John Glenn was born July 18, 1921.

John Glenn was born July 18, 1921 and passed away on December 8, 2016.

John Herschel Glenn, Jr., (Col, USMC, Ret.), was a former aviator, engineer, astronaut, and United States senator. He was selected as one of the “Mercury Seven” group of military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA to become America’s first astronauts and fly the Project Mercury spacecraft. On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission and became the first American to orbit the Earth and the fifth person in space, after cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov and the sub-orbital flights of Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom. Glenn is the earliest-born American to go to orbit, and the second earliest-born man overall after Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy. Glenn received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, and was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990. With the death of Scott Carpenter on October 10, 2013, Glenn became the last surviving member of the Mercury Seven.

Glenn resigned from NASA on January 16, 1964, and the next day announced plans to run for a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio; however, a bathroom fall which resulted in a concussion caused him to withdraw from the race in March. He retired from the Marine Corps on January 1, 1965. A member of the Democratic Party, he finally won election to the Senate in 1974 and served through January 3, 1999. With the death of Edward Brooke on January 3, 2015, Glenn became the oldest living former United States Senator.

On October 29, 1998, while still a sitting senator, he became the oldest person to fly in space, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs, when at age 77, he flew as a Payload Specialist on Discovery mission STS-95. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

http://www.nerdnewsnow.com
https://therealnerdherd.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/therealnerdherd/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_real_nerd_herdnerdnewsnow/
Twitter: Jim Kirkwood Jr
#johnglenn #nasa #astronaught #usmc #senator #mercury #mercuryseven #july18 #birthday #nerdnewsnow #therealnerdherd #nerdherd #nerd

Advertisements

Peter Dinklage was born June 11, 1969.

Peter Hayden Dinklage is an American actor. Since his breakout role in The Station Agent (2003), he starred in many films, such as Elf (2003), Find Me Guilty (2006), Underdog (2007), the British film Death at a Funeral (2007) with its American remake of the same name (2010), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), A Little Bit of Heaven (2011), Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012), Knights of Badassdom (2013), and as Bolivar Trask in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). He also voices Ghost in the video game Destiny (2014).

Since 2011, Dinklage has played Tyrion Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones, earning him international attention and acclaim. He won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for Supporting Actor in 2011, as well as consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations for the role from 2012 to 2014.

http://www.nerdnewsnow.com
https://therealnerdherd.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/therealnerdherd/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_real_nerd_herdnerdnewsnow/
Twitter: Jim Kirkwood Jr
#peterdrinklage #gameofthrones #xmen #avengers #thestationagent #elf #findmeguilty #underdog #thechroniclesofnarnia #alittlebitofheaven #iceage #knightsofbadassdom #june11 #birthday #nerdnewsnow #therealnerdherd #nerdherd #nerd

Sally Ride was born May 26, 1951.

Sally Ride was born May 26, 1951 and passed away on July 23, 2012.

Sally Kristen Ride was an American physicist and astronaut. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. She remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. She worked for two years at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, the only person to participate on both. Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.

http://www.nerdnewsnow.com/
https://therealnerdherd.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/therealnerdherd/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_real_nerd_herdnerdnewsnow/
Twitter: Jim Kirkwood Jr
#sallyride #nasa #astronaut #firstamericanwomaninspace #challenger #orbiter #spaceshuttle #may26 #birthday #nerdnewsnow #therealnerdherd #nerdherd #nerd

Rod Roddenberry was born February 5, 1974.

Eugene Wesley “Rod” Roddenberry Jr. is the only son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and his second wife, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. He has two sisters, Darleen Roddenberry and Dawn Roddenberry, both from Gene Roddenberry’s first marriage to Eileen Anita Rexroat. He has a wife, Heidi, and a son named Zale.
Roddenberry is the chief executive officer at Roddenberry Entertainment, a company through which he is producing the newest Star Trek series Star Trek: Discovery.
Roddenberry acted as executive producer and narrator of Trek Nation, a Star Trek documentary released in late 2011.
He discussed his father Gene during an appearance in The Captains of The Final Frontier, a 2010 Star Trek documentary made for American television.
Roddenberry acted as a consultant for and advocate for, and promoter of the fan-made Star Trek: New Voyages series.
Roddenberry was interviewed and introduced the Gene Roddenberry: Up Close And Personal video documentary release from 2006.
He wrote an episode of the science fiction series called Earth: Final Conflict, which was a project conceived by Gene Roddenberry in the 1970s and produced by Majel Barrett Roddenberry in Toronto starting in 1997.
Roddenberry has also been involved with a large number of real-world science endeavors including The Ansari X-Prize, NASA, JPL, The Planetary Society, The Roddenberry Dive Team, and the Kennedy Space Center.

