#us space program

[alphamecha-mkii]

[apollomission8]

For some reason, the Gemini astronauts doing Parachute Training is one of the funniest sets of images I've seen in a very long time

[chernobog13]

Gemini Vll as seen from Gemini Vl on the day the two craft performed the first American rendezvous in space, December 15, 1965.

The two spacecraft are approximately 43 feet apart in this photo.

[ndcirque]

On-time Artemis landings by SpaceX, Blue Origin possible, but face “great challenges” – Spaceflight Now

Not a surprise at all. The vehicle SpaceX has put forward has not flown to earth orbit yet, let alone being man rated or going as far as the moon. Blue Origin has never flown in space. (No their sounding rocket doesn’t count.) Their New Glenn rocket won’t fly until next year and their lander will be developed from what they learn from that.

I will give Blue Origin credit, their lunar lander vehicle at least looks, on paper, to have had some thought put into it for the rough and uneven lunar terrain. I look at the picture above of how SpaceX thinks their vehicle will look on the moon and laugh. It looks like some illustration from a pulp science fiction magazine in the 1950s. The lunar surface is way too rough. You try to land a top heavy pencil like that on end on the moon and it will just fall over.

I am a huge proponant of getting people out into space. We’ve spun in low earth orbit for far too long. The Artemis program though is the wrong design, put together for the wrong reasons, out of surplus shuttle parts. It is too expensive and will not be able to sustain the launch frequency required to have a sustained lunar program.

At best there will be one or two landings. At worst they will kill people.

[stone-cold-groove]

The launch of Liberty Bell 7 carrying astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom - 1961.

[walkingthroughthisworld]

37 years ago today, a booster engine failed and caused the #SpaceShuttleChallenger to break apart just 73 seconds after launch, taking the lives of all seven crewmembers, including Capt. Gregory Jarvis (USAF), Lt. Col. Dick Scobee (USAF), and Capt. Michael Smith (USN).

[thegikitiki]

Space Race...

   Apollo Command Module, Impact Test, El Centro California, 1962

[alphaneptune]

Before Apollo 1's planned launch on February 21, 1967, the Command Module interior caught fire and burned on January 27, 1967, during a pre-launch test on Launch Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy. Astronauts Grissom, White, and Chaffee, who were working inside the Command Module, were asphyxiated. The fire's ignition source was never determined, but their deaths were attributed to a wide range of lethal hazards in the early CSM design and conditions of the test, including a pressurized 100 percent oxygen prelaunch atmosphere, wiring and plumbing flaws, flammable materials used in the cockpit and in the astronauts' flight suits, and an inward-opening hatch that could not be opened quickly in an emergency and not at all with full internal pressure.