows from a seed. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, in addition, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of hyphae from fungal spores, is also germination. Thus, in a sense, germination can be thought of as anything expanding into greater being from a small existence or germ. The seed of a plant is a small package produced in a fruit or cone after the union of male and female reproductive cells. All fully developed seeds contain an embryo and, in most plant species some store of food reserves, some plants produce varying numbers of seeds that lack embryos, these are called empty seeds and never germinate. Dormant seeds are seeds that do not germinate because they are subject to external environmental conditions that prevent the initiation of metabolic processes. Under proper conditions, the seed begins to germinate and the embryonic tissues resume growth, Seed germination depends on both internal and external conditions. The most important external factors include right temperature, water, oxygen or air, various plants require different variables for successful seed germination. Often this depends on the seed variety and is closely linked to the ecological conditions of a plants natural habitat. For some seeds, their future germination response is affected by environmental conditions during seed formation, mature seeds are often extremely dry and need to take in significant amounts of water, relative to the dry weight of the seed, before cellular metabolism and growth can resume. Most seeds need enough water to moisten the seeds but not enough to soak them, the uptake of water by seeds is called imbibition, which leads to the swelling and the breaking of the seed coat. When seeds are formed, most plants store a reserve with the seed, such as starch, proteins. This food reserve provides nourishment to the growing embryo, when the seed imbibes water, hydrolytic enzymes are activated which break down these stored food resources into metabolically useful chemicals. Oxygen is required by the seed for metabolism. Oxygen is used in respiration, the main source of the seedlings energy until it grows leaves. Oxygen is a gas that is found in soil pore spaces, if a seed is buried too deeply within the soil or the soil is waterlogged. Temperature affects cellular metabolic and growth rates, Seeds from different species and even seeds from the same plant germinate over a wide range of temperatures. Seeds often have a range within which they will germinate
26.
Moon tree
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Moon trees are trees grown from 500 seeds taken into orbit around the Moon by Stuart Roosa during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. Seeds for the experiment were chosen from five different types of trees, Loblolly Pine, Sycamore, Sweetgum, Redwood, and Douglas Fir. After the flight the seeds were sent to the southern Forest Service station in Gulfport, Mississippi, nearly all the seeds germinated successfully, and the Forest Service had some 420 seedlings after a few years. Some of these were planted alongside their counterparts, which were specifically set aside as controls. After over twenty years there is no difference between the two classes of trees. Most of the Moon trees were given away in 1975 and 1976 to many state forestry organizations, since the trees were all of southern and western species, not all states received trees. A Loblolly Pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil, Switzerland, an asterisk denotes a tree that is no longer alive. Moon rock The Moon Trees Houston, We Have Moon Trees, peeling Back the Bark blog, the Forest History Society. Race Against Time to Find Apollo 14s Lost Voyagers, Moon Trees
27.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
28.
Astronaut
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An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists. Starting in the 1950s up to 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, with the suborbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created, the commercial astronaut. The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed an altitude of 100 kilometers. In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 50 miles are awarded astronaut wings. As of 17 November 2016, a total of 552 people from 36 countries have reached 100 km or more in altitude, of which 549 reached low Earth orbit or beyond. Of these,24 people have traveled beyond Low Earth orbit, to either lunar or trans-lunar orbit or to the surface of the moon, the three astronauts who have not reached low Earth orbit are spaceplane pilots Joe Walker, Mike Melvill, and Brian Binnie. As of 17 November 2016, under the U. S. definition 558 people qualify as having reached space, of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded 50 miles in altitude, only one exceeded 100 kilometers. Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days in space, as of 2016, the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Gennady Padalka, who has spent 879 days in space. Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman,377 days, dryden preferred cosmonaut, on the grounds that flights would occur in the cosmos, while the astro prefix suggested flight to the stars. Most NASA Space Task Group members preferred astronaut, which survived by common usage as the preferred American term, when the Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, they chose a term which anglicizes to cosmonaut. In English-speaking nations, a space traveler is called an astronaut. The term derives from the Greek words ástron, meaning star, the first known use of the term astronaut in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his short story The Deaths Head Meteor in 1930. The word itself had been known earlier, for example, in Percy Gregs 1880 book Across the Zodiac, astronaut referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de lInfini of J. -H, rosny aîné, the word astronautique was used. The word may have inspired by aeronaut, an older term for an air traveler first applied to balloonists. An early use in a publication is Eric Frank Russells poem The Astronaut in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society. NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond, NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps
29.
