It was worth the wait! NASA has posted the first new images released by the Hubble ERO folks, following the refurbishment of the space telescope.  Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) had the honor of presiding at this long awaited unveiling.  With the help of Digsby, Twitter and NASA’s award winning website, I was able to grab one of several wonderful images for your viewing pleasure.  The image above is called “Stephan’s Quintet – Galactic wreckage.”

STS-128 has completed its mission to the International Space Station, exchanging members of the ISS Expedition 20 team, and resupplying the space station.  With good weather in Florida, the crew will land early Thursday evening.

Supplemental links – Hat tip to my regular contributor, Jon, for the links marked with a (#):

• “Astronauts pack Buzz Lightyear for ride home#,” is from Yahoo! News (9/7/09).
• “Space Sights and Smells Surprise Rookie Astronauts#,” is from Yahoo! News (9/5/09).

Links in boldface are important new elements to the NASA stories to be explored in a subsequent post.  The links indicate the Augustine Commission’s recommendations to the Obama administration regarding the future of U.S. space flight, jeopardized by a lack of money.  I highly recommend the NPR article (in the Zemanta box below) as a first look at the panel’s findings.  And here is the intro to the  Augustine Commission’s Summary Report.  To quote:

Related articles by Zemanta

• Panel Tells Obama Moon Return Is A No-Go (npr.org)
• New Look at a Colossal Cosmic Collision (space.com)
• Refurbishments Complete, Astronauts Let Go of Hubble (nytimes.com)

NASA is at a crossroads:

Former Astronaut Charles Bolden will probably be the new head of NASA. But a committee holds much of the fate of NASA in its own expert hands.  This New York Times Augustine article is very useful for painting the big picture.  The Committee held a public meeting on June 17.  The “Agenda Released for U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Meeting,” is from NASA Breaking News (6/16/09).  To quote the press release:

The first public meeting of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 17, at the Carnegie Institute, located at 1530 P Street NW in Washington. The meeting will take place in the auditorium and is open to the public. No pre-registration is required.

The planned agenda is below. All times are EDT.

Pertinent news associated with this big story – These “June 18 News Items,” are by ellegood from Florida Space Report.  To quote a few of the most interesting:

House Passes NASA Budget Bill With Constellation Cut (Source: Florida Today)
A NASA funding bill for next year passed the House on Thursday – without reversing a cut of $566 million to the Constellation human space flight program. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, filed two amendments to the 2010 budget bill covering commerce, justice and science operations, attempting to restore the funding cut. But Democratic congressional leaders did not allow either to be considered. The legislation passed 259-157. Posey and Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, D-Smyrna Beach, voted against it. Editor’s Note: House members hope to revisit the budget after the Augustine Panel delivers its recommendations to President Obama. (6/18)

Firms Team Up for ISS Supply Ship (Source: BBC)
US and Italian companies are teaming up to build a private re-supply ship for the Space Station. The Orbital Sciences Corporation has engaged Thales Alenia Space to build a pressurized module for its forthcoming cargo vessel, Cygnus. The spacecraft is expected to carry almost three tonnes of food and equipment to the platform. The agreement between Orbital and Thales signed at the Paris air show covers nine Cygnus ships in total. The first is a demonstration flight that must prove to NASA that the commercial freighter design is up to the task, and that the robot vehicle poses no danger to the crew of the station. (6/18)

A Better, Cheaper Rocket Than Ares? (Source: Florida Today)
Executives from several private space companies said Wednesday that they could provide cheaper, more reliable launch systems than those of NASA’s Constellation program. The executives made their comments about alternatives to NASA’s plan for sending astronauts to the moon and on to Mars during the first meeting of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee created by President Barack Obama. After the daylong meeting, committee Chairman Norm Augustine, a former CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp., said some commercial launch efforts appear “further along than I thought.” (6/18)

