1.
Columbia Rediviva
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Columbia Rediviva was a privately owned ship under the command of John Kendrick, along with Captain Robert Gray, best known for going to the Pacific Northwest for the maritime fur trade. The Rediviva was added to her name upon a rebuilding in 1787, since Columbia was privately owned, she did not carry the prefix designation USS. Early authorities claim the ship was built in 1773 by James Briggs at Hobart’s Landing on North River, in Norwell, Massachusetts, later historians say she was built in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1787. In 1790 she became the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, during the first part of this voyage, she was accompanied by the Lady Washington which served as tender for the Columbia. In 1792 Captain Gray entered the Columbia River and named it after the ship, the river and its basin, in turn, lent its name to the surrounding region, and subsequently to the British colony and Canadian province located in part of this region. The ship was decommissioned and salvaged in 1806, a replica of Lady Washington is homeported at Grays Harbor Historical Seaport in Aberdeen, Washington. Simeon Woodruff, under the command of Kendrick, serving September to November 1787. A former gunners mate during the voyage of Captain James Cook. Joseph Ingraham, under the command of Kendrick, in 1790 he was captain of Hope that competed with the Columbia in the fur trade. Robert Haswell, under the command of Gray in 1791–93 during the voyage to the Pacific Northwest. Contained within the hull is Below Decks, which is an exhibit of artifacts from the 18th Century that passengers can visit while on board. In 1969, the name was used for the Command/Service Module of Apollo 11, in 1981, the name was re-used for the Space Shuttle Columbia by NASA. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol.53, Columbia Rediviva Hit and Run History, The Columbia Expedition
2.
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
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On February 1,2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentering Earths atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. The disaster was the tragedy in the Space Shuttle program after Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. During the launch of STS-107, Columbias 28th mission, a piece of foam broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank. A few previous shuttle launches had seen damage ranging from minor to major from foam shedding, NASA managers limited the investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it had been confirmed. After the disaster, Space Shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years, as they had been after the Challenger disaster. Commander, Rick D. Husband, a U. S. Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer, payload Commander, Michael P. Anderson, a U. S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, physicist, and mission specialist who was in charge of the science mission. Payload Specialist, Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli Air Force, Mission Specialist, Kalpana Chawla, aerospace engineer who was on her second space mission. Mission Specialist, David M. Brown, a U. S. Navy captain trained as an aviator, Mission Specialist, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, a U. S. Navy captain and flight surgeon. The shuttles main fuel tank is covered in thermal insulation foam intended to prevent ice from forming when the tank is full of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, such ice could damage the shuttle if shed during lift-off. Mission STS-107 was the 113th Space Shuttle launch, planned to begin on January 11,2001, the mission was delayed 18 times and eventually launched on January 16,2003, following STS-113. About 82 seconds after launch from Kennedy Space Centers LC-39-A, a piece of foam broke off from the External Tank. At the time of the strike, the orbiter was at an altitude of about 66,000 feet. The Left Bipod Foam Ramp is an approximately three-foot long aerodynamic component made entirely of foam, the foam, not normally considered to be a structural material, is required to bear some aerodynamic loads. Because of these requirements, the casting-in-place and curing of the ramps may be performed only by a senior technician. Bipod Ramp insulation had been observed falling off, in whole or in part, on four flights, STS-7, STS-32, STS-50. All affected shuttle missions completed successfully, NASA management came to refer to this phenomenon as foam shedding. This phenomenon was termed normalization of deviance by sociologist Diane Vaughan in her book on the Challenger launch decision process. As it happened, STS-112 had been the first flight with the ET Cam, after STS-112, NASA leaders analyzed the situation and decided to press ahead under the justification that he ET is safe to fly with no new concerns of further foam strikes
3.
STS-1
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STS-1 was the first orbital spaceflight of NASAs Space Shuttle program. The first orbiter, Columbia, launched on 12 April 1981 and returned on 14 April,54.5 hours later, Columbia carried a crew of two – mission commander John W. Young and pilot Robert L. Crippen. It was the first American manned space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. STS-1 was also the maiden test flight of a new US spacecraft to carry a crew, though it was preceded by atmospheric testing of the orbiter. The launch occurred on the 20th anniversary of the human spaceflight. This was a rather than a celebration of the anniversary. Both Young and Crippen were selected as the STS-1 crew in March 1978, Young was the most experienced astronaut in NASA at the time and was also the only member of his astronaut class in service. He had first flown in 1965 as pilot of Gemini 3, the first manned flight of the Gemini program, and would later command Gemini 10 in 1966. After the conclusion of the Gemini program, Young flew as command pilot of Apollo 10 in 1969. He later became Chief of the Astronaut Office in 1974, Crippen, who had joined NASA in 1969 after the cancellation of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, was a rookie and would become the first of his astronaut group to fly in space. Columbia was manifested with EMUs for both Young and Crippen in the event of an emergency spacewalk, if such an event occurred, Crippen would go outside the orbiter, with Young standing by in case Crippen required assistance. To that end, they suggested that STS-1, instead of being an orbital flight and this involved an abort being called in the first few moments after launch, and using its main engines, once the SRBs had been jettisoned, to power it back to the launch site. The NASA managers were swayed by Young questioning the need for the test, and the weight of his opinion was strong especially as someone who not only been to the moon twice, but walked on it. Young, commander, and Robert L. Crippen, pilot, lifted off from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, the launch took place at 7 a. m. A launch attempt two days earlier was scrubbed because of a problem in one of Columbia’s general-purpose computers. Not only was this the first launch of the Space Shuttle, STS-1 was also the first U. S. manned space vehicle launched without an unmanned powered test flight. The primary mission objectives of the flight were to perform a general check out of the Space Shuttle system, accomplish a safe ascent into orbit. All of these objectives were met successfully, and the orbiters spaceworthiness was verified, during the second day of the mission, the astronauts received a phone call from Vice President George H. W. Bush
4.
STS-107
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STS-107 was the 113th flight of the Space Shuttle program, and the disastrous final flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. The seven members of the crew were killed on February 1 when Columbia disintegrated during reentry into the atmosphere, during re-entry the damaged wing slowly overheated and came apart, eventually leading to loss of control and disintegration of the vehicle. The cockpit window frame is now exhibited in a memorial inside the Space Shuttle Atlantis Pavilion at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sTS-107 carried the SPACEHAB Double Research Module on its inaugural flight, the Freestar experiment, and the Extended Duration Orbiter pallet. SPACEHAB was first flown on STS57, one of the experiments, a video taken to study atmospheric dust, may have detected a new atmospheric phenomenon, dubbed a TIGER. The copy was in the possession of Ilan Ramon and was lost in the disintegration, Ramon also traveled with a dollar bill received from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. An Australian experiment, conducted by students from Glen Waverley Secondary College, was designed to test the reaction of zero gravity on the web formation of the Garden Orb Spider, examples of some of the experiments and investigations on the mission. Because much of the data was transmitted during the mission, there was still large return on the mission even though it was lost on re-entry. Some of the experiments were also found on the ground, KSC landing was planned for Feb.1 after a 16-day mission, but Columbia and crew were lost during reentry over East Texas at about 9 a. m. EST,16 minutes prior to the scheduled touchdown at KSC, the loss of the spacecraft and crew triggered a 7-month investigation and a search for debris, and over 85,000 pieces were collected over the course of the initial investigation. This amounted to roughly 38 percent of the orbiter vehicle, the central element of the patch is the microgravity symbol, µg, flowing into the rays of the astronaut symbol. The mission inclination is portrayed by the 39 degree angle of the symbol to the Earths horizon. The sunrise is representative of the experiments that are the dawn of a new era for continued microgravity research on the International Space Station. The breadth of science and the exploration of space is illustrated by the Earth, the constellation Columba was chosen to symbolize peace on Earth and the Space Shuttle Columbia. The seven stars represent the mission crew members and honor the original astronauts who paved the way to make research in space possible. Six stars have five points, the seventh has six points like a Star of David, an Israeli flag is adjacent to the name of Payload Specialist Ramon, who was the first Israeli in space. The crew insignia or patch design was initiated by crew members Dr. Laurel Clark, first-time crew member Clark provided most of the design concepts as Chawla led the design of her maiden voyage STS-87 insignia. Clark also pointed out that the dove in the Columba constellation was mythologically connected to the explorers The Argonauts who released the dove, william H. Starbuck, Moshe Farjoun, Organization at the Limit, Lessons from the Columbia Disaster
5.
Space Shuttle orbiter
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The Space Shuttle orbiter was the reusable spaceplane component of the Space Shuttle program. Six orbiters were built for flight, Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, all were built in Palmdale, California, by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based Rockwell International company. The first orbiter, Enterprise, made its flight in 1977. An unpowered glider, it was carried by a modified Boeing 747 airliner called the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and released for a series of atmospheric test flights, Enterprise was partially disassembled and retired after completion of critical testing. The remaining orbiters were fully operational spacecraft, and were launched vertically as part of the Space Shuttle stack, Columbia was the first space-worthy orbiter, and made its inaugural flight in 1981. Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis followed in 1983,1984 and 1985 respectively, in 1986, Challenger was destroyed in an accident shortly after launch. Endeavour was built as Challengers replacement, and was first launched in 1992, in 2003, Columbia was destroyed during re-entry, leaving just three remaining orbiters. Discovery completed its flight on March 9,2011. Atlantis completed the last ever Shuttle flight, STS-135, on July 21,2011, additionally, two reusable solid rocket boosters provided additional thrust for approximately the first two minutes of launch. The orbiters themselves did carry hypergolic propellants for their RCS thrusters, the vertical stabilizer of the orbiter had a leading edge that was swept back at a 45-degree angle. There were four elevons mounted at the edges of the delta wings. These, along with a movable body flap located underneath the main engines, controlled the orbiter during later stages of descent through the atmosphere, overall, the Space Shuttle orbiter was roughly the same size as a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 airliner. This control system carried out the usual attitude control along the pitch, roll, and yaw axes during all of the phases of launching, orbiting. This system also executed any needed orbital maneuvers, including all changes in the altitude, orbital plane. These were all operations that required a lot more power and energy than mere attitude control, the forward rockets of the Reaction Control System, located near the nose of the Space Shuttle orbiter, included 14 primary and two vernier RCS rockets. The aft RCS engines were located in the two Orbital Maneuvering System pods at the rear of the orbiter, and these included 12 primary and two vernier engines in each pod. The RCS also controlled the attitude of the orbiter during most of its re-entry into the Earths atmosphere – until the air became dense enough that the rudder, elevons and body flap became effective. During the early process of the orbiter, the forward RCS thrusters were to be hidden underneath retractable doors
6.
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
7.
Space Shuttle
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The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System, taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development, the first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982. Five complete Shuttle systems were built and used on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, the Shuttle fleets total mission time was 1322 days,19 hours,21 minutes and 23 seconds. Shuttle components included the Orbiter Vehicle, a pair of solid rocket boosters. The Shuttle was launched vertically, like a rocket, with the two SRBs operating in parallel with the OVs three main engines, which were fueled from the ET. The SRBs were jettisoned before the vehicle reached orbit, and the ET was jettisoned just before orbit insertion, at the conclusion of the mission, the orbiter fired its OMS to de-orbit and re-enter the atmosphere. The orbiter then glided as a spaceplane to a landing, usually at the Shuttle Landing Facility of KSC or Rogers Dry Lake in Edwards Air Force Base. After landing at Edwards, the orbiter was back to the KSC on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The first orbiter, Enterprise, was built in 1976, used in Approach, four fully operational orbiters were initially built, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. Of these, two were lost in accidents, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, with a total of fourteen astronauts killed. A fifth operational orbiter, Endeavour, was built in 1991 to replace Challenger, the Space Shuttle was retired from service upon the conclusion of Atlantiss final flight on July 21,2011. Nixons post-Apollo NASA budgeting withdrew support of all components except the Shuttle. The vehicle consisted of a spaceplane for orbit and re-entry, fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks. The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982, all launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The system was retired from service in 2011 after 135 missions, the program ended after Atlantis landed at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21,2011. Major missions included launching numerous satellites and interplanetary probes, conducting space science experiments, the first orbiter vehicle, named Enterprise, was built for the initial Approach and Landing Tests phase and lacked engines, heat shielding, and other equipment necessary for orbital flight. A total of five operational orbiters were built, and of these and it was used for orbital space missions by NASA, the US Department of Defense, the European Space Agency, Japan, and Germany. The United States funded Shuttle development and operations except for the Spacelab modules used on D1, sL-J was partially funded by Japan
8.
