July 18 – An Astronaut Is Born

Posted on July 18, 2013

Today is International Mandela Day, a day to celebrate the life and wisdom of Nelson Mandela, who once said, “We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in your hands to make a difference.” (See the link below for more on Mandela.)

It's Mandela's day because it is his birthday, but it is also the birthday of one of the most famous astronauts in U.S. history, John Glenn.

Here's what John Glenn once said: “It was quite a day. I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.”

FOUR sunsets in one day? I bet you can tell that Glenn said that after being in outer space!

John Glenn followed a career in the military as a fighter pilot by being a test pilot and one of the first American astronauts. He was THE first American to orbit the Earth, circling the globe three times in almost five hours. Here are some interesting facts about this historic flight:

• The people in the town of Perth, Australia, turned on all their lights—house lights, car headlights, and of course streetlights—while Glenn was passing overhead. He said that he could clearly see the city from space, and Perth became known as the “City of Light”!

• Glenn's spacecraft was called Friendship 7. He carried with him a note that read in several different languages, “I am a stranger. I come in peace. Take me to your leader and there will be a massive reward for you in eternity.” This note was to be used if the capsule splashed down in the remote South Pacific Ocean. (I'm not sure why the note had to clarify that Glenn was a stranger! Don't you think any people he encountered in the remote South Pacific would know that?)

• An indicator said that Glenn's heat shield had come loose. There wasn't much that anyone could do—if the heat shield failed, the capsule would burn up—but the flight controllers had Glenn keep his retrorocket pack over the shield to try to keep it in place. Of course, the capsule splashed down safely. It turned out that the shield was fine, and the indicator was faulty!

When Glenn retired from NASA, he became a U.S. Senator for the state of Ohio for 25 years. At age 77, in 1998, Glenn went back into space—the oldest human ever to do so! He was part of a 9-day Space Shuttle program designed to measure effects of space travel on the elderly. Of course, the program was also perfect for research on the effects of space travel on the same person at two different points of life (his flights being 36 years apart!).

By the way, the City of Light, Perth, Australia, lived up to its name with all its lights turned on again for Glenn during that Shuttle mission! How nice!

Also on this date:

Activist and statesman Nelson Mandela's birthday

Anniversary of a perfect game 

Extreme Vehicle Day

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest pages on July holidays, historical anniversaries in July, and July birthdays.

And here are my Pinterest pages on August holidays, historical anniversaries in August, and August birthdays.

November 29, 2012 - Anniversary of the Launch of the First U.S. Satellite with an Animal

Enos, a five-year-old chimpanzee, wasn't the first animal to orbit the Earth. That honor belongs to a Soviet dog named Laika, who was launched and achieved orbit in 1957. (It is a dubious honor, since Laika wasn't expected to survive and indeed did die in orbit. Still, Russian officials recently unveiled a monument to Laika, who was a stray dog that Soviet scientists found and trained for spaceflight; many stray dogs no doubt have shorter lives and worse deaths.)

Enos also wasn't the first animal to be launched into space by U.S. scientists. In 1947 scientists launched fruit flies into space, and these insects survived cosmic radiation and other spaceflight conditions.

Enos wasn't even the first chimp in space! That honor goes to Ham, who was launched into a sub-orbital spaceflight in 1961. He wasn't just a passenger; he pushed levers as he had been trained to do—and he was only a smidge slower than usual, down on Earth, so he proved that humans could perform tasks on a spaceflight.

No, Enos wasn't the first this or that or this other, but he was the first animal to achieve orbit on a U.S. spacecraft, and he was the first ever chimpanzee to achieve orbit.

Enos had more than 1,250 hours of training for his flight, including aircraft flights on which he encountered a certain amount of g force. And on this date in 1961, Enos flew into space on board Mercury Atlas 5. He was to complete three orbits.

Enos and the Mercury spacecraft completed the first orbit in one hour and 28 seconds. They completed a second orbit, but they were then brought back to Earth because the spacecraft was not maintaining altitude as it should.

Enos had a luckier ending than poor Laika. He survived splashdown and, when removed from his capsule, rescuers say that he jumped for joy and ran around the deck of the recovery ship, shaking their hands.

Here's an old movie clip about Enos and his flight. Unfortunately, we have no film of a joyful Enos shaking people's hands. 

This much longer movie about chimp astronauts doesn't focus on Enos at all, but gives you a good idea of what training he had to undergo. 

Also on this date:

Physicist Christian Doppler's birthday 

Classified Day 

Author Louisa May Alcott's birthday 

January 4, 2012 - Earth at Perihelion

The Earth will be at its closest point to the Sun today at 7:00 p.m. U.S. Central Time. That closest-to-the-Sun point is called “perihelion.”

Most people think of the Earth circling the Sun in a circular orbit – see? I just used the verb circling? That's how we think of it! – but really its orbit is elliptical. That means it is slightly oval in shape.

(To be precise, a circle is a very special ellipse in which every point is equal distance from the geometric center, so what I should say is that the orbit of the Earth is a non-circular ellipse.)

This diagram shows last year's
perihelion (and also the point at
which Earth was farthest from the Sun).
NOTE: This diagram is WAY out of scale.

Every ellipse has two focus points. Try moving one of the foci of this ellipse, and see how the other focus changes as well to maintain the elliptical shape. How long and skinny an ellipse can you make? Can you make a perfect circle? What happens to the two foci in a circle?

• Here is a website in which you can create an elliptical orbit for “your planet.” You can make your orbit closer to a circle or much more elongated. Notice, with an elongated orbit, that your planet goes a little faster when it is closer to the Sun and a little slower when it is farther away. Also try the zoom in/out and slower/faster sliders!

• To learn more about perihelion, check out this website.

• You can make an ellipse with some string and pins and a pencil. Instructions can be found in Richard Panchyk's book Galileo for Kids. Or try the Math Open Reference website.

Also on this date:

World Braille Day 

Firsts for the fourth