collectSPACE Today In Space History

The man who launched John Glenn

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:19:06 -0600

The countdown to launch the first American into Earth orbit on February 20, 1962 built up to the push of a button. Convair test conductor Thomas J. "Terrible Tommy" O'Malley, who kept that button as a souvenir of his (and his finger's) role sending John Glenn into space, died on Friday at age 94. According to the newspaper Florida Today who spoke with his daughter, O'Malley had a brief conversation with Glenn from his Cocoa Beach home shortly before passing away.

Patch preview: Expedition 24

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:28:17 -0600

While the 24th resident crew onboard the International Space Station will not begin their expedition until May 2010, their increment's emblem is now ready to go. The red, purple and yellow patch depicts the orbiting outpost above the Earth as the Sun rises on the horizon. Six stars represent the six crew members, including Expedition 24 commander Aleksandr Skvortsov and fellow cosmonauts Mikhail Korniyenko and Fyodor Yurchikhin along with NASA flight engineers Tracy Caldwell, Shannon Walker and Doug Wheelock. The only writing on the badge are the roman numerals XXIV spread across the station's solar wings, denoting the 24th crew.

X-38 drops into Nebraska

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:30:03 -0600

A mockup that flew on drop tests for NASA's once-planned ISS crew return vehicle (CRV) dropped into Nebraska Saturday to be restored and then placed on public display. The X-38 (V-132) arrived by truck on Oct. 31 in Nebraska City from where it had been in storage at Space Center Houston in Texas. It was met by Lt. Governor Rick Sheehy and Nebraska City Mayor Jack Hobbie for a ribbon-cutting ceremony before continuing to the Strategic Air and Space Museum located near Ashland. The mockup, which made three parafoil and parachute-assisted flights after being dropped from a B-52 flying over Edwards Air Force Base between March 1999 and March 2000, was shelved after budget cuts led to the development of the X-38 CRV being cancelled in 2002.

DIY I-X

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:57:58 -0500

Prolific author, journalist and comic strip artist Wes Oleszewski realized quickly that he had some work to do as he watched NASA's Ares I-X rocket rollout to the launch pad October 20. A week later, by the time he attended the Ares I-X launch, his flying Ares I-X model rocket kit had been corrected. Pre-flight illustrations had shown the words "United States" stenciled in black along the length of the Ares I-X first stage; in reality, the letters "USA" appeared in red. Oleszewski's kit -- the only one to replicate Ares I-X, flying or not, is now available for those who desire to carry out their own test flight or who wish to display an Ares I-X model in the configuration that it flew.

Astronaut-alumni archives

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:18:22 -0500

Space shuttle astronauts Janice Voss and Roy Bridges on Wednesday gave over their personal papers and memorabilia to their alma mater Purdue University to be added to the school's flight archives. Bridges' log books, flight notes and photographs together with Voss' childhood report cards and scrapbooks will join the personal archives from fellow astronaut-alumni Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, and Eugene Cernan, the most recent person to do so. Purdue, which has had 23 of its students later become astronauts, will maintain Voss' and Bridges' papers for study through its Libraries Division of Archives and Special Collections.

Flight kit for a test flight

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:25:32 -0500

Though Ares I-X has no crew onboard, nor an official payload (other than the 700+ sensors recording data during the 28-mile high suborbital flight) that has not stopped NASA and ATK, the prime contractor, from making room for a few commemoratives. Stowed in three shoebox-size packages are mementos for the team who made possible NASA's first test flight of the Constellation program, while both the inside and outside of the rocket is adorned by markings celebrating their work.

'Armstrong'

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:21:45 -0500

A biopic based on the 2005 authorized biography of astronaut Neil Armstrong is moving forward, a source tells collectSPACE. Renewing its option to adapt historian James Hansen's biography of the "First Man," Universal Studios has assigned screenwriter Mike Rich ("Finding Forrester", "The Rookie", "Radio") to rework Nicole Perlman's completed screenplay. Producer Wyck Godfrey and his company Temple Hill Productions ("Twilight", "New Moon") were said to now be attached to the film. Hansen has also been named as a co-producer.

Midwest to Moon mementos

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:41:38 -0500

Moonwalker Neil Armstrong's sliderule, Eugene Cernan's lunar toothbrush, Jerry Ross' flown common wheat seeds and Don Williams' wind-up pop over mouse are now online as part of a new companion website to "Purdue's Place in Space: From the Midwest to the Moon," the popular 136-item exhibit hosted since July at the Indiana university's Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives & Special Collections Research Center. The new digital display, which also includes artifacts and personal papers from Purdue astronaut alumni Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, Roy Bridges and Janice Voss, highlights the role the school has had in graduating 22 U.S. space explorers.

Amelia and the astronaut

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:56:08 -0500

Famed aviator Amelia Earhart's personal photographer had originally been slated to accompany her on her 1937 attempt to become the first female pilot to fly around the world. Instead, Albert Bresnik's photographs would be among the last taken of Earhart before her disappearance over the Pacific Ocean. Bresnik's astronaut grandson has chosen to pay tribute to his grandfather in a way that also honors Earhart's legacy.

Ares I-X arrives at the launch pad

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:51:32 -0500

For the first time in more than a quarter century, a new vehicle is sitting at Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Ares I-X flight test vehicle arrived at the pad atop an Apollo-era crawler-transporter at about 6:45 a.m. CDT Tuesday. At 327 feet, Ares I-X is the third tallest rocket in history (after the U.S. Saturn V and Soviet N-1) and is the largest in use today. Scheduled to launch at 7 a.m. CDT October 27. the Ares I-X test launch will provide NASA an early opportunity to prove hardware, models, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I crew vehicle.

Lunar material in Irish landfill

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:55:10 -0500

Four small soil samples collected 40 years ago by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin have been lying for the past 32 years in a landfill, discarded accidentally, according to research done by Cleo Luff, a graduate student at the University of Phoenix. Studying under former NASA Office of Inspector General special agent Joseph Gutheinz, Ms. Luff was assigned to find the Apollo 11 lunar sample display gifted to Ireland by the U.S. in 1970. Tracking the acrylic button-encased and plaque-mounted presentation to the Dunsink Observatory near the city of Dublin, Luff learned that a fire in Oct. 1977 had destroyed the room where the lunar samples were on display and subsequently, they were tossed with the other rubble. "It's in the Finglas dump," former broadcaster RTÉ space correspondent Leo Enright wrote in a message that was forwarded to Luff by Matthew Parkes at the National Museum of Ireland, where the country's similar Apollo 17 goodwill moon rock is displayed. "Only moon rock I know of to end up in a municipal tiphead," added Enright.

Swedish spaceman stamps

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:44:12 -0500

Sweden has honored its first astronaut in space, Christer Fuglesang, with the release of five postage stamps depicting scenes from his 2006 first trip to orbit onboard STS-116. The triangular stamps, which were released September 24 in conjunction with their National Stamp Day, were designed using NASA photos of Fuglesang taken as he was working outside the International Space Station. For his part, Fuglesang gave feedback as to the stamps' design and contributed to their packaging. "They come in a folder with text explanations," he told collectSPACE in August, "and I wrote that text."

First, 50th, 600th

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:13:28 -0500

Sunday's Atlas V launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California marked the first use of that rocket from the west coast for the U.S. Air Force; the first launch since the September 9, 2009, 50th anniversary of the first Atlas to liftoff from VAFB; and the 600th mission for the Atlas rocket since its first flight as a missile in 1957. This most recent launch was in support of the Air Force's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program but the Atlas family of rockets may be best known for the Mercury astronauts' orbital launches during the 1960s, and for lofting probes including Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.