Space Shuttle program
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When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earths atmosphere and land like a glider at either the Kennedy Space Center or Edwards Air Force Base. The Shuttle is the only winged manned spacecraft to have achieved orbit and landing, and its missions involved carrying large payloads to various orbits, providing crew rotation for the space station, and performing service missions. The orbiter also recovered satellites and other payloads from orbit and returned them to Earth, the stalled plans for a U. S. space station evolved into the International Space Station and were formally initiated in 1983 by U. S. The first experimental orbiter Enterprise was a glider, launched from the back of a specially modified Boeing 747. The Space Shuttle program finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011, the Space Shuttle program formally ended on August 31,2011. Since the Shuttles retirement, many of its duties are performed by an assortment of government. The European ATV Automated Transfer Vehicle supplied the ISS between 2008 and 2015, classified military missions are being flown by the US Air Forces unmanned space plane, the X-37B. Crew service to the ISS is currently provided by the Russian Soyuz while work on the Commercial Crew Development program proceeds, for missions beyond low Earth orbit, NASA is building the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft. Before the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, NASA began early studies of space shuttle designs, in 1969, President Richard Nixon formed the Space Task Group, chaired by Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. Smaller goals included a variety of vehicles for moving spacecraft around in orbit. Presenting the plans to Nixon, Agnew was told that the administration would not commit to a Mars mission and he was then told to select one of the two remaining proposals. During early shuttle development there was debate about the optimal shuttle design that best balanced capability, development cost. Ultimately the current design was chosen, using a reusable winged orbiter, reusable solid rocket boosters, the shuttle program was formally launched on January 5,1972, when President Nixon announced that NASA would proceed with the development of a reusable space shuttle system. The prime contractor for the program was North American Rockwell, the company responsible for building the Apollo Command/Service Module. The contractor for the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters was Morton Thiokol, for the tank, Martin Marietta. All Space Shuttle missions were launched from the Kennedy Space Center, the weather criteria used for launch included, but were not limited to, precipitation, temperatures, cloud cover, lightning forecast, wind, and humidity. The Shuttle was not launched under conditions where it could have been struck by lightning, the first fully functional orbiter was Columbia, built in Palmdale, California. It was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on March 25,1979, Challenger was delivered to KSC in July 1982, Discovery in November 1983, Atlantis in April 1985 and Endeavour in May 1991
9.
North American Aviation
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Through a series of mergers and sales, North American Aviation became part of North American Rockwell, which later became Rockwell International and is now part of Boeing. Clement Melville Keys founded North American on December 6,1928, as a company that bought and sold interests in various airlines. However, the Air Mail Act of 1934 forced the breakup of such holding companies, North American became a manufacturing company, run by James H. Dutch Kindelberger, who had been recruited from Douglas Aircraft Company. NAA did retain ownership of Eastern Air Lines until 1938, General Motors Corporation took a controlling interest in NAA and merged it with its general aviation division in 1933, but retained the name North American Aviation. Its first planes were the GA-15 observation plane and the GA-16 trainer, followed by the O-47 and BT-9, the BC-1 of 1937 was North Americans first combat aircraft, it was based on the GA-16. In 1940, like other manufacturers, North American started gearing up for war, opening factories in Columbus, Ohio, Dallas, Texas, North American ranked eleventh among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. North Americans follow-on to the BT-9 was the T-6 Texan trainer, of which 17,000 were built, the twin-engine B-25 Mitchell bomber achieved fame in the Doolittle Raid and was used in all combat theaters of operation. The P-51 Mustang was initially produced for Britain as an alternative to the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, the derivative A-36 Apache was developed as a ground attack aircraft and dive bomber. Post-war, North Americans employment dropped from a high of 91,000 to 5,000 in 1946, on V-J Day, North American had orders from the U. S. government for 8,000 aircraft. A few months later, that had dropped to 24, two years later in 1948, General Motors divested NAA as a public company. The Buckeyes name would be an acknowledgment to the tree of Ohio. The North American F-86 Sabre started out as a redesigned Fury and its successor, the North American F-100 Super Sabre, was also popular. Some 6,656 F-86s were produced in the United States, to accommodate its Sabre production, North American opened facilities in a former Curtiss-Wright plant in Columbus, Ohio. It also moved into a former Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft plant at Downey, California, by the end of 1952, North American sales topped $315 million. Employment at the Columbus plant grew from 1,600 in 1950 to 18,000 in 1952, Atomics International was a division of North American Aviation which began as the Atomic Energy Research Department at the Downey plant in 1948. In 1955, the department was renamed Atomics International and engaged principally in the development of nuclear technology. Atomics International was eventually merged with the Rocketdyne division in 1978, autonetics began in 1945 at North Americans Technical Research Laboratory, a small unit in the Los Angeles Divisions engineering department based in Downey, California. The division was involved in the development of systems for the Minuteman ballistic missile system
10.
Palmdale, California
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Palmdale is a city in the center of northern Los Angeles County in the U. S. state of California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the City of Los Angeles, on August 24,1962, Palmdale became the first community in the Antelope Valley to incorporate. 47 years later, in November 2009, voters approved making it a charter city and its population was 152,750 at the 2010 census, up from 116,670 at the 2000 census. Palmdale is the 33rd most populous city in California, in 2013, the Palmdale / Lancaster urban area had an estimated population of 513,547. According to area folklore, the travelers had been told they would know they were close to the ocean when they saw palm trees, never actually having seen palm trees before, they mistook the local Joshua trees for palms and so named their settlement after them. According to David L. Durham Joshua trees were sometimes called yucca palms at the time, the village was officially established upon the arrival of a post office on June 17,1888. By the 1890s farming families continued to migrate to Palmenthal and nearby Harold to grow grain, however, most of these settlers were unfamiliar with farming in a desert climate, so when the drought years occurred, most abandoned their settlement. By 1899, only one family was left in the original village, the rest of the settlers, including the post office, moved closer to the Southern Pacific railroad tracks. This new community was renamed Palmdale and was located where the present day civic center is, a railroad station was built along the tracks there. This railroad was operated by Southern Pacific and traveled between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Wells Fargo stagecoach line that ran between San Francisco and New Orleans stopped there as well. During this period, crops of apples, pears and alfalfa became plentiful, in 1915, Palmdales first newspaper, the Palmdale Post, was published. Today it is called the Antelope Valley Press, in 1921, the first major link between Palmdale and Los Angeles was completed, Mint Canyon/Lancaster Road, later designated U. S. Route 6. Completion of this caused the local agricultural industry to flourish and was the first major step towards defining the metropolis that exists today. Presently this road is known as Sierra Highway, in 1924, the Little Rock Dam and the Harold Reservoir, present day Lake Palmdale, were constructed to assist the agricultural industry and have enough water to serve the growing communities. Agriculture continued to be the foremost industry for Palmdale and its northern neighbor Lancaster until the outbreak of World War II, in 1933, the United States government established Muroc Air Base six miles north of Lancaster in Kern County, now known as Edwards Air Force Base. They also bought Palmdale Airport in 1952 and established an aerospace development, one year later, in 1953, Lockheed established a facility at the airport. After this point in time, the industry took over as the primary local source of employment. Today the city is referred to as the Aerospace Capital of America because of its rich heritage in being the home of many of the aircraft used in the United States military
11.
Sloop
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A sloop is a sailing boat with a single mast and a fore-and-aft rig. A sloop has only one head-sail, if a vessel has two or more head-sails, the cutter is used, and its mast may be set further aft than on a sloop. The most common rig of modern sailboats is the Bermuda-rigged sloop, typically, a modern sloop carries a mainsail on a boom aft of the mast, with a single loose-footed head-sail forward of the mast. Sloops are either masthead-rigged or fractional-rigged, on a masthead-rigged sloop, the forestay attaches at the top of the mast. The mainsail may be smaller than the headsail, which is called a genoa jib. On a fractional-rigged sloop, the forestay attaches to the mast at a point below the top, typically 3/4 of the way to top, or perhaps 7/8 or some other fraction. The mast of a fractional-rigged sloop may be placed forward, compared to a masthead-rigged sloop. After the cat rig, which has only a mainsail, the rig is one of the simpler sailing rig configurations. A sloop typically has two sails, a mainsail and a headsail, while the cutter has a mainsail and two or more headsails, next in complexity are the ketch, the yawl and the schooner, each of which has two masts and a minimum of three sails. A sloop has a system of mast rigging — a forestay. By having only two sails, the sails of a sloop are larger than those of an equivalent cutter. Until the advent of lightweight sailcloth and modern sail-handling systems, the sails of a sloop could be a handful. So, until the 1950s, sailboats over 10 metres Length Over All would typically use a rig or a two-mast rig. After the advent of modern winches and light sailcloth, the became the dominant sailing rig type for all. No rig type is perfect for all conditions, sloops, with their paucity of spars and control lines tend to impart less aerodynamic drag. Compared to other rigs, sloops tend to very well when sailing close hauled to windward. Cutters, ketches and yawls are often preferred to sloops when venturing far offshore, because it is easier to reef small sails as the wind increases, while still keeping the boat balanced. To maximize the amount of sail carried, the classic sloop may use a bowsprit, for downwind sailing, the typical foresail may be replaced by larger curved sails known as spinnakers or gennakers
12.
Robert Gray (sea captain)
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In the course of those voyages, Gray explored portions of that coast and, in 1790, completed the first American circumnavigation of the world. Perhaps his most remembered accomplishment from his explorations was his coming upon and then naming of the Columbia River, Grays earlier and later life are both comparatively obscure. He was born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, and may have served in the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War, after his two famous voyages, he carried on his career as a sea captain, mainly of merchantmen in the Atlantic. Gray died at sea in 1806, near Charleston, South Carolina, many geographic features along the Oregon and Washington coasts bear Grays name, as do numerous schools in the region. Robert Gray was born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, on May 10,1755, little is known of his early life. He is known to have served in the Triangular trade of South Carolina, on September 30,1787, Robert Gray and Captain John Kendrick left Boston, to trade along the north Pacific coast. Captain Gray commanded Lady Washington and Captain Kendric commanded Columbia Rediviva and they were sent by Boston merchants including Charles Bulfinch. Bulfinch had read Cook’s Journals, published in 1784, that in part discussed his success selling sea otter pelts in Canton, bulfinch’s learning of Cooks pelt-trading solved this problem, so New England sea merchants could trade with China profitably. Gray might have been the first American to visit the Northwest Coast, on the voyage of Kendrick and Gray, the ships cargo included blankets, knives, iron bars, and other trade goods. Both ships had official letters from Congress and passports from Massachusetts for their trading voyage, Kendrick and Gray sailed around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America, first stopping at the Cape Verde Islands and the Falkland Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. In January after passing Cape Horn, the ships encountered a storm separated the two vessels and damaged the Columbia Rediviva. The damage forced Kendrick to sail for the nearest port, Juan Fernandez, Juan Fernandez was a Spanish port under the control of Don Blas Gonzalez commandant of the garrison. There, the Columbia was repaired before sailing for the northwest coast, meanwhile, Gray reached the coast in August. Upon reaching the coast, Gray ran aground attempting to enter a river near 46°N latitude, here the ship was attacked by natives, with the ship losing one crew member before freeing itself and proceeding north. On September 17,1788, the Lady Washington with Gray in command reached Nootka Sound, the Columbia arrived soon after and the two ships wintered at Nootka Sound. They were still in the vicinity when Esteban José Martínez arrived in early May,1789, a number of British merchant ships soon arrived, as well, and conflict between the Spanish and British resulted in the Nootka Crisis, which almost resulted in war between the two nations. Martínez seized a number of ships, including the Princess Royal, the two American ships were left alone, although Martínez captured a third American ship, the Fair American, when it arrived at Nootka Sound in the fall of 1789. Robert Gray witnessed much of the Nootka Incident, during their trading along the coastlines of what is now British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California, the two explored many bays and inland waters
13.
