Space Forum / Space History / December 2007

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
In the Spectrum article <http://spectrum.ieee.org/apr05/2697/3i> on A-13:
Kranz's word was law. "The flight director probably has the simplest
mission job description in all America," Kranz told Spectrum. "It's only

I wonder if any consideration might be given to landing in the Gulf of
Mexico.  Certainly it would seem that we should be able to target
entry with enough precision to to avoid land but still land in a large
relatively calm body of water that is surrounded on two sides by the

See this link and weep:
http://www.moondaily.com/reports/Earth_Magnetic_Field_Could_Help_Protect_Astrona
uts_Working_On_The_Moon_999.html
Seems that all the rants about hard rad killing the crew don't hold
water. I am sure Brad will tell us all it is a part of some big

Via Modern Mechanix, natch.
From the Dec., 1947 Mechanix Illustrated:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/12/19/how-will-you-talk-to-the-martians/
Ends up with a early version of the Pioneer 10 plaque, with the added

...Seeing as how they're claiming ND is supposedly under 10 billion
feet of snow or something resembling it, how's the weather up there?
                OM

Okay... the spacecraft is on course, but the target has vanished:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0712/15epoxi/
This may be a first for interplanetary exploration. :-D
Meanwhile, NASA's "Sunstroke" spacecraft is on course to Vulcan -

do any of you have any pictures of the capture of Von Braun and the other
rocket scientists by the 34th regiment, operation paperclip?
I'm giving a lecture and need a few images.
Cheers & thanks in advance

Via NASA watch:
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2007/12/altair_to_the_m.html
Pat

So what does  every conspiracy theorist's favorite mystery machine
really do?
Well, thanks to a lot of FOIA digging, it turns out it can do quite a
few things: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/12/secret-document.html

After my little rant against Mr. Flannery, I did a little checking
around, and it turns out North Dakota is already on board the new
paradigm for space exploration and education, it a really big way :
http://www.space.edu/aerospace/home.php

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=26290
Pat

Have invaded the Shuttle Launch Complex!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxkCMUlKJF0
(Looking at the outline, that's probably a male "Jumping Spider" of
around 1/4 inch in length that must be on the inside of the protective

What ever happened to the Lunar Modules once they were no longer
needed for the apollo missions?
Do we have 7 of them in orbit around the moon right now?  If not, how
were they jettisoned in a way that ensured they would not stay in some

It is a disgrace what has happened to NASA, the once-pround vanguard of
America's technological elite.
NASA these days is nothing more than a public-relations wing of the state
department.

In case we've all forgotten, it was 50 years ago today that America's first
satellite launch ended in an embarrassing failure.
The Vanguard was not known for it's reliability; 8 of it's 12 flights
failed.