There’s a new four-part interview series with Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, and part 1 is now available for viewing. The first man to walk on the Moon gives a personal commentary on Apollo 11’s historic lunar landing, his thoughts on leadership and taking risks to innovate for the future. With the future of NASA’s program currently under scrutiny, throughout the series Armstrong will talk about his position on the policy direction of the space agency, speaks candidly on his early life, and even tackles conspiracy theorist claims that the Moon landing never happened – using images from Google Moon to demonstrate their path. The series also includes previously unseen footage of the lunar descent. Armstrong doesn’t give many interviews, and the show’s producers say this is the first on-camera interview Armstrong has done since 2005. The episodes are from evoTV’s series, The Bottom Line.
The different parts will be released over the next few weeks:
When was the first launch ever from Cape Canaveral in Florida? It was on July 24, 1950 with the launch of a Bumper rocket, specifically Bumper #8. It blasted off from Launchpad 3 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It’s amazing to see how close the photographers were allowed to stand to the scene of the action! The little blockhouse for the firing crew and support personnel was located about 152 meters (500 feet) away from launch pad.
These rockets were built by the General Electric Company, and were used mostly for testing rocket systems and for research on the upper atmosphere. The Bumper series of rockets carried small payloads that allowed them to measure attributes including air temperature and cosmic ray impacts. The Bumper rockets were two-stage rockets that used a modified German V-2 missile base and with a WAC Corporal rocket for the upper stage. The upper stage was able to reach then-record altitudes of almost 400 kilometers, which is higher than the International Space Station’s orbit.
Read some interesting history about the Bumper rockets and the early days at Cape Canaveral at the SpaceLine website.
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has located the Apollo 11 F-1 rocket engines and plans to recover them. “I’m excited to report that, using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface, and we’re making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor,” Bezos wrote on the Bezos Expeditions website. “We don’t know yet what condition these engines might be in – they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years. On the other hand, they’re made of tough stuff, so we’ll see.”
Bezos said that about a year ago he was thinking of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission and wondered if the F-1 engines that started the seminal mission to the Moon could be located.
The Saturn V used five F-1 engines in the first stage. The F-1 is still the most powerful single-chamber liquid-fueled rocket engine ever developed, producing one and a half million pounds of thrust, burning 6,000 pounds of rocket grade kerosene and liquid oxygen every second. On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 was launched and the five F-1s burned for just a few minutes, and then plunged back to Earth into the Atlantic Ocean.
Even though the engines remain the property of NASA, Bezos hopes that the space agency would allow the recovered engines to be displayed at the Smithsonian or another museum.
“If we’re able to raise more than one engine, I’ve asked NASA if they would consider making it available to the excellent Museum of Flight here in Seattle,” he said. “NASA is one of the few institutions I know that can inspire five-year-olds. It sure inspired me, and with this endeavor, maybe we can inspire a few more youth to invent and explore.”
Bezos pointed out that no public funding will be used to attempt to raise and recover the engines, as it’s being undertaken by him privately.
Bezos said he’ll keep everyone posted on the progress of the recovery of these engines.
If you weren’t able to watch live, this is a fun exchange between the current astronauts in orbit, talking with one of the first people ever to see Earth from an orbital perspective. The astronauts aboard the International Space Station talked with Senator John Glenn during an in-flight call this week, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Glenn’s historic Friendship 7 space flight. The event was part of NASA’s Future Forum at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
Sittra Battle of the Marshall Space Flight Center shuts down NASA's last mainframe computer. Credit: NASA
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NASA has just powered down its last mainframe computer. Umm, everyone remembers what a mainframe computer is, right? Well, you certainly must recall working with punched cards, paper tape, and/or magnetic tape, correct? That does sound a little archaic. “But all things must change,” wrote Linda Cureton on the NASA CIO blog. “Today, they are the size of a refrigerator but in the old days, they were the size of Cape Cod.”
The last mainframe being used by NASA, the IBM Z9 Mainframe, was being used at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Cureton described the mainframe as a “ big computer that is known for being reliable, highly available, secure, and powerful. They are best suited for applications that are more transaction oriented and require a lot of input/output – that is, writing or reading from data storage devices.”
An IBM 704 mainframe from 1964. Via Wikipedia
In the 1960’s users gained access to the huge mainframe computer through specialized terminals using the punched cards. By the 1980s, many mainframes supported graphical terminals where people could work, but not graphical user interfaces. This format of end-user computing became obsolete in the 1990s when personal computers came to the forefront of computing.
