On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. A number of political factors affected Kennedy’s decision and the timing of it. In general, Kennedy felt great pressure to have the United States “catch up to and overtake” the Soviet Union in the “space race.” Four years after the Sputnik shock of 1957, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space on April 12, 1961, greatly embarrassing the U.S. While Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, he only flew on a short suborbital flight instead of orbiting the Earth, as Gagarin had done. In addition, the Bay of Pigs fiasco in mid-April put unquantifiable pressure on Kennedy. He wanted to announce a program that the U.S. had a strong chance at achieving before the Soviet Union. After consulting with Vice President Johnson, NASA Administrator James Webb, and other officials, he concluded that landing an American on the Moon would be a very challenging technological feat, but an area of space exploration in which the U.S. actually had a potential lead. Thus the cold war is the primary contextual lens through which many historians now view Kennedy’s speech.

The above clip is from NASA’s page on President Kennedy’s announcement of the decision to go to the Moon.

Here is an audio recording of the speach I found on YouTube.

Twelve people have walked on the surface of the Moon.

Apollo 11

• Neil Armstrong – Commander
• Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. – Lunar Module Pilot

Apollo 12

• Charles Conrad, Jr – commander
• Alan L. Bean – lunar module pilot

Apollo 14

• Alan B. Shepard, Jr – Commander
• Edgar D. Mitchell – Lunar Module Pilot

Apollo 15

• David R. Scott – Commander
• James B. Irwin – Lunar Module Pilot

Apollo 16

• John W. Young – Commander
• Charles M. Duke Jr. – Lunar Module Pilot

Apollo 17

• Eugene A. Cernan – Commander
• Harrison H. Schmitt – Lunar Module Pilot

Apollo 17 left the surface of the Moon on 14th December 1972. We have not been back since then.

The flight computer onboard the Lunar Excursion Module, which landed on the Moon during the Apollo program, had a whopping 4 kilobytes of RAM and a 74 KB “hard drive.” In places, the craft’s outer skin was as thin as two sheets of aluminum foil.

This quote is from an article at Physorg.com titled Beyond Apollo: Moon Tech Takes a Giant Leap.

The above facts made me curious so I took a quick look at Wikipedia’s page on Apollo’s Guidance Computer (AGC).

This is a photograph of the AGC user interface:

By today’s standards that computer was tiny.

The AGC was used in the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) – later called the Lunar Module (LM). The LM was the bit that landed on the Moon. Here is a photograph of the LM:

The Apollo program is on my mind because this July it will be 40 years since the Apollo 11 mission. Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Niel Armstrong took that small step – the beginnings of humanity’s journey out of the cradle. You may have guessed that I think this event is significant in the history of humanity. It will still be remembered in thousands of years as one of the major milestones in our development.

Incidentally; the guidance computer was one of the driving forces behind early research into integrated circuits – necessary for development of that computer you are using to read this.

Now the largest spacecraft ever built, the orbital assembly of the space station began with the launch from Kazakhstan of its first bus-sized component, Zarya, on Nov. 20, 1998. The launch began an international construction project of unprecedented complexity and sophistication.

via NASA – Nations Around the World Mark 10th Anniversary of International Space Station

International Space Station

In the photograph above of the International Space Station, Zarya is the third “bit” from the bottom. It’s solar panels are folded up. below it is Zvezda with it’s solar panels ‘horizontal’ and below that is ESAs Automated Transfer Vehicle Jules Verne with it’s X-shaped solar cells. Jules Verne has been deorbited so it is no longer docked to the ISS. Below is a detailed image of Zarya.

The orbit of ISS is inclined about 51-52 degrees which means it never passes directly overhead where I live (above 60 degrees North). Here we see it passing in the South low on the horizon about every 14 days or so. Even so it is great fun to see this man made object brighter than the brightest stars. I visiteed the South of France earlier this year and had the opertunity of watching the ISS pass over the zenith. Jules Verne was about to dock so we saw that pass over about 10-15 degrees in front of ISS. The ISS has been continually staffed since 2nd November 2000. Think about that. Humans have been continually in space for the last eight years.

MESSENGER has successfully completed its second flyby of Mercury. Her is a sample of the first images returned. Clicking on the images sends you to the MESSENGER image gallery where you can see high resolution versions of these images.

