Remember the Moon - and Mars! (and Skylab)
Fred Koschara
blog14721 at wfredk.com
Mon Jul 21 22:59:36 UTC 2014
I've written a couple of blog entries this past week that I'd like to draw
your attention to. They are related to significant events in the history of
space travel whose anniversaries have occurred in the past week and a half:
* Remember the Moon - and Mars!
http://wfredk.com/blog/2014072106/remember-the-moon-and-mars
* 11 July 1979 Skylab fell - and the American public was robbed
http://wfredk.com/blog/2014071101/11-july-1979-skylab-fell-and-the-american-public-was-robbed
In both articles, I first present historical data about the events, then some
commentary. I hope you find the material interesting and informative. I've
included a couple of excerpts here, please visit my blog to read the full
stories.
http://wfredk.com/blog
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember the Moon - and Mars!
It's been forty five years since the Apollo 11 mission first landed humans on
another planetary body - the Moon: At 20:17:40 UT (4:17:40 pm EDT) on 20 July
1969, astronauts Neil A. Armstrong (Apollo 11 Commander) and Edwin E. "Buzz"
Aldrin Jr. ("Eagle" Lunar Module (LM) pilot) landed the LM in Mare
Tranquilitatis (the Sea of Tranquility). Meanwhile, the "Columbia" Command
and Service Module (CSM) continued in Lunar orbit with CM pilot Michael
Collins aboard. During their stay on the Moon, the astronauts set up
scientific experiments, took photographs, and collected Lunar samples. The LM
took off from the Moon on 21 July for the astronauts' return to Earth.
NASA's Viking 1 lander was originally planned to land on Mars coinciding with
the US Bicentennial on 4 July 1976, but was delayed until a suitable landing
site was located. As it worked out, the landing took place at Chryse Planitia
at 11:56:06 UT on 20 July, roughly eight and a third hours less than exactly
seven years after Apollo 11 had landed on the Moon. The robotic probe
returned the first ever close-up pictures of the Martian surface, collected
the first-ever samples taken from the surface Mars, and continued to
communicate with ground controllers on Earth until 13 November 1982.
The Apollo missions continued through 14 December 1972 when Apollo 17 Mission
Commander Gene Cernan returned to the LM "Challenger" ending the last
Extravehicular Activity (EVA) of what would prove to be the final expedition
of the program. As yet, No other humans have returned to set foot on the
Lunar surface, foisting on Captain Cernan the dubious honor and title of
being "The Last Man on the Moon." ...
...
Visionaries in the space travel, exploration and development (space T/E/D)
field know there are unimagineable benefits that will come from opening space
and the resources "out there" to make them available for the benefit of
humanity. We know there's energy from the Sun that can eliminate our
dependency on fossil fuels. There are more resources just within our Solar
System than we could use in thousands of years. From the research that's been
done on the International Space Station, we know protein crystals can be
grown in microgravity to help cure diseases that would otherwise be
intractible. What we don't - and can't - know is how much more we're going to
find after we have actually started getting out and exploring a lot beyond
Earth.
...
BTW, I feel sorry for the "22% of Americans in 2009" who don't believe we
ever went to the Moon. I know better - and I am anxious to get us back there.
-------------
There's a lot more to this blog post that will, if nothing else, lead you to
think about where the space program has been, and where it's going. Please
read the entire article at
http://wfredk.com/blog/2014072106/remember-the-moon-and-mars
------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 July 1979 Skylab fell - and the American public was robbed
NASA's Skylab, launched 14 May 1973, was an orbiting space station manned by
crews arriving via separate launches. The orbital workshop (OWS) section was
a refitted S-IVB second stage of a Saturn IB booster, a leftover from the
Apollo program originally intended for one of the canceled Earth orbital
missions, modified for long duration manned habitation in orbit. It contained
provisions and crew quarters necessary to support three-person crews for
periods of up to 84 days each.
...
Skylab orbited Earth 2,476 times during the 171 days and 13 hours of its
occupation during the three manned missions; astronauts performed ten
spacewalks totalling 42 hours 16 minutes. Skylab logged approximately 2,000
hours of scientific and medical experiments, including eight solar
experiments (e.g., the Sun's coronal holes were discovered); many medical
experiments related to astronauts' adaptation to extended periods of
microgravity. Each successive Skylab mission set a duration record for the
time the astronauts spent in space.
...
... Today, the ISS is approximately the size of a football field, a 460-ton
platform orbiting fifteen and a half times a day between 205 and 270 miles
above Earth. It is about four times as large as Mir and five times as large
as Skylab. The ISS is "funded until 2024," and may operate until 2028. By
then the investment will have grown well into the US$ 150-200 billion range -
and plans are to "deorbit" the station when funding runs out.
NASA has already set a precedent by letting a US$ 2.15 billion investment
fall out of the sky when Skylab came crashing down. The Russians did much the
same thing when they took the Mir space station out of orbit, throwing away
an estimated US$ 4 billion in 2001 dollars when the project ended. It
wouldn't be any different, philosophically, for NASA and its partners to toss
another $175 billion (+/- $25 billion) down the toilet by burning the ISS up
in the atmosphere, so why not?
...
-------------
A major reason "why not" is discussed in the blog post - please read it at
http://wfredk.com/blog/2014071101/11-july-1979-skylab-fell-and-the-american-public-was-robbed
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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