Doubts Grow About NASA Moon Return (Source: New Scientist)
A senior NASA official expressed doubt on Wednesday that the agency could send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit without extra money or using vehicles radically different form those it is currently working on. NASA’s space shuttle program manager John Shannon made the remarks in a presentation to a committee reviewing NASA’s human spaceflight plans. Shannon said the space vehicles designed by NASA’s Constellation Program to replace the space shuttle and ferry astronauts to the moon were “well thought out”, but that the agency does not have enough money to make them a reality. (6/18)

SpaceX and Orbital Pitch Falcon and Taurus to Augustine Panel (Source: SPACErePORT)
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. both briefed the Augustin Panel on their progress with developing their Falcon-9 and Taurus-2 rockets to support NASA and other customers. SpaceX is planning Falcon-9 human spaceflight missions to ISS with their Dragon capsule, and could conduct missions otherwise planned for Ares-1. Orbital is pressing ahead with pressurized and unpressurized cargo-carrying missions to the Space Station. (6/18)

DIRECT Team Pitches In-Line Jupiter-130 as Ares Alternative (Source: SPACErePORT)
Representing the DIRECT team, Steve Metschan pitched the Jupiter-130 concept for an in-line Shuttle-derived launch system. With DIRECT, the Shuttle orbite would be replaced with a top-mount payload carrier for Orion, other payloads, and other upper-stage components. Three Space Shuttle Main Engines would be mounted on the bottom of the External Tank. Existing SRBs would be used.

Metschan said this is not a “paper rocket”, as most of its components are currently operational. Ares-1 and Ares-5, he said, are much more conceptual. The concept is compelling and is based on NASA’s own plans, but has not been embraced by the agency or its contractors, though Boeing is said to be considering it as a concept it would support. (6/18)

Side-Mount Payload Carrier Studied to Replace Shuttle Orbiters (Source: SPACErePORT)
NASA presented an alternative heavy-lift architecture to the Augustine Panel, similar to the “Shuttle-C” cargo carrier design of over a decade ago. The “Side-Mount” concept replaces the Space Shuttle orbiter with a large cargo carrying pod, attached to the External Tank using the same attach-points currently used by the Space Shuttle orbiters. One version would carry NASA’s Orion capsule at the top of the pod.

The side-mount approach would encounter some of the same safety problems as the current orbiters, including foam-strikes and a less-than-ideal crew escape capability if the adjacent ET and SRBs malfunction during ascent. NASA said more analysis would be needed on various aspects of the concept. (6/18)

DIRECT Team Asks Augustine Panel to Halt Dismantling of Production Capabilities (Source: SPACErePORT)
Representing the DIRECT team, Steve Metschan asked the Augustine Panel to request that NASA discontinue its dismantling of critical production capabilities for external tanks and other Shuttle components that would be required for DIRECT or other heavy-lift Shuttle-derived vehicles. (6/18)

Sen. Nelson Addresses Augustine Panel (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
In case the Augustine panel wasn’t under enough pressure, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson today reminded the group that their recommendations on the future of U.S. human spaceflight would carry significant weight with the White House, Congress and space community. “If you decide ‘x’ is going to be the case, then the White House is going to be a lot more likely to embrace ‘x’ regardless of whether I or others disagree with x,” said the Florida Democrat. “You come to the table with extraordinary influence.” (6/18)

To wrap up this roundup I am posting a couple of earlier stories related to the U.S.-NASA/Russian space program :

• “Russia signs deal to ferry astronauts in 2012,” is from Yahoo! News (5/29/09). To quote:
  

  The Russian space agency says it has signed a $306 million deal with NASA to ferry its astronauts to the international space station in 2012.

  Roscosmos said Friday the agreement covers four launches aboard the three-person Soyuz capsules to swap out crews in the orbiting laboratory.

  NASA said Russia would supply comprehensive support for six NASA crew members taking part in long-duration missions.

  The pact extends Russia’s existing contract with NASA for transporting station crew, but seems to represent an increase in Russia’s transport charges.

• “Russian President Vows to Boost Space Industry,” is from Space.com Summary: “Putin announces new Russian space launchpad, booster rocket.”

