vourot Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 http://www.oneminuteastronomer.com/2011/04/12/108-minutes-changed-world/ A little bit of history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyK Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 And the Space Race was on. This is also the anniversary of the first shuttle flight 20 years ago STS-1 launched April 12. Final resting places for the four remaining orbiters were announced today: Atlantis - Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida. Discovery - Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C. Endeavor - California Science Center in Los Angeles, California Enterprise- Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York, New York (technically not an orbiter as it never achieved space altitude. It was only an un-powered test mule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketman Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 It's a shame looking back at where we were then and where we are now. I'm hoping that some country will announce their plans to go to the Moon or Mars. Then we'll finally get our act together again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis G Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 I was reading an article online earlier today about this (sorry, can't find the link). Talked about how Russia is celebrating the 50th for the great achievement that it is/was and have finally released tons of documents, recordings, etc. that they've had locked up since then. I found it interesting that his engineers really didn't think he'd survive. He did, but unfortunately was killed in a MIG crash 7 years later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damian Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 It's a shame looking back at where we were then and where we are now. I'm hoping that some country will announce their plans to go to the Moon or Mars. Then we'll finally get our act together again. The Chinese have sent men into space a couple of times now.....And have announced plans to land on the moon quite soon....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketman Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 Don't know how serious they are, but hopefully it'll be enough to push us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrNylon Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 A bunch of us went to see the the first Shuttle go up since it was moved back to a Sunday morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 I wish that Wernher von Braun might have lived longer, or that more folks had an opportunity to meet him across a desk as I did many years ago. I had kinda an advantage as a news guy because I had gone to a very small high school with the son of his second in command at NASA for some years, Robert Seamans. So... my first question was about those two. It kinda broke the ice. (Seamans Sr. had attended the same boarding school and when at NASA gave annual updates to the students. Wow. I was only there because my Dad was in grad school and didn't think a 5,000-student high school would be very healthy for his ornery rural kid to attend.) Anyway, von Braun could make a space believer out of a cup of coffee, not to mention any human being who might ever have imbibed a cup of coffee. I think he tended to be the spirit of NASA in its halcyon days of incredible creativity, and Seamans perhaps was the engineer who helped put that creative spirit to work with functioning procedures and hardware. Now? Bureaucracy. It appears also a degree of creative entropy regardless of engineering ability and possibilities far beyond what got those first starts into space. I think the Russians are in the same boat. Yeah, truth be known there were risks for all. Truth be told I get the impression there was a lotta politics in both countries but... I think von Braun was a true believer in space and perhaps so also was almost anyone he touched. At least that's my impression. I don't know about the Russian/Germans in their early days but... Note that both countries today have far better available technology, both claim less available cash for space and... entropy, at least in terms of vision... Where's the guy with vision anywhere? I hate to say it, but it seems there's gotta be a champion for such things in today's world. I don't see any on the horizon anywhere. Awwww. Look what this topic made me do. Sorry guys. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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