Human Spaceflight
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 …