Space Forum / Space History / December 2005

Does anybody know an estimate how many satellites are in geosynchronous
orbit? How many of them are operational?
Are there any accounts of collisions among them? I know that thwy won't
collide if all in the same orbit, but there are imperfections, right?

Over the weekend I was re-reading "First On The Moon" written in 1970 by the
Apollo 11 astronauts with Gene Farmer and Dora Hamblin when I came across a
couple of pages that stated that the depressurization of Eagle, the
jettisoning of the PLSS's and other unneeded equipment, and ...

Rocket Checks Prompt Launch Delay for NASA's Pluto Probe
By Justin Ray
The launch of NASA’s Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft is being
delayed so engineers can perform precautionary boroscope inspections of

Orbital rendezvous made moon flight and space stations possible. It's
routine today, so much so that people forget what spaceflight might be
like without it, or what it WAS like before it, and how that pre-rendezvous
phase of space activity ended on December 15, forty years ago.

For all you space-debris aficionados - a note in the latest newsletter
of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (see
http://www.noao.edu/noao/noaonews/dec05/pdf/
where it's on pages 27/8, at the start of the Cerro Tololo section)

See the latest Jake Garn BS on a local TV station.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=141307
I sent in a 'viewer comment':
Re John Hollenhorst's nice story on Jake Garn and the 'Garn scale'. Good

1972 - Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Harrison Schmitt aboard Apollo
17 returned to Earth. No human has visited the Moon since.
1974 - An early personal computer, the Altair 8800, went on sale.

Days ago I just saw the german version of the movie "Andromeda Strain" again.
I never read the book. The movie is a classic, the best of its topic. Two
questions puzzle me:
Was a project like SCOOP ever done? From the movie the objective for SCOOP

1965 8:37 am EST Gemini 6 launched. Walter Shirra & Thomas Stafford.
Flight duration 1 day 1 hr 51 min 24 sec
...Man, did 40 years fly by or what?
                OM

Just wondering if anyone found any links to hires pics of the CEV mockups at http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/cev_mockup.html
Thanks........Adam

I'm looking for informations about the dummest mistakes in space
programs.
(Such as mix up miles and km for the Mars Climate Orbiter)
If you could give me more examples, or links, I'll be pleased !

Figure this one out:
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/11/17/japanmissile.shtml
Pat

I heard they had spaceships and created an intergalactic Roman Empire,
the homoworld is called Romulus.
Is that true?

This is only a test.

I was reading the following article (mind the wrap) in AIAA's Aerospace
America:
  "Computer Systems"  
  http://www.aiaa.org/aerospace/images/articleimages/pdf/computer%20sy