Project Mercury
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Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit, taken over from the U. S. Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted twenty unmanned developmental flights, and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from the god of travel in Roman mythology, cost $277 million in 1965 US dollars, the astronauts were collectively known as the Mercury Seven, and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a 7 by its pilot. The Space Race began with the 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 and this came as a shock to the American public, and led to the creation of NASA to expedite existing U. S. space exploration efforts, and place most of them under civilian control. After the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958, the Soviet Union put the first human, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into a single orbit aboard Vostok 1 on April 12,1961. Shortly after this, on May 5, the U. S. launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, Soviet Gherman Titov followed with a day-long orbital flight in August 1961. The U. S. reached its goal on February 20,1962. When Mercury ended in May 1963, both nations had sent six people into space, but the Soviets led the U. S. in total spent in space. The Mercury space capsule was produced by McDonnell Aircraft, and carried supplies of water, food, Mercury flights were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, on launch vehicles modified from the Redstone and Atlas D missiles. The capsule was fitted with an escape rocket to carry it safely away from the launch vehicle in case of a failure. The flight was designed to be controlled from the ground via the Manned Space Flight Network, small retrorockets were used to bring the spacecraft out of its orbit, after which an ablative heat shield protected it from the heat of atmospheric reentry. Finally, a parachute slowed the craft for a water landing, both astronaut and capsule were recovered by helicopters deployed from a U. S. Navy ship. After a slow start riddled with humiliating mistakes, the Mercury project gained popularity, its missions followed by millions on radio, Project Mercury was officially approved on October 7,1958 and publicly announced on December 17. Originally called Project Astronaut, President Dwight Eisenhower felt that too much attention to the pilot. Instead, the name Mercury was chosen from classical mythology, which had already lent names to rockets like the Greek Atlas and Roman Jupiter for the SM-65 and it absorbed military projects with the same aim, such as the Air Force Man In Space Soonest. Following the end of World War II, an arms race evolved between the U. S. and the Soviet Union. The rocket technology in turn enabled both sides to develop Earth-orbiting satellites for communications, and gathering data and intelligence. Americans were shocked when the Soviet Union placed the first satellite into orbit in October 1957, a month later, the Soviets launched Sputnik 2, carrying a dog into orbit
30.
Mercury Seven
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The Mercury Seven were the group of seven Mercury astronauts announced by NASA on April 9,1959. They are also referred to as the Original Seven or Astronaut Group 1 and they piloted the manned spaceflights of the Mercury program from May 1961 to May 1963. These seven original American astronauts were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. Members of the group flew on all classes of NASA manned orbital spacecraft of the 20th century — Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Gus Grissom died in 1967, in the Apollo 1 fire. The others all survived past retirement from service, John Glenn went on to become a U. S. senator, and flew on the Shuttle 36 years later to become the oldest person to fly in space. He was the last living member of the class when he died in 2016, although NASA planned an open competition for its first astronauts, President Dwight D. Eisenhower insisted that all candidates be test pilots. Because of the space inside the Mercury spacecraft, candidates could be no taller than 5 feet 11 inches. Other requirements included an age under 40, a Bachelors degree or equivalent,1,500 hours of flying time, the tests included spending hours on treadmills and tilt tables, submerging their feet in ice water, three doses of castor oil, and five enemas. Six candidates were rejected as too tall for the planned spacecraft, another 33 failed or dropped out during the first phase of exams. Four more refused to part in the second round of tests. From the 18, the first seven NASA astronauts were chosen, each a superb physical specimen with an IQ above 130, and the ability to function well both as part of a team and solo. Grissom, Cooper, and Slayton were Air Force pilots, Shepard, Carpenter, and Schirra were Navy pilots, all seven attended college or military academies in the 1940s. Shepard exceeded the requirement by earning a Master of Arts degree in 1957 at the Naval War College. Glenn and Carpenter, however, did not technically meet all of their schools degree requirements, NASA introduced the astronauts in Washington on April 9,1959. Two hundred reporters overflowed the room used for the announcement and alarmed the astronauts, to the astronauts surprise, the reporters asked about their personal lives instead of war records or flight experience, or about the details of Mercury. After Glenn responded by speaking eloquently on God, country, and family the others followed his example, and the reporters lustily applauded them. Malcolm Scott Carpenter, U. S. Navy MA-7 – May 1962 – Second orbital Mercury mission Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. U. S. U. S. S. While busy with duties and the intense training for their flights
31.
Gordon Cooper
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Leroy Gordon Gordo Cooper Jr. Cooper piloted the longest and final Mercury spaceflight in 1963. He was the first American to sleep in space during that 34-hour mission and was the last American to be launched alone to conduct an entirely solo orbital mission, in 1965, Cooper flew as Command Pilot of Gemini 5. Cooper was born on March 6,1927, in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to parents Leroy Gordon Cooper Sr. and he was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second highest rank, Life Scout. Cooper attended Jefferson Elementary School and Shawnee High School in Shawnee, Oklahoma and he moved to Murray, Kentucky, about two months before graduating with his class in 1945 when his father, Leroy Cooper Sr. a World War I veteran, was called back into service. He graduated from Murray High School in 1945, after he learned that the Army and Navy flying schools were not taking any candidates the year he graduated from high school, he decided to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. Cooper left for MCRD Parris Island as soon as he graduated, however, World War II had ended before he could get into combat. He was assigned then to the Naval Academy Preparatory School and was an alternate for an appointment to Annapolis, the man who was the primary appointee made the grade so Cooper was reassigned in the Marines on guard duty in Washington, D. C. He was serving with the Presidential Honor Guard in Washington when he was released from duty along with other Marine reservists, following his discharge from the Marine Corps, he went to Hawaii to live with his parents. His father was assigned to Hickam Field at the time and he started attending the University of Hawaii, and there he met his first wife, the former Trudy B. Olson of Seattle, Washington. She was quite active in flying, the only Mercury wife to have a pilots license and they were married on August 29,1947 in Honolulu when Gordon was 20. They continued to live there for two years while he continued his university studies. Cooper transferred his commission to the United States Air Force in 1949, was placed on duty and received flight training at Perrin Air Force Base, Texas and Williams AFB. Coopers first flight assignment came in 1950 at Landstuhl Air Base, West Germany and he later became flight commander of the 525th Fighter Bomber Squadron. While in Germany, he attended the European Extension of the University of Maryland. Returning to the United States in 1954, he studied for two years at the U. S. Air Force Institute of Technology in Ohio, and he corrected several deficiencies in the F-106, saving the U. S. Air Force a great deal of money. Cooper logged more than 7,000 hours of flight time and he flew all types of commercial and general aviation airplanes and helicopters. While at Edwards, Cooper was intrigued to read an announcement saying that a contract had been awarded to McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis, Missouri, to build a space capsule. Shortly after this he was called to Washington, D. C. for a NASA briefing on Project Mercury, Cooper went through the selection process with the other 109 pilots and was not surprised when he was accepted as the youngest of the first seven American astronauts
32.
