Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts

August 20 - Voyager 2 Launched - Complete with an LP of the Greatest Hits on Earth?

Posted of August 20, 2021

 

This is an update of my post published on August 20, 2010:



On this date in 1977, an unmanned spacecraft called Voyager 2 was launched by NASA.


It took photos and  measurements of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune - and actually, it is the only spacecraft to have ever visited Uranus and Neptune!

Neptune's largest moon, Triton.

After doing the Grand Tour of the outer planets, Voyager 2 streaked out of the solar system towards the stars. It reached interstellar space in November 2018, and after a break in communications with Earth due to maintenance of the NASA Deep Space Network and a major antenna upgrade, it has begun to provide the first direct measurements of the density and temperature of the interstellar plasma.

Voyager 2 carries a 12-inch copper phonograph record with recorded greetings from Earth people in 60 languages, along with samples of music and natural sounds including whale singing. Electronic information that an advanced technological civilization could convert to diagrams and pictures accompanies the music.

Voyager 2 has been in continuous operation for 44 years, now, and it is more than 11 billion miles (more than 17 billion kilometers) away from the sun. It takes a day and a half for signals from the spaceship to reach Earth!

Did you know that there was wind in space? Voyager 2 has spent some of its time measuring the properties of the solar wind and how it interacts with interstellar winds.

You see, the sun ejects streams of charged particles in all directions, making a sphere or a “bubble” in the interstellar medium (gas and dust) that surrounds the solar system. This bubble is called the heliosphere.



I know you've probably heard that outer space is a vacuum, which means that it is pretty much empty—no matter at all... Now I'm saying that there are charged particles, gas, and dust, let alone all the radio waves, light, and other forms of radiation. But the matter in outer space is so sparse, it still makes a high-quality vacuum that is hard for us here on Earth to copy, with just a few atoms per cubic centimeter.


Check out the Voyager website!


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July 20 - Moon Day

 Posted on July 20, 2021

This is an update of my post published on July 20, 2010:



On this day in 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to land on the moon. During the 21 hours that the two astronauts were on the moon, they planted a U.S. flag on the lunar surface, spoke to President Richard Nixon through a telephone-radio connection, took the first moon walks, and collected more than 47 pounds of lunar rocks.


And they did it all on TV! I was among the more than 600 million people watching―and for me it was THE highlight of TV in my childhood! (You Tube has lots of videos that include the first broadcast from another world.) 



Armstrong, Aldrin and astronaut Michael Collins flew to the moon on the space flight called Apollo 11. Once there, Collins stayed with the command ship, Columbia, while Aldrin steered the landing craft, Eagle, to the lunar surface, landing in the so-called Sea of Tranquility. (There is no liquid water on the moon, so it isn't really a sea.) NASA personnel in Houston, Texas, stayed in touch with the astronauts through radio transmissions and cheered them on.



Some of the big moments included Neil Armstrong announcing, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” and, when he first stepped down onto the dusty moon, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”









Check out this more detailed You Tube video about Apollo 11.




Did you know...?


One of the first things Buzz Aldrin did on the moon was to take communion privately and quietly. His church in Webster, Texas, still has the chalice used in the Lunar Communion.


The astronauts were supposed to sleep for five hours after landing on the moon, before they went outside. But like little kids too excited to sleep, they skipped the sleep period.

Even though we cannot see the astronauts' faces,
we can assume that they are pleased as punch to
be the first humans on the Moon!

Recordings of the original transmission of that first moonwalk were accidentally destroyed. Of course, there are lots of copies of the video in broadcast format, but NASA was happy when copies of the original footage were located in Australia, in one of the places that originally received the lunar broadcast.


Some people have concocted a crazy conspiracy theory that humans have never really flown to and walked on the moon. They claim that all of the moon landings (there were five more after Apollo 11) were hoaxes! 

One of the moon-landing deniers was bugging Buzz Aldrin for several minutes―in his face, over and over again accusing him of being a liar and a thief, and even calling him a coward―when Aldrin finally, famously, punched him in the face. The moon-landing denier sued Aldrin for the attack, but the lawsuit was quickly thrown out of court. (If you want to watch this widely-viewed incident, here it is.) 

Here is a website that briefly shows why we know the moon-landing deniers are wrong.


One way to prove that humans have been to the Moon
is to shoot a laser beam at it and clock its return. Buzz
Aldrin laid a reflector module on the Moon's surface so that
scientists on Earth could accurately measure the Moon's
distance over time. (The Moon is very very slowly getting
closer to the Earth.) Lots of different scientists have done
the simple experiment of sending a laser beam to the reflector.


Learn more about the moon landing


This website was created in time for the 50-year anniversary of Apollo 11! The anniversary's logo features a photo of Mars and the words "the next giant leap."




Check out a personal account of a man who turned 13 on the day humans first walked on the moon.


Take a quiz on the moon at the National Geographic Kids website.





Also on this date:




















more on Moon Day (here and here)



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August 12 - On this date in space travel...

Posted on August 12, 2020

August 12, 1960:

NASA's first successful communications satellite was launched. Called Echo1A, it was a "passive" communications satellite, because this metalized balloon-like spacecraft merely reflected microwave signals - bouncing them from one spot on Earth to another - rather than actively receiving and transmitting signals.

Echo 1A was nicknamed a satelloon!


August 12, 1977:

NASA's first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

What does "free flight" mean? It certainly wasn't without monetary cost! But before the Space Shuttle was launched into space, its ability to taxi down an airstrip and to fly was tested - both on its own and when mated to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA).

The first tests were called "captive tests," and these were when the Space Shuttle was attached to the SCA. The Shuttle wasn't doing any of the flying on these tests. Only after the Shuttle passed several captive tests did a free flight occur. The Shuttle was mated to SCA for take off and carried up to a fairly high altitude, where it was jettisoned away from the SCA. The crew on the Shuttle supervised a gliding approach to the runway and landed the Shuttle.


The Enterprise was the prototype Space Shuttle but was built without engines or a functioning heat shield. It was not capable of space flight, and it was a bit lighter than functional Space Shuttles. So after it passed its free flight tests, actual Space Shuttles had to be tested. 


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