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Naval Aviation Centennial: One Astronaut, A Future Astronaut and Reaching for New Heights
Forty-nine years ago – within one day of each other, one astronaut headed for orbit as America’s first to circle the Earth and a future astronaut opened a series of record attempts in the McDonell F4H Phantom: Images Courtesy Rex Features & NASA 20 Feb 1962: Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn. USMC, in Mercury spacecraft…
Sir Arthur C. Clarke, CBE: 16 Dec 1917 – 19 Mar 2008
If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run – and often in the short one – the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative. – Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space, 1951 Radar specialist, scientist, visonary and author. One of the great pillars…
Final DSP Satellite Lifted to Orbit on First Operational Delta IV Heavy Lift
The last of the 23-satellite Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites was lifted to orbit this past weekend on the newest heavy lift rocket in the US inventory. The Delta IV was developed as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program to replace the previous workhorse of US military and commercial heavy lift, the Titan-family. Consisting…
Back to the Future: LRO Images Apollo 11’s Landing Site
Apropos that on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the landing on the Moon, the latest US visitor and (hopefully) precursor to our return via the Constellation program, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged the location in Mare Tranquilis that was the site of Apollo 11’s landing (click on image to enlarge): Note the object…
ISS and Atlantis – as seen from the ground…
… 190 miles away as it were. Amazing the things amature astronomers can do these days. Latest example – take one Boston-area high school class, mix with the Clay Center Observatory‘s 25" telescope, a digital camera and adaptive optics and voila: More on adaptive optics here h/t: Chap and Danger Room
Measuring Progress
Every so often one needs to benchmark progress – and as halting as the US space program has been (and apparently will continue to be for sometime to come) progress is being made. Witness the almost non-chalant nature of the EVAs this week as part of STS-117’s mission to the ISS to deliver and install…