The first spacecraft to approach the planet Saturn was launched 50 years ago on a 1.5 billion mile trip to Earth’s distant neighbor. During its 22-year mission, Pioneer 11 studied the asteroid belt, the solar wind, cosmic rays and the environment around the planets Jupiter and Saturn. The probe was part of the United States’ efforts leading the reconnaissance of each planet in the solar system.
In the decade after the first rocket lifted off into the skies above Cape Canaveral, the launch site became the focal point of America’s efforts to explore beyond Earth. To meet President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon, a expansive new site was needed. That location became NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a premier multi-user spaceport now commemorating its 60th anniversary.
Marianna Triplett was working at the Pentagon, continuing the effort to transfer millions of men and women back to civilian life after they served in the military during World War II. One day during 1948, a U.S. Army general called her into his office and said he wanted to transfer her to Florida to assist with a “hush-hush secret program.” The new effort building Cape Canaveral Space Force Station would lead to some of the most historic achievements of the decades to come.
When a person is called a “rocket scientist,” it can be referring to someone who supports space exploration, or it can simply mean he or she is very intelligent. A “rock star” usually refers to a member of a successful musical band or someone highly renowned in a particular field. Dr. Brian May could be considered both.
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft continues to pass through the outer edges of the solar system. After a decade-long and more than 3.6 billion mile trip to Pluto, the probe is providing the first close up observations of of the tiny planet and the most distant objects in the solar system.
New Horizons beamed back the first-ever, close-up images and scientific observations of distant Pluto, its system of large and small moons, as well as the Kuiper Belt. A region of the solar system beyond the planets, the Kuiper Belt consists mainly of small planetary bodies.