Apollo 10
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Apollo 10 was the fourth manned mission in the United States Apollo space program, and the second to orbit the Moon. Launched on May 18,1969, it was the F mission, the Lunar Module followed a descent orbit to within 8.4 nautical miles of the lunar surface, at the point where powered descent for landing would normally begin. Its success enabled the first landing to be attempted on the Apollo 11 mission two months later. According to the 2002 Guinness World Records, Apollo 10 set the record for the highest speed attained by a vehicle,39,897 km/h on May 26,1969. The missions call signs included the names of the Peanuts characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz also drew some mission-related artwork for NASA. Charles M. Duke, Jr. Joseph H. Engle James B. Irwin Jack R. Thomas P. Stafford had flown on Gemini 6 and Gemini 9, John W. Young had flown on Gemini 3 and Gemini 10, and Eugene A. Cernan had flown with Stafford on Gemini 9. In addition, Apollo 10 was the only Saturn V flight from Launch Complex 39B, vehicle on the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project. It was on this flight that John Young became the first human to fly solo around the Moon, the Apollo 10 crew are also the humans who have traveled the farthest away from home, some 408,950 kilometers from their homes and families in Houston. The Apollo 10 crew reached the farthest point in their orbit around the far side of the Moon at about the same time Earths rotation put Houston nearly a full Earth diameter away. By the normal rotation in place during Apollo, the crew would have been scheduled to fly on Apollo 13. However, Alan Shepard was given the Apollo 13 command slot instead, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. Commander of the Apollo 10 backup crew, was enraged and resigned from NASA. Later, Shepards crew was forced to switch places with Jim Lovells tentative Apollo 14 crew, eisele, despite his issues with management, was always intended for future assignment to the Apollo Applications Program and not a lunar mission. This dress rehearsal for a Moon landing brought the Apollo Lunar Module to 8.4 nautical miles from the lunar surface, at the point where powered descent would begin on the actual landing. Practicing this approach orbit would refine knowledge of the gravitational field needed to calibrate the powered descent guidance system to within 1 nautical mile needed for a landing. Earth-based observations, unmanned spacecraft, and Apollo 8 had respectively allowed calibration to within 200 nautical miles,20 nautical miles, the lowest measured point in the trajectory was 47,400 feet above the lunar surface at 21,29,43 UTC. Apollo 10 was the first mission to carry a television camera inside the spacecraft. After reaching lunar orbit three days later, Young remained in the Command Module Charlie Brown while Stafford and Cernan entered the LM Snoopy and they surveyed the landing site in the Sea of Tranquility, then separated the descent stage and fired the ascent engine to return to Charlie Brown
33.
Mercury-Atlas 9
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Mercury-Atlas 9 was the final manned space mission of the U. S. Mercury program, launched on May 15,1963 from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, the spacecraft, named Faith 7, completed 22 Earth orbits before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, piloted by astronaut Gordon Cooper, then an Air Force major. 130-D, and the Mercury spacecraft was No.20 and this mission marks the last time an American was launched alone to conduct an entirely solo orbital mission. Chris Kraft—Red team John Hodge—Blue team Mass,3,000 pounds Perigee,161 km Apogee,267 km Inclination,32. 5° Period,88. NASA had pushed the first-generation Mercury hardware far enough, and taking chances on another longer mission was not warranted, instead. Manned Spacecraft Center officials, however, believed that the Mercury team should be given the chance to test man in space for a full day, in September 1962, NASA concluded negotiations with McDonnell to modify four Mercury spacecraft to a configuration that supported a one-day mission. Such changes to the spacecraft included the removal of the periscope, a redundant set of thrusters, in November 1962, Gordon Cooper was chosen to pilot the MA-9 mission and Alan Shepard was picked as backup. On April 22,1963, Atlas booster 130-D and Mercury spacecraft #20 were stacked on the pad at Launch Complex 14. Until the investigating committees released their findings and cleared the Atlas D of guilt by association, five Atlas failures occurred during the first three months of 1963. NASA were therefore wise to not let their guard down even with Mercurys recent success, when Atlas 130D received its factory rollout on January 30, it was found to have damaged wiring and had to be sent back for repairs. At his first press conference on February 8, Gordon Cooper admitted to not knowing much about the booster problems, the numerous added equipment and consumables for the day-long mission boosted the weight of Faith 7 considerably, it now weighed over 3000 pounds. On March 15, the Atlas was rolled out of the factory a second time and passed tests with flying colors, aside from the new propulsion system, the booster received some slight modifications to the engine offsets to counteract the potentially dangerous roll that occurred during Schirras launch. When Cooper boarded Faith 7 at 6,36 am on the morning of May 14, he found a little gift that had been left for him. Alan Shepard, knowing that Cooper would have a new version of the containment device that Shepard did not have on his Mercury-Redstone 3 flight, had left behind a toilet plunger as a joke. Instructions on the said, Remove Before Launch. The gift did not make the trip, various problems with radar in Bermuda and the diesel engine that rolled back the gantry caused the launch to be cancelled until May 15. EST, May 15,1963, Faith 7 was launched from Launch Complex 14, at T+60 seconds, the Atlas started its pitch program. Shortly afterward, MA-9 passed through max Q, at T+2 minutes 14 seconds Cooper felt BECO and staging
34.
