Showing posts with label astronaut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astronaut. Show all posts

May 26 - Happy Birthday, Sally Ride

  Posted on May 26, 2022     


This is an update of my post published on May 26, 2011:


Yeah! 

The first American woman in space and - at the time of her first flight - the youngest American ever sent into orbit—

—and this "first" and "youngest" had a cool name like “Sally Ride”???!!! 

NASA couldn't have planned it better!

Born on this day in 1951 in Los Angeles, California, Ride became a nationally ranked tennis player in high school, earned double Bachelor's degrees from Stanford in physics and English, and went on to earn her Master's and PhD from the same prestigious university. Her research was in astrophysics and free electron laser physics.

A bit of an over-achiever, I think!

NASA was looking for more astronaut trainees, and Ride was one of around 8,000 people to answer a newspaper ad for the position. (A newspaper ad? Really?) Of course, NASA snatched her up.






Ride's first Space Shuttle flight was in 1984, and both flights that she participated on were on the Space Shuttle Challenger. 

Ride was NOT on board the Challenger in 1986. Instead, she was training for her third mission in space - and was as horrified as the rest of us when the Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing its seven crew members. (Two of the crew members were women, and one of them, Christa McAuliffe, was the first member of the Teacher in Space Project.) Sally Ride participated in the commission that investigated the Challenger disaster.

After her time with NASA, Ride became a physics professor, served on a variety of commissions and boards, and began her own company to promote science to kids, especially girls.  One thing the company does is to put on festivals for girls from fifth to eighth grades—festivals with booths, activities, food, and music.




Sadly, Ride died of pancreatic cancer when she was just 61 years old.

Watch two short videos about Sally Ride. 

Want more? Here is a short bio. 







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March 15 - Happy Birthday, Alan Bean

     Posted on March 15, 2022


This is an update of my post published on March 15, 2011:




An astronaut who dared to “litter” on the Moon?

Born in Texas on this day in 1932, Alan Bean grew up to be an astronaut who flew with the Apollo program and became the fourth person to walk on the Moon.

Bean took a silver astronaut pin that had been given to him by NASA and threw it as far as he could, because he knew that when he returned to Earth he would be given a gold pin as a replacement. (NASA gave astronauts-in-training silver pins; when they finally got to go to space on a mission, they earned gold pins of the same style. And Bean had had his silver pin for six long years before he finally got to "graduate" to being a "real" astronaut.) Bean liked to think of that pin, later, whenever he looked up at the Moon.


Bean also left the silver pin belonging to the astronaut that was supposed to be on the mission - Clifton C. Williams - but who had died in a plane crash. Bean was actually chosen to replace Williams. Taking the astronaut pin of Williams to the Moon was a way of honoring him.

While on the Apollo 12 moon walk, Bean and his fellow astronaut Pete Conrad wanted to use a self-timer to take a photograph of the two of them together. Apparently they were hoping to confuse people back home—wait, who took that picture?—but the two couldn't find the self-timer in the carrier tote bag, and so they lost the opportunity. At the very end of the lunar walk, when it was too late, Bean found the self-timer and, according to Wikipedia, “threw it as hard as he could.” 

As a woman with a purse, I can totally relate to Bean's frustration.

By the way, since they didn't get their buddies-on-the-Moon-together photo, Alan Bean - who was an artist as well as an astronaut - painted a picture of them, and he included the astronaut who had had to stay in lunar orbit while he and Conrad had frolicked on the Moon, too - because why not?


Apollo astronauts have left a fair number of items on the moon, deliberately, including mirrors that can bounce back lasers to Earth scientists. Some stuff that was left behind was not for scientific-experiment reasons, but just to lighten the load so that lunar samples can be safely returned to the Earth. That includes things like bags of human poop, hammers and other tools unneeded on the ride home, vomit bags, and lunar overshoes. Astronauts left more than 100 items during the Apollo 11 mission, and at least 796 items from the entire Apollo program.


This photo is not real!

However, there is quite a lot of human-made
stuff on the Moon, including some items that
are basically trash, and we may eventually
need to consider what to do with the stuff!

Wikipedia has a list of the larger human-made items that have crashed onto or landed on the moon—more than 180,000 kg (400,000 pounds) of stuff! 

What do you think about the fact that so many items have been left on the surface of the moon? Will these items be studied by scientists to learn the long-time effect of lunar conditions on items made of various materials? Will they be the treasured discoveries of future historians? Will they be enshrined in future lunar museums?



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January 22 - Space-Stuff Day

 Posted on January 22, 2021

This is an update of my January 22, 2010, post:



On this date in 1992, Dr. Roberta Bondar, Canada's first female astronaut, became the first neurologist to enter space. She flew on the Discovery space shuttle and did microgravity experiments with a variety of organisms. Dr. Bondar also served as NASA's head of space medicine.


On this date in 1997, American Lottie Williams became the first—and, so far, only— human ever reported to be hit by human-made space debris (also known as “space junk”). Williams was jogging in a park near her Oklahoma home very early in the morning, and she saw a brilliant fireball-type meteor. She felt a “gentle tap” on her shoulder and looked down; on the ground was a piece of blackened metal. 

Later it was confirmed that the metal was a piece (shown in her hands, above) of a fuel tank for a rocket that had launched a U.S. Air Force satellite the year before. The rest of the fuel tank crashed into a field in Texas (shown below).



On this date in 2003, we said goodbye to Pioneer 10, the first thing made by humans to leave the solar system. The next day (January 23, 2003) scientists were able to detect the last feeble signal from the spacecraft as it continued to speed away from Earth.


Launched in 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to fly through the asteroid belt and to fly by Jupiter. Even though it accomplished these two main goals before two years had passed, Pioneer kept up the studies and transmissions as it streaked through the outer regions of our solar system. All told the spacecraft studied interplanetary and planetary magnetic fields; solar wind parameters; cosmic rays; the heliosphere; neutral hydrogen abundance; distribution, size, mass, flux, and velocity of dust particles, Jovian aurorae and radio waves, atmosphere of Jupiter and some of its satellites. Of course, it also photographed Jupiter and its satellites.


The mission was formally ended in 1997. After that time the probe was used in training flight controllers on how to acquire radio signals from space. Scientists believe that no longer have contact with Pioneer 10 because it is too far away and because the power supply is dwindling—not because of equipment failure.

A Message to Aliens?

Before Pioneer 10 and its sister spacecraft Pioneer 11 were launched, a journalist named Eric Burgess had a great idea—putting a message of some sort to any alien intelligences that may discover the probe, somewhere, someday. He made his suggestion to Carl Sagan, a famous astronomer and science writer.

Sagan loved the idea and, with the help fellow scientist Frank Drake and wife Linda Salzman Sagan, created a clever message to unknown creatures and minds, trying to communicate with images a little about who we humans are and where we live.


The plaque is 9 inches by 6 inches and made of gold-adonised aluminum. Here is an explanation of what the various symbols mean. And here is a great website to learn more about Pioneer 10.

Read about Space Junk.

Build a Pioneer 10 paper model.

Run gravity simulations.



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