https://therealnerdherd.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/therealnerdherd/
Instagram: the_real_nerd_herd
Twitter: Jim Kirkwood Jr
#therealnerdherd #rodroddenberry #startrek #generoddenberry #MajelBarrettRoddenberry #majelbarrett #earthfinalconflict #startrekdiscovery #startreknewvoyages #treknation #theansarixprixe #nasa #jpl #theplanetarysociety #theroddenberrydiveteam #kennedyspacecenter #february5 #birthday #nerdherd #nerd

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occured on January 28, 1986.

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986.

The NASA Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger (OV-099) (mission STS-51-L) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members, which included five NASA astronauts and two Payload Specialists. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC). Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB’s aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces broke up the orbiter.

The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. The exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown; several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. The shuttle had no escape system, and the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable.

The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA’s organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident. NASA managers had known since 1977 that contractor Morton Thiokol’s design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings, but they had failed to address this problem properly. They also disregarded warnings (an example of “go fever”) from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning, and failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors.

What the Rogers Commission report did not highlight was that the vehicle was never certified to operate in temperatures that low. The O-rings, as well as many other critical components, had no test data to support any expectation of a successful launch in such conditions. Bob Ebeling from Thiokol delivered a biting analysis: “[W]e’re only qualified to 40 degrees …’what business does anyone even have thinking about 18 degrees, we’re in no man’s land.'” Ken Iliff, a former NASA Chief Scientist who had worked the Space Shuttle Program since its first mission (and the X-15 program before that) stated in an official 2004 NASA publication, “Violating a couple of mission rules was the primary cause of the Challenger accident.

https://therealnerdherd.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/therealnerdherd/
Instagram: the_real_nerd_herd
Twitter: Jim Kirkwood Jr
#therealnerdherd #challenger #anniversary #nasa #spaceshuttle #january28 #nerdherd #nerd #challengerdisaster

Buzz Aldrin was born January 20, 1930.

Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.) is an American engineer and former astronaut, and the second person to walk on the Moon. He was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history. He set foot on the Moon at 03:15:16 (UTC) on July 21, 1969, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. He is also a former U.S. Air Force officer and a Command Pilot.

https://therealnerdherd.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/therealnerdherd/
Instagram: the_real_nerd_herd
Twitter: Jim Kirkwood Jr
#therealnerdherd #buzzaldrin #nasa #moon #astronaut #apollo11 #lunarmodule #thebigbangtheory #airforce #transformers #thesimpsons #30rock #january20 #birthday #nerdherd #nerd

Alan Shepard was born November 18, 1923.

Alan Shepard was born November 18, 1923 and passed away on July 21, 1998.

Alan Bartlett “Al” Shepard, Jr., (RADM, USN), was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, flag officer, one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts, and businessman, who in 1961 became the second person and the first American to travel into space. This Mercury flight was designed to enter space, but not to achieve orbit. Ten years later, at age 47 and the oldest astronaut in the program, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the lander to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. He became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon, and the only astronaut of the Mercury Seven to walk on the Moon. During the mission, he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface.

These were his only two space flights, as his flight status was interrupted for five years (1964–69) during the Mercury and Gemini programs by Ménière’s disease, an inner-ear disease that was surgically corrected before his Moon flight. Shepard served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from November 1963 to July 1969 (the approximate period of his grounding), and from June 1971 to August 1, 1974 (from his last flight to his retirement). He was promoted from Captain to Rear Admiral on August 25, 1971.He retired from the United States Navy and NASA in 1974.

https://therealnerdherd.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/therealnerdherd/
Twitter: @JimKirkwoodJr
#therealnerdherd #alanshepard #birthday #november18 #nasa #apollo14 #nerdherd #nerd