Eugene Cernan
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Captain Eugene Andrew Gene Cernan was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. On Apollo 17, Cernan became the person to walk on the Moon and, as the last man to re-enter the Lunar Module. He traveled into space three times, as Pilot of Gemini 9A in June 1966, as Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 10 in May 1969, and as Commander of Apollo 17 in December 1972, the final Apollo lunar landing. Cernan was also a crew member for the Gemini 12, Apollo 7. Cernan was born on March 14,1934, in Chicago, Illinois and his father was of Slovak descent and his mother was of Czech ancestry. Cernan grew up in the towns of Bellwood and Maywood. Cernan was a Boy Scout and earned the rank of Second Class, after his sophomore year, he accepted a partial Navy ROTC scholarship, which also required him to serve aboard the USS Roanoke between his junior and senior years. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1956 and his hobbies included love for horses, sports, hunting, fishing, and flying. Cernan was commissioned a U. S. Navy Ensign through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps at Purdue, in 1958, Cernan became a Naval Aviator, flying FJ-4 Fury and A-4 Skyhawk jets in Attack Squadrons 126 and 113. Upon completion of his assignment in Miramar, California, he finished his education in 1963 at the U. S. Naval Postgraduate School with a Master of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering. Throughout his career, Cernan logged more than 5,000 hours of flying time, in addition to his flight hours, Cernan also landed on aircraft carriers 200 times. Cernan was selected among the group of NASA astronauts in October 1963 by NASA to participate in the Gemini. Cernan was originally selected as pilot for Gemini 9 with Thomas Stafford. When the prime crew was killed in the crash of NASA T-38A901 at Lambert Field on February 28,1966 and this was the first time the backup crew had become the flight crew. However, the crew performed a rendezvous that simulated procedures that would be used in Apollo 10, the first optical rendezvous, and a lunar orbit abort rendezvous. Cernan performed the second American EVA, but overexertion due to lack of limb restraints prevented testing of the AMU, Cernan was also a backup Pilot for the Gemini 12 mission. Cernan turned down the opportunity to walk on the Moon as Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 16, after the cancellation of Apollo 18, NASA decided to send a scientist, Harrison Schmitt, to the Moon. This decision meant the original Lunar Module pilot, Joe Engle, Cernan fought to keep his crew together, however, public pressure from the scientific community cemented Schmitts position on the crew
35.
Ronald Evans (astronaut)
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Ronald Ellwin Ron Evans Jr. was an American naval officer and aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut, also one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon. During the flight, he orbited the Moon as his two crewmates descended to the surface, consequently, he is the last person to orbit the Moon alone and holds the record for the longest lunar orbit by a human at 148 hours. In 1975 Evans served as backup Command Module Pilot for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission, Evans was born on November 10,1933, in St. Francis, Kansas, to parents Clarence Ellwin Evans and Marie A. Evans. He had two siblings, Larry Joe Evans and Jay Evans and he was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second highest rank, Life Scout. S. He was a member of Tau Beta Pi, Society of Sigma Xi, in June 1957 he completed flight training after receiving his commission as an Ensign through the Navy ROTC Program at the University of Kansas. From 1964 to 1966 Evans was on sea duty in the Pacific, assigned to Fighter Squadron, during this assignment, he completed a seven-month tour of duty flying combat missions in Vietnam War. He was with VF-51 when he was selected as an astronaut in April 1966, Evans logged 5,500 hours of flight time, including 5,000 hours in jet aircraft. Evans was one of the 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966 and he served as a member of the astronaut support crews for the Apollo 7 and Apollo 11 flights, and as backup Command Module Pilot for Apollo 14. Evans first and only space flight was as Command Module Pilot of Apollo 17 and he was accompanied by Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. He logged 301 hours and 51 minutes in space,1 hour and 6 minutes of which were spent in extravehicular activity and he holds the record of most time spent in lunar orbit, six days and four hours. Evans was later backup Command Module Pilot for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission. Evans retired from the U. S. Navy as Captain on April 30,1976, with 21 years of service and he served as a member of the operations and training group within the Astronaut Office, responsible for launch and ascent phases of the Space Shuttle flight program. Evans retired from NASA in March 1977 to pursue a career in the coal industry, later he worked with Western American Energy Corporation in Scottsdale, Arizona and was Director of Space Systems Marketing for Sperry Flight Systems. He died in his sleep of an attack in Scottsdale, Arizona, on April 7,1990, and was survived by his widow Jan, his daughter, Jaime D. Evans. He received a University of Kansas Distinguished Service Citation in 1973 and he was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1983, and the U. S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on October 4,1997
36.
