In The Beginning... REPOST

I originally wrote this post for Christmas Eve 2008 the 40th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 8. I repost it for tonight to remind us of that mission and of a time in which Americans were more appreciative of G-d.

*******************************************************************
Three words read by William Anders aboard the Apollo 8 mission on Christmas Eve 1968.

1968 was our Annus horribilis. It was a year of unrest at the Democratic National Convention. It was the year that saw the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. It was a year in which riots and protests were the daily fare on the nightly newscasts. It was a year in which America felt at its lowest point. And America needed a boost.

When the Apollo 8 mission was originally planned the mission was not suppose to go to the moon. It was suppose to be in a low Earth orbit checking out the systems on the Command module and possibly the lunar module if one had been ready by then. Instead the mission was changed and Apollo 8 would be the first manned mission to go to the moon. In itself it would be a very dangerous mission, the first of anything is alway a dangerous mission to accomplish. Because of the nature of the mission and the decision to change it, the true mission was kept a secret from the public until the official announcement on 12 November 1968, less than 40 days before the scheduled launch.

Apollo 8 launched at 7:51:00 a.m. on December 21, 1968. During the flight, three fellow astronauts served on the ground as capsule communicators (usually referred to as "CAPCOMs") on a rotating schedule. The CAPCOMs were the only people who regularly communicated with the crew. Michael Collins was the first CAPCOM on duty and at 2 hours, 27 minutes and 22 seconds after launch radioed, "Apollo 8. You are Go for TLI". This communication signified that Mission Control had given official permission for Apollo 8 to go to the moon. Over the next twelve minutes before the TLI burn, the Apollo 8 crew continued to monitor the spacecraft and the rocket. The S-IVB third stage rocket ignited on time and burned perfectly for 5 minutes and 17 seconds. The burn increased the velocity of Apollo 8 to 35,505 feet per second (10,822 m/s) and the spacecraft's altitude at the end of the burn was 215.4 miles (346.7 km). At this time, the crew also set the record for the highest speed humans had ever traveled.

Five hours after launch, Mission Control sent a command to the S-IVB booster to vent its remaining fuel through its engine bell to change the booster's trajectory. This S-IVB would then pass the Moon and enter into a solar orbit, posing no further hazard to Apollo 8. The S-IVB subsequently went into a 0.99 by 0.92 AU solar orbit with an inclination of 23.47° and a period of 340.80 days.

The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, which extend up to 15,000 miles (25,000 km) from Earth. Scientists predicted that passing through the belts quickly at the spacecraft's high speed would cause a radiation dosage of no more than a chest X-ray, or 1 milligray (during the course of a year, the average human receives a dose of 2 to 3 mGy). To record the actual radiation dosages, each crew member wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that transmitted data to Earth as well as three passive film dosimeters that showed the cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. By the end of the mission, the crew experienced an average radiation dose of 1.6 mGy.

At about 55 hours and 40 minutes into the flight, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to enter the gravitational sphere of influence of another celestial body. At 64 hours into the flight, the crew began to prepare for Lunar Orbit Insertion-1 (LOI-1). This maneuver had to be performed perfectly, and due to orbital mechanics had to be on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with the Earth. After Mission Control was polled for a Go/No Go decision, the crew was told at 68 hours, they were Go and "riding the best bird we can find". At 68 hours and 58 minutes, the spacecraft went behind the Moon and out of radio contact with the Earth.

When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed an event no one had ever seen — Earthrise. Borman saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photo as he did so: Earthrise, seen for the first time by human eyes. In the ensuing scramble Anders took the more famous color photo, later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century.



As they rounded the Moon for the ninth time, the second television transmission began. Borman introduced the crew, followed by each man giving his impression of the lunar surface and what it was like to be orbiting the Moon. Borman described it as being "a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing." Then, after talking about what they were flying over, Anders said that the crew had a message for all those on Earth. Each man on board read the story of creation from Book of Genesis. Borman finished the broadcast by wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on Earth. His message appeared to sum up the feelings that all three crewmen had from their vantage point in lunar orbit. Borman said, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, and a Merry Christmas to all of you, all of you on the good Earth"

After 10 lunar orbit, Apollo 8 returned to Earth on 27 December 1968. A successful and historic mission.

So on this Christmas Eve, we should remember a historic moment in Human history that took place 40 years ago.