Space: Lunar probes, Hubble troubles, old moon photos

The next day after the STS-127 shuttle mission was postponed, NASA moved its focus to a different launch pad, hardly missing a beat.  In a wonderfully choreographed negotiation between the two different projects, within hours two unmanned lunar probes were launched, riding on a single rocket.  The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is now in orbit around the moon, mapping the way for a subsequent and long-awaited manned mission to the moon.  The media coverage follows:

“Closing in on the Moon,” is from Space.com (6/23/09).  To quote:

Four-and-a-half days after launch, NASA’s $504 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its main thrusters for 40 minutes early Tuesday, successfully braking into an initial elliptical orbit around the Moon.

“NASA returning to the moon with first lunar launch in a decade,“  is from NASA Breaking News (6/18/09).  To quote:

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched at 5:32 p.m. EDT Thursday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon.

“NASA successfully launches lunar impactor,” is from NASA Breaking News (6/18/09).  To quote:

NASA successfully launched the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, Thursday on a mission to search for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon’s south pole. The satellite lifted off on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 5:32 p.m. EDT, with a companion mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO.LRO safely separated from LCROSS 45 minutes later.  LCROSS then was powered-up, and the mission operations team at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., performed system checks that confirmed the spacecraft is fully functional.

“Rocket launches new U.S. Moon probes,” is by Tarik Malik from Space.com (6/18/09). To quote:

NASA launched its first lunar mission in more than a decade on Thursday, sending two unmanned probes to explore the moon, hunting for water ice and mapping the lunar surface.

The two new probes – a powerful lunar orbiter and a smaller craft destined to crash into the moon’s south pole – atop an Atlas 5 rocket that lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Their launch comes nearly 40 years after the Apollo astronauts first set foot on the moon in July 1969.

. . . LRO is expected to spend a year building complete maps of the moon and take a close look at 50 potential landing sites for future manned missions. The spacecraft also carries sophisticated gear to measure the radiation hazards future astronauts might face and seek out pockets of hydrogen-rich areas, which may contain frozen water at the bottom of permanently shadowed craters around the moon’s south pole.

. . . Unlike LRO, it will take NASA’s second lunar probe about four months to reach the moon. LCROSS actually consists of two part – a small shepherding spacecraft and a massive, 41-foot (12-meter) tall Centaur rocket stage that it will slam into the moon in early October.

The mission is simple: crash two probes into a permanently shadowed crater at the moon’s south pole at about 5,580 mph (8,980 kph), and sift the resulting ejecta for signs of water.

. . . NASA plans to use LRO, the Hubble Space Telescope and other satellites, as well as a network of ground-based professional and amateur astronomers to watch as LCROSS guides the Centaur in to its crash, and then follows with its own impact four minutes later.

“Return to the moon,” is from EurekAlert! (6/17/09).  To quote:

The Interdisciplinary A building on the Arizona State University Tempe campus. . . For nearly two years, professor Mark Robinson and his team have called this building home, developing it into a state-of-the-art Science Operations Center (referred to as the SOC) to work in conjunction with their contribution to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The instrument payload of LRO consists of seven scientific instruments from institutions around the nation and globe that will return lunar imagery, topography, temperatures, and more. Robinson is Principal Investigator of one of the instruments on board, the imaging system known as LROC (short for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera).

. . . “We’re collecting the data that will be used to determine where the first lunar outposts, and eventually settlements, will be located,” says LROC scientist Samuel Lawrence, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Earth and Space Exploration in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“Lunar Exploration Missions Roll to Pad for Thursday Launch,” is from NASA Breaking News (6/17/09).

Introduction — Space.com’s Charles Choi wrote an earlier (6/16/09) Space.com story introduced the concept to readers with the headline, “Crash & Splash: NASA Probes to Dash Toward Moon.“  Summary: “After more than a decade, NASA is once more ready to launch two probes to the moon, one of which will smack into the lunar surface.”