Joe Engle
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Joe Henry Engle, is an American pilot who served in the United States Air Force, test pilot for the North American X-15 program, aeronautical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut. As of 2017, he is the only surviving X-15 pilot, Engle test-flew the joint NASA-Air Force X-15 rocket airplane. During the course of testing, Engle earned his USAF Astronaut Wings and he subsequently became one of the first astronauts in the Space Shuttle program, having flight tested the Space Shuttle Enterprise in 1977. He was Commander of the orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981. Engle was born on August 26,1932, in Chapman and he attended primary and secondary schools in Chapman, Kansas, and he graduated from Dickinson County High School in 1950. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Kansas in 1955 and he was married to Mary Catherine Lawrence of Mission Hills, Kansas and has two grown children and one stepchild. He is currently married to Jeanie Carter Engle of Houston, Texas, engles recreational interests include flying, big game hunting, backpacking, and athletics. Engle was active as a Boy Scout and earned the rank of First Class and he was a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. Engle received his commission in the U. S. Air Force through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Kansas, while in school he was a member of the Professional Engineering Fraternity Theta Tau, and decided to become a test pilot. While working at Cessna Aircraft during the summer, he learned how to fly from a fellow draftsman, Engle entered flying school in 1957, and received his pilot wings in 1958. He flew the F-100 Super Sabre with the 474th Fighter Day Squadron, engles parents witnessed his flight of 29 June 1965, which exceeded an altitude of 50 miles and qualified him for astronaut wings, he again exceeded 50 miles twice during his career of 16 flights. Engle has flown over 185 different types of aircraft during his career, Engle was one of 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966. He served on the crew for Apollo 10. According to Engle, Deke Slayton asked him whether he would prefer to fly on Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, Engle was Commander of one of the two crews that flew the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Test Flights from June through October 1977. The Space Shuttle Enterprise was carried to 25,000 feet on top of the Boeing 747 carrier aircraft and he was the backup Commander for STS-1, the first orbital test flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. Together with pilot Richard Truly he flew as Commander on the flight of the Space Shuttle. He was also mission commander on STS-51-I and logged over 225 hours in space, Engle is the only human being to have flown two different types of winged vehicles in space, the X-15 and the Space Shuttle. He is the astronaut to have manually flown the Shuttle through reentry
37.
Harrison Schmitt
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Harrison Hagan Jack Schmitt is an American geologist, retired NASA astronaut, university professor, former U. S. senator from New Mexico, and the most recent living person to have walked on the Moon. He is also the last living member of Apollo 17. In December 1972, as one of the crew on board Apollo 17, as Apollo 17 was the last of the Apollo missions, he also became the twelfth and second youngest person to set foot on the Moon, and the second-to-last person to step off of the Moon. Schmitt also remains the first and only professional scientist to have flown beyond low Earth orbit, Schmitt resigned from NASA in August 1975 in order to run for election to the United States Senate as a member from New Mexico. As the Republican candidate in the 1976 election, he defeated the two-term Democratic incumbent Joseph Montoya, born in Santa Rita, New Mexico, Schmitt grew up in nearby Silver City, and he is a graduate of the Western High School. He received a B. S. degree in geology from the California Institute of Technology in 1957 and he received a Ph. D. in geology from Harvard University in 1964, based on his geological field studies in Norway. Following his selection, Schmitt spent his first year at Air Force UPT learning to become a jet pilot, after each of the landing missions, he participated in the examination and evaluation of the returned lunar samples and helped the crews with the scientific aspects of their mission reports. Schmitt spent considerable time becoming proficient in the CSM and LM systems, in March 1970 he became the first of the scientist-astronauts to be assigned to space flight, joining Richard F. Gordon, Jr. and Vance Brand on the Apollo 15 backup crew. The flight rotation put these three in line to fly as crew on the third following mission, Apollo 18. As a result, Schmitt was assigned in August 1971 to fly on the last mission, Apollo 17, Schmitt landed on the Moon with commander Gene Cernan in December 1972. Schmitt claims to have taken the photograph of the Earth known as The Blue Marble, among other distinctions, it is the central piece of evidence suggesting that the Moon once possessed an active magnetic field. As he returned to the Lunar Module before Cernan, Schmitt is the next-to-last person to have walked on the Moons surface. After the completion of Apollo 17, Schmitt played a role in documenting the Apollo geologic results. In August 1975, Schmitt resigned from NASA to seek election as a Republican to the United States Senate representing New Mexico in the 1976 election, Schmitt faced two-term Democratic incumbent Joseph Montoya, whom he defeated, 57% to 42%. He served one term and, notably, was the ranking Republican member of the Science, Technology and he sought a second term in 1982, facing state Attorney General Jeff Bingaman. Bingaman attacked Schmitt for not paying attention to local matters, his campaign slogan asked. This, combined with the recession, proved too much for Schmitt to overcome, he was defeated. During his term in the Senate, Schmitt sat at the candy desk
38.
