April 9, 2025 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- NASA’s Deep Space Network breaks ground on new antenna dish in Australia
The event (on March 19th) also celebrated sixty years operating out of Australia.
- Mission profile for a Chinese mission to target a 30 meter asteroid
Launch is scheduled for 2027. I like Jay’s comment: “The asteroid will be deflected by a power-point presentation.”
- On this day in 1959 NASA introduced its first class of seven astronauts for its Mercury program
Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, and Scott Carpenter. All but Slayton flew Mercury missions. Slayton eventually flew on the Apollo-Soyus docking mission in 1975.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- NASA’s Deep Space Network breaks ground on new antenna dish in Australia
The event (on March 19th) also celebrated sixty years operating out of Australia.
- Mission profile for a Chinese mission to target a 30 meter asteroid
Launch is scheduled for 2027. I like Jay’s comment: “The asteroid will be deflected by a power-point presentation.”
- On this day in 1959 NASA introduced its first class of seven astronauts for its Mercury program
Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, and Scott Carpenter. All but Slayton flew Mercury missions. Slayton eventually flew on the Apollo-Soyus docking mission in 1975.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Re: Mercury astronauts, Chris Kraft’s “Flight: My Life in Mission Control” is an amazing book that every space fan ought to read asap.
Was Deke Slayton the one that had an ear problem? Or was that somebody else? I remember seeing a show on A&E back in 1994. And there was a book with the same name. But I think it might be Moon Shot.
Alan Shepard was the one with the ear problem – corrected surgically before his flight to the Moon – and lunar golf practice – on Apollo 14.
Deke Slayton was grounded for a decade by a heart murmur – atrial fibrillation – diagnosed in 1962. Time and medical science march on, though, and he was cleared for flight in 1972 and flew as part of the American crew of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission in 1975.
All of the Mercury Seven have now passed on. John Glenn lived the longest of them. He was the oldest of them having been born in 1921. He was also the last of them to die, at 95 in 2016.
Of the Gemini and Apollo astronauts, two have outlived Glenn. Frank Borman was 95 days older than Glenn had been when he also died at 95 in 2023. Jim Lovell is the longevity champ being still alive at 97. Buzz Aldrin, also still alive at 95, will, with luck, equal Glenn on July 8 and Borman on Oct. 11.
I’ll toss this in here….
Jethro Tull
“For Michael Collins, Jeffrey, and Me” (1970)
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/the-evening-pause/jethro-tull-for-michael-collins-jeffrey-and-me/
https://discerninghistory.com/2013/05/shackletons-ad-men-wanted-for-hazerdous-journey/
“Men Wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition of success.”
Ernest Shackleton, 4 Burlington Street
The ultimate example of truth in advertising.
“Endurance left South Georgia for Antarctica on December 5, 1914, carrying 27 men (plus one stowaway, who became the ship’s steward), 69 dogs, and a tomcat dubbed “Mrs. Chippy.” Incredibly, all 27 men under Shackleton’s command would survive the grueling Antarctic expedition and were finally rescued August 30, 1916.”
wayne: I corrected your typo in the date for you.
The thing is, Shackleton was overrun with 5,000 applicants for the expedition when he advertised it. Which says something about Shackleton’s reputation, but also something about the manhood of Edwardian Britain.
And when I finally read Robert Lansing’s Endurance, I finally understood just why Shackleton deserved his reputation. When that expedition hit disaster, he pulled off not just one, but three flat out miracles. When the ship was finally crushed, that should have been lights out for them, but somehow, he managed to get his men on an ice floe and life boats and somehow got it through 600 miles of ice-choked waters to Elephant Island, which is ludicrously improbable all by itself. Then, the second miracle: He rebuilt an open-decked 22 foot cutter and somehow sailed it 800 miles through the storm-racked Drake Passage by dead reckoning, with only one shot of making a landing on South Georgia, an island which had no safe harbors on its western shore, and that was even more mind-boggling. And then, with half his little crew of six incapacitated, he set off with Frank Worsley and Tom Crean, a carpenter’s adze and 50 feet of rope to cross an 8,000ft mountain range no one had even charted before, the only way to reach reach the whaling station at Stromness on the other side of South Georgia. Which they had to do in 3 days or die.
And through all that, he saved all 27 of his men. With a big assist from Worsley and Crean, to be sure. But what he did, just should not have been possible. And as such, it’s actually far more impressive than if he had succeeded in crossing Antarctica.
Hey Dick Eagleson, last night when I was going to bed, I thought of Alan Shepard. And I have seen videos of Alan Shepard hitting a golf ball on the Moon. How far did the ball travel?
Robert,
No one measured, but Shepard said “miles and miles.” He was probably right.
Richard M;
Yeah– great story all-around!
This is interesting but brief…
“The Eventual Fate of the Crew of the Endurance”
https://eshackleton.com/2016/09/06/the-fate-of-the-crew-2/
“For scientific leadership, give me Scott; for swift and efficient travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems to be no way out, get on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
—Sir Raymond Priestley
The Grave of Ernest Shackleton
(15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922)
Norwegian Lutheran Church Cemetery
Grytviken, South Georgia
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/south-georgia
Roger B. Chaffee,
Namesake of the Chaffee Planetarium
Grand Rapids Michigan Public Museum
(April 2014 re-dedication & renovation)
https://youtu.be/8QYRGP9S8pM
6:23