Human Spaceflight
‘Apollo 13: Home Safe’ documentary gives inside look at mission
Apollo 13 suffered a catastrophic explosion en route to the Moon but has since become known as “a successful failure” because the three-man crew was able to safely return to Earth thanks to the round-the-clock heroic efforts of the entire NASA team to devise a solution to save the trio. NASA’s third planned manned lunar …
QuizMe: Russian Space Program
The Russian space program is the third featured topic in our new QuizMe series of educational content. Put your knowledge to the test with these 10 questions about the country’s space program which accomplished a number of international firsts. Russia has continued to launch crewed spaceflights since the early 1960s and is a major partner …
SpaceX Crew Dragon closing in on first launch with astronauts aboard
The United States is drawing closer to launching humans from American soil once again with the arrival of the newest SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The capsule is slated to launch with a crew of two NASA astronauts on the Demo-2 mission sometime this spring, marking the first time …
Koch and Meir complete historic first all-female spacewalk
A dynamic duo of NASA women astronauts – Christina Koch and Jessica Meir – made history Friday, Oct. 18 when they carried out and successfully completed history’s first all-female spacewalk. Soaring some 400 kilometers above Earth while working and floating outside the International Space Station (ISS), they performed a critical task of swapping out a …
New spacesuits unveiled for future Artemis missions
Culminating years of design effort, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine unveiled a pair of hi-tech spacesuits to be worn by the first woman and the next man who will journey to the Moon in Orion capsules and walk on the lunar South Pole – during a rousing event held Tuesday, Oct. 15, at NASA Headquarters in …
Max Faget was America’s chief spacecraft designer
Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil Armstrong is rightfully remembered for taking mankind’s first steps on the Moon nearly 50 years ago on July 20, 1969. Less well known, perhaps, is LSU Mechanical Engineering alumnus Maxime “Max” Faget, who designed the spacecraft responsible for that “giant leap for mankind.” Born in Stann Creek, British Honduras (now Belize) …
Piers Bizony peers into NASA’s history through the lens of Hasselblad cameras
Piers Bizony is an accomplished science journalist, space historian and documentary film maker. His books have explored the enormity and spectacle of the Universe as well as focused all way down to the sheer emptiness of a single atom. In his 2017 book Moonshots, Bizony takes readers on a photographic journey of 50 years of …
Jerome Pohlen brings alive ‘The Apollo Missions for Kids’
All across America and throughout the world, celebrations are being held this month to mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s first landing on the Moon. Well-traveled author Jerome Pohlen was just a kid when the Saturn V rockets were launching astronauts to the Moon from 1968 until 1972, but that era still has left …
Farouk El-Baz’s space odyssey from NASA to Star Trek
Farouk El-Baz once trained the astronauts who were planning for the 1969 Apollo Moon landing. Today, the former NASA geologist is training students at Boston University in how to use satellite images and other sensors to study the Earth. Of his role within the Apollo program, particularly Apollo 11’s crewed lunar landing, the Egyptian-born El-Baz said, “We …
‘Rocket to the Moon’ with the multitalented Don Brown
With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon rapidly approaching, there has been a plethora of books about the Apollo program released during the past year. We’ve been deluged with such books here at RocketSTEM in the past couple of months. That has been a good thing too. The ever-rising stack …