Apollo 17
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Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASAs Apollo program, the enterprise that landed the first humans on the Moon. Apollo 17 was the first night launch of a U. S. human spaceflight and it was a J-type mission which included three days on the lunar surface, extended scientific capability, and the third Lunar Roving Vehicle. Evans took scientific measurements and photographs from orbit using a Scientific Instruments Module mounted in the Service Module, Cernan, Evans and Schmitt returned to Earth on December 19 after a 12-day mission. Apollo 17 is the most recent manned Moon landing and was the last time humans travelled beyond low Earth orbit, the mission broke several records, the longest moon landing, longest total extravehicular activities, largest lunar sample, and longest time in lunar orbit. Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and former X-15 pilot Joe Engle were assigned to the crew of Apollo 14. Engle flew sixteen X-15 flights, three of which exceeded the 50 mi border of space, following the rotation pattern that a backup crew would fly as the prime crew three missions later, Cernan, Evans, and Engle would have flown Apollo 17. Harrison Schmitt served on the crew of Apollo 15 and. However, Apollo 18 was cancelled in September 1970, following this decision, the scientific community pressured NASA to assign a geologist to an Apollo landing, as opposed to a pilot trained in geology. In light of pressure, Harrison Schmitt, a professional geologist, was assigned the Lunar Module Pilot position on Apollo 17. Scientist-astronaut Curt Michel believed that it was his own decision to resign, after it became clear that he would not be given a flight assignment, that mobilized this action. Subsequent to the decision to assign Schmitt to Apollo 17, there remained the question of which crew would become prime crew of the mission. NASA Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton ultimately assigned the crew of Apollo 14, along with Schmitt. The Apollo 15 prime crew received the backup assignment since this was to be the last lunar mission, however, when the Apollo 15 postage stamp incident became public in early 1972 the crew was reprimanded by NASA and the United States Air Force. Robert F. Overmyer Robert A. Parker C, three white stars above the red bars represent the three crewmen of the mission. The background includes the Moon, the planet Saturn and a galaxy or nebula, the wing of the eagle partially overlays the Moon, suggesting mans established presence there. The gaze of Apollo and the direction of the eagles motion embody mans intention to further destinations in space. The patch includes, along with the colors of the U. S. flag, the image of Apollo in the mission insignia is a rendering of the Apollo Belvedere sculpture. The insignia was designed by Robert McCall, with input from the crew, since Apollo 17 was to be the final lunar landing of the Apollo program, high-priority landing sites that had not been visited previously were given consideration for potential exploration
39.
Philip K. Chapman
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Philip Kenyon Chapman was the first Australian-born American astronaut, serving for about five years in NASA Astronaut Group 6. Born in Melbourne, Australia, his family moved to Sydney and after attending the Fort Street Opportunity School and he went on to attend the University of Sydney, earning a Bachelor of Science in physics and mathematics in 1956. Chapman served with the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve from 1953 to 1955 and he learned to fly during Australian National Service. From 1956 to 1957, he worked for Philips Electronics Industries Proprietary Limited in Sydney and he then spent 15 months in Antarctica with the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions, for the International Geophysical Year as an auroral/radio physicist. The work required that he spend most of the winter with one man at a remote camp. From 1960 to 1961, he was a staff engineer in flight simulators for Canadian Aviation Electronics Limited in Dorval. His next assignment was as a staff physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked in electro-optics, inertial systems, after gaining U. S. citizenship, Chapman was selected as a scientist-astronaut by NASA in August 1967. He trained as an astronaut, including jet pilot training with the USAF and he resigned from the program near the close of the Apollo Program in July 1972, largely because he strongly disagreed with the decision to build the Space Shuttle. In the mid-80s, Dr. Chapman shifted his focus to commercial space—building private companies that develop products and services for space-based, as well as Earth-oriented businesses. He served as president of the L5 Society during the campaign to stop the US Senate from ratifying the Moon Treaty. Dr. Chapman is a member of the Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy, in particular, a position paper by the Council was instrumental in convincing Ronald Reagan that it was technically feasible to intercept ballistic missiles in flight. Opponents thought the Strategic Defense Initiative was a fantasy, dubbing it Star Wars, from 1989-1994, Dr. Chapman was the president of Echo Canyon Software in Boston, which produced the first visual programming environment for Windows, before Microsoft introduced Visual Basic. In 1998, Dr. Chapman was Chief Scientist of Rotary Rocket of San Mateo, Rotary Rocket built and flew atmospheric tests of the Roton, a novel manned, re-usable space launch vehicle. In 2004, Dr. Chapman presented two papers at the 55th International Astronautical Congress, the first, Luces in the Sky with Diamonds, presented a design for a gossamer, iso-inertial SPS using thin films of artificial diamond in thermionic conversion devices. See the web address below for full text of this paper, Dr. Chapman was Chief Scientist of Transformational Space Corporation, t/Space of Reston, VA. Under a $6 million contract from NASA, t/Space has developed a plan and re-usable vehicle to support the International Space Station, the Roton is a manned spacecraft that is owned and operated by private enterprise. NASA has now adopted commercial support as its plan for the ISS. In July 2010, Dr. Chapman presented slides to the US Air Force on the topic of Tactical, information from this event will contribute to a USAF policy paper on its energy strategy
40.
