Apollo
Troubleshooting with a ‘dead’ astronaut
I was an electronic technician for Grumman Aircraft Co. from 1964 through 1978. One of my duties was to operate the Lunar Module cabin during trouble shooting and testing. Back then, the astronauts spent as much time in and around the hardware as we did. One day in the MSOB (Manned Spacecraft Operations Building), I was …
Al Worden on the honor of being an astronaut
“Do you know what they did down on the Moon? What those guys’ primary job was? They picked up rocks and dirt. Now, myself, in lunar orbit…” — Al Worden, Apollo 15 CMP USAF Colonel Alfred Worden served as Command Module Pilot for Apollo 15 – the fourth manned lunar landing mission. He also holds the …
The difference it made: Building a car for the Moon
Neil Armstrong set the first distance record with an impromptu amble to Little West crater. Pete Conrad and Alan Bean exceeded that several times over by circling out and down into Surveyor Crater. Edgar Mitchell still holds the title for longest one, over a mile, made when he and Alan Shepard went looking for Cone …
Suiting up for 50 years of spacewalks
For many millenia, all of humanity had been bound to this terrestrial planet we call Earth, but in 1965 our species took its first steps into the unknown of outer space. Russian Alexey Leonov became the first to conduct a spacewalk in March 1965 , followed several months later by American astronaut Edward White in June 1965. From those first early …
Deep Space Network: Finding the signal for 50 years
Robotic missions exploring our solar system have wowed the world with their discoveries and especially the images they return. But even the most sophisticated spacecraft is useless until the science and engineering it gathers makes it back to Earth. NASA’s one of a kind collection of massive dishes around the world makes that possible. The …
A look at ‘The Last Man on the Moon’
The Time: 19.30 GMT Wednesday, June 4th 2014. The Place: London’s Science Museum. Silence and darkness is broken by the Houston skyline. At a livestock auction a white haired cowboy appraises the cattle stock before settling into a stadium seat at a Houston Rodeo Show. One by one the rodeo riders enter the stadium, holding …