Links of interest:

Wikipedias entry on Messenger
Wikipedias entry on Mercury
My post on MESSENGERs first flyby

I was at an amateur astronomy congress last weekend. One of the talks was by an rocket builder who later demonstrated the principle behind hybrid rockets. The rocket motor consisted of a combustion chamber made of a perspex tube. This made it possible to see inside the combustion chamber during the demonstration. The solid component of the fuel was also perspex and the gaseous component of the fuel was nitrous oxide. The demonstration rocket did not have a nozzle since this was just a demonstration of the basic principles of hybrid rocket fuels. The point of the demonstration was to show that hybrid rockets can be cheap, controllable and safe.

The first images from ESAs space probe Rosettas closest approach to the asteroid Steins are now available.

Images from Rosetta flyby of Steins

Steins is a main belt asteroid in orbit around the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. Rosettas closest distance to Steins was 800 kilometers. Steins is about 5.9 by 4 kilometers large – mountain sized.

Emily Lakdawalla at The Planetary Society has updated her montage that compares the sizes of comets and asteroids that have been imaged. Here you can see the relative size of Steins to other objects imaged by space probes.

Relative sizes of asteroids and comets

NASA has announced that GLAST is to be renamed to Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

NASA Renames Observatory For Fermi, Reveals Entire Gamma-Ray Sky

WASHINGTON — NASA’s newest observatory, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, has begun its mission of exploring the universe in high-energy gamma rays. The spacecraft and its revolutionary instruments passed their orbital checkout with flying colors.

NASA announced today that GLAST has been renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The new name honors Prof. Enrico Fermi (1901 – 1954), a pioneer in high-energy physics.

“Enrico Fermi was the first person to suggest how cosmic particles could be accelerated to high speeds,” said Paul Hertz, chief scientist for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “His theory provides the foundation for understanding the new phenomena his namesake telescope will discover.”

Links:

NASA – NASA Renames Observatory For Fermi, Reveals Entire Gamma-Ray Sky.
NASAs GLAST web page
Wikipedias entry on Enrico Fermi

Dr Phil Plait in an animated video describing the image taken by the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter MRO of Phoenix’ descent to the surface of Mars.

Note: A quick google search tells me that there is dispute about the genitive of Phoenix. Some use Phoenix’ and others use Phoenix’s.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin ( 1934- 1968 ) was the first human in space and the first to orbit the Earth.

This is one of the pivotal events in human history.

Gagarin orbited the Earth once. The entire mission from launch to landing took 108 minutes. During reentry the Vostok command section was supposed separate from the rentry module. A bundle of wires failed to release and the two sections were connected to each other until the wires burn out. As planned Gagarin ejected from the capsule before it landed because landing in the capsule was considered too risky.

• Space craft: Vostok 1
• Mass: 4725 kg (10416 ib).
• Launch vehicle: Vostok 8K72K.
• Launch site: Baikonur
• Perigee: 169 km (105 mi).
• Apogee: 315 km (195 mi).
• Inclination: 65.00 deg.
• Period: 89.30 min.

I am sorry to say I do not remember this historic event at all. I was 11 years old when it happened. I suspect this event was one of the reasons my interest in space flight finally awoke. I do remember reading about Project Vanguard and Project Mercury in The Eagle so my interest must have fully awoken by late 1961/1962. Of course Dan Dare helped.

Links of interest:

Wikipedias entry on Yuri Gagarin.
Wikipedias entry on Vostok 1.

Arthur C. Clarke died today aged 90. He had a good run.

One can guess his influence on me by checking out my bookshelf:

• Islands in the Sky – 1952
• Prelude to Space – 1953
• The Other Side of the Sky – 1961
• Profiles of the Future – 1962
• Glide Path – 1963
• Imperial Earth – 1975
• The Fountains of Paradise – 1979
• 2010: Odyssey Two – 1982
• 2061: Odyssey Three – 1987
• The Songs of Distant Earth – 1986
• Tales from Planet Earth – 1989

I have read several other works by Clarke including Childhood’s End, Rendezvous with Rama, a couple of short story collections and some short stories in other anthologies.

And the of course we have Clarke’s Three Laws (every person of influence must have at least three laws).

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Number three being my favorite.

Here are links to sites on my RSS feed mentioning Clarke’s death:

The Bad Astronomer

Pharyngula

BBC News

“Sir Arthur has left written instructions that his funeral be strictly secular,” his secretary, Nalaka Gunawardene, was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.
She said the author had requested “absolutely no religious rites of any kind”.

Way to go Arthur!

The Register

Ars Technica

Evolving Thoughts

MSNBC

NASA

Update – more links:

Universe Today

More from Pharyngula

New Scientist