William Anders

"We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman

"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

View at YouTube


On this Christmas Eve I wish to again recall the words of Apollo 8 in wishing you a Merry Christmas.

And God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

Merry Christmas to my Christian Friends!

In The Beginning... REPOST

I originally wrote this post for Christmas Eve 2008 the 40th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 8. I repost it for tonight to remind us of that mission and of a time in which Americans were more appreciative of G-d.

*******************************************************************
Three words read by William Anders aboard the Apollo 8 mission on Christmas Eve 1968.

1968 was our Annus horribilis. It was a year of unrest at the Democratic National Convention. It was the year that saw the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. It was a year in which riots and protests were the daily fare on the nightly newscasts. It was a year in which America felt at its lowest point. And America needed a boost.

When the Apollo 8 mission was originally planned the mission was not suppose to go to the moon. It was suppose to be in a low Earth orbit checking out the systems on the Command module and possibly the lunar module if one had been ready by then. Instead the mission was changed and Apollo 8 would be the first manned mission to go to the moon. In itself it would be a very dangerous mission, the first of anything is alway a dangerous mission to accomplish. Because of the nature of the mission and the decision to change it, the true mission was kept a secret from the public until the official announcement on 12 November 1968, less than 40 days before the scheduled launch.

Apollo 8 launched at 7:51:00 a.m. on December 21, 1968. During the flight, three fellow astronauts served on the ground as capsule communicators (usually referred to as "CAPCOMs") on a rotating schedule. The CAPCOMs were the only people who regularly communicated with the crew. Michael Collins was the first CAPCOM on duty and at 2 hours, 27 minutes and 22 seconds after launch radioed, "Apollo 8. You are Go for TLI". This communication signified that Mission Control had given official permission for Apollo 8 to go to the moon. Over the next twelve minutes before the TLI burn, the Apollo 8 crew continued to monitor the spacecraft and the rocket. The S-IVB third stage rocket ignited on time and burned perfectly for 5 minutes and 17 seconds. The burn increased the velocity of Apollo 8 to 35,505 feet per second (10,822 m/s) and the spacecraft's altitude at the end of the burn was 215.4 miles (346.7 km). At this time, the crew also set the record for the highest speed humans had ever traveled.

Five hours after launch, Mission Control sent a command to the S-IVB booster to vent its remaining fuel through its engine bell to change the booster's trajectory. This S-IVB would then pass the Moon and enter into a solar orbit, posing no further hazard to Apollo 8. The S-IVB subsequently went into a 0.99 by 0.92 AU solar orbit with an inclination of 23.47° and a period of 340.80 days.

The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, which extend up to 15,000 miles (25,000 km) from Earth. Scientists predicted that passing through the belts quickly at the spacecraft's high speed would cause a radiation dosage of no more than a chest X-ray, or 1 milligray (during the course of a year, the average human receives a dose of 2 to 3 mGy). To record the actual radiation dosages, each crew member wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that transmitted data to Earth as well as three passive film dosimeters that showed the cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. By the end of the mission, the crew experienced an average radiation dose of 1.6 mGy.

At about 55 hours and 40 minutes into the flight, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to enter the gravitational sphere of influence of another celestial body. At 64 hours into the flight, the crew began to prepare for Lunar Orbit Insertion-1 (LOI-1). This maneuver had to be performed perfectly, and due to orbital mechanics had to be on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with the Earth. After Mission Control was polled for a Go/No Go decision, the crew was told at 68 hours, they were Go and "riding the best bird we can find". At 68 hours and 58 minutes, the spacecraft went behind the Moon and out of radio contact with the Earth.

When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed an event no one had ever seen — Earthrise. Borman saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photo as he did so: Earthrise, seen for the first time by human eyes. In the ensuing scramble Anders took the more famous color photo, later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century.



As they rounded the Moon for the ninth time, the second television transmission began. Borman introduced the crew, followed by each man giving his impression of the lunar surface and what it was like to be orbiting the Moon. Borman described it as being "a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing." Then, after talking about what they were flying over, Anders said that the crew had a message for all those on Earth. Each man on board read the story of creation from Book of Genesis. Borman finished the broadcast by wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on Earth. His message appeared to sum up the feelings that all three crewmen had from their vantage point in lunar orbit. Borman said, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, and a Merry Christmas to all of you, all of you on the good Earth"

After 10 lunar orbit, Apollo 8 returned to Earth on 27 December 1968. A successful and historic mission.