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
14.
Apollo 11
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Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle on July 20,1969, at 20,18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02,56,15 UTC and they spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft, and collected 47.5 pounds of lunar material to bring back to Earth. Michael Collins piloted the command module Columbia alone in lunar orbit while they were on the Moons surface, Armstrong and Aldrin spent just under a day on the lunar surface before rendezvousing with Columbia in lunar orbit. Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16, and was the fifth manned mission of NASAs Apollo program. After being sent toward the Moon by the Saturn Vs upper stage, Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into the lunar module Eagle and landed in the Sea of Tranquility. They stayed a total of about 21.5 hours on the lunar surface, the astronauts used Eagles upper stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the command module. They jettisoned Eagle before they performed the maneuvers that blasted them out of orbit on a trajectory back to Earth. They returned to Earth and landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience, Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and described the event as one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Apollo 11 was the second all-veteran multi-person crew in human spaceflight history, a previous solo veteran flight had been made on Soyuz 1 in 1967 by Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Collins was originally slated to be the Command Module Pilot on Apollo 8 but was removed when he required surgery on his back and was replaced by Jim Lovell, his backup for that flight. In early 1969, Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective August 1969, charlie Duke, Capsule Communicator Ronald Evans Owen K. Garriott Don L. Low to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be less flippant in naming their craft. During early mission planning, the names Snowcone and Haystack were used and put in the news release, the Command Module was named Columbia after the Columbiad, the giant cannon shell spacecraft fired by a giant cannon in Jules Vernes 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon. The Lunar Module was named Eagle for the bird of the United States, the bald eagle. The Apollo 11 mission insignia was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for peaceful lunar landing by the United States and he chose an eagle as the symbol, put an olive branch in its beak, and drew a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. NASA officials said the talons of the eagle looked too warlike and after some discussion, All colors are natural, with blue and gold borders around the patch. When the Eisenhower dollar coin was released in 1971, the design provided the eagle for its reverse side. The design was used for the smaller Susan B
15.
Columbia (personification)
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Columbia is a historical and poetic name used for the United States of America and also as one of the names of its female personification. It has given rise to the names of persons, places, objects, institutions. Columbia University, the District of Columbia, and the ship Columbia Rediviva, images of the Statue of Liberty largely displaced Columbia as the female symbol of the U. S. by around 1920. Columbia is a New Latin toponym, in use since the 1730s for the Thirteen Colonies and it originated from the name of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and from the ending -ia, common in Latin names of countries. Massachusetts Chief Justice Samuel Sewall used the name Columbina for the New World in 1697, the name Columbia for America first appeared in 1738 in the weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament in Edward Caves The Gentlemans Magazine. Such were Ierne for Ireland, Iberia for Spain, Noveborac for New York, the name continued to appear in The Gentlemans Magazine until December 1746. In the second half of the 18th century, the American colonists were beginning to acquire a sense of having an identity distinct from that of their British cousins on the side of the ocean. At that time, it was common for European countries to use a Latin name in formal or poetical contexts to confer a degree of respectability on the country concerned. In many cases, these nations were personified as pseudo-classical goddesses named with these Latin names, located on a continent unknown to and unnamed by the Romans, Columbia was the closest that the Americans could come to emulating this custom. By the time of the Revolution, the name Columbia had lost the comic overtone of its Lilliputian origins and had established as an alternative. The name appears, for instance, in a collection of poems written by Harvard graduates in 1761, on the occasion of the marriage. Behold, Britannia. in thy favourd Isle, At distance, thou, view thy Prince, For ancestors renowned, for virtues more, The name Columbia rapidly came to be applied to a variety of items reflecting American identity. A ship built in Massachusetts in 1773, received the name Columbia Rediviva, it became famous as an exploring ship. In 1784, the former Kings College in New York City had its name changed to Columbia College, in 1786, South Carolina gave the name Columbia to its new capital city. Columbia is also the name of at least nineteen other towns in the United States, once used as de facto national anthem of the United States, it is now used as the entrance march of the Vice President of the United States. In 1865 Jules Vernes novel From the Earth to the Moon, in part, the more frequent usage of the name Columbia reflected a rising American neoclassicism, exemplified in the tendency to use Roman terms and symbols. The adjective Columbian has been used to mean of or from the United States of America, for instance in the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition held in Chicago and it has occasionally been proposed as an alternative word for American. Early in World War I the image of Columbia standing over a kneeling Doughboy was issued in lieu of the Purple Heart Medal and she gave to her son the accolade of the new chivalry of humanity for injuries sustained in the World War
16.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
17.
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
18.
Thermal protection system
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The Space Shuttle thermal protection system is the barrier that protected the Space Shuttle Orbiter during the searing 1,650 °C heat of atmospheric reentry. A secondary goal was to protect from the heat and cold of space while in orbit, used where reentry temperature exceeded 1,260 °C. High-temperature reusable surface insulation tiles, used on the orbiter underside, made of coated LI-900 Silica ceramics. Used where reentry temperature was below 1260 °C, fibrous refractory composite insulation tiles, used to provide improved strength, durability, resistance to coating cracking and weight reduction. Some HRSI tiles were replaced by this type, flexible Insulation Blankets, a quilted, flexible blanket-like surface insulation. Used where reentry temperature was below 649 °C, low-temperature Reusable Surface Insulation tiles, formerly used on the upper fuselage, but were mostly replaced by FIB. Used in temperature ranges roughly similar to FIB, toughened unipiece fibrous insulation tiles, a stronger, tougher tile which came into use in 1996. Used in high and low temperature areas, white Nomex felt blankets on the upper payload bay doors, portions of the mid fuselage and aft fuselage sides, portions of the upper wing surface and a portion of the OMS/RCS pods. Used where temperatures stayed below 371 °C, each type of TPS had specific heat protection, impact resistance, and weight characteristics, which determined the locations where it was used and the amount used. The shuttle TPS has three key characteristics that distinguish it from the TPS used on spacecraft, Reusable. Previous spacecraft generally used ablative heat shields which burned off during reentry and this insulation was robust and reliable, and the single-use nature was appropriate for a single-use vehicle. By contrast, the reusable shuttle required a reusable thermal protection system, previous ablative heat shields were very heavy. For example the heat shield on the Apollo Command Module comprised about 1/3 of the vehicle weight. The winged shuttle had much more area than previous spacecraft. The only known technology in the early 1970s with the thermal and weight characteristics was also so fragile, due to the very low density. The orbiters aluminum structure could not withstand temperatures over 175 °C without structural failure, aerodynamic heating during reentry would push the temperature well above this level in areas, so an effective insulator was needed. Reentry heating differs from the atmospheric heating associated with jet aircraft. The skin of high-speed jet aircraft can also become hot, but this is from frictional heating due to atmospheric friction, the orbiter reentered the atmosphere as a blunt body by having a very high angle of attack, with its broad lower surface facing the direction of flight
19.
Space accidents and incidents
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Also not included are alleged unreported Soviet space accidents, which are considered fringe theories by a majority of historians. As of 2016, there have been 18 astronaut and cosmonaut fatalities during spaceflight, astronauts have also died while training for space missions, such as the Apollo 1 launch pad fire which killed an entire crew of three. There have also been some non-astronaut fatalities during spaceflight-related activities, as of 2017, in-flight accidents have killed 18 astronauts, in four separate incidents. NASA astronauts who died on duty are memorialized at the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Merritt Island, cosmonauts who died on duty under the Soviet Union were generally honored by burial at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow. No cosmonauts have died during spaceflight since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, in each case, all crew were killed. To date, no member of a multi-member crew has died during a mission or rehearsal. In addition to accidents during spaceflights,13 astronauts, test pilots, apart from actual disasters, a number of missions resulted in some very near misses and also some training accidents that nearly resulted in deaths
20.
Nitrogen
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Nitrogen is a chemical element with symbol N and atomic number 7. It was first discovered and isolated by Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Henry Cavendish had independently done so at about the same time, Rutherford is generally accorded the credit because his work was published first. Nitrogen is the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, the name comes from the Greek πνίγειν to choke, directly referencing nitrogens asphyxiating properties. It is an element in the universe, estimated at about seventh in total abundance in the Milky Way. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dinitrogen, a colourless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula N2, dinitrogen forms about 78% of Earths atmosphere, making it the most abundant uncombined element. Nitrogen occurs in all organisms, primarily in amino acids, in the nucleic acids, the human body contains about 3% nitrogen by mass, the fourth most abundant element in the body after oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The nitrogen cycle describes movement of the element from the air, into the biosphere and organic compounds, many industrially important compounds, such as ammonia, nitric acid, organic nitrates, and cyanides, contain nitrogen. The extremely strong bond in elemental nitrogen, the second strongest bond in any diatomic molecule. Synthetically produced ammonia and nitrates are key industrial fertilisers, and fertiliser nitrates are key pollutants in the eutrophication of water systems. Apart from its use in fertilisers and energy-stores, nitrogen is a constituent of organic compounds as diverse as Kevlar used in high-strength fabric, Nitrogen is a constituent of every major pharmacological drug class, including antibiotics. Many notable nitrogen-containing drugs, such as the caffeine and morphine or the synthetic amphetamines. Nitrogen compounds have a long history, ammonium chloride having been known to Herodotus. They were well known by the Middle Ages, alchemists knew nitric acid as aqua fortis, as well as other nitrogen compounds such as ammonium salts and nitrate salts. The mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids was known as aqua regia, celebrated for its ability to dissolve gold, the discovery of nitrogen is attributed to the Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772, who called it noxious air. Though he did not recognise it as a different chemical substance, he clearly distinguished it from Joseph Blacks fixed air. The fact that there was a component of air that does not support combustion was clear to Rutherford, Nitrogen was also studied at about the same time by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Henry Cavendish, and Joseph Priestley, who referred to it as burnt air or phlogisticated air. Nitrogen gas was inert enough that Antoine Lavoisier referred to it as air or azote, from the Greek word άζωτικός. In an atmosphere of nitrogen, animals died and flames were extinguished
21.
