A Near Miss: When Three Apollo Astronauts Were Nearly Killed on Reentry
The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project On July 24, 1975, six years to the day after the Apollo 11 crew returned safely to Earth, reaching the zenith of America’s space race program, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project crew returned to Earth. It was to be the last hurrah of the Apollo era....
Waste in Space. Trucking Nuclear Waste on the Space Shuttle.
Launching the By-Products of Nuclear Power into Space The hundred years that made up the twentieth century was full of tremendous innovation and technological progress, but it was also littered with bad ideas. It is said that “necessity is the mother of invention,” and where there is a problem,...
The Greatest Spacecraft Never Built? The Space Tug
Nixon Wakes Up NASA in the Middle of a Dream How often is it that we talk about the “golden era” of something? Generally, that tends to infer that the best of something is behind us. It doesn’t mean that great things won’t, or can’t be accomplished in...
The Air Force and Nasa: Partnership in Space (1958-1969)
It was the middle of March when President Donald Trump mentioned the prospect of creating a new branch of the military, a “Space Force.” It was immediately the subject of ridicule and conjured up visions of Star Wars Stormtroopers with laser guns fighting galactic battles in space. Once again,...
Ferrying the Shuttle – Part One: How Do You Ship A Space Shuttle?
In April of 1972, John Young and Charlie Duke landed Apollo 16, the next to last Apollo lunar mission, in the Descartes highlands. It was during one of the moonwalks that the word came from Mission Control in Houston – Congress had approved the NASA budget for fiscal year 1973...
Ferrying the Shuttle – Part Two: The Orbiter is the Ferry
It did not take long to figure out that the concept of ferrying the shuttle like an airplane between ground destinations was not going to fly. The numbers just were not adding up, but the risk factors were rising. The idea was to install six airbreathing jet engines beneath...
Ferrying the Shuttle – Part Four: The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft
The bragging rights to carry the Shuttle on its back came down to the Air Force’s C-5 and Boeing’s 747. The C-5 was a potential budget buster for NASA. It was a large and expensive aircraft that entered production in 1968. The initial version of the aircraft had developed problems with...
The Lunar Modules That Were Built But Never Flown
In November of 1962, the Grumman company headquartered in Bethpage, New York won the contract to build the Lunar Module that first carried American astronauts to the Moon. Grumman, a well known defense contractor famous for navy fighter aircraft wanted to be a part of the coming race to space, but they...
The Politics of NASA – What History Has Taught Us
Every political season brings the same old ideas about what government should do and how it should operate. This election brings a decision between operating government like a business and the discipline it requires, or operating it as an entity that transcends the typical rules of budgeting, balancing, and...
Liberty for All
Much public attention has been given to America’s lack of a capability to launch astronauts into space. When the space shuttle touched down for the last time the die had already been cast for our near term future in space. America would become dependent on Russian resources to fly...