collectSPACE Today In Space History

Space sneakers

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:31:45 -0600

When players take to the court at this year's NBA All-Star Game later this month, three basketball icons will don a new collection of Nike sneakers inspired by space exploration. The Nike Basketball and Sportswear collections borrow colors and textures from the spacesuits NASA astronauts wore over the past 50 years. LeBron James', Kevin Durant's, and Kobe Bryant's shoes also feature mission patches designed by Nike for them.

Penny payload

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:42:01 -0600

A Lincoln penny is now on its way to Mars, NASA announced Tuesday. The 1-cent piece, a 1909 "VDB" penny, was attached to a smartphone-size plaque on the Mars rover Curiosity to help calibrate one of its five science cameras. The plaque, which resembles an eye chart, will be used for the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, to help with three-dimensional calibration utilizing known surface shapes. Project managers also hope it will also offer a penny for the public's thoughts... about Mars.

Janice Voss, 1956-2012

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:14:57 -0600

Janice Voss, five time space shuttle astronaut and the former science director for NASA's Kepler mission, died overnight after battling cancer. She was 55. Chosen by NASA for its astronaut corps in January 1990, Voss' five flights as a mission specialist included the only re-flight in the shuttle program's 30 year history. She launched with the first commercial laboratory, rendezvoused with Russia's Mir space station and helped create the most complete topographic map of the Earth.

Roger Boisjoly, 1938-2012

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:54:41 -0600

Roger Boisjoly, who warned against launching space shuttle Challenger before its ill-fated STS-51L flight, died on Jan. 6 after a battle with cancer. An aerospace engineer for Morton Thiokol (now ATK) at the time of the tragedy, Boisjoly served on a task force examining the effects of cold weather on the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. At first criticized for being a whistleblower, he was later honored for his efforts and was regarded as a forensic engineering expert. Prior to going to work on the boosters, Boisjoly helped develop life support systems for the Apollo lunar module and spacecraft.

Petition pushes Pluto probe postage

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:03:35 -0600

The team behind NASA's first mission to the last (dwarf) planet started a petition campaign on Wednesday to have the U.S. Postal Service honor its probe with a postage stamp. Set to flyby Pluto in July 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will complete the first era of planetary reconnaissance and study the farthest object ever explored in space. The New Horizons team has set March 13, the 82nd anniversary of the announcement of Pluto's discovery, as the deadline for their petition, which will be delivered to the USPS and the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee for consideration.

Departure: Astronaut Shannon Lucid

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:02:09 -0600

Shannon Lucid, who more than three decades ago became one of the first women to join NASA's astronaut corps, has retired from the space agency. A veteran of five spaceflights, Lucid spent more than 223 days in space, and from August 1991 to June 2007, held the record for the most days in orbit by any woman in the world. The the only American woman to serve aboard the Russian Mir space station, Lucid was later named NASA's chief scientist and became a familiar voice as Capcom in Mission Control for numerous shuttle and station crews.

Shuttle Recordation

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:22:28 -0600

Last month, without a lot of fanfare, NASA premiered a new online repository for its 'Space Shuttle Recordation' efforts. Underway for two years, NASA has been collaborating with historic preservation offices in four states and the National Park Service to take laser-assisted measurements, panoramic photos and other multimedia products to record the engineering history of its now-retired space shuttles prior to their being delivered to museums for public display. The result of that work is now coming online and will be held by the Library of Congress.

Departure: Astronaut Jerry Ross

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:48:48 -0600

Jerry L. Ross, the first person to fly seven times to space, retired from NASA last Friday (Jan. 20). Ross spent more than 58 days in orbit and made nine spacewalks ranking him third among all space explorers for extravehicular activity time. Chosen to be an astronaut with NASA's 1980 class, Ross's first flight, STS-61B, was five years later. His seventh and final launch was on the STS-110 mission in 2002. Ross was a mission specialist on space shuttles Endeavour and Columbia once each and a record-setting five times on board shuttle Atlantis.

Freedom 7 on the move

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:41:36 -0600

After 13 years on display at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 Mercury capsule will be moving soon to Boston. Pending final arrangements with the Smithsonian, the first U.S. manned spacecraft will next be exhibited by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. But the craft's journey won't end there; the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington plans to display Freedom 7 beginning in 2016 as part of a new Apollo-themed gallery.

Astronaut Hall of Fame to add 3

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:18:06 -0600

The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in Florida will induct space shuttle veterans Franklin Chang-Diaz, Kevin Chilton and Charles Precourt this May as its 11th class of shuttle astronauts to be honored since 2001. Chang-Diaz, who tied the record for the most missions; Chilton, the military's highest ranking astronaut; and Precourt, a former chief astronaut, will bring the Hall of Fame's total inductees to 82. A public induction ceremony is set for May 5 at the Kennedy Space Center.

Seattle's shuttle trainer

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:59:42 -0600

NASA turned over the "keys" -- a "Remove Before Flight" pin -- for its only full-length space shuttle trainer to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where this summer the 120-foot-long mockup will go on display. Used by all 355 astronauts who flew on board the shuttle, the wingless Full Fuselage Trainer will be flown to Seattle in sections using NASA's Super Guppy aircraft.

Departure: Astronaut Ellen Baker

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:04:13 -0600

NASA announced on Friday that astronaut Ellen Baker has left the agency. A veteran of three space shuttle flights, Baker logged more than 28 days in orbit serving as a mission specialist on Atlantis' STS-34 and STS-71 missions and STS-50 on Columbia. Her three trips to space included launching the Galileo probe to Jupiter, the first flight of the U.S. Microgravity Laboratory and the first shuttle docking with Russia's Mir space station. Baker first joined NASA as a medical officer in 1981, three years before being selected with the tenth group of astronauts.

Breaking ground

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:46:54 -0600

NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex broke ground on the future home for the space shuttle Atlantis on Wednesday. The $100 million, 65,000 sq. ft. exhibit will provide guests a unique vantage point to view Atlantis up close, while telling the story of the 30-year space shuttle program. Set to open in the summer of 2013, the building's exterior was designed to evoke the shuttle returning from space, while visitors encounter a full size replica shuttle stack, launching them into the display.

Ebb & Flow

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:13:07 -0600

NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, spacecraft are now named "Ebb" and "Flow" thanks to the 28 students in Nina DiMauro's fourth grade class at Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont. The winners of NASA's naming contest for the tandem gravity-mapping probes now in orbit around the moon, the students won first pick of lunar targets to be photographed by Sally Ride Science's MoonKam cameras.

Failed and fallen

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:46:55 -0600

Russia's stranded-in-orbit Mars' moon sample return probe fell back to Earth Sunday, breaking apart and raining its debris over the Pacific ocean. Phobos-Grunt could have been the first mission to deliver soil (or "grunt" in Russian) from another planet's moon had its propulsion module not failed to fire soon after its Nov. 8 launch. Instead, the spacecraft got stuck circling the Earth until Sunday when it fell off the coast of South America.