John Young (astronaut)
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In 1965, Young flew on the first manned Gemini mission, and commanded another Gemini mission the next year. In 1969, he became the first person to orbit the Moon alone during Apollo 10 and he drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the Moons surface during Apollo 16, and is one of only three people to have flown to the Moon twice. He also commanded two Space Shuttle flights, including its first launch in 1981, and served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1974–1987, Young retired from NASA in 2004. Young was born in San Francisco, California, on September 24,1930, to parents William Hugh Young and Wanda Howland Young. At 18 months old, due to the Great Depression, he moved with his family to Georgia, then to Orlando, Florida, Young was a Boy Scout and earned the rank of Second Class. After graduating from Georgia Tech in 1952, Young entered the United States Navy through the Navy ROTC and was commissioned on June 6,1952, as an ensign. He served as fire control officer on the destroyer USS Laws until June 1953, following this assignment, he was sent to flight training. After training at the U. S. Naval Test Pilot School in 1959, Young was assigned to the Naval Air Test Center at Naval Air Station Patuxent River and his test projects included evaluations of the XF8U-3 Crusader III and F-4 Phantom II fighter weapons systems. In 1962, he set two world records while flying his Phantom II, attaining 3,000 meters from a standing start in 34.523 seconds and 25,000 meters from a standing start in 227.6 seconds. He also served as officer of Fighter Squadron 143 from April to September 1962. Fellow astronaut Charles Bolden described Young and Robert Hoot Gibson as the two best pilots he had met during his career, Never met two people like them. Everyone else gets into an airplane, John and Hoot wear their airplane, Young retired from the Navy as a Captain in September 1976, after completing 25 years of active military service. He has logged more than 15,275 hours flying time in props, jets, helicopters, and rocket jets, more than 9,200 hours in T-38s, and 835 hours in spacecraft during six space flights. Young then trained as pilot for Gemini 6A, but after the sandwich episode. Other Group 2 astronauts with flight experience were quickly moved to the Apollo program, while astronauts such as Scott Carpenter, the assignment of Gemini 7 backup command pilot Ed White to Apollo, created an opening for Young as commander of Gemini 10 in 1966. The mission was the first to perform a rendezvous with two Agena target vehicles, and his pilot, Michael Collins, performed two spacewalks, in 1966, Young was assigned to an Apollo crew as Command Module pilot, with Commander Thomas Stafford and Lunar Module pilot Eugene Cernan. This crew was assigned as backup to the second manned Apollo mission, after that fire, both crews were assigned to the first actual manned mission, Apollo 7, which flew in October 1968. In May 1969, this crew flew to the Moon on Apollo 10, while Stafford and Cernan flew the Lunar Module in lunar orbit for the first time, Young flew the Command Module solo
22.
Project Gemini
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Project Gemini was NASAs second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966, the Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews flew low Earth orbit missions between 1965 and 1966 putting the United States in the lead during the Cold War Space Race against the Soviet Union, geminis objective was the development of space travel techniques to support the Apollo mission to land astronauts on the Moon. With these new techniques proven by Gemini, Apollo could pursue its mission without doing these fundamental exploratory operations. All Gemini flights were launched from Launch Complex 19 at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Florida and their launch vehicle was the Gemini–Titan II, a modified Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Gemini was the first program to use the newly built Mission Control Center at the Houston Manned Spacecraft Center for flight control, the astronaut corps that supported Project Gemini included the Mercury Seven, The New Nine, and the 1963 astronaut class. During the program, three died in air crashes during training, including the prime crew for Gemini 9. This mission was performed by the crew, the only time that had happened in NASAs history to date. Gemini was robust enough that the United States Air Force planned to use it for the Manned Orbital Laboratory program, geminis chief designer, Jim Chamberlin, also made detailed plans for cislunar and lunar landing missions in late 1961. He believed Gemini could perform lunar operations before Project Apollo, NASAs administration did not approve those plans. In 1969, McDonnell-Douglas proposed a Big Gemini that could have used to shuttle up to 12 astronauts to the planned space stations in the Apollo Applications Project. The only AAP project funded was Skylab – which used existing spacecraft and he presented two initial versions of Gemini at a NASA retreat at Wallops Island in March 1961. Scale models of Mercury Mark II were shown in July 1961 at McDonnell Aircraft Corporations offices in St. Louis, NASA approved Project Gemini on December 7,1961. The McDonnell corporation was contracted to build it on December 22,1961, when it was publicly announced on January 3,1962, it was formally re-christened Project Gemini. Gemini in Latin means twins or double, which reflected that the spacecraft would hold two astronauts, Gemini is also the name of the third constellation of the Zodiac and its twin stars, Castor and Pollux. He was previously the chief aerodynamicist on Avro Canadas Avro Arrow fighter interceptor program, Chamberlin joined NASA along with 25 senior Avro engineers after cancellation of the Arrow program, and became head of the U. S. Space Task Group’s engineering division in charge of Gemini, the prime contractor was McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, which was also the prime contractor for the Project Mercury capsule. Astronaut Gus Grissom was heavily involved in the development and design of the Gemini spacecraft, the Gemini program was managed by the Manned Spacecraft Center, located in Houston, Texas, under direction of the Office of Manned Space Flight, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D. C
23.
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
24.
Robert Crippen
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Robert Laurel Bob Crippen, is a retired American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, and former astronaut for the United States Department of Defense and for NASA. He was the Pilot of the first Space Shuttle flight and flew three more missions as Commander, Crippen received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. Crippen was born September 11,1937, in Beaumont, Texas, after graduating from New Caney High School in New Caney, Texas in 1955, Crippen received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1960. He was selected as a member of the Texas Alpha chapter of Tau Beta Pi, Crippen was commissioned through the United States Navys Aviation Officer Candidate School Program at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. He continued his training at Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Florida, and went from there to Naval Air Station Chase Field in Beeville, Texas. As a Naval Aviator from June 1962 to November 1964, he made two deployments aboard the aircraft carrier USS Independence, flying the A-4 Skyhawk in Attack Squadron 72. He later attended the U. S. Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, upon graduation he remained at Edwards as an instructor until he was picked for the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory spaceflight program in October 1966. He has logged more than 6,500 hour flying time, after the MOL program was cancelled, Crippen became a NASA astronaut in September 1969. He served on the support crew for the Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4 missions. In addition to participating in the first Shuttle flight, he presided over the first five-person crew, the first satellite repair operation. He was named Commander of the STS-62-A mission which would have launched from the new SLC-6 facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. That mission was cancelled after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and SLC-6 was closed when the Air Force went back to launching satellites on the Titan III and Titan IV rockets. Crippen was stationed at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, from July 1987 to December 1989, as Deputy Director and he was responsible for final Shuttle preparation, mission execution and return of the orbiter to KSC after landings at Edwards Air Force Base. From January 1990 to January 1992, he served as Director, Space Shuttle, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, as such, he was responsible for the overall Shuttle program requirements, performance, and total program control, including budget, schedule and program content. He subsequently served as the Director of the Kennedy Space Center from January 1992 to January 1995, during his tenure, the center processed, safely launched, and recovered 22 Space Shuttle missions. He led more than 13,000 civil service and contractor personnel and this included oversight of multiple contracts supporting center operations for manned and unmanned spaceflight. He also cut more than 25% with quality management techniques. STS-1, Columbia was the first orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and it was also the first manned vehicle to be flown into orbit without benefit of previous unmanned orbital testing, the first to launch with wings using solid rocket boosters
25.
Manned Orbital Laboratory
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The project was developed from several early Air Force and NASA concepts of manned space stations to be used for reconnaissance purposes. MOL evolved into a laboratory, with which crews would be launched on 40-day missions and return to Earth using a Gemini B spacecraft. The MOL program was announced to the public on 10 December 1963 as a platform to prove the utility of man in space for military missions. Astronauts selected for the program were later told of the mission for the program. The contractor for the MOL was the Douglas Aircraft Company, MOL was cancelled in 1969, during the height of the Apollo program, when it was shown that unmanned reconnaissance satellites could achieve the same objectives much more cost-effectively. U. S. space station development was pursued with the civilian NASA Skylab which flew in the mid-1970s. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union launched three Almaz military space stations, similar in intent to the MOL, but cancelled the program in 1977 for the same reasons, the MOL was planned to use a helium-oxygen atmosphere. It used a Gemini B spacecraft as a reentry vehicle, the crew were to be launched using a Titan 3M with the stacked Gemini B and MOL, and returned to Earth in the Gemini B. They would conduct up to 40 days of military reconnaissance using large optics, cameras, the USAF Astronaut Maneuvering Unit was developed for the MOL project. In response to the announcement of the MOL, the Soviet Union commissioned the development of its own space station. Three Almaz space stations flew as Salyut space stations, and the program developed a military add-on used on Salyut 6. Externally it was similar to Gemini, but featured a rear hatch for the crew to enter MOL, Gemini B would be launched with the MOL space station. Once in orbit, the crew would power down the capsule, after about one month of space station operations, the crew would return to the Gemini B capsule, separate from the station and perform reentry. Test flight OPS0855 for MOL was launched on 3 November 1966 at 13,50,42 UTC on a Titan IIIC-9 from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 40. The flight consisted of a MOL mockup built from a Titan II propellant tank, after the Gemini B separated for a sub-orbital reentry, the MOL mockup continued into orbit and released three satellites. A hatch installed in the Geminis heat shield—intended to provide access to the MOL during manned operations—was tested during the capsules reentry, the Gemini capsule was recovered near Ascension Island in the South Atlantic by the USS La Salle after a flight of 33 minutes. The Gemini 2 capsule used in the flight of the MOL program is on display at the Air Force Space & Missile Museum at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A test article at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Wright-Patterson AFB and it is recognized by its distinctive US Air Force written on the side, and the circular hatch cut through the heat shield
26.
Skylab
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Skylab was the United States first space station, orbiting Earth from 1973 to 1979, when it fell back to Earth amid huge worldwide media attention. Launched and operated by NASA, Skylab included a workshop, a solar observatory and it was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a weight of 170,000 pounds. Lifting Skylab into low earth orbit was the mission and launch of a Saturn V rocket. Skylabs solar observatory was one aspect of study, and solar science was significantly advanced by the telescope. Each of these missions delivered a three-astronaut crew, carried in the Apollo Command/Service Module launched atop the Saturn IB rocket, which is much smaller than the Saturn V. For the final two manned missions to Skylab, a backup Apollo CSM/Saturn IB was assembled and made ready in case a rescue mission was needed. This deprived Skylab of most of its power, and also removed protection from intense solar heating, threatening to make it unusable. However, the first crew was able to save Skylab by deploying a replacement heat shade and freeing the jammed solar panels, Skylab included the Apollo Telescope Mount, Multiple Docking Adapter, Airlock Module with extravehicular activity hatches, and the Orbital Workshop. Electrical power came from solar arrays, as well as cells in the docked Apollo CSM. The rear of the station included a large tank, propellant tanks for maneuvering jets. Numerous scientific experiments were conducted aboard Skylab during its operational life, the Earth Resources Experiment Package was used to view Earth with sensors that recorded data in the visible, infrared, and microwave spectral regions. Plans were made to refurbish and reuse Skylab by using the Space Shuttle to boost its orbit, however, due to delays with the development of the Space Shuttle, Skylabs decaying orbit could not be stopped. In the hours before re-entry, NASA ground controllers attempted to adjust Skylabs trajectory, NASAs attempted target was a spot 810 miles south-southeast of Cape Town, South Africa. Skylab did not burn up as fast as NASA expected, and Skylab debris landed southeast of Perth in Western Australia, over a single property in Esperance,24 pieces of Skylab were found. Analysis of some debris indicated that the Skylab station had disintegrated 10 mi above the Earth, after Skylab, NASA space station/laboratory projects included Spacelab, Shuttle-Mir, and Space Station Freedom. Rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, science fiction writer Arthur C, clarke, and other early advocates of manned space travel, expected until the 1960s that a space station would be an important early step in space exploration. Von Braun participated in the publishing of a series of articles in Colliers magazine from 1952 to 1954. He envisioned a large, circular station 250 feet in diameter that would rotate to generate gravity and require a fleet of 7
27.