**********

Not long after being repaired, refurbished and returned to orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope engineers had a scare.  One of the critical computers crashed.  But, just like the rest of us, operators were able to reboot it and get it running again.  Whew!

“Hubble Telescope bounces back from computer glitch,” is by Tariq Malik at Space.com (6/18/09).  To quote:

The Hubble Space Telescope is bouncing back from a potentially alarming computer glitch just weeks after its last overhaul by astronauts.  Hubble program manager Preston Burch told SPACE.com that a computer in the iconic observatory’s new data handling unit seized up inexplicably early Monday, forcing engineers on Earth to reboot the space telescope remotely.

**********

In a wonderful connection to the space program’s distant past, original close-up moon photos from decades ago will help the current reconnaissance mission.  This is a great and heart-warming story:

“Old photos focus on the moon’s south pole,” is from MSNBC.com (6/17/09).  Nearly 1800 photos were digitally restored using the old tape players that had been stored in a NASA staffer’s barn.  They are published at  Moonviews.com.  To quote:

Restored photos of the moon’s south pole, taken by lunar orbiters in 1967, were released this week in anticipation of NASA’s launch of two new probes that will look for signs of underground ice in the region.

“Moon’s South Pole gets Close-up in restored photos,” is by Robert Goodier from Space.com (6/17/09).  Summary: “NASA restored its 1967 photographs of the moon’s dark south pole before launching two probes to search for underground ice.”

**********

The moon mapping mission with high resolution photos will be sending lots of information back to scientists and planners for a year.  And in a lettle less that 4 months, the L-Cross will slam into the moon, sending up a plume of material that lots of people are hoping shows that there is H2O on the moon.

The whole thing is still “golly-gee-whiz” to this old Space Junkie who started watching and vicariously travelling back when the U.S. first started space exploration.

Space News Update

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is in the midst of great change these days, and yet many of its ways are remarkable and wonderfully the same.  In a very quick turnaround,  the space shuttle Endeavor will launch June 13 with Mission STS-127. It was moved to a different launch pad after being readied for a rescue if needed ot the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope, a landmark mission completed recently.  To quote NASA News on STS-127:

The 16-day mission will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.The STS-127 crew members are [Commander Mark] Polansky [@Twitter], Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Dave Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette. Kopra will join the space station crew and replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will return to Earth on Endeavour to conclude a three-month stay at the station.

A panel of experts is beginning an independent review of NASA’s plans for the future of the space program.  And the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee has invited the public to give its input via a special new interactive website, according to NASA News (6/5/09).  The Committee will be chaired by Norman Augustine.  About the site he said, “The human space flight program belongs to everyone.  Our committee would hope to benefit from the views of all who would care to contact us.”  Those interested will be able to ask questions, upload documents or comment about the committee’s operations.  The first meeting will be held June 17 in Washington, D. C and will be free and open to the public.  Members of the Augustine review committee with whom you might be familiar include former astronauts Dr. Leroy Chiao and Dr. Sally Ride.  Others are all leaders in their fields associated with space flight.  Quoting from the story:

During the course of the review, the panel will examine ongoing and planned NASA development activities and potential alternatives in order to present options for advancing a safe, innovative, affordable and sustainable human space flight program following the space shuttle’s retirement. The committee will present its results in time to support an administration decision on the way forward by August 2009.

. . . The committee will hold several public meetings at different U.S. locations. The first public meeting will take place June 17 from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. EDT at the Carnegie Institution, located at 1530 P Street NW in Washington. Topics on the agenda for the meeting include previous studies about U.S. human space flight; national space policy; international cooperation; evolved expendable launch vehicles; commercial human space flight capabilities; and exploration technology planning.

. . . NASA Acting Administrator Chris Scolese signed the charter for the committee Monday, enabling it to begin operations.

New administrator to be appointed – It was announced in late May that President Obama will name a former astronaut,  space shuttle commander Charles Bolden to lead NASA, as I reported in a previous post.

