Space Forum / Space History / February 2008

Well, almost!
I just received an advance copy of a book written by the Judica Cordiglia
brothers, that recounts their activity in the early 1960s and later.
The book is detailed, very well written and contains meny interesting

http://planetary.org/about/press/releases/2008/0214_Space_Experts_Say_Put_Humans
_on_Mars.html
Look at these people. Look at the graphic they present.
There is only one conclusion here :
Unskilled and unaware of it :

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0801/24asteroid/index2.html
We were all waiting for this announcement. Arecibo is a science jewel.

APOLLO 12 UFO
Apollo 12 UFO in blackness of sky about 100 miles above the moon, 23 seconds
of moving slowly at first then dancing erratic back and forth up and down
then goes out, reappears as it reenters from top of frame, then leaps away

http://voanews.com/english/2008-02-11-voa58.cfm
Dongfan Chung...the Red Wiggler who wormed his way into Boeing!
What does Beijing want to know about our little Shuttle?
Cryogenic engine technology?

In years past there has been lots of discussion here about the view
that human spaceflight was funded primarily in the interest of
national defense because of the role that these rockets played as ICBM
booster demonstrations (a form of power projection).  The vocal

Dwayne Day has a article on this behemoth for grabbing Saturn V stages
in midair over on The Space Review:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1045/1
So the obvious question... this thing is supposed to be capable of

The North American Aviation P-51D Mustang was a fighter aircraft. It
was considered the definitive Mustang. The P-51D became the most
widely produced among the variants of the Mustang.
Warplanes.com offers the P-51D Mustang model aircraft on 30% sale. It

On Mercury it's certainly capable of getting moon like terribly hot,
especially by day averaging perhaps 375 K/ 215°F (hottest throughout
midday and of course much hotter towards the equator and obviously
cooler as you migrate towards either pole), but then by night it's

Okay, you have all seen the mathematical trick where you are in a classroom
of say, thiry people, and the speaker asks those present to name their date
of birth, and you find out that more than one person in the classroom has
the same birth date.  It's merely a neat function of ...

The last thing they need now is a severe thunderstorm - that implies hail.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h1W8dcUP9H70AmlSfDSenPteDT9gD8ULBMF01
And we all know what hail does to the ET foam from past experience.
Let's hope they can dodge the bullet on this one as far as weather ...

I'm kind of surprised that s.s.h. isn't taking more note of all the
anniversaries this week:
http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/2008/02/five_years_ago.html

I have heard the LM was so thin, in order to keep weight down, that it
may have been possible for the astronauts to puncture it by something
as mere as a pencil.  If that had happened, and they had had their
suits on, is it a safe assumption that they would have been able to

NOVA program on the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program.  Introduction
tonight looks good:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/astrospies/
As they say, check your local listings.

How important was VonBraun, and the crew that came with him, to our
space program?
Would we have made the Moon as fast, or at all, without them?
Thanks fellas.