Human spaceflight
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Human spaceflight is space travel with a crew or passengers aboard the spacecraft. The first human spaceflight was launched by the Soviet Union on 12 April 1961 as a part of the Vostok program, humans have been continuously present in space for 16 years and 156 days on the International Space Station. All early human spaceflight was crewed, where at least some of the passengers acted to carry out tasks of piloting or operating the spacecraft, after 2015, several human-capable spacecraft are being explicitly designed with the ability to operate autonomously. Since the retirement of the US Space Shuttle in 2011, only Russia and China have maintained human spaceflight capability with the Soyuz program, currently, all expeditions to the International Space Station use Soyuz vehicles, which remain attached to the station to allow quick return if needed. The United States is developing commercial crew transportation to facilitate access to ISS and low Earth orbit. While spaceflight has typically been an activity, commercial spaceflight has gradually been taking on a greater role. NASA has also played a role to stimulate private spaceflight through programs such as Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, the vehicles used for these services could then serve both NASA and potential commercial customers. Commercial resupply of ISS began two years after the retirement of the Shuttle, and commercial crew launches could begin by 2017 and these rockets were large enough to be adapted to carry the first artificial satellites into low Earth orbit. The USSR launched the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin into an orbit in Vostok 1 on a Vostok 3KA rocket. The US launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepard on a flight aboard Freedom 7 on a Mercury-Redstone rocket. Unlike Gagarin, Shepard manually controlled his spacecrafts attitude, and landed inside it, the first American in orbit was John Glenn aboard Friendship 7, launched 20 February 1962 on a Mercury-Atlas rocket. The USSR launched five more cosmonauts in Vostok capsules, including the first woman in space, the US launched a total of two astronauts in suborbital flight and four in orbit through 1963. US President John F. Kennedy raised the stakes of the Space Race by setting the goal of landing a man on the Moon, Geminis objective was to support Apollo by developing American orbital spaceflight experience and techniques to be used in the Moon mission. They were able to launch two orbital flights in 1964 and 1965 and achieved the first spacewalk, made by Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 on 8 March 1965, but Voskhod did not have Geminis capability to maneuver in orbit, and the program was terminated. In July 1969, Apollo 11 accomplished Kennedys goal by landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon 21 July, a total of six Apollo missions landed 12 men to walk on the Moon through 1972, half of which drove electric powered vehicles on the surface. The crew of Apollo 13, Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise, survived a catastrophic in-flight spacecraft failure, meanwhile, the USSR secretly pursued human lunar orbiting and landing programs. On losing the Moon race, they concentrated on the development of stations, using the Soyuz as a ferry to take cosmonauts to. They started with a series of Salyut sortie stations from 1971 to 1986, after the Apollo program, the US launched the Skylab sortie space station in 1973, manning it for 171 days with three crews aboard Apollo spacecraft
28.
Vostok 1
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Vostok 1 was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first manned spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched on April 12,1961 from Baikonur Cosmodrome with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the orbital spaceflight consisted of a single orbit around Earth which skimmed the upper atmosphere at 169 kilometers at its lowest point. The flight took 108 minutes from launch to landing, Gagarin parachuted to the ground separately from his capsule after ejecting at 7 km altitude. The Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two Cold War superpowers, began just before the Soviet Union launched the worlds first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, both countries wanted to develop spaceflight technology quickly, particularly by launching the first successful human spaceflight. The Soviet Union secretly pursued the Vostok programme in competition with the United States Project Mercury, Vostok launched several precursor unmanned missions between May 1960 and March 1961, to test and develop the Vostok rocket family and space capsule. These missions had varied degrees of success, but the final two—Korabl-Sputnik 4 and Korabl-Sputnik 5—were complete successes, see also Selection and training of the Vostok programme The Vostok 1 capsule was designed to carry a single cosmonaut. Yuri Gagarin,27, was chosen as the pilot of Vostok 1, with Gherman Titov. These assignments were formally made on April 8, four days before the mission, the final decision of who would fly the mission relied heavily on the opinion of the head of cosmonaut training, Nikolai Kamanin. In an April 5 diary entry, Kamanin wrote that he was undecided between Gagarin and Titov. The only thing that keeps me from picking is the need to have the person for the one day flight. Kamanin was referring to the mission, Vostok 2, compared to the relatively short single-orbit mission of Vostok 1. When Gagarin and Titov were informed of the decision during a meeting on April 9, Gagarin was very happy, on April 10, this meeting was reenacted in front of television cameras, so there would be official footage of the event. This included a speech by Gagarin. Gagarin was examined by a team of doctors prior to his flight, one doctor gave her recollection of the events in an interview with RT in April 2011, Gagarin looked more pale than usual. He was unsociable and quiet, which was not like him at all and he would answer by nodding or a short yes to all questions. Sometimes he would start humming some tunes and we geared him up, and hugged. And I said, Yuri, everything will be fine, unlike later Vostok missions, there were no dedicated tracking ships available to receive signals from the spacecraft. Instead they relied on the network of stations, also called Command Points, to communicate with the spacecraft
29.
Edwards Air Force Base
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Edwards Air Force Base is a United States Air Force installation in southern California, located approximately 22 miles northeast of Lancaster and 15 miles east of Rosamond. It operates the U. S. Air Force Test Pilot School and is home to NASAs Armstrong Flight Research Center, previously known as Muroc Air Force Base, Edwards AFB is named in honor of Captain Glen Edwards. Edwards became a test pilot in 1943 and spent much of his time at Muroc Army Air Field, on Californias high desert and he died in the crash of a Northrop YB-49 flying wing near Muroc AFB on 5 June 1948. The base is next to Rogers Dry Lake, an endorheic salt pan whose hard dry lake surface provides a natural extension to Edwards runways. This large landing area, combined with excellent year-round weather, makes the good for flight testing. The lake is a National Historic Landmark, the base has played a significant role in the development of virtually every aircraft to enter the Air Force inventory since World War II. Almost every United States military aircraft since the 1950s has been at least partially tested at Edwards, the Wing also oversees the base’s day-to-day operations and provides support for military, federal civilian, and contract personnel assigned to Edwards AFB. 412th Operations Group. There are eight flight test squadrons under the 412th Operations Group with as many as 20 aircraft assigned to each, the 412 OS flies an average of 90 aircraft with upwards of 30 different aircraft designs. It also performs more than 7,400 missions on an annual basis and they provide the tools, talent and equipment for the core disciplines of aircraft structures, propulsion, avionics and electronic warfare evaluation of the latest weapon system technologies. The Project and Resource Management Divisions provide the foundation for the program management of test missions. 412th Civil Engineer Division 412th Maintenance Group 412th Medical Group 412th Mission Support Group U. S, the comprehensive curriculum of Test Pilot School is fundamental to the success of flight test and evaluation. There are a vast array of organizations at Edwards that do not fall under the 412th Test Wing and these units do everything from providing an on-base grocery store to testing state-of-the-art rockets. The 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron provides Air Combat Command personnel to support combined test, established in 1917, it is one of the oldest units of the United States Air Force. The Desert Pirates are part of the 53d Test and Evaluation Group, Nellis AFB, Nevada, the 31st is staffed with a mixture of operations, maintenance and engineering experts who plan and conduct tests, evaluate effectiveness and suitability, and influence system design. The squadrons personnel are integrated into the B-1, B-2, B-52, Global Hawk, MQ-9 and their results and conclusions support Department of Defense acquisition, deployment and employment decisions. AFOTEC Detachment 5 is responsible for conducting the operational test and evaluation of USAF aircraft, certification by Detachment 5 is required in advance prior to new aircraft prior to AFMC full rate production and combat fielding decisions. During 1978 and 1979, an AFFTC test pilot and a pair of flight test engineers were engaged in testing with Lockheeds low-observable technology demonstrator. The successful conduct of tests led immediately to the development of the F-117A Nighthawk
30.
STS-5
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STS-5 was the fifth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the fifth flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. It launched on 11 November 1982 and landed five days later on 16 November, STS-5 was the first shuttle mission to deploy communications satellites into orbit, and the first officially operational shuttle mission. Roy D. Bridges Jr. Michael L. Coats Richard O. Covey Bryan D. OConnor Jon A. McBride Robert L. Stewart Columbia launched on schedule from Kennedy Space Center at 7,19 am EST,11 November 1982. The shuttle carried a crew of four – the largest spacecraft crew up to that time –, the commercial satellites were deployed successfully and subsequently propelled into their operational geosynchronous orbits by McDonnell Douglas PAM-D kickmotors. The two satellites were SBS3, owned by Satellite Business Systems, and Anik C3, owned by Telesat Canada, in addition, STS-5 carried a West German-sponsored microgravity GAS experiment canister in the payload bay. The crew also conducted three student-designed experiments during the flight, Columbia was returned to KSC on 22 November 1982. The shuttle was formally declared operational after STS-4, NASA operated the Space Shuttle as an experimental vehicle for the remainder of the program. The five points of the star of the mission patch indicate the flights numerical designation in the Space Transportation Systems mission sequence. NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the Gemini program, each track is specially chosen, often by the astronauts families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities
31.
Space Shuttle Challenger
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Space Shuttle Challenger was the second orbiter of NASAs space shuttle program to be put into service following Columbia. The shuttle was built by Rockwell Internationals Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey and its maiden flight, STS-6, started on April 4,1983. It was the first of two shuttles to be destroyed in flight, the other being Columbia in 2003, the accident led to a two-and-a-half year grounding of the shuttle fleet, flights resumed in 1988 with STS-26 flown by Discovery. Challenger itself was replaced by Endeavour which was built using structural spares ordered by NASA as part of the contracts for Discovery. The Apollo 17 lunar module that landed on the Moon in 1972 was also named Challenger. Because of the low volume of orbiters, the Space Shuttle program decided to build a vehicle as a Structural Test Article, STA-099. The contract for STA-099 was awarded to North American Rockwell on July 26,1972, after STA-099s rollout, it was sent to a Lockheed test site in Palmdale, where it spent over 11 months in vibration tests designed to simulate entire shuttle flights, from launch to landing. In order to prevent damage during structural testing, qualification tests were performed to a factor of safety of 1.2 times the limit loads. The qualification tests were used to validate computational models, and compliance with the required 1.4 factor of safety was shown by analysis. STA-099 was essentially a complete airframe of a Space Shuttle orbiter, with only a crew module installed. Modifying her for flight article status would have far too difficult, expensive. Since STA-099 was not as far along in the construction of its airframe, because STA-099s qualification testing prevented damage, NASA found that rebuilding STA-099 as OV-099 would be less expensive than refitting Enterprise. Work on converting STA-099 into Challenger began in January 1979, starting with just the crew module as the rest of the orbiter was used by Lockheed. STA-099 returned to the Rockwell plant in November 1979, and the original unfinished crew module was replaced with the newly constructed model. Major portions of STA-099, including the bay doors, body flap, wings and vertical stabilizer. By early 1981, most of these components had returned to Palmdale and were reinstalled on the orbiter, work continued on the conversion until July 1982. Challenger had fewer tiles in its Thermal Protection System than Columbia, most of the tiles on the payload bay doors, upper wing surfaces, and rear fuselage surfaces were replaced with DuPont white Nomex felt insulation. These modifications as well as a lighter structure allowed Challenger to carry 2,500 lb more payload than Columbia
32.
