Human Spaceflight
Astronaut Reid Wiseman on the first spacewalk of Expedition 41
On Oct. 7, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman (pictured here) and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst completed the first of three spacewalks for the Expedition 41 crew aboard the International Space Station. The spacewalkers worked outside the space station’s Quest airlock for 6 hours and 13 minutes, relocating a failed cooling pump to external stowage …
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 …
Apollo 11: A giant leap for mankind
We missed the whole thing It was a wondrous opportunity to be part of something historical. We just had a hard time comprehending what it would mean to other people, what it would mean to ourselves. – Buzz Aldrin It was too much for us to grasp at the time. America was in hot battles …
Jack King: The Voice of Apollo
Most people have crushes on astronauts, but I’m smitten by a voice. Jack King has never been to the Moon. He has never had a ticker tape parade. You wouldn’t recognize him if you passed him on the street. But the moment he begins speaking, chances are you’d want a front row seat, because Jack …
Buzz Aldrin: It’s time to colonize the Red Planet
At 84 years of age, Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin still has a lot to say. And with a lifetime of experiences behind him – and ahead of him yet as well – he’s hoping those in power in Washington D.C. and at NASA will listen to his plans to colonize the planet Mars during the next four …
Unsung heroes of the Apollo program
For years history has celebrated the crews of elite astronauts who rode fire to the Moon and the unique twelve who walked on its surface. To a lesser degree, the senior mission specialists working in Houston and in Florida were also lauded. But at its height during the Apollo program 400,000 people were involved in …
Learning celestial navigation at Morehead Planetarium
You might not think a visit to a planetarium could save your life, but that’s how at least seven astronauts see the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center in Chapel Hill, N.C. Nearly every astronaut in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab programs made multiple visits to Morehead to learn celestial navigation. Each spent at least …
Boeing unveils CST-100 spacecraft
They say there is no substitute for experience, and when it comes to spaceflight there are few in the world that can match the proven expertise and decades of experience that Boeing brings to the table. Three companies are currently developing spacecraft to fill the void left by the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet …
Revealing a new Dragon
In my lifetime, I have witnessed what I thought may be the entire life cycle of the era of manned flight in the USA; from the challenge of Russia’s Sputnik in 1957, when I was 11 years old, to the ROAR of the last Space Shuttle launch in 2011. Oh, brother. Was I wrong. Before …
New vehicles pave way for exploration
Why is NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to develop private human transport ships to low Earth orbit important? That’s the question I posed to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden when we met for an exclusive interview at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) is the critical enabler “for establishing a viable …