Decades since we landed a man on the moon, space programs around the world are interested in sending humans back to the moon, or in unmanned lunar exploration. The NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, spacecraft are set to launch together to the moon aboard an Atlas V rocket on June 17.  This exciting dual spacecraft mission will send a very sophisticated and powerful orbiter around the poles of moon, in preparation for NASA’s human return to the moon in a few years.  And four or five months from launch the LCROSS will slam into the moon to send up a debris plume that can be studied to determine lunar composition and the presence of water ice or hydrated minerals, according to NASA News.

I am a space news junkie, as my friends here know.  These are such exciting times at NASA, tinged with sadness at what is about to come to an end, and blessed with anticipation for the wonderful new things and people to come.

Cautious Anticipation By NASA

STS-125 — The next NASA shuttle mission is scheduled for 11 days in space beginning October 8, 2008. This mission to service the Hubble telescope is on track to be able to meet its scheduled launch date. To quote NASA:

An ambitious week is wrapping up at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Preparations for the STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope remain on target.

Inside Kennedy’s Orbiter Processing Facility, Atlantis’ payload bay doors were closed Thursday night, a few days earlier than scheduled. Finishing touches on the spacecraft’s orbital maneuvering system will continue this weekend. . .

At NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston Atlantis’ crew members ended their week reviewing the operation of the IMAX high-definition camera that will capture the repairs on Hubble from Atlantis’ cargo bay. They also practiced entry simulations.

During the STS-125 mission, NASA astronauts will install new instruments on the telescope, including the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Wide Field Camera 3. A refurbished Fine Guidance Sensor will replace one unit of three now on board.

Crew members will also install new gyroscopes, batteries and thermal blankets on the telescope enhancing the abilities of Hubble for several more years of service.

This final visit to Hubble by the crew of the shuttle Atlantis, STS-125, is unusual for NASA for several reasons.

• It is the last visit to the Hubble Space Telescope before the shuttle fleet retires in 2010.
• This crew – Commander Scott Altman, Pilot Gregory C. Johnson and Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld, Mike Massimino and Megan McArthur – will be the fifth to fly to the telescope.
• In contrast to assembling the “erector-set” elements of the International Space Station, this mission will be characterized by tasks that are very delicate and complicated. Five space walks will be needed to complete the repair and refurbishment that will allow Hubble another five work years in orbit.
• The mission must be conducted out of the shuttle alone, much more confining and difficult than it would be out of the ISS.
• The shuttle crew will be responsible for doing all the inspections necessary to assure the integrity of the vehicle for reentry into the earth’s atmosphere.
• In case of trouble, the shuttle Endeavour and the flight deck crew of STS-123 will be on the launch pad in Florida, ready to rescue a stranded crew in a few days.

International Space Station news — Meanwhile the Expedition 17 crew, Russians Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko, have recently completed two space walks outside the Russian segments of the ISS, beginning with installing exterior experiments. To quote:

In this spacewalk, their second in less than a week, they also continued to outfit the station’s exterior, including the installation of a docking target on the Zvezda service module. It will help with the docking of a Russian mini research module on the space-facing side of Zvezda. That module will be launched next year. . .

As he did last week, Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff remained in the Soyuz during the spacewalk. That was part of contingency preparations for the unlikely event the Pirs airlock could not be repressurized.

The July 10 spacewalk by Volkov and Kononenko focused on inspection of their Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft and retrieval of an explosive bolt, one of 10 that help separate the spacecraft’s return module from its propulsion module. The bolt will be returned to Earth for examination.

Failure of those two modules to separate on time during re-entry on the most recent two Soyuz returns resulted in ballistic entries. Those steeper-than-normal entries, while safe, resulted in high-G rides for Soyuz occupants and landings several hundred miles short of the planned area.

For dessert after this blog post’s “meal in space,” I recommend some delicious “eye candy.” Explore the new website, NASA Images.org., a service of the Internet Archive. The image above is from this site.
Technorati tags: news nasa hubble iss space program

(Cross-posted at Making Good Mondays).