Spacelab
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Spacelab was a reusable laboratory used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a module, an unpressurized carrier and other related hardware housed in the Shuttles cargo bay. The components were arranged in various configurations to meet the needs of each spaceflight, Spacelab components flew on a total of 32 Shuttle missions. Spacelab allowed scientists to perform experiments in microgravity in earth orbit, there were at least 22 major Spacelab missions between 1983 and 1998, and Spacelab hardware was used on a number other missions, with some of the Spacelab pallets being flown as late as 2008. In August 1973, NASA and ESRO signed a Memorandum of Understanding to build a laboratory for use on Space Shuttle flights. Construction of Spacelab was started in 1974 by the ERNO, the first lab module, LM1, was donated to NASA in exchange for flight opportunities for European astronauts. A second module, LM2, was bought by NASA for its own use from ERNO, construction on the Spacelab modules began in 1974 by what then the company ERNO-VFW-Fokker. Spacelab is important to all of us for at least four good reasons and it expanded the Shuttles ability to conduct science on-orbit manyfold. It provided an opportunity and example of a large international joint venture involving government, industry. The European effort provided the world with a really versatile laboratory system several years before it would have been possible if the United States had had to fund it on its own. And finally, it provided Europe with the development and management experience they needed to move into the exclusive manned space flight arena. Eight flight configurations were qualified, though more could be assembled if needed, the Spacelab Module comprises a cylindrical main laboratory configurable as Short or Long Module flown in the rear of the Space Shuttle cargo bay, connected to the crew compartment by a tunnel. The laboratory had an diameter of 4.12 meters. Most of the two segments were used in forming the Long Module configuration. Two habitable modules were built, named LM1 and LM2, LM2 is now on display in the Bremenhalle exhibition in the Bremen Airport of Bremen, Germany. LM1 is now on display at the Udvar-Hazy center at the Smithsonian Air, the pallet has several hard points for mounting heavy equipment. The pallet can be used in single configuration or stacked end to end in double or triple configurations, up to five pallets can be configured in the Space Shuttle cargo bay by using a double pallet plus triple pallet configurations. A Spacelab Pallet was transferred to the Swiss Museum of Transport for permanent display on 5 March 2010, the Pallet carried TSS-1 in the Shuttles cargo bay
33.
Ken Mattingly
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He had been scheduled to fly on Apollo 13, but was held back due to concerns about a potential illness. He later flew as Command Module Pilot for Apollo 16, making him one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon. Born March 17,1936, in Chicago, Illinois, Mattingly attended school in Hialeah, Florida and he graduated from Miami Edison High School in 1954, and went on to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Auburn University in 1958. He was also a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity and he joined the U. S. Navy as an Ensign in 1958 and received his aviator wings in 1960. He was then assigned to Attack Squadron Thirty-five at NAS Oceana, Virginia, in July 1963, he served in Heavy Attack Squadron Eleven at NAS Sanford, Florida, where he flew the A-3B Skywarrior aircraft for two years and deployed aboard USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. He has logged 7,200 hours of flight time—which includes 5,000 hours in jet aircraft, Mattingly was a student at the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards AFB, California when NASA selected him as an astronaut in April 1966. Mattinglys first prime assignment was to be the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 13 mission, three days prior to launch, he was removed from the mission due to exposure to German measles and was replaced by the backup CM pilot, Jack Swigert. As a result, he missed the dramatic in-flight explosion that crippled the spacecraft, however, Mattingly was involved in helping the crew solve the problem of power conservation during re-entry. The swapout from Apollo 13 placed Mattingly on the crew that would fly Apollo 16, the crew included John W. Young, Mattingly, and Charles M. Duke, Jr. It was Dukes German measles that led to the Mattingly-Swigert swap on Apollo 13, the mission assigned to Apollo 16 was to collect samples from the lunar highlands near the crater Descartes. While in lunar orbit the scientific instruments aboard the Command/Service Module Casper extended the photographic, twenty-six separate scientific experiments were conducted both in lunar orbit and during cislunar coast. Major emphasis was placed on using man as an observer, capitalizing on the human eyes unique capabilities. During the return leg of the mission, Mattingly carried out an activity to retrieve film. Following his return to Earth, Mattingly served in managerial positions in the Space Shuttle development program. Additionally, the crew operated several scientific experiments located in the Orbiters cabin and in the payload bay and this experiment was a pathfinder for the first commercial venture to capitalize on the unique characteristics of space. The crew is also credited with effecting an in-flight repair which enabled them to activate the first operational Getaway Special, sTS-4 completed 112 orbits of the Earth before landing on a concrete runway at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on July 4,1982. STS-51-C, the first Space Shuttle Department of Defense mission, launched from Kennedy Space Center, the crew included Ken Mattingly, Loren Shriver, James Buchli and Ellison Onizuka, and Gary Payton. STS-51-C performed its DOD mission which included deployment of a modified Inertial Upper Stage vehicle from the Space Shuttle Discovery, landing occurred on January 27,1985
34.
Henry Hartsfield
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Henry Warren Hank Hartsfield, Jr. was a United States Air Force officer and a USAF and NASA astronaut who logged over 480 hours in space. Henry Hartsfield was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and his mother, Mrs. Norma Hartsfield and he was married to the former Judy Frances Massey of Princeton, North Carolina, and has a daughter named Judy Lynn, born May 29,1958. His younger daughter, Keely Warren, born on May 14,1959, Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson AFB, and was awarded a Master of Science degree in Engineering Science from the University of Tennessee in 1971. Hartsfield received his commission through the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Auburn University and he entered the U. S. Air Force in 1955, and his assignments included a tour with the 53rd Tactical Fighter Squadron in Bitburg, West Germany. After the cancellation of the MOL program in June 1969, he was reassigned to NASA. He has logged over 7,300 hours of flying time—of which over 6,150 hours are in the F-86, F-100, F-104, F-105, F-106, T-33, Hartsfield became a NASA astronaut in September 1969. He was a member of the support crew for Apollo 16 and served as a member of the astronaut support crew for the Skylab 2,3. Hartsfield retired in August 1977 from the United States Air Force with more than 22 years of active service, Hartsfield served as backup pilot for STS-2 and STS-3, Columbias second and third orbital flight tests. A three flight veteran, Hartsfield served as pilot on STS-4 in 1982, and was spacecraft commander on STS-41-D in 1984, and STS-61-A in 1985. Hartsfield was the pilot on STS-4, the fourth and final orbital test flight of the shuttle Columbia and he was accompanied by Thomas K. Additionally, the crew operated several scientific experiments located in the Orbiters cabin as well as in the payload bay. These experiments included the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System, designed to investigate the separation of materials in a fluid according to their surface electrical charge. STS-4 completed 112 orbits of the Earth before landing on a runway at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Hartsfield was next spacecraft commander of STS-41-D which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, the crew included Mike Coats, Judy Resnik, Steve Hawley and Mike Mullane, and Charlie Walker. This was the flight of the orbiter Discovery. The crew earned the name Icebusters when Hartsfield successfully removed a hazardous ice buildup from the using the Remote Manipulator System. STS-41-D completed 96 orbits of the Earth before landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on his third flight, Hartsfield was spacecraft commander of Challenger on STS-61-A, the West German D-1 Spacelab mission which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on October 30,1985. His crew included Steven R. Nagel, James Buchli, Guy Bluford and Bonnie Dunbar, and Reinhard Furrer, Ernst Messerschmid, the seven-day mission was the first with eight crew members, and the first Spacelab science mission planned and controlled by a foreign customer. More than 75 scientific experiments were completed in the areas of sciences, materials processing, biology
35.
Ronald Reagan
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Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who was the 40th President of the United States, from 1981 to 1989. Before his presidency, he was the 33rd Governor of California, from 1967 to 1975, after a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader. Raised in a family in small towns of northern Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932. After moving to Hollywood in 1937, he became an actor, Reagan was twice elected President of the Screen Actors Guild, the labor union for actors, where he worked to root out Communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a speaker at General Electric factories. Having been a lifelong Democrat, his views changed and he became a conservative and in 1962 switched to the Republican Party. In 1964, Reagans speech, A Time for Choosing, in support of Barry Goldwaters foundering presidential campaign, Building a network of supporters, he was elected Governor of California in 1966. Entering the presidency in 1981, Reagan implemented sweeping new political, in his first term he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. During his re-election bid, Reagan campaigned on the notion that it was Morning in America, foreign affairs dominated his second term, including ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the Iran–Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an empire, and during his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Jack, a salesman and storyteller, was the grandson of Irish Catholic immigrants from County Tipperary, Reagan had one older brother, John Neil Reagan, who became an advertising executive. As a boy, Reagans father nicknamed his son Dutch, due to his fat little Dutchman-like appearance and Dutchboy haircut, Reagans family briefly lived in several towns and cities in Illinois, including Monmouth, Galesburg, and Chicago. In 1919, they returned to Tampico and lived above the H. C, Pitney Variety Store until finally settling in Dixon. After his election as president, residing in the upstairs White House private quarters, for the time, Reagan was unusual in his opposition to racial discrimination, and recalled a time in Dixon when the local inn would not allow black people to stay there. Reagan brought them back to his house, where his mother invited them to stay the night and have breakfast the next morning, after the closure of the Pitney Store in late 1920 and the familys move to Dixon, the midwestern small universe had a lasting impression on Reagan. Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in acting, sports and his first job was as a lifeguard at the Rock River in Lowell Park in 1927. Over a six-year period, Reagan reportedly performed 77 rescues as a lifeguard and he attended Eureka College, a Disciples-oriented liberal arts school, where he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, a cheerleader, and studied economics and sociology. While involved, the Miller Center of Public Affairs described him as an indifferent student and he majored in economics and sociology, and graduated with a C grade
36.
Nancy Reagan
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Nancy Davis Reagan was an American actress, and the wife of the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. She served as the First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and she was born in New York City. After her parents separated, she lived in Maryland with an aunt and she moved to Chicago when her mother remarried in 1929, and later took the name Davis from her stepfather. As Nancy Davis, she was a Hollywood actress in the 1940s and 1950s, Night into Morning, and Donovans Brain. In 1952, she married Ronald Reagan, who was president of the Screen Actors Guild. Reagan was the First Lady of California when her husband was Governor from 1967 to 1975, Reagan became First Lady of the United States in January 1981, following her husbands victory in the 1980 presidential election. She was criticized early in his first term, largely due to her decision to replace the White House china and she aimed to restore a Kennedy-esque glamour to the White House following years of lax formality, and her interest in high-end fashion garnered much attention as well as criticism. She championed recreational drug prevention causes by founding the Just Say No drug awareness campaign and she had a strong influence on her husband, and played a role in a few of his personnel and diplomatic decisions. The Reagans retired to their home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, Reagan devoted most of her time to caring for her husband, who was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease in 1994, until his death at the age of 93 on June 5,2004. Reagan remained active within the Reagan Library and in politics, particularly in support of stem cell research. Anne Frances Robbins was born on July 6,1921, at Sloane Hospital for Women and she was the only child of Kenneth Seymour Robbins, a farmer turned car salesman who had been born into a once-prosperous family, and his actress wife, radio actress Edith Prescott Luckett. Her godmother was silent-film-star Alla Nazimova, from birth, she was commonly called Nancy. She lived her first two years in Flushing, Queens, in New York City, in a house on Roosevelt Avenue between 149th and 150th Streets. Her parents separated soon after her birth and were divorced in 1928, after their separation, her mother traveled the country to pursue acting jobs and Reagan was raised in Bethesda, Maryland, for six years by her aunt, Virginia Luckett, and uncle, Audley Gailbraith. Nancy later described longing for her mother during those years, My favorite times were when Mother had a job in New York, in 1929, her mother married Loyal Edward Davis, a prominent conservative neurosurgeon who moved the family to Chicago. Nancy and her stepfather got along well, she later wrote that he was a man of great integrity who exemplified old-fashioned values. He formally adopted her in 1935, and she would refer to him as her father. At the time of the adoption, her name was changed to Nancy Davis
37.