Bruce McCandless II
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Bruce McCandless II, is an American former naval officer and aviator, electrical engineer, and former NASA astronaut. During the first of his two Space Shuttle missions he made the first ever untethered free flight using the Manned Maneuvering Unit in 1984, McCandless was born June 8,1937, in Boston, Massachusetts. A third generation U. S. Navy officer, McCandless is the son of Bruce McCandless and he graduated from Woodrow Wilson Senior High School, Long Beach, California, in 1954. With his father having been awarded the Medal of Honor, McCandless was assured of being appointed to a military academy. In 1958 he received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy, in 1987 he received a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Houston–Clear Lake. McCandless graduated second in a class of 899 from the U. S. Naval Academy, along with John McCain, subsequently, he received flight training from the Naval Air Training Command at NAS Pensacola, Florida, and NAS Kingsville, Texas. In March 1960 he was designated a Naval Aviator and proceeded to Naval Air Station Key West, Florida, for weapons system, between December 1960 and February 1964 he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 102, flying the Skyray and the F-4B Phantom II. He saw duty aboard USS Forrestal and USS Enterprise, including the participation in the Cuban Missile Crisis. He logged more than 5,200 hours flying time, including 5,000 hours in jet aircraft, McCandless was selected as the youngest member of NASA Astronaut Group 5 in April 1966. According to space historian Matthew Hersch, McCandless and Group 5 colleague Don Lind were effectively treated and he was a CAPCOM on Apollo 11 during the first lunar EVA before joining the astronaut support crew for the Apollo 14 mission, on which he doubled as a CAPCOM. He again served as a CAPCOM on Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 and he was responsible for crew inputs to the development of hardware and procedures for the Inertial Upper Stage, Space Telescope, the Solar Maximum Repair Mission, and the Space Station Program. McCandless logged over 312 hours in space, including four hours of MMU flight time and he flew as a Mission Specialist on STS-41-B and STS-31. Challenger launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on February 3,1984, the flight deployed two communications satellites, and flight-tested rendezvous sensors and computer programs for the first time. This mission marked the first checkout of the Manned Maneuvering Unit, McCandless made the first untethered free flight on each of the two MMUs carried on board, thereby becoming the first person ever to make an untethered spacewalk. After eight days in orbit, Challenger made the first landing on the runway at Kennedy Space Center on February 11,1984. On this five-day Discovery flight, launched on April 24,1990 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Discovery landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on April 29,1990. U. S. Naval Academy Alumni Association U. S. Prather Award National Aeronautic Association Collier Trophy Smithsonian Institution National Air, Astronaut Hall of Fame He was awarded a patent for the design of a tool tethering system that is currently used during Shuttle spacewalks. McCandless was married to Bernice Doyle McCandless for 53 years, and his recreational interests include electronics, photography, scuba diving, and flying
41.
William R. Pogue
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William Reid Bill Pogue, was an American astronaut, U. S. Air Force fighter pilot, and test pilot who was also an accomplished teacher, public speaker and author. Pogue was born on January 23,1930, in Okemah and he had one older sister, Margaret H. who died in 2012. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Oklahoma Baptist University in 1974, Pogue was a Boy Scout and earned the rank of Second Class. He was the father of three children, William R. Layna S. and Thomas R and he enjoyed running and playing paddleball and handball, and his hobbies included cabinet making, gardening and the study of Biblical history. Pogue enlisted in the U. S. Air Force in 1951, while serving with the Fifth Air Force during the Korean War, from 1953 to 1954, he completed a combat tour in fighter bombers. From 1955 to 1957, he was a member of the USAF Thunderbirds and he was a solo and a slot pilot with them. He gained proficiency in more than 50 types and models of American, Pogue served in the mathematics department as an assistant professor at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from 1960 to 1963. He logged 7,200 hours of time, including 4,200 hours in jet aircraft and 2,017 hours in space flight. Pogue was one of nineteen astronauts selected by NASA in group 5 for the Apollo program in April 1966 and he served as a member of the support crews for the Apollo 7,11 and 14 missions. He was assigned as Command Module Pilot for the crew of the Apollo 19 mission. When this was canceled, he transferred, along with Apollo 19 Lunar Module Pilot Gerald Carr, to the Skylab Orbital Workshop program, which followed Apollo. Pogue was the Pilot of Skylab 4, the third and final manned visit to the Skylab Orbital Workshop, from November 16,1973 and this was the longest manned flight to that date. Pogue was accompanied on the record-setting 34. 5-million-mile flight by Commander Gerald P. Carr and Science Pilot, Edward G. Gibson, PhD. They successfully completed 56 experiments,26 science demonstrations,15 subsystem detailed objectives and he logged 13 hours and 31 minutes in two EVAs outside the orbital workshop. While on this mission, Pogue participated in the Skylab 4s New Year’s Mutiny, Pogue retired from both the United States Air Force and NASA on September 1,1975. He was self-employed as a consultant to aerospace and a producer of general interest videos on space flight, in 1985, Pogue authored the book How Do You Go to the Bathroom in Space. Answering 270 common questions he received, in 1992, he co-authored The Trikon Deception, a science fiction novel, with Ben Bova. In 2003, Pogue authored Space Trivia, published by Apogee Books and it covered the trivial questions and answers from the Project Mercury era to the Space Shuttle/International Space Station era
42.