So on this Christmas Eve, we should remember a historic moment in Human history that took place 40 years ago.


William Anders

"We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman

"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

View at YouTube


On this Christmas Eve I wish to again recall the words of Apollo 8 in wishing you a Merry Christmas.

And God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

In The Beginning...

I originally wrote this post for Christmas Eve 2008 the 40th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 8. I repost it for tonight to remind us of that mission and of a time in which Americans were more appreciative of G-d.

****************************************************************

Three words read by William Anders aboard the Apollo 8 mission on Christmas Eve 1968.

1968 was our Annus horribilis. It was a year of unrest at the Democratic National Convention. It was the year that saw the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. It was a year in which riots and protests were the daily fare on the nightly newscasts. It was a year in which America felt at its lowest point. And America needed a boost.

When the Apollo 8 mission was originally planned the mission was not suppose to go to the moon. It was suppose to be in a low Earth orbit checking out the systems on the Command module and possibly the lunar module if one had been ready by then. Instead the mission was changed and Apollo 8 would be the first manned mission to go to the moon. In itself it would be a very dangerous mission, the first of anything is alway a dangerous mission to accomplish. Because of the nature of the mission and the decision to change it, the true mission was kept a secret from the public until the official announcement on 12 November 1968, less than 40 days before the scheduled launch.

Apollo 8 launched at 7:51:00 a.m. on December 21, 1968. During the flight, three fellow astronauts served on the ground as capsule communicators (usually referred to as "CAPCOMs") on a rotating schedule. The CAPCOMs were the only people who regularly communicated with the crew. Michael Collins was the first CAPCOM on duty and at 2 hours, 27 minutes and 22 seconds after launch radioed, "Apollo 8. You are Go for TLI". This communication signified that Mission Control had given official permission for Apollo 8 to go to the moon. Over the next twelve minutes before the TLI burn, the Apollo 8 crew continued to monitor the spacecraft and the rocket. The S-IVB third stage rocket ignited on time and burned perfectly for 5 minutes and 17 seconds. The burn increased the velocity of Apollo 8 to 35,505 feet per second (10,822 m/s) and the spacecraft's altitude at the end of the burn was 215.4 miles (346.7 km). At this time, the crew also set the record for the highest speed humans had ever traveled.

Five hours after launch, Mission Control sent a command to the S-IVB booster to vent its remaining fuel through its engine bell to change the booster's trajectory. This S-IVB would then pass the Moon and enter into a solar orbit, posing no further hazard to Apollo 8. The S-IVB subsequently went into a 0.99 by 0.92 AU solar orbit with an inclination of 23.47° and a period of 340.80 days.

The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, which extend up to 15,000 miles (25,000 km) from Earth. Scientists predicted that passing through the belts quickly at the spacecraft's high speed would cause a radiation dosage of no more than a chest X-ray, or 1 milligray (during the course of a year, the average human receives a dose of 2 to 3 mGy). To record the actual radiation dosages, each crew member wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that transmitted data to Earth as well as three passive film dosimeters that showed the cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. By the end of the mission, the crew experienced an average radiation dose of 1.6 mGy.

At about 55 hours and 40 minutes into the flight, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to enter the gravitational sphere of influence of another celestial body. At 64 hours into the flight, the crew began to prepare for Lunar Orbit Insertion-1 (LOI-1). This maneuver had to be performed perfectly, and due to orbital mechanics had to be on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with the Earth. After Mission Control was polled for a Go/No Go decision, the crew was told at 68 hours, they were Go and "riding the best bird we can find". At 68 hours and 58 minutes, the spacecraft went behind the Moon and out of radio contact with the Earth.

When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed an event no one had ever seen — Earthrise. Borman saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photo as he did so: Earthrise, seen for the first time by human eyes. In the ensuing scramble Anders took the more famous color photo, later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century.



As they rounded the Moon for the ninth time, the second television transmission began. Borman introduced the crew, followed by each man giving his impression of the lunar surface and what it was like to be orbiting the Moon. Borman described it as being "a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing." Then, after talking about what they were flying over, Anders said that the crew had a message for all those on Earth. Each man on board read the story of creation from Book of Genesis. Borman finished the broadcast by wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on Earth. His message appeared to sum up the feelings that all three crewmen had from their vantage point in lunar orbit. Borman said, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, and a Merry Christmas to all of you, all of you on the good Earth"

After 10 lunar orbit, Apollo 8 returned to Earth on 27 December 1968. A successful and historic mission.