At the Intersection of Space and Politics

Monday the space shuttle Discovery docked at the International Space Station to complete the very challenging STS-124 mission. Crew members will attach the Japanese science module, “Kibo” (meaning hope) to the ISS. The NASA space program is an area of continuing interest with me, as my Making Good Mondays blog readers know. Today’s post explores what politics and the space program have in common. The first item is that U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona is newly married to Mission Commander Mark Kelly. The space program competes with my other area of vital interest, the 2008 presidential campaign. What happens in the presidential race will inevitable have deep impact upon the future of the United States in space. NASA, like every other agency in the federal government must compete for presidential attention as well as for funds in the budget. Space Politics — Watching three representatives of the current Presidential candidates talk about space policy a few days ago was deeply dissatisfying to me. The 27th Annual International Space Development Conference, “The New Pace of Space,” was held in Washington, D.C., May 29 – June 1, 2008. Friday afternoon the featured event, “Election 2008 Space Panel.” To quote from the Space Politics story: Read more

Landing on Mars was a 50-50 chance.

(NASA image – Mars “Sol Zero”)

The Phoenix mission’s planners thought it was going to be that tough and so did I. All of us who are long time “space junkies” sat through another nail-biter as the robotic effort played out millions of miles away on the polar ice cap of the planet Mars. “NASA’s Phoenix Spacecraft Lands at Martian Arctic Site” was NASA’s understated news release title. To quote from the story about how difficult the challenge was expected to be,

Among those in the JPL control room was NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, who noted this was the first successful Mars landing without airbags since Viking 2 in 1976.

“For the first time in 32 years, and only the third time in history, a JPL team has carried out a soft landing on Mars,” Griffin said. “I couldn’t be happier to be here to witness this incredible achievement.”

. . . Phoenix uses hardware from a spacecraft built for a 2001 launch that was canceled in response to the loss of a similar Mars spacecraft during a 1999 landing attempt. Researchers who proposed the Phoenix mission in 2002 saw the unused spacecraft as a resource for pursuing a new science opportunity. Earlier in 2002, Mars Odyssey discovered that plentiful water ice lies just beneath the surface throughout much of high-latitude Mars. NASA chose the Phoenix proposal over 24 other proposals to become the first endeavor in the Mars Scout program of competitively selected missions.

Space junkie bloggers are having fun with the news. “Heaving Mars,” was the clever post title by DarkSyde at DailyKos; it refers to frost heaving. A Texas Kaos post, “Phoenix has landed on Mars,” has some good video links by “boadicea,” a proud grad of the University of Arizona. Robert Roy Britt at Live Science blogs on Space and Astronomy worries that talk of life on Mars will start up again.

Read more

In the Shadow of the Moon

This film beautifully recalls a glorious time in our nation’s history, a time of my youth that I fear we will never see the likes of again.

These are the stories of the hero’s who went to the moon the story of a time when all Americans indeed the world, were proud to be able to witness such heights. Using archival footage and current day interviews. the beginnings of the Apollo program and the flight that ultimately landed on the moon are explored. It is marvelously edited; using spoken words, images and music take you back to that time. The year 1968 was mostly a terrible one~ the Apollo 11 landing was the one bright spot that not only united us, but the whole world(aside from some grumbling Communists) in the sheer wonder of it all.

Several things struck me, but mostly it was simply the faces of these men. Open, wise and with an indescribable gleam in their eye. They seem to know something only they can know. The first speech in which Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon within the decade is a stirring one indeed. In a second speech he says we must produce “metal alloys not even invented yet”~ an extraordinary statement. In the spirit of full disclosure my ex-father-in -law did develop the alloy that allowed reentry.

As a child, I remember televisions being brought into school rooms for the flights, rushing home to not miss a minute of any of these missions, knowing the awful price they would pay for one misstep. The archival footage is amazing, and interspersed are segments from “I’ve got a Secret” and of course Walter Cronkite.

For those of you old enough to recall these heady days, and those too young to know, I heartily recommend renting this fine documentary.

Peace as always and in all ways~Sage