C. Gordon Fullerton
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Charles Gordon Fullerton was a United States Air Force colonel, a USAF and NASA astronaut, and a research pilot at NASAs Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, California. Fullerton, who logged more than 380 hours in flight, was a NASA astronaut from September 1969 until November 1986 when he joined the research pilot office at Dryden. In July 1988, he completed a 30-year career with the U. S. Air Force and he continued in his position of NASA research pilot as a civilian. Fullerton and his wife and their two children lived in Lancaster, California, born October 11,1936, in Rochester, New York, Fullerton graduated from U. S. Grant High School, Portland, Oregon, in 1953. He received Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, in 1957 and 1958, respectively. Fullerton entered the U. S. Air Force in July 1958 after working as a design engineer for Hughes Aircraft Company, Culver City. After primary and basic flight school, he was trained as an F-86 interceptor pilot, in 1964 he was chosen to attend the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School, Edwards Air Force Base, California. Upon graduation he was assigned as a test pilot with the Bomber Operations Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in 1966, Fullerton was selected for and served as a flight crew member for the Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory program until its termination in 1969. Fullerton joined NASA in September 1969 after the cancellation of the MOL program, after assignment to the NASA Johnson Space Center as an astronaut, Fullerton served on the support crews for the Apollo 14,15,16, and 17 lunar missions. In 1977, Fullerton was assigned to one of the two flight crews which piloted the Space Shuttle prototype Enterprise during the Approach and Landing Tests Program at Dryden that same year. Fullerton was the Pilot on the eight-day STS-3 Space Shuttle orbital flight test mission March 22–30,1982, STS-3 landed at Northrup Strip, White Sands, New Mexico, because Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards AFB was wet due to heavy seasonal rains. Fullerton was Commander of the STS-51-F Spacelab 2 mission, launched from Kennedy Space Center on July 29,1985 and this mission, with the orbiter Challenger, was the first pallet-only Spacelab mission and the first to operate the Spacelab Instrument Pointing System. It carried 13 major experiments in the fields of astronomy, solar physics, ionospheric science, life science, the mission ended August 6,1985, with a landing at Dryden. Fullerton served as pilot on the NASA/Convair 990 aircraft which has been modified as a Landing Systems Research Aircraft to test space shuttle landing gear components. As the project pilot on the Propulsion Controlled Aircraft program, he landed an F-15 with all control surfaces fixed. The project continues with the goal of testing a similar system in an MD-11 transport. In addition to activities, Fullerton was a project pilot on a number of other research programs at Dryden. As project pilot on the B-52 launch aircraft, Fullerton was involved in tests to develop a new F-111 crew module recovery system and he also flew the B-52 for the first six mid-air launchings of the commercially developed Pegasus space vehicle
43.
Glynn Lunney
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Glynn S. Lunney is a retired NASA engineer. At the end of the Apollo program, he became manager of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, later, he served as manager of the Space Shuttle program before leaving NASA in 1985 and later becoming a vice president of the United Space Alliance. Lunney was a key figure in the US manned space program from Project Mercury through the coming of the Space Shuttle and he has received numerous awards for his work, including the National Space Trophy, which he was given by the Rotary Club in 2005. Glynn Lunney grew up in the city of Old Forge. He was the eldest son of William Lunney, a welder and former miner who encouraged his son to get an education, Lunney graduated from the Scranton Preparatory School in 1953. A childhood interest in model airplanes prompted Lunney to study engineering in college, the center was a part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, a United States federal agency founded to promote aeronautical research. Cooperative students at NACA took part in a program that combined work and study, Lunney graduated from college in June 1958, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace engineering. After graduation, Lunney remained with NACA and his first job was as a researcher in aerospace dynamics at Lewis Research Center, where he worked with a team studying the thermodynamics of vehicles during high-speed reentry. Using a B-57 bomber, the team sent small rockets high into the atmosphere in order to measure their heating profile, only a month after Lunney graduated, President Eisenhower signed into existence the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, into which NACA was subsumed. His timing was perfect, for as Lunney later said, there was no such thing as space flight until the month I got out of college, aged twenty-one, he was the youngest of the forty-five members of the group. A member of the Flight Operations Division, Lunney was one of the responsible for planning and creating procedures for Project Mercury. He took part in the writing of the first set of mission rules and his colleague Gene Kranz described him as the pioneer leader of trajectory operations, who turned his craft from an art practiced by a few into a pure science. It was during these years that Lunney became the protege of flight director Chris Kraft, Lunney worked both in the Control Center and at remote sites, during the flight of John Glenn, Americas first orbital spaceflight, he was serving as the FIDO in Bermuda. In September 1961, NASAs Space Task Group was reorganized into the Manned Spacecraft Center and moved to Houston, Texas, and Lunney moved with it. Gemini was a forward for NASAs manned space program, the Gemini capsule was larger and more advanced than Mercury. Because of the longer durations, Mission Control began to be manned in shifts. In 1964, Glynn Lunney and Gene Kranz were selected by Chris Kraft to join Kraft, aged only twenty-eight, Lunney was the youngest of the four. Lunney worked backup on Gemini 3, taking charge of the newly established Mission Control Center in Houston, on Gemini 4, he again was working backup, this time in Florida, supporting the first mission that was controlled entirely from Houston
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This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