STS-9
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STS-9 was the ninth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the sixth mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Launched on November 28,1983, the mission carried the first Spacelab laboratory module into orbit. STS-9 was also the last time the original STS numbering system was used until STS-26, under the new system, STS-9 would have been designated as STS-41-A. STS-9s originally planned successor, STS-10, was cancelled due to payload issues, citizen into space on the Shuttle, Ulf Merbold, becoming the first ESA and first West German citizen to go into space. Merbold, a citizen of West Germany, was the first foreign citizen to participate in a shuttle flight, Lichtenberg was a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to STS-9, the scientist-astronaut Garriott had spent 56 days in orbit in 1973 aboard Skylab, the mission was devoted entirely to Spacelab 1, a joint NASA/European Space Agency program designed to demonstrate the ability to conduct advanced scientific research in space. Funding for Spacelab 1 was provided by the ESA, after Columbias return from STS-5 in November 1982, it received several modifications and changes in preparation for STS-9. Also added to the shuttle were higher capacity fuel cells and a Ku-band antenna for use with the Tracking, the missions original launch date of October 29,1983 was scrubbed due to concerns with the exhaust nozzle on the right solid rocket booster. The shuttle was restacked and returned to the pad on November 8,1983. STS-9 launched successfully from Kennedy Space Center at 11 am EST on November 28,1983, the shuttles crew was divided into two teams, each working 12-hour shifts for the duration of the mission. Young, Parker and Merbold formed the Red Team, while Shaw, Garriott, usually, Young and Shaw were assigned to the flight deck, while the mission and payload specialists worked inside the Spacelab. The Spacelab effort went so well that the mission was extended a day to 10 days. In addition, Garriott made the first ham radio transmissions by a radio operator in space during the flight. This led to many further space flights incorporating amateur radio as an educational, moreover, the TDRS-1 satellite, now fully operational, was able to relay significant amounts of data through its ground terminal to the POCC. During orbiter orientation, four hours before re-entry, one of the control computers crashed when the RCS thrusters were fired. A few minutes later, a second crashed in a similar fashion, Young delayed the landing, letting the orbiter drift. He later testified, Had we then activated the Backup Flight Software, loss of vehicle, post-flight analysis revealed the GPCs failed when the RCS thruster motion knocked a piece of solder loose and shorted out the CPU board. Columbia landed on Runway 17 at Edwards Air Force Base on December 8,1983, at 3,47 pm PST, having completed 166 orbits and travelled 4.3 million miles over the course of its mission
38.
Ulf Merbold
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Dr. Ulf Dietrich Merbold is the first West German citizen and second German native to have flown in space. He is also the first member of the European Space Agency Astronaut Corps to participate in a spaceflight mission and he holds the distinction of being the first non-US citizen to reach orbit in a US spacecraft. In 1983, he and Byron Lichtenberg became the first Payload Specialists to fly on the shuttle, Merbold was born in Greiz, Thuringia — just 40 kilometers from where Sigmund Jähn, the first German in space, was born. Both happened to grow up in the socialist German Democratic Republic, after he finished school in 1960, Merbold, as thousands others before the Berlin wall was built, defected to the Federal Republic of Germany. He studied physics at the University of Stuttgart, earning a diploma in 1968 and he then joined the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, where he worked on solid state physics and low temperature physics. In 1978, the European Space Agency selected him, along with Wubbo Ockels and Claude Nicollier, in 1982, he was selected as the prime payload specialist, and in 1983 he flew on board the Columbia on the STS-9 mission. From 1984 to 1985, he participated in the preparation of the first German Spacelab mission, D-1, in 1986, he transferred to the European Space Technology Center to work on the European Columbus module for the International Space Station. Also in 1986, he head of the Astronaut Office of the German spaceflight organization DLR. In 1988, NASA nominated Ulf Merbold as payload specialist on the IML-1 mission, the following year he was Science Coordinator for the second German Spacelab mission, D-2. In 1993, he started training to fly the first of two joint European-Russian missions to the space station Mir, called Euromir 94. In 1994, he was the first ESA astronaut to fly into space with Russia, on board Soyuz TM-20, during his three spaceflights he spent a total of 49 days,21 hours and 38 minutes in space. Merbold, who is married and has two children, is a glider pilot, owning his own glider. He has taken several times in the Barron Hilton Cup. He often attends the annual German national gliding conference, ESA biography NASA biography Spacefacts biography of Ulf Merbold ISBN 3-7857-0399-6 Flug ins All, German autobiography
39.
Space Shuttle Discovery
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Space Shuttle Discovery is one of the orbiters from NASAs Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5,1984, over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, gathering more spaceflights than any other spacecraft to date. Discovery became the third operational orbiter to enter service, preceded by Columbia and Challenger. It embarked on its last mission, STS-133, on February 24,2011 and touched down for the time at Kennedy Space Center on March 9. Discovery performed both research and International Space Station assembly missions and it also carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. Discovery was the first operational shuttle to be retired, followed by Endeavour, Discovery launched the Hubble Space Telescope and conducted the second and third Hubble service missions. It also launched the Ulysses probe and three TDRS satellites, project Mercury astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 at the time, flew with Discovery on STS-95 in 1998, making him the oldest person to go into space. Had plans to launch United States Department of Defense payloads from Vandenberg Air Force Base gone ahead and its first West Coast mission, STS-62-A, was scheduled for 1986, but canceled in the aftermath of Challenger. Discovery was retired after completing its mission, STS133 on March 9,2011. The spacecraft is now on display in Virginia at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Discovery weighed 6,870 pounds less than Columbia when it was brought into service due to optimizations determined during the construction and testing of Enterprise, Columbia and Challenger. Beginning in late 1995, the orbiter underwent a nine-month Orbiter Maintenance Down Period in Palmdale and this included outfitting the vehicle with a 5th set of cryogenic tanks and an external airlock to support missions to the International Space Station. After STS-105, Discovery became the first of the fleet to undergo Orbiter Major Modification period at the Kennedy Space Center. Work began in September 2002 to prepare the vehicle for Return to Flight and this included scheduled upgrades and additional safety modifications. Discovery is 6 pounds heavier than Atlantis and 363 pounds heavier than Endeavour, Discovery was decommissioned on March 9,2011. Discovery replaced Enterprise in the Smithsonians display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, Discovery was transported to Washington Dulles International Airport on April 17,2012, and was transferred to the Udvar-Hazy on April 19 where a welcome ceremony was held. Afterwards, at around 5,30 pm, Discovery was rolled to its final stop in the Udvar Hazy Center. By its last mission, Discovery had flown 149 million miles in 39 missions, completed 5,830 orbits, Discovery flew more flights than any other Orbiter Shuttle, including four in 1985 alone. Discovery flew all three return to flight missions after the Challenger and Columbia disasters, STS-26 in 1988, STS-114 in 2005, Discovery flew the ante-penultimate mission of the Space Shuttle program, STS-133, having launched on February 24,2011
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Space Shuttle Atlantis
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Space Shuttle Atlantis is a Space Shuttle orbiter belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J from 3 to 7 October 1985, Atlantis embarked on its 33rd and final mission, also the final mission of a space shuttle, STS-135, on 8 July 2011. STS-134 by Endeavour was expected to be the flight before STS-135 was authorized in October 2010. STS-135 took advantage of the processing for the STS-335 Launch On Need mission that would have been necessary if STS-134s crew became stranded in orbit, Atlantis landed for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center on 21 July 2011. By the end of its mission, Atlantis had orbited the Earth a total of 4,848 times. Atlantis is named after RV Atlantis, a sailing ship that operated as the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1930 to 1966. Weight,151,315 pounds Length,122.17 feet Height,56.58 feet Wingspan,78.06 feet Atlantis was completed in half the time it took to build Space Shuttle Columbia. When it rolled out of the Palmdale assembly plant, weighing 151,315 lb, Atlantis is the lightest shuttle of the remaining fleet, weighing three pounds less than the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off on its voyage on 3 October 1985, on mission STS-51-J. It flew one mission, STS-61-B, the second night launch in the shuttle program. Atlantis was then used for ten flights between 1988 and 1992, two of these, both flown in 1989, deployed the planetary probes Magellan to Venus and Galileo to Jupiter. With STS-30 Atlantis became the first shuttle to launch an interplanetary probe, during another mission, STS-37 flown in 1991, Atlantis deployed the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Beginning in 1995 with STS-71, Atlantis made seven flights to the former Russian space station Mir as part of the Shuttle-Mir Program. When linked, Atlantis and Mir together formed the largest spacecraft in orbit at the time, Shuttle Atlantis also delivered several vital components for the construction of the International Space Station. During the February 2001 mission STS-98 to the ISS, Atlantis delivered the Destiny Module, the five hour 25 minute third spacewalk performed by astronauts Robert Curbeam and Thomas Jones during STS-98 marked NASAs 100th extra vehicular activity in space. The Quest Joint Airlock, was flown and installed to the ISS by Atlantis during the mission STS-104 in July 2001. The successful installation of the airlock gave on-board space station crews the ability to stage repair, the first mission flown by Atlantis after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was STS-115, conducted during September 2006. The mission carried the P3/P4 truss segments and solar arrays to the ISS, on ISS assembly flight STS-122 in February 2008, Atlantis delivered the Columbus laboratory to the ISS
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STS-61-C
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STS-61-C was the twenty-fourth mission of NASAs Space Shuttle program, and the seventh mission of Space Shuttle Columbia. It was the first time that Columbia, the first operational orbiter to be constructed, had flown since STS-9, the mission launched from Floridas Kennedy Space Center on 12 January 1986, and landed six days later on 18 January. It was the last shuttle mission before the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the camera was only used for a few more missions after STS-61-C, but the pod remained on Columbia for the remainder of its operational life. Smaller and more discreet modifications were added at various points throughout the shuttle. The bulky ejection seats, which had been safed after STS-4, were replaced with seats and head-up displays for the commander. The launch was scheduled for 18 December 1985, but the closeout of an aft orbiter compartment was delayed. However, on 19 December, the countdown was stopped at T-14 seconds due to an out-of-tolerance turbine reading on the right SRBs hydraulic system. Another launch attempt, on 6 January 1986, was terminated at T-31 seconds because of a problem in a valve in the oxygen system. The countdown was recycled to T-20 minutes for a launch attempt on the same day, but was held at T-9 minutes. After four unsuccessful attempts, Columbia launched successfully from Kennedy Space Center at 6,55 am EST on 12 January 1986. There were no significant anomalies reported during the launch, there were also four in-cabin experiments, three of them part of the Shuttle Student Involvement Program. The shuttle carried an experiment called the Comet Halley Active Monitoring Program and this experiment proved unsuccessful because of battery problems. According to Bolden, in addition to deploying the RCA satellite, Bolden was only told that it was a prototype for an infrared imaging camera. STS-61-C was originally scheduled to last seven days, but NASA decided to end it after four because its delays had delayed the next flight and it was rescheduled to land on 17 January, but this was brought forward by one day. However, the attempt on 16 January was cancelled because of unfavorable weather at Edwards Air Force Base. Continued bad weather forced another wave-off the following day, the flight was extended one more day to provide for a landing opportunity at Kennedy Space Center on 18 January – this was in order to avoid time lost in an Edwards AFB landing and turnaround. However, bad weather at the KSC landing site resulted in yet another wave-off, Columbia finally landed at Edwards AFB on its fifth landing attempt at 5,59 am PST, on 18 January. The mission lasted a total of 6 days,2 hours,3 minutes, STS-61-C was the last successful Space Shuttle flight before the Challenger disaster, which occurred on 28 January 1986, only 10 days after Columbias return
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United States House of Representatives
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The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435, the House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof and is traditionally the leader of the controlling party. He or she and other leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conferences. The House meets in the wing of the United States Capitol. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a body in which each state was equally represented. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates, the issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. The House is referred to as the house, with the Senate being the upper house. Both houses approval is necessary for the passage of legislation, the Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, the Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4,1789. The House began work on April 1,1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time, during the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives, However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed. Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery, One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War, the war culminated in the Souths defeat and in the abolition of slavery. Because all southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, the years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Unions victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877, the ensuing era, the Democratic and the Republican Party held majorities in the House at various times. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw an increase in the power of the Speaker of the House
