The dream of breaking the “chains of gravity” and traveling through space was realized six decades ago on April 12, 1961. At age 27, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launched into a one-orbit mission around the Earth becoming the first person to venture into the cosmos. While it was another volley in the Cold War with the United States, it marked a historic achievement hailed around the world.
From the Space Shuttle’s first flight in 1981 to its final mission in 2011, thousands of professionals made the program a technical marvel. On the front line were highly skilled mechanics, technicians and engineers whose innovative work launched landmark missions such as deployment of the Space Telescope and assembly of the Space Station. For one elite group of spacecraft operators, their workstation was the space program’s “inner sanctum” — the shuttle’s crew modules.
In early 1966, Gemini VIII chalked up another crucial spaceflight technology milestone for the United States. But the triumph quickly became an in-flight emergency, testing NASA’s quick-thinking skills to bring the astronauts safely home — 55 years ago this month.
A droid exploring a distant planet is not only the stuff of science fiction, it is today’s reality. NASA’s Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars at 3:55 p.m. EST on Feb. 18, 2021 and promptly phoned home beaming back the first of what should be thousands of detained images and science data from the Red Planet.
When John F. Kennedy was sworn in as president in 1961, he promised to reach for a “New Frontier.” Attention abroad concentrated on the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Closer to home, there was increasing unrest among those who were being left behind simply because of their race. America’s space agency soon would be thrust into the forefront of both issues.
Apollo 14 launched 50 years ago, on Jan. 31, 1971. “It’s been a long way, but we’re here,” said Alan Shepard as he stepped from the lunar module onto the Moon’s Fra Mauro highlands. It was more than a 240,000-mile trip – it was a hard-fought return to flight for NASA’s Apollo Program and America’s first person in space.
Chuck Hollinshead, former director of Public Affairs at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, died Jan. 25, 2021 in Asheville, North Carolina. He was 89. Hollinshead helped shape the course of media services at the Florida spaceport and throughout the agency over 28 years, 17 as director of Public Affairs.
NASA’s spacecraft designed to return astronauts to the Moon recently reached a major milestone in preparations for its first flight atop the world’s largest rocket, the Space Launch System. The Orion capsule for the agency’s Artemis I mission moved from the manufacturing and assembly stage to processing for flight. This is one of the latest steps forward for the program that will take the first woman and next man to the lunar surface.
The SpaceX Crew-1 spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on Nov. 16, 2020 with NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi. Their arrival continues two decades of work by astronauts from around the world living and working aboard the orbiting laboratory.
The flights of two piloted spacecraft during December 1965 were major strides forward in advancing NASA’s capabilities in human spaceflight. While Gemini VII orbited the Earth for two weeks, Gemini VI was launched, completing the first-ever rendezvous between two spacecraft in orbit. This marked the point in which the United States clearly pulled ahead in the space race with the Soviet Union.