Remembering Yuri Gagarin, born March 9, 1934.

Remembering Yuri Gagarin, born March 9, 1934 and passed away on March 27, 1968.

Gagarin was the first human to ever travel to space, an accomplishment he achieved in 1961 in the soviet spacecraft Vostok 1.

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Happy birthday to Rod Roddenberry, born February 5, 1974.

Happy birthday Rod Roddenberry, 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.

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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.

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January 27, 1967 NASA Apollo 1, tragedy.

01-27-1967 NASA Apollo 1 tragedy.

Today, we remember Lt. Colonel Virgil I. Grissom, Lt. Colonel Edward H. White II, and Lt. Commander Roger B. Chaffee – all great men whom we lost today in 1967 when a flash fire occurred in the command module during a preflight test. The fire was first reported at 6:31 PM EST from Launch Pad 34-A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This crew was supposed to fly the first Apollo crewed mission, to have been launched in late February. At the time, the vehicle was referred to as AS-204 (since it hadn’t launched yet) and many reports refer to this as the AS-204 accident. Following the tragedy NASA began calling it Apollo 1.

To learn more about the Apollo I, the History Office website includes a summary of the mission, an investigation of the fire, and links to biographies for the three men at http://history.nasa.gov/Apollo204/.

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Happy birthday Buzz Aldrin, 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.

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Bill Nye was born November 27, 1955.

William Sanford Nye popularly known as Bill Nye The Science Guy​, is an American science communicator, television presenter, and mechanical engineer. He is best known as the host of the PBS and syndicated children’s science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–1998), the Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World (2017–present), and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator.

Nye began his career as a mechanical engineer for Boeing Corporation in Seattle, where he invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on 747 airplanes. In 1986, Nye left Boeing to pursue comedy, writing and performing jokes and bits for the local sketch television show Almost Live!, where he would regularly conduct wacky science experiments. Nye aspired to become the next Mr. Wizard and with the help of several producers successfully pitched the children’s television program Bill Nye the Science Guy to KCTS-TV, channel 9, Seattle’s public television station. The show—which proudly proclaimed in its theme song that “science rules!”—ran from 1993 to 1998 in national TV syndication. Known for its “high-energy presentation and MTV-paced segments,” the program became a hit for both kids and adults. The show was critically acclaimed and was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards, winning nineteen.

Following the success of his show, Nye continued to advocate for science, becoming the CEO of the Planetary Society and helping develop sundials for the Mars Exploration Rover missions. Nye has written two best-selling books on science, including Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation in 2014 and Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World in 2015. Nye has made frequent media appearances, including on Dancing with the Stars, The Big Bang Theory and Inside Amy Schumer. Nye starred in a documentary about his life and science advocacy titled Bill Nye: Science Guy, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2017, and, in October 2017, was chosen a NYT Critic’s Pick. In 2017, he debuted a Netflix series, entitled Bill Nye Saves the World.

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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.

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Carl Sagan was born November 9, 1934.

Carl Sagan was born November 9, 1934 and passed away on December 20, 1996.

Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, microbiologist, author, science popularize, and science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences. His contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of Venus. However, he is best known for his contributions to the scientific research of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. Sagan assembled the first physical messages that were sent into space: the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them.

He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. Sagan is known for many of his popular science books, such as The Dragons of Eden, Broca’s Brain and Pale Blue Dot, and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote. The most widely watched series in the history of American public television, Cosmos has been seen by at least 500 million people across 60 different countries. The book Cosmos was published to accompany the series. He also wrote the science fiction novel Contact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.

Sagan always advocated scientific skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He spent most of his career as a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, where he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. Sagan and his works received numerous awards and honors, including the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal, the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book The Dragons of Eden, and, regarding Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, two Emmy Awards, the Peabody Award and the Hugo Award. He married three times and had five children. After suffering from myelodysplasia, Sagan died of pneumonia at the age of 62 on December 20, 1996.

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Michael Collins was born October 31, 1930.

Michael Collins, Major General, USAF, Ret. is an American former astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963, he flew into space twice. His first spaceflight was on Gemini 10, in which he and Command Pilot John Young performed two rendezvous with different spacecraft and Collins undertook two EVAs. His second spaceflight was as the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 11. While he stayed in orbit around the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left in the Lunar Module to make the first manned landing on its surface. He is one of 24 people to have flown to the Moon.
Collins was the fourth person, and third American, to perform an EVA; and is the first person to have performed more than one EVA.
Prior to becoming an astronaut, he attended the United States Military Academy, and from there he joined the United States Air Force and flew F-86s at Chambley-Bussieres Air Base, France. He was accepted to the U.S. Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1960. He unsuccessfully applied for the second astronaut group, but was accepted for the third group.
After retiring from NASA in 1970 he took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A year later he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum. He held this position until 1978 when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980 he took the job as Vice President of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in 1985 to start his own business.

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Robert Goddard was born October 5, 1882.

Robert Goddard was born October 5, 1882 and passed away on August 10, 1945.

Robert Hutchings Goddard was an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket, which he successfully launched on March 16, 1926. Goddard and his team launched 34 rockets between 1926 and 1941, achieving altitudes as high as 2.6 km (1.6 mi) and speeds as high as 885 km/h (550 mph).

Goddard’s work as both theorist and engineer anticipated many of the developments that were to make spaceflight possible. He has been called the man who ushered in the Space Age. Two of Goddard’s 214 patented inventions — a multi-stage rocket (1914), and a liquid-fuel rocket (1914) — were important milestones toward spaceflight. His 1919 monograph A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes is considered one of the classic texts of 20th-century rocket science. Goddard successfully applied three-axis control, gyroscopes and steerable thrust to rockets, to effectively control their flight.

Although his work in the field was revolutionary, Goddard received very little public support for his research and development work. The press sometimes ridiculed his theories of spaceflight. As a result, he became protective of his privacy and his work. Years after his death, at the dawn of the Space Age, he came to be recognized as the founding father of modern rocketry. He not only recognized the potential of rockets for atmospheric research, ballistic missiles and space travel but was the first to scientifically study, design and construct the rockets needed to implement those ideas.

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