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Bill Nelson (politician)
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Clarence William Bill Nelson II is an American politician and a member of the Democratic Party who serves as the senior United States Senator from Florida, in office since 2001. Nelson began his career in the Florida House of Representatives, where he served from 1973 to 1979 and he then served in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1991. In January 1986, Nelson became the first sitting member of the United States House of Representatives to fly in space and he flew as a Payload Specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia. He retired from Congress in 1990 to run for Governor of Florida but was unsuccessful and he was appointed as Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal of Florida, serving from 1995 to 2001. In 2000, Nelson ran for and was elected to the U. S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Senator Connie Mack III and he was re-elected in 2006 with 60% of the vote and in 2012 with 55% of the vote. In the Senate, he is considered a moderate Democrat. Nelson was born September 29,1942, in Miami, Florida and his ancestry includes Scottish, Irish, English, and Danish. His father died of an attack when Nelson was 14. Nelson grew up in Melbourne, Florida, where he attended Melbourne High School and he attended Baptist and Episcopal churches but later was baptized through immersion in a Baptist church. He served as President of Kiwanis-sponsored Key Club International in 1959–60, in 2005, he joined the First Presbyterian Church in Orlando. Nelson attended the University of Florida, where he was a member of Florida Blue Key, and he transferred to Yale University, where he was a member of the Book and Snake secret society. He received a law degree from the University of Virginia, in 1965, he joined the U. S. Army Reserve during the Vietnam War. He served on duty from 1968 to 1970, attaining the rank of captain. Nelson was admitted to the Florida bar in 1968, and began practicing law in Melbourne in 1970, in 1971, he worked as legislative assistant to Governor Reubin Askew. In 1972, Nelson married Grace Cavert, the couple have two adult children, Charles William Bill Jr. Nelson, and Nan Ellen Nelson. In 1986, Nelson became the second sitting member of Congress to travel into space and he went through NASA training with Senator Jake Garn of Utah. He was a Payload Specialist on Space Shuttle Columbias STS-61-C mission from January 12 to 18,1986, Columbia landed at Edwards AFB at 5,59 a. m. Mission elapsed time was 6 days,2 hours,45 minutes,51 seconds and it was the last successful Space Shuttle flight before the Challenger accident, as the disaster occurred only 10 days after Columbias return
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STS-51-L
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The mission ended in catastrophic failure with the destruction of Challenger, starting at 73 seconds after lift-off, and the death of all seven crew members. The Rogers Commission determined that the cause of the destruction was due to the failure of an O-ring seal on the starboard Solid Rocket Booster, the flight marked the first American orbital mission to involve in-flight fatalities. Gregory Jarvis was originally scheduled to fly on the shuttle flight. Although the crew died in the Challenger disaster, their seating assignment chart depicts what would have happened if the mission was performed as planned, during the ascent phase,73 seconds after liftoff, the vehicle experienced a catastrophic structural failure resulting in the loss of crew and vehicle. The Rogers Commission later determined the cause of the accident to have been the failure of the primary and secondary O-ring seals on Challengers right Solid Rocket Booster. The forward part of the booster cylinder struck the external tank inter-tank area, a rapid burning of liberated propellants ensued. With the structural backbone of the compromised and breaking up, the SRBs flew off on their own, as did the orbiter. Tracking reported that the vehicle had exploded and impacted the water in an area located at 28.64 degrees north,80.28 degrees west The crew perished in the vehicle breakup. Divers from the USS Preserver located what they believed to be the crew cabin on the floor on March 7. A dive the following day confirmed that it was the cabin and this would only be done during an emergency or loss of cabin pressure. PEAPs do not provide an air flow and would still have resulted in the astronauts losing consciousness within several seconds. This was likely fabricated and no recording exists, as the crew may have been unconscious from loss of cabin pressure and the astronauts did not wear individual voice recorders. Any voice recording facility would have been without power since the breakup of the orbiter immediately separated the crew compartment from the fuel cells in the back of the vehicle. The impact of the shuttle with the sea would have killed any still surviving astronauts on board, dick Scobee asked Kennedy Space Center engineer Ernie Reyes to design the mission patch seen above to represent the mission of 51-L. In it, Challenger is depicted launching from Florida and soaring into space to carry out a variety of goals. Among the prescribed duties of the five astronauts and two payload specialists was observation and photography of Halleys Comet, backdropped against the U. S. flag in the insignia, surnames of the crew members encircle the scene, with the payload specialists being recognized below. The surname of the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe, is followed by a symbolic apple, report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident
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Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
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The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11,39 EST. Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its solid rocket booster failed at liftoff. The O-ring was not designed to fly under unusually cold conditions as in this launch and this led to the separation of the right-hand SRBs aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces broke up the orbiter, the crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. The exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown, the shuttle had no escape system, and the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable. The Rogers Commission found NASAs organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident, NASA managers had known since 1977 that contractor Morton Thiokols design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings, but they had failed to address this problem properly. Approximately 17 percent of Americans witnessed the launch live because of the presence of Payload Specialist Christa McAuliffe, media coverage of the accident was extensive, one study reported that 85 percent of Americans surveyed had heard the news within an hour of the accident. The Challenger disaster has been used as a study in many discussions of engineering safety. Each of the Space Shuttles two Solid Rocket Boosters was constructed of seven sections, six of which were joined in pairs at the factory. For each flight, the four resulting segments were then assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, the factory joints were sealed with asbestos-silica insulation applied over the joint, while each field joint was sealed with two rubber O-rings. During the Space Shuttle design process, a McDonnell Douglas report in September 1971 discussed the safety record of solid rockets, while a safe abort was possible after most types of failures, one was especially dangerous, a burnthrough by hot gases of the rockets casing. The report stated that if burnthrough occurs adjacent to tank or orbiter, timely sensing may not be feasible and abort not possible, Morton Thiokol was the contractor responsible for the construction and maintenance of the shuttles SRBs. This phenomenon, known as joint rotation, caused a drop in air pressure. This made it possible for combustion gases to erode the O-rings, in the event of widespread erosion, a flame path could develop, causing the joint to burst—which would have destroyed the booster and the shuttle. Evidence of serious O-ring erosion was present as early as the space shuttle mission, STS-2. Contrary to NASA regulations, the Marshall Center did not report this problem to senior management at NASA, by 1985, Marshall and Thiokol realized that they had a potentially catastrophic problem on their hands. They began the process of redesigning the joint with three inches of steel around the tang. This tang would grip the inner face of the joint and prevent it from rotating and they did not call for a halt to shuttle flights until the joints could be redesigned, but rather treated the problem as an acceptable flight risk
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STS-28
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STS-28 was the 30th NASA Space Shuttle mission, the fourth shuttle mission dedicated to United States Department of Defense purposes, and the eighth flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. The mission launched on 8 August 1989 and traveled 2.1 million miles during 81 orbits of the Earth, before landing on runway 17 of Edwards Air Force Base, California, on 13 August. STS-28 was also Columbias first flight since January 1986, when it had flown STS-61-C, the mission details of STS-28 are classified, but the payload is widely believed to have been the first SDS-2 communications satellite. The altitude of the mission was between 295 kilometers and 307 kilometers, Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off from Pad 39-B, Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 8 August 1989. The launch took place at 8,37 am EDT, during STS-28, Columbia deployed two satellites, USA-40 and USA-41. Early reports speculated that STS-28s primary payload was an Advanced KH-11 photo-reconnaissance satellite, later reports, and amateur satellite observations, suggest that USA-40 was instead a second-generation Satellite Data System relay, similar to those likely launched on STS-38 and STS-53. These satellites had the bus design as the LEASAT satellites deployed on other shuttle missions. This joint NASA/DoD experiment was designed to examine the penetration of radiation into the cranium during spaceflight. The female skull was seated in a matrix, representative of tissue. Hundreds of thermo-luminescent dosimeters were mounted in the layers to record radiation levels at multiple depths. This experiment, which flew on STS-36 and STS-31, was located in the shuttles mid-deck lockers on all three flights, recording radiation levels at different orbital inclinations. During the flight, the shut down a thruster in the reaction control system after receiving indications of a leak. An RCS heater also malfunctioned during the flight, post-flight analysis of STS-28 discovered unusual heating of the thermal protection system during re-entry, caused by an early transition to turbulent plasma flow around the vehicle. A detailed report identified protruding gap filler as the likely cause and this filler material was the same material that was removed during a spacewalk during STS-114, the Space Shuttles post-Columbia disaster Return to Flight mission, in 2005. The Shuttle Lee-side Temperature Sensing infrared camera package made its flight aboard Columbia on this mission. Ironically, the camera faced the port wing of Columbia, which was breached by superheated plasma on its disastrous final flight, destroying the wing and, later, the orbiter. The SILTS system was used for six missions before being deactivated. One other minor modification that debuted on STS-28 was the move of Columbias name from its payload bay doors to the fuselage, allowing the orbiter to be easily recognized while in orbit
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STS-93
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STS-93 marked the 95th launch of the Space Shuttle, the 26th launch of Columbia, and the 21st night launch of a Space Shuttle. Eileen Collins became the first female shuttle Commander on this flight and its primary payload was the Chandra X-ray Observatory. It would also be the last mission of Columbia until March 2002, during the interim, Columbia would be out of service for upgrading, and would not fly again until STS-109. The launch was scheduled for 20 July but the launch was aborted at T−7 seconds. The successful launch of the flight occurred 3 days later and these ruptures resulted in a leak downstream of the main combustion chamber. This anomalous event and the response to the leak by the right engines controller did not violate any launch commit criteria. However, approximately 5 seconds after liftoff, an electrical short disabled the engines primary digital control unit, DCU-A. The central and right continued to operate on their remaining DCUs for the rest of powered flight to orbit. The electrical short was later discovered to have been caused by poorly routed wiring and this wiring issue led to a program-wide inspection of the wiring in all orbiters. To bring the back up to the commanded thrust level. The increased oxidizer consumption during ascent resulted in a shutdown of all three engines near the end of the projected burn due to low liquid-oxygen level sensed in the External Tank. Though the premature shutdown resulted in a velocity 15 ft/s lower than targeted and this incident brought on a maintenance practice change that required damaged oxidizer posts to be removed and replaced as opposed to being intentionally plugged, as was the practice beforehand. The primary objective of the STS-93 mission was to deploy the Chandra X-ray Observatory with its Inertial Upper Stage booster, at its launch, Chandra was the most sophisticated X-ray observatory ever built. It is designed to observe X-rays from high energy regions of the universe, the Shuttle Ionespheric Modification with Pulsed Local Exhaust payload activity researched the source of Very High Frequency radar echoes caused by the orbiter and its OMS engine firings. The Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging system was based around a Maksutov-design ultraviolet telescope, scientists can obtain sensitive photometric measurements of astronomical targets. The objective Gelation of Sols, Applied Microgravity Research experiment was to investigate the influence of microgravity on the processing of gelled sols. In particular, the purpose was to demonstrate that composite ceramic precursors composed of large particulates, the Light mass Flexible Solar Array Hinge payload consisted of several hinges fabricated from shape memory alloys. Shape memory deployment hinges offered controlled shockless deployment of solar arrays, LFSAH demonstrated this deployment capability for a number of hinge configurations
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