So on this Christmas Eve, we should remember a historic moment in Human history that took place 40 years ago.


William Anders

"We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman

"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

View at YouTube

On this Christmas Eve I wish to again recall the words of Apollo 8 in wishing you a Merry Christmas.

And God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

One Small Step For Mankind

On July 21, 1969 at 02:56 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), Neil Armstrong stepped out of the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) The Eagle and onto the surface of the moon with the words:

"This is one small step for man.  One giant leap for mankind."

He was followed a few seconds later by Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin Jr.  On that day, that time, they were written into the history books as the first Americans, the first men, the first humans to set first on any world, any moon, any place off of the Planet Earth.  With their courage, the Human Race started on its journey into the Final Frontier.

Neil Armstrong was born on Aug. 5, 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio.  He attended Blume High School and was an Eagle Scout.  (He was awarded Distinguished Eagle Scout and the Silver Buffalo Award later in life.)  He attended Purdue University and entered the US Navy in 1949, became a pilot, earned a Master's Degree, then became a test pilot.  He was chosen for the Space Program in 1962 and first flew into space aboard Gemini 8 on September 20, 1965.

On July 16, 1969 at 13:32 UTC Apollo 11 lifted off the surly bonds of Earth and flew into history.

After his historic flight, the weeks of quarantine, the ticker tape parade, the adoration from the world, Neil Armstrong retired from NASA and Space Flight in 1971.  He taught Aerospace Engineering at University of Cincinnati.  He was asked to join the investigation committees for both Apollo 13 and the Challenger disaster.

Neil Armstrong died on August 25, 2012 due to complications from surgery.  He is survived by his wife Carol and 2 adult sons from a previous marriage.

Congratulations to NASA

For the successful landing of the Mars Rover Curiosity.  While the mission is still in its early stage, Curiosity has just released the first picture of Mars.

I guess the Occupy Movement is every where!

Ad Astra

Born on May 26, 1951 to Carol Joyce (née Anderson) and Dale Burdell Ride in Encino, California, Sally Ride was destined for great things.  Miss Ride joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman to enter space. On her first mission at age 32 she was the youngest American to enter space on June 18, 1983.

Sally Ride, who blazed trails into orbit as the first American woman in space, died Monday of pancreatic cancer. She was 61.

Ride died at her home in the San Diego suburb of La Jolla, said Terry McEntee, a spokeswoman for her company, Sally Ride Science. She was a private person and the details of her illness were kept to just a few people, she said.

Ride rode into space on the space shuttle Challenger in 1983 when she was 32. After her flight, more than 42 other American women flew in space, NASA said.

"Sally was a national hero and a powerful role model. She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars," President Barack Obama said in a statement.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, said Ride "broke barriers with grace and professionalism -- and literally changed the face of America's space program."

"The nation has lost one of its finest leaders, teachers and explorers," he said in a statement.

Ride was a physicist, writer of five science books for children and president of her own company. She had also been a professor of physics at the University of California in San Diego.

She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1978, the same year she earned her doctorate in physics from Stanford University. She beat out five women to be the first American female in space. Her first flight came two decades after the Soviets sent a woman into space.

"On launch day, there was so much excitement and so much happening around us in crew quarters, even on the way to the launch pad," Ride recalled in a NASA interview for the 25th anniversary of her flight in 2008. "I didn't really think about it that much at the time -- but I came to appreciate what an honor it was to be selected to be the first to get a chance to go into space."

Ride flew in space twice, both times on Challenger in 1983 and in 1984, logging 343 hours in space. A third flight was cancelled when Challenger exploded in 1986. She was on the commission investigating that accident and later served on the panel for the 2003 Columbia shuttle accident, the only person on both boards.

She also was on the president's committee of science advisers.

The 20th anniversary of her first flight also coincided with the loss of Columbia, a bittersweet time for Ride, who discussed it in a 2003 interview with The Associated Press. She acknowledged it was depressing to spend the anniversary investigating the accident, which killed seven astronauts.

