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Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 165 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Man in Space
Alan Shepard, first American in space. Orbit: Altitude: 116.5 statute miles Orbits: 0 Duration: 0 Days, 0 hours, 15 min, 28 seconds Distance: 303 statute miles Velocity: 5,134 mph Max Q: 580 psf Max G: 11
Apollo 1 fire. January 27, 1967. Tragedy struck on the launch pad during a preflight test for Apollo 204 (AS-204), which was scheduled to be the first Apollo manned mission, and would have been launched on February 21, 1967. Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when a fire swept through the Command Module (CM).
Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the moon. First manned lunar landing mission and lunar surface EVA. 'HOUSTON, TRANQUILITY BASE HERE.THE EAGLE HAS LANDED.' July 20, Sea of Tranquility. 1 EVA of 02 hours, 31 minutes. Flag and instruments {deployed;} unveiled plaque on the LM descent stage with inscription: 'Here Men From Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon. July 1969 A.D. We Came In Peace For All Mankind.' Lunar surface stay time 21.6 {hours;59.5} hours in lunar orbit, with 30 orbits. LM ascent stage left in lunar orbit. 20kg (44 lbs) of material gathered. Orbit
Splashdown of the Apollo 17 spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean. 12-19-72 signified the end of the Apollo space program.
Launch date of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Apollo Soyuz was the first international manned spaceflight. It was designed to test the compatibility of rendezvous and docking systems for American and Soviet spacecraft, to open the way for international space rescue as well as future joint manned flights. The Soyuz was launched just over seven hours prior to the launch of the Apollo CSM. Apollo then maneuvered to rendezvous and docking 52 hours after the Soyuz launch. The Apollo and Soyuz crews conducted a variety of experiments over a two-day period. After separation, Apollo remained in space an additional 06 days. Soyuz returned to Earth approximately 43 hours after separation.
First Space Shuttle mission. Columbia (OV-102), the first of NASA's orbiter fleet, was delivered to Kennedy Space Center in March 1979. Columbia initiated the Space Shuttle flight program when it lifted off Pad A in the Launch Complex 39 area at KSC on April 12, 1981. It proved the operational concept of a winged, reusable spaceship by successfully completing the Orbital Flight Test Program - missions STS-1 through 4. Other, more recent achievements for Columbia include the recovery of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) satellite from orbit during mission STS-32 in January 1990 and the STS-40 Spacelab Life Sciences mission in June 1991 - the first manned Spacelab mission totally dedicated to human medical research. Columbia is named after a small sailing vessel that operated out of Boston in 1792 and explored the mouth of the Columbia River. One of the first ships of the U.S. Navy to circumnavigate the globe was named Columbia. The command module for the Apollo 11 lunar mission was also named Columbia.
First flight for Space Shuttle Endeavour. Authorization to construct the fifth Space Shuttle orbiter as a replacement for Challenger was granted by Congress on August 1, 1987. Endeavour (OV-105) first arrived at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility May 7,1991, atop NASA's new Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (NASA 911). The space agency's newest orbiter will begin flight operations in 1992. Endeavour is named after the first ship commanded by 18th century British explorer James Cook. On its maiden voyage in 1788, Cook sailed into the South Pacific and around Tahiti to observe the passage of Venus between the Earth and the Sun. During another leg of the journey, Cook discovered New Zealand, surveyed Australia and navigated the Great Barrier Reef.
100th Space Shuttle mission. Flown by Discovery it is a milestone in manned spaceflight history.
International Space Station construction begins. Zarya Control Module (Functional Cargo Block - FGB) was launched on a Russian Proton Rocket and became the first peice of the International Space Station to enter space.
Jules Verne. Verne's late 19th-century novel of travel to the moon bears eerie similarities to what would ultimately become Project Apollo in the mid-20th century. He also wrote a sequel called 'Round the Moon'.
X-20. When first conceived by the Air Force in the late 1950's, the X-20 spaceplane would have been launched into orbit atop a Titan I ICBM. By the time the program was cancelled in 1963, it was slated to ride atop a Titan III satellite booster. X-20 was to be have been outfitted for multiple military-related missions.
1967. On November 4, 1967, a Saturn V rocket launched the unmanned Apollo IV test flight. At the time of its launch, it was the most powerful rocket ever successfully flown.
