Tag: Space History
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Blue Origin puts a test pilot who could have been NASA’s first Black astronaut on its next space crew
Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight missed out on space in the 1960s. (Courtesy of Ed Dwight via National Geographic) If the fates decided differently, Air Force test pilot Ed Dwight could have become NASA’s first Black astronaut in the 1960s — but he lost out, amid racial controversy. Now he’s in line to travel to…
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Godspeed, Stoke Space! Rocket startup gets John Glenn’s launch pad at the Cape
An artist’s conception shows Stoke Space’s reusable second stage, equipped with a regeneratively cooled heatshield. (Stoke Space Illustration) Kent, Wash.-based Stoke Space says it’s won the go-ahead to take over the Florida launch complex where John Glenn began the trip that made him the first American in orbit in 1962. That’s the upshot of the…
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NASA’s Boeing-built moon rovers are granted Washington state landmark status
Apollo 17’s lunar rover sits at its resting place at the Taurus-Littrow landing site in 1972. (NASA Photo) Three hot rods on the moon are now official Washington state historic landmarks, thanks to a unanimous vote by a state commission. The thumbs-up, delivered on Friday during a virtual public hearing organized by the Washington State…
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NASA’s Dragon riders capture the flag, nine years after it was left on the space station
NASA astronaut Doug Hurley shows off the U.S. flag that was left aboard the International Space Station in 2011 by the last space shuttle crew. Hurley and Behnken, at left, will take the flag back to Earth with them aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The space station’s current commander, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, is…
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Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden dies at 88, leaving 11 living moon travelers
Retired astronaut Al Worden, who was once called the “loneliest human being” because of his role as Apollo 15’s command module pilot in 1971, died in his sleep in Houston on Tuesday night at the age of 88, his family announced. Worden orbited the moon alone for three days in Apollo 15’s command module while…
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Apollo 11 moon landing’s 50th anniversary brings tributes, questions … and liftoff!
A Saturn V rocket is projected on the Washington Monument during a 17-minute multimedia presentation in the nation’s capital celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls) Fifty years after Apollo 11’s moonwalkers took one giant leap for humanity, luminaries including President Donald Trump and Amazon CEO Jeff…
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50 years after Apollo 11, unsung heroes of Mission Control ponder past and future of the final frontier
Flight directors are on duty at NASA’s Mission Control Center during the Apollo 10 mission in May 1969. Gerry Griffin is seated in the foreground, Glynn Lunney is seated to his right, and Milt Windler is standing behind them. Chris Kraft, director of flight operations, is standing in the background. (NASA Photo) [Editor’s Note: This…
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Check out Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11 flight manual before its multimillion-dollar sale
The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Timeline Book sits in a display case at the Living Computers Museum + Labs, with a picture of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the background. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Timeline Book that sat between Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin for the moon…
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Jeff Bezos explains how going to the moon is harder now than it was for JFK in 1962
Jeff Bezos checks out a framed facsimile of a note bearing the signatures of three Mercury astronauts, given as a gift by Caroline Kennedy. (JFK Library Foundation Photo / Tom Fitzsimmons) Back in 1962, President John F. Kennedy said he chose to have Americans go to the moon not because it was easy, but because…
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Museum of Flight rounds up ‘Summer of Space’ goodies for Apollo 11 anniversary
Elysian Brewing’s Space Dust IPA will be sporting space-themed labels this summer. (Elysian Brewing Photo via Museum of Flight) Want a little space history in your beer? Or soda pop? Or chocolate? Seattle brands are banding together to mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, with the Museum of Flight leading the…