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3-2-1 ... and Liftoff: Manned Space Flights Mark 50th Anniversary
By Lee Speigel - AOL News"Three ... 2 ... 1 ...ignition ... and liftoff." With those famous words first heard in Russian and then English, rocket engines burst into life, sending manned vehicles through the extreme "g" forces of vertical acceleration into Earth orbit and into the history books. On this date 20 years apart, two milestones were reached that set the tone for human space exploration. The Soviet Union took the first leap, surprising the world on April 12, 1961, launching air force pilot Yuri Gagarin into orbit -- a single 108-minute loop around Earth -- making him the first human to fly in space. And 20 ...
Buzz Aldrin: 25 Years After Challenger Disaster -- A Rededication to Space
By not in system - AOL NewsGrant Halverson / AP Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin reflects on the Challenger disaster from 25 years ago. As we reflect on the tragic loss of Challenger and her brave crew of heroes aboard that fateful day, Jan. 28, 1986, I am reminded that they truly represented the best of us. As they climbed aloft on a plume of propellant gasses, reaching for the stars, they inspired us who were earthbound. They represented the inspiration that is uniquely space and planned to share their experiences with the classrooms of future explorers who might one day follow their path -- and, perhaps, reach higher ...
Revisiting the Failed Soviet Moon Program
By Paul Wachter - AOL News(Oct. 18) -- Who won the space race, again? With the Space Shuttle set to be decommissioned next year and no viable replacement in sight, the current thinking is that American astronauts will have to resort to "hitchhiking" rides into space on the Russian Soyuz craft. Such a state of affairs has been widely criticized by space program vets, some of whom see it as a relinquishment of decades of American scientific advantage. (Buzz Aldrin is one notable exception.) But that said, it's worth revisiting a time when such advantage, real or perceived, was far from assured. Wired (via ...
China Launches Lunar Probe as NASA Turns Back on Moon
By Hugh Collins - AOL News
(Oct. 1) -- China today launched its second lunar probe, the same week NASA severely curtailed its moon program more than 40 years after Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind. China launched the Chang'e-2 probe from a site in Sichuan province. It is expected to reach lunar orbit in about five days, Xinhua News reported. AP A Long March 3C rocket carrying China's second unmanned lunar probe launches Friday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China's Sichuan province.The launch is part of an ambitious space program that aims to put a man on the moon later this decade. The probe ...
New Footage of Neil Armstrong Moonwalk Surfaces
By Hugh Collins - AOL News(Sept. 29) -- Previously lost footage of Neil Armstrong's 1969 moonwalk will be shown in Australia next week. The recording, unnoticed for years in archives in Australia, shows the first few minutes of the astronaut's descent from Apollo 11. The footage, which was misplaced for years, is believed to be some of the best-quality pictures of the moonwalk. "NASA were using the Goldstone (California) station signal, which had its settings wrong, but in the signals being received by the Australian stations, you can actually see Armstrong, " historian John Sarkissian told Agence France-Presse. ...
Warhol in Space: Apollo 12 Secretly Carried Art to the Moon
By David Moye - AOL News(June 17) -- Neil Armstrong's moon walk on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission was a small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind, but a small ceramic tile snuck aboard the Apollo 12 mission a few months later has turned out to be a giant leap for American art. Believe it or not, one of the engineers who built the lunar module for the Apollo 12, the second moon landing, snuck aboard a tiny ceramic chip containing original artwork by six of the American art world's biggest names, including Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Robert Rauschenberg, creating a permanent miniature art museum on the ...
Debate: A Space Program for the Rest of Us
By Rand Simberg - AOL News(April 15) -- While my admiration for and gratitude to Neil Armstrong and other astronauts and NASA officials from the Apollo era know no bounds, that doesn't mean they are the first people to whom I would go for space policy advice. The job of an astronaut or a flight director requires a certain skill set, but it doesn't necessarily include cost analysis or economics. And it shows in their recent open letter protesting the Obama administration's new space policy. When they say that the decision to end the Constellation program is "devastating," they ignore how devastating that program was to ...
Pulling the Plug on Space Travel: One Small Step for Obama's Budgetary Math
By Walter Shapiro - Politics DailyWhen John Kennedy made his commitment to land a man on the moon by the end of 1960s, the New Frontier president expressed a dream that went far beyond Cold War pride in planting an American flag on the lunar surface. Addressing a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, Kennedy also spoke glowingly of the "promise of some day providing a means for even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the moon, perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself." Nearly half a century later, the last flickering embers of that dream were extinguished in a single bullet point ...
One Small Step for Science, One Giant Leap Away From Celebrity
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyThursday is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 to the moon, where astronaut Neil Armstrong famously took a giant leap for mankind (that's us, too, ladies!) and a small step for man (just you fellows that time.) How to celebrate this? Well, you could read up on the history of space travel! You could watch old footage of the moon landing! You could get some cardboard boxes, markers and tin foil and build an Apollo 11 replica of your own! Or, you could sweep up clippings of Neil Armstrong's hair into a little plastic bag and dig up his voided checks to be sold to the highest bidder! ...
Apollo 11 and September 11: The Power of Symbols
By Jeffrey Weiss - Politics DailyTwice in my lifetime the world stopped to watch a single event on TV: On July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon. And on Sept. 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers fell. There's one ironic connection: Both were the product of metal and fuel, technology in the service of human will. But a specific dissonance is even more striking. ...
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