FIRED UP FOR THE FUTURE

The laboratories managed by NACA (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which was replaced by NASA in 1958) were at the forefront of the development of reliable high-performance jet-propulsion engines....[More]

FIRED UP FOR THE FUTURE

The laboratories managed by NACA (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which was replaced by NASA in 1958) were at the forefront of the development of reliable high-performance jet-propulsion engines. In this 1946 test, engineers at the Flight Propulsion Research Laboratory in Cleveland take motion pictures of exhaust gases being discharged from a burner used for studying thrust augmentation in jet engines. As is often the case in aerospace engineering studies, the camera is an essential tool for data analysis.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

NASA

HIGH-PRESSURE JOB

Astronaut Pete Conrad adjusts the strap on the boot of his early Gemini-type pressure suit as he prepares for water survival tests at the naval training tank in Pensacola, Fla....[More]

HIGH-PRESSURE JOB

Astronaut Pete Conrad adjusts the strap on the boot of his early Gemini-type pressure suit as he prepares for water survival tests at the naval training tank in Pensacola, Fla. Conrad served on Geminis 5 and 11. Jim Lovell is in the background. The Gemini-program suits were made by the David Clark Company of Worcester, Mass. A variation of this spacesuit is still worn on shuttle missions, although Apollo astronauts used a different type.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

NASA

HARD-LUCK MISSION

A technical engineer practices rendezvous and docking with an Agena target vehicle in the McDonnell simulator for the Gemini 9A mission. The original 9A crew of Elliott See and Charles Bassett were tragically killed at Lambert Field in St....[More]

HARD-LUCK MISSION

A technical engineer practices rendezvous and docking with an Agena target vehicle in the McDonnell simulator for the Gemini 9A mission. The original 9A crew of Elliott See and Charles Bassett were tragically killed at Lambert Field in St. Louis on February 28, 1966, en route to simulator practice. Their jet trainer accidentally hit the corner of the McDonnell building that housed their Gemini capsule, which was under construction. Although the 9A mission was canceled, Gemini 9 launched on June 3, 1966, and the backup crew of Command Pilot Thomas Stafford and Pilot Eugene Cernan encountered obstacles not of their own making on both of their main assignments.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

NASA

CANNED HEROES

Once on board the USS Hornet recovery ship, the crew was placed inside a mobile quarantine facility designed to prevent any possible "moon bugs" from contaminating Earth....[More]

CANNED HEROES

Once on board the USS Hornet recovery ship, the crew was placed inside a mobile quarantine facility designed to prevent any possible "moon bugs" from contaminating Earth. NASA dispensed with quarantines following Apollo 14, after scientists were sufficiently convinced there were no microorganisms, harmful or otherwise, returning with the astronauts from the lunar surface. After their return from the first manned moon landing, Pres. Richard Nixon was waiting on the Hornet to greet the Apollo 11 astronauts and spoke and joked with them through the glass window of the quarantine van. This was the occasion on which he made his oft-quoted comment, "This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation."  [Less] [Link to this slide]

NASA

SHOWING THEIR TRUE COLORS

Commander Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17 , the last lunar landing mission, salutes the flag on December 14, 1972. Each Apollo mission that landed on the moon raised an American flag....[More]

SHOWING THEIR TRUE COLORS

Commander Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17, the last lunar landing mission, salutes the flag on December 14, 1972. Each Apollo mission that landed on the moon raised an American flag. The astronauts were following a tradition that harks back to Columbus, who came ashore in the New World in 1492 "proclaiming heralds and flying standards." What the Apollo astronauts did not do was claim the moon for the U.S., and in this they broke with the great explorers of the past. By treaty and convention, the moon belongs to humankind, as Neil Armstrong implicitly suggested in his famous first utterance from the lunar surface.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

NASA

HEAT AND LIGHT

The launch of a space shuttle mission scatters gulls on its way to the first continuously inhabited orbital research station in space. The Mir Space Station, originally a Soviet initiative, was continued by the Russian space program after the U.S.S.R.'s demise....[More]

HEAT AND LIGHT

The launch of a space shuttle mission scatters gulls on its way to the first continuously inhabited orbital research station in space. The Mir Space Station, originally a Soviet initiative, was continued by the Russian space program after the U.S.S.R.'s demise. It was built from modules transported from Earth between 1986 and 1996. In 1992 the U.S. and Russia signed a Joint Statement on Cooperation in Space that called for U.S. participation in Mir. Subsequently, the STS-63 space shuttle mission was detailed to rendezvous with Mir, in preparation for a later docking mission. When the last crew departed Mir in August 1999, the orbital outpost had been continuously inhabited for eight days short of a decade. On March 23, 2001, the abandoned station was deorbited, and it broke apart over the Pacific Ocean during atmospheric reentry.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

NASA

SPACE STATION RAISIN'

In 1993 the U.S. relinquished its long-standing plans to unilaterally build Space Station Freedom, a proposed American response to Mir, and committed itself instead to supporting the International Space Station, along with Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency....[More]

SPACE STATION RAISIN'

In 1993 the U.S. relinquished its long-standing plans to unilaterally build Space Station Freedom, a proposed American response to Mir, and committed itself instead to supporting the International Space Station, along with Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency. The first module of the new station, the Zarya control module, was launched by Russia on November 20, 1998. Two weeks later, on December 4, came the launch of STS-88, with space shuttle Endeavour carrying the 35-ton Unity module in its cargo bay. Its mission was to rendezvous with Zarya and connect the two modules. Mission specialists, James Newman and Jerry Ross, completed three EVAs (spacewalks) to finish the job. Here, Newman holds one of the handrails on the Unity module near the beginning of a seven-hour, 22-minute spacewalk on December 7, 1998, when the two men mated forty cables and connectors.  [Less] [Link to this slide]

NASA