{"id":477,"date":"2010-07-29T10:08:07","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T10:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=477"},"modified":"2010-07-29T10:08:07","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T10:08:07","slug":"spacelab-mission-plus-space-history-tidbits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/spacelab-mission-plus-space-history-tidbits\/","title":{"rendered":"Spacelab Mission, Plus Space History Tidbits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years ago today — July 29, 1985 — the Space Shuttle Challenger<\/em> lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-51F<\/a>. During the launch, the number one main engine shut down ahead of schedule; NASA declared an “Abort To Orbit,” but was able to re-plan the mission to complete all of its objectives.<\/p>\n

Astronauts Charles G. Fullerton, Roy D. Bridges, Karl G. Henize, Anthony W. England, F. Story Musgrave, Loren W. Acton and John-David E Bartoe conducted life sciences, plasma physics, astronomy, and other experiments in the Spacelab-2 module before returning to earth on August 6th. They landed at Edwards Air Force Base.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(STS-51F landing at Edwards AFB (August 6, 1985). NASA image.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n(Of personal interest: When we were stationed at Edwards later in the 80s, General Bridges was the AF Flight Test Center commander. We only met him a couple of times, but his son was part of the Protestant Youth of the Chapel group we helped lead.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, for those space history tidbits:<\/p>\n

On July 29, 1955 — 55 years ago today — the White House announced the upcoming International Geophysical Year (IGY), for which the U.S. planned to launch a satellite. As you know, the Soviets’ Sputnik beat us to it.<\/p>\n

Around this date 50 years ago — one source said July 29, another July 28 — NASA announced that the program aimed at the moon would be named “Apollo.” The name had actually been suggested six months earlier by NASA engineer Abe Silverstein<\/a>. (Note that this was before President Kennedy was elected, and therefore long before he announced his support of the lunar landing program.)<\/p>\n

Finally, on this date 50 years ago — July 29, 1960 — the first unmanned Mercury launch was attempted from Cape Canaveral. Mercury-Atlas-1 (MA-1) exploded at about eight miles altitude. We still had a long way to go.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years ago today — July 29, 1985 — the Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-51F. During the launch, the number one main engine shut down ahead of schedule; NASA declared an “Abort To Orbit,” but was able to re-plan the mission to complete \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19,26,15,74,11,12],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","tag-apollo","tag-launch","tag-moon","tag-satellite","tag-space-history","tag-space-shuttle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}