"But in another sense, it's rewarding because it's an opportunity to be part of the solution and part of the changes that will occur and will make the program better," she said.

Later in the interview, she focused on science education and talked about "being a role model and being very visible."

"She was very smart," said former astronaut Norman Thagard, who was on Ride's first flight. "We did have a good time."

It was all work on that first flight, except for a first-in-space sprint around the inside of the shuttle, Thagard recalled by phone on Monday. He didn't know who won.

One of Ride's last legacies was allowing middle school students to take their own pictures of the moon using cameras aboard NASA's twin Grail spacecraft in a project spearheaded by her company.

"Sally literally could have done anything with her life. She decided to devote her life to education and to inspiring young people. To me, that's such a powerful thing. It's extraordinarily admirable," said Maria Zuber, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who heads the Grail mission.

Ride's office said she is survived by Tam O'Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years; her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear, a niece and a nephew.

Source

Her website, Sally Ride Science has a short Memorial to her.

While some commented that what she did was nothing remarkable, the Soviets did it decades before.  One must remember that the Soviet female Cosmonaut Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova was ordered to do nothing during the flight but sit back and watch the view.

Dr. Ride was not on board the Shuttle to be an fixture.  Dr. Ride was a physicist and on board to accomplish scientific inquiry.  In other words, she worked as a scientist during both of her missions.  (STS-7, STS-41-G).

Yesterday Sally Ride was stuck here on Earth, and now she is soaring among the stars that she loved.

In The Beginning...

I originally published this post in 2008 on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission.  I feel that tonight is a good time to repost it.  I do hope you enjoy it.

Three words read by William Anders aboard the Apollo 8 mission on Christmas Eve 1968.

1968 was our Annus horribilis. It was a year of unrest at the Democratic National Convention. It was the year that saw the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. It was a year in which riots and protests were the daily fare on the nightly newscasts. It was a year in which America felt at its lowest point. And America needed a boost.

When the Apollo 8 mission was originally planned the mission was not suppose to go to the moon. It was suppose to be in a low Earth orbit checking out the systems on the Command module and possibly the lunar module if one had been ready by then. Instead the mission was changed and Apollo 8 would be the first manned mission to go to the moon. In itself it would be a very dangerous mission, the first of anything is alway a dangerous mission to accomplish. Because of the nature of the mission and the decision to change it, the true mission was kept a secret from the public until the official announcement on 12 November 1968, less than 40 days before the scheduled launch.

Apollo 8 launched at 7:51:00 a.m. on December 21, 1968. During the flight, three fellow astronauts served on the ground as capsule communicators (usually referred to as "CAPCOMs") on a rotating schedule. The CAPCOMs were the only people who regularly communicated with the crew. Michael Collins was the first CAPCOM on duty and at 2 hours, 27 minutes and 22 seconds after launch radioed, "Apollo 8. You are Go for TLI". This communication signified that Mission Control had given official permission for Apollo 8 to go to the moon. Over the next twelve minutes before the TLI burn, the Apollo 8 crew continued to monitor the spacecraft and the rocket. The S-IVB third stage rocket ignited on time and burned perfectly for 5 minutes and 17 seconds. The burn increased the velocity of Apollo 8 to 35,505 feet per second (10,822 m/s) and the spacecraft's altitude at the end of the burn was 215.4 miles (346.7 km). At this time, the crew also set the record for the highest speed humans had ever traveled.

Five hours after launch, Mission Control sent a command to the S-IVB booster to vent its remaining fuel through its engine bell to change the booster's trajectory. This S-IVB would then pass the Moon and enter into a solar orbit, posing no further hazard to Apollo 8. The S-IVB subsequently went into a 0.99 by 0.92 AU solar orbit with an inclination of 23.47° and a period of 340.80 days.

The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, which extend up to 15,000 miles (25,000 km) from Earth. Scientists predicted that passing through the belts quickly at the spacecraft's high speed would cause a radiation dosage of no more than a chest X-ray, or 1 milligray (during the course of a year, the average human receives a dose of 2 to 3 mGy). To record the actual radiation dosages, each crew member wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that transmitted data to Earth as well as three passive film dosimeters that showed the cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. By the end of the mission, the crew experienced an average radiation dose of 1.6 mGy.

At about 55 hours and 40 minutes into the flight, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to enter the gravitational sphere of influence of another celestial body. At 64 hours into the flight, the crew began to prepare for Lunar Orbit Insertion-1 (LOI-1). This maneuver had to be performed perfectly, and due to orbital mechanics had to be on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with the Earth. After Mission Control was polled for a Go/No Go decision, the crew was told at 68 hours, they were Go and "riding the best bird we can find". At 68 hours and 58 minutes, the spacecraft went behind the Moon and out of radio contact with the Earth.

When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed an event no one had ever seen — Earthrise. Borman saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photo as he did so: Earthrise, seen for the first time by human eyes. In the ensuing scramble Anders took the more famous color photo, later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century.



As they rounded the Moon for the ninth time, the second television transmission began. Borman introduced the crew, followed by each man giving his impression of the lunar surface and what it was like to be orbiting the Moon. Borman described it as being "a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing." Then, after talking about what they were flying over, Anders said that the crew had a message for all those on Earth. Each man on board read the story of creation from Book of Genesis. Borman finished the broadcast by wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on Earth. His message appeared to sum up the feelings that all three crewmen had from their vantage point in lunar orbit. Borman said, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, and a Merry Christmas to all of you, all of you on the good Earth"

After 10 lunar orbit, Apollo 8 returned to Earth on 27 December 1968. A successful and historic mission.

So on this Christmas Eve, we should remember a historic moment in Human history that took place 40 years ago.


William Anders

"We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman

"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

View at YouTube

On this Christmas Eve I wish to again recall the words of Apollo 8 in wishing you a Merry Christmas.

And God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

STS-135

On July 20, 1969 10:56 PM EDT, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. landed on the Moon.  The fulfillment of a commitment to human space travel by President John F. Kennedy:

For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the Moon and the Planets beyond.


We Choose to go the Moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that challenge is one we are willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win.

John F. Kennedy 12 September 1962 Rice University

It has been 42 years since the first Moon landing and 49 years since President Kennedy spoke those moving words.  Yet recently President Barack Hussein Obama not only cancelled the Constellation program, scrubbing the US return to the Moon and then Mars.  And has saddled the US with an enormous cost to send our astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).  The Russians will do it for $50 million dollars each astronaut.

President Obama claims that his plan will create jobs.  He is right.  Jobs for Russians, not Americans as the people of NASA will be downsizing and 1/3 of the NASA work force will be out of work tomorrow.



Ironic isn't it.  When President Obama first took office he was compared to John Kennedy as the second coming of JFK.  I can now paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen with accuracy:

Mr. President, you're no Jack Kennedy!

Indeed not!  Leadership is not his forte.  He has no idea what it is to inspire an nation, to unite a nation, to make us dream.

I was going to make this post one that would look back on the last 30 years of the shuttle program.  Instead I have changed this into a harangue against Obama's NASA policy.  The typical Progressive policy of destroying those programs that don't give funds directly to his cronies (SEIU).

I will leave you with this last landing ever of the Shuttle:

As the Space Shuttle has pulled into port for the last time, an era has come to an end.

When will America send her best and bravest back into space?  How long will it take?

X-Class Flares, Solar Maximum, And Cycle 24

On Tuesday I wrote the post: First X-flare of the New Solar Cycle. Thomas, a reader wrote the following comment:

What I would like to see is a history of X-class flares. How they they are related to solar activity maximum progression. Well Cycle 24 had somewhat of a slow start. Now the question of course is, how quickly will it increase in terms of activity to still somehow reach maximum in 2012. That is hwy it would be interesting to correlated the sun activity of the coming month with historical progression of previous cycles. I would assume that cycle 24 will present us with unprecedented anomalies. What's your best guess.. ?

Instead of posting a lengthy comment at the post, I will attempt to answer his questions here.

First of all, I am NOT an Astronomer.  Neither professional nor amateur.  I can point out stars and Constellations in the sky, look through a telescope to see the Rings of Saturn or Jupiter, and I try to follow the subject through documentaries and on-line sights such as Space Weather.  For me to answer Thomas' questions meant researching the subject.  A project that I have enjoyed doing.

NASA To Honor Dead Egyptian Bimbo, Not Once Did NASA Honor One 9/11 Victim!

What is with this government?  Every day there is another slur on American Culture, American Values. This time the agency is NASA.  Instead of naming a new rocket after an American Hero or a victim of the 9/11 attacks, they have decided to name the rocket after an Egyptian Whore Bimbo Woman killed in the riots.

The United States space agency NASA has okayed the naming of one of its spaceships after a young Egyptian woman killed in late January during an anti-goverment protest, according to Egyptian daily Al-Masry-al-Youm.

The paper quoted Essam Mohamed Haji, a young researcher at NASA as saying on Thursday he had received approval to put the young woman Sally Zahran's name on a spaceship heading for Mars.

Zahran, a 23 English graduated and translator died after she was beaten about the head on 28 January with a truncheons during clashes with security forces in in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag. Anti-government protesters claim her killers were thugs in the pay of police.

“This is the least we could provide to Egyptian youth and revolutionaries. This step represents transferring the dreams of Egyptian youth from a small stretch of earth to the enormous expanse of space,” said Haji was cited as telling Al-Masri Al-Youm by phone from California.

Egypt on Thursday entered it 17th day of unrest, with many thousands of people taking to the streets in the capital, Cairo and filling its central Tahrir Square.

Doctors, bus drivers, lawyers and textile workers were on strike in Cairo on Thursday, with trade unions reporting walkouts and protests across the country.

The protesters have vowed to keep up their revolt against authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak, who they want to leave office immediately.

Around 300 people have been killed in clashes with security forces and over 1,400 have been injured since the unrest began on 25 January against Mubarak, who took power in 1981 and whom they blame for widespread poverty, corruption and police brutality.

Mubarak, a staunch ally of the west, has said he will not run for another presidential term in elections due in September, but the anti-government protesters want more rapid political and economic change.

He has come under increasing pressure from the US to speed the transition to democracy. CIA director Leon Panetta, in testimony before an intelligence committee of the US legislature on Thursday said there was "a strong likelihood that Mubarak will step down this evening."

State television interrupted all programming to present a message from the high council of the Egyptian armed forces that promised to to take "necessary measures to protect the nation," the military also said it would "support the legitimate demands of the people" and remain in "continuous session".

How nice.  We are learning to be Dhimmis very fast.  Next it will be like Great Britain with Halal only meats sold in stores, blasphemy laws stifling free speech against Islam, then forced conversions.

Here is a strange idea for NASA.  How about these men and women to name the rocket for:

Apollo 1

Crew of Apollo 1

Virgil "Gus" Ivan Grissom, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Edward Higgins White, II, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Roger Bruce Chaffee, Lieutenant Commander, USN

Space Shuttle Challenger

Crew of Challenger

(front row) Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair; 

(back row) Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik.

Space Shuttle Columbia

Crew of the Columbia

If NASA wants to honor a foreign hero they could honor Ilan Ramon (Israel) who died on the Columbia.

Or NASA could honor the 2,998 victims of 9/11.  They could put all the names in a box and pull out one.

Some of the victims of 9/11

If you find this appalling what NASA is doing you can contact them here.

If they will not listen to the AMERICAN TAXPAYER, you should contact your Congressional Representative or Senator.

NASA is funded only by the American Taxpayer.  It should be the American Taxpayer who has the final say on the naming of our spacecrafts.

For One Brief Shining Moment

The year was 1969, the last year of a decade that started out with so much promise, but turned into one of strife and turmoil. A decade that saw a decline in the moral compass of the world. A decade of war, protests, civil unrest, and assassinations. A decade in which the Human Race had very little to cheer about.

This was the mood, the attitude of America and to some extent the world when Apollo 11 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on July 16.

On July 19, just 3 days later, the Command Module named Columbia, with the Lunar Lander named The Eagle went into orbit around the Moon.

The Eagle made its decent to the lunar surface on July 20th, the world held its breath. Then came the first words from another world:

"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

The world let out a collective sigh.



An short hour later, the hatch of The Eagle opened, and Neil Armstrong descended to the lunar surface. He uttered the now famous words:

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"

And for one brief shining moment the world was one. There were no distinctions of race, religion or nationality. We were one species, one people, Homo Sapien Sapien! Proud that one of our species had set foot upon another world. A feat that could never be duplicated again. We were thrilled.

The mission of Apollo 11 ended with splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on July 24th, fulfilling the mandate of President John F. Kennedy:

"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

Apollo 11



View at YouTube

And the Human Race went back to its bickering and fighting.
But for one moment on July 20, 1969, the Human Race was one.

In The Beginning...

Three words read by William Anders aboard the Apollo 8 mission on Christmas Eve 1968.

1968 was our Annus horribilis. It was a year of unrest at the Democratic National Convention. It was the year that saw the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. It was a year in which riots and protests were the daily fare on the nightly newscasts. It was a year in which America felt at its lowest point. And America needed a boost.

When the Apollo 8 mission was originally planned the mission was not suppose to go to the moon. It was suppose to be in a low Earth orbit checking out the systems on the Command module and possibly the lunar module if one had been ready by then. Instead the mission was changed and Apollo 8 would be the first manned mission to go to the moon. In itself it would be a very dangerous mission, the first of anything is alway a dangerous mission to accomplish. Because of the nature of the mission and the decision to change it, the true mission was kept a secret from the public until the official announcement on 12 November 1968, less than 40 days before the scheduled launch.

Apollo 8 launched at 7:51:00 a.m. on December 21, 1968. During the flight, three fellow astronauts served on the ground as capsule communicators (usually referred to as "CAPCOMs") on a rotating schedule. The CAPCOMs were the only people who regularly communicated with the crew. Michael Collins was the first CAPCOM on duty and at 2 hours, 27 minutes and 22 seconds after launch radioed, "Apollo 8. You are Go for TLI". This communication signified that Mission Control had given official permission for Apollo 8 to go to the moon. Over the next twelve minutes before the TLI burn, the Apollo 8 crew continued to monitor the spacecraft and the rocket. The S-IVB third stage rocket ignited on time and burned perfectly for 5 minutes and 17 seconds. The burn increased the velocity of Apollo 8 to 35,505 feet per second (10,822 m/s) and the spacecraft's altitude at the end of the burn was 215.4 miles (346.7 km). At this time, the crew also set the record for the highest speed humans had ever traveled.

Five hours after launch, Mission Control sent a command to the S-IVB booster to vent its remaining fuel through its engine bell to change the booster's trajectory. This S-IVB would then pass the Moon and enter into a solar orbit, posing no further hazard to Apollo 8. The S-IVB subsequently went into a 0.99 by 0.92 AU solar orbit with an inclination of 23.47° and a period of 340.80 days.

The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, which extend up to 15,000 miles (25,000 km) from Earth. Scientists predicted that passing through the belts quickly at the spacecraft's high speed would cause a radiation dosage of no more than a chest X-ray, or 1 milligray (during the course of a year, the average human receives a dose of 2 to 3 mGy). To record the actual radiation dosages, each crew member wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that transmitted data to Earth as well as three passive film dosimeters that showed the cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. By the end of the mission, the crew experienced an average radiation dose of 1.6 mGy.

At about 55 hours and 40 minutes into the flight, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to enter the gravitational sphere of influence of another celestial body. At 64 hours into the flight, the crew began to prepare for Lunar Orbit Insertion-1 (LOI-1). This maneuver had to be performed perfectly, and due to orbital mechanics had to be on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with the Earth. After Mission Control was polled for a Go/No Go decision, the crew was told at 68 hours, they were Go and "riding the best bird we can find". At 68 hours and 58 minutes, the spacecraft went behind the Moon and out of radio contact with the Earth.

When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed an event no one had ever seen — Earthrise. Borman saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photo as he did so: Earthrise, seen for the first time by human eyes. In the ensuing scramble Anders took the more famous color photo, later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century.



As they rounded the Moon for the ninth time, the second television transmission began. Borman introduced the crew, followed by each man giving his impression of the lunar surface and what it was like to be orbiting the Moon. Borman described it as being "a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing." Then, after talking about what they were flying over, Anders said that the crew had a message for all those on Earth. Each man on board read the story of creation from Book of Genesis. Borman finished the broadcast by wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on Earth. His message appeared to sum up the feelings that all three crewmen had from their vantage point in lunar orbit. Borman said, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, and a Merry Christmas to all of you, all of you on the good Earth"

After 10 lunar orbit, Apollo 8 returned to Earth on 27 December 1968. A successful and historic mission.

So on this Christmas Eve, we should remember a historic moment in Human history that took place 40 years ago.


William Anders

"We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman

"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

View at YouTube


On this Christmas Eve I wish to again recall the words of Apollo 8 in wishing you a Merry Christmas.

And God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.