Most modern mainframes are not quite so huge, and excel at redundancy and reliability. These machines can run for long periods of time without interruption. Cureton says that even though NASA has shut down its last one, there is still a requirement for mainframe capability in many other organizations. “The end-user interfaces are clunky and somewhat inflexible, but the need remains for extremely reliable, secure transaction oriented business applications,” she said.
But today, all you need to say is, “there’s an app for it!” Cureton said.
Here’s a blast from the past: 54 years ago on January 31, 1958, Explorer 1 was the first satellite sent into space by the United States. The U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency was directed to launch a satellite following the Soviet Union’s successful Sputnik 1 launch on October 4, 1957. The 13-kg (30-pound) Explorerer satellite was launched by 3-stage Redstone missile. This newsreel footage also includes a famous scene where Werner von Braun and scientist James Van Allen lift a model of the satellite triumphantly above their heads. Continue reading “Newsreel Footage of Explorer 1”
He’s an American space icon, and today he turns 90 years of age. “John Glenn is a legend, and NASA sends him our best wishes on this major personal milestone,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. John’s legacy and contributions to the continued progress of human spaceflight are immense. His example is one we continue to emulate as we push toward farther destinations in the solar system.”
What better way to look back a Glenn’s achievements than this 1963 NASA video, found in the National Archives Repository.
President Barack Obama called out for pizza today and ending up talking with the crews of STS-135 and Expedition 28 on the International Space Station. Well, that was his story anyway, but he did talk with the crews, offering a challenge for commercial space companies, as well as remembering the first flight of cooperation between the US and the Soviet Union – the Apollo-Soyuz test project which launched 36 years ago today — and reiterating the challenge of sending humans to Mars.
The STS-135 crew brought a flag that was flown on STS-1, the first shuttle mission, up to the ISS. “We’ll present the flag to the space station crew and it will hopefully maintain a position of honor until the next vehicle launched from US soil brings US astronauts up to dock with the space station,” STS-135 commander Chris Ferguson told the president.
Need a space-related smile for the day? Science comedian Brian Malow has a love affair with space travel that began in early in his life, and it may include happily ever after. Thanks to Brian for sharing this video with Universe Today!
NASA's Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach has been with NASA since 1984 and took a moment to share his thoughts about the future. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian
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CAPE CANAVERAL Fla. – He has been with the shuttle program for the past three decades and has witnessed both its tragedies and its triumphs. NASA’s Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach reflected on the end of the shuttle era when interviewed this week. He talked a bit about his plans for the future as well as what he thinks people can expect from both him and his team on launch day.
Q: The Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT) for STS-135 has just wrapped up, is this is a period of accelerated work for you and your team or is this a time when you can catch your breath?
Leinbach: “This TCDT was a little different; we had a very busy period getting the crew
ready for this mission. On July 4 we’ll have a bit of a break and then things
will pick right back up again as we get ready for launch.”
Q: What do you think you will be feeling when that final launch occurs?
Leinbach: “I don’t know, I mean I have thought a lot about this…I don’t know what it’s
going to be like. For the last flight of Discovery we had one more launch for
both Endeavour and Atlantis, well now this really and truly the last flight of
the shuttle program… so it’s going to be a very reflective time.”
Leinbach gestures toward his former secretary before the start of the interview. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian
Q: Do you think anything will be special about this mission?
Leinbach: “The launch itself will be very much any other launch. When the guy’s are
working on the consoles they are very serious about what they are doing.
They won’t be distracted by the fact that it is the last one.
Q: Speaking of your job – it keeps you very busy, have you had any time to reflect?
Leinbach: “For the moment I still have a lot to do concluding TCDT, but this Saturday I
am planning on driving out to the launch pad and just looking up at Atlantis
and just soaking it all in, all by myself.”
Leinbach started working for NASA as a structural engineer in 1984, his words are softly spoken which tends to lend them even more weight. His first mission as launch director was STS-114. This was the first shuttle launch after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. Leinbach led the recovery team searching for Columbia’s debris in Texas. A year later in 2004 Leinbach was awarded the Presidential Rank Award, which is given in recognition of long-term accomplishments.
Atlantis will carry the four person crew of STS-135 to the International Space Station on a resupply flight designed to keep the orbiting outpost well stocked after the shuttles are decommissioned. The mission is scheduled to last twelve days, launching on July 8 at 11:26 a.m. EDT. The crew consists of Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim.
The Launch Control Center or LCC is where the final "go" "no-go" for launch is determined. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian