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite. TDRS satellites allow mission controllers to maintain voice and data contact with the space shuttle and the International Space Station. They provide continuous coverage, eliminating the need for expensive ground and airborne tracking platforms.
Constitution. The only space shuttle orbiter built that was not rated for space travel, Enterprise's original name fell by the wayside, thanks to avid fans of the television series 'Star Trek'. Enterprise was used for approach and landing tests, as well as launch pad mating tests. It is now part of the National Air and Space Museum.
Kahzakstan. Baikonur Cosmodrome is located in central Kahzakstan, and has been the site of many Soviet and Russian manned space flights.
Scott Carpenter. Flying the Mercury capsule Aurora 7 in May, 1962, Carpenter was so entranced by being in space that he nearly didn't have enough fuel to get home. By firing his retrorockets three seconds late, he wound up missing his target landing zone. As a result of his antics, Carpenter never got a chance to fly in space again.
He didn't have a college degree.. Among the requirements for the original group of astronauts selected in 1959 was the holding of at least a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering or a related technical field. Though Yeager earned his stripes flying rocket planes like the X-1, he wasn't able to crack the astronaut corps.
1960. On October 24, 1960, an R-16 ICBM, being readied for its first test flight, exploded on its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Military technicians and civilians, led by Rocket Forces commander Mitrofan Nedelin, had gone out to the rocket before it exploded to determine why it would not fire. In all, 92 people died. Ironically, several men survived the explosion because they had retreated to an underground bunker for a smoke break just before the explosion.
Grumman. Better known for making the reliable F-14 Tomcat air superiority fighter, Grumman also built the fragile, bug-like lander that carried 12 Americans to the moon's surface.
French Guiana. A successful competitor to the US stable of expendable launch vehicles, Ariane rockets are launched from facilities at Kourou in French Guiana.
'Silver Tower'. A technothriller author in the same vein as Tom Clancy, Stephen Coonts, and Larry Bond, Brown's 'Silver Tower' is the only one of his earliest works not featuring characters from his fictional Dreamland test facility.
Three days. Apollo astronauts covered the quarter-million mile journey in three days. So too, did the three men launched in the cannon shell in Jules Verne's novel 'From the Earth to the Moon'.
1975. Apollo-Soyuz took place in July, 1975. It not only marked a milestone in space exploration, it also marked the last mission for the Apollo program.
Alexei Leonov. Leonov, who also served as the Soviet commander during Apollo-Soyuz in 1975, stepped outside the Voshkod II spacecraft in March 1965.
'Salvage'. Between his blockbuster successes with 'The Andy Griffith Show' and 'Matlock', Griffith starred in a few less-than-stellar series. This one, where he played a Los Angeles junk dealer who had a dream of travelling into space, was on ABC for only one season. 'The Cape' starred Corbin Bernsen as a space shuttle astronaut, and was short-lived in syndication in the 1990's. 'Flying High' was a short-lived CBS comedy about flight attendants coping with life and bell bottoms in the 1970's.
Capsule depressurization on reentry. To make room for three cosmonauts on board the two-man Soyuz 11 spacecraft, the crew did not wear pressure suits during ascent or reentry. During the reentry, a valve stuck open, venting the crew's air supply into space. The three men on board were dead before their spacecraft landed.
Asteroid strike in Italy. The asteroid impact on Padua and Verona in Italy occurred, according to the book, on September 11, 2077. As a result, the Spaceguard program to detect inbound comets and asteroids was founded, and the first of the huge Rama spaceships that entered the solar system was spotted fifty years later.
Fred Haise. The lunar module pilot on the Apollo 13 mission, Haise paired up with future shuttle pilot Gordon Fullerton to do approach and landing tests with the shuttle Enterprise. Haise left the space program before the shuttle became operational.
Douglas. The Douglas Aircraft Company (later McDonnell Douglas and now part of Boeing) built the Mercury spacecraft and its bigger cousin Gemini. Douglas was also one of the many contractors to work on the Saturn V moon rocket.
Wernher von Braun. Dr. Wernher von Braun had been a German scientist who surrendered to the Allied forces at the close of World War 2 before joining the space program.
God speed John Glenn. Scott Carpenter only flew one mission into space. He would later be the Executive Assistant to the Director of the Manned Space Flight Center and was active in underwater extravehicular crew training.
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