This Day In History, 1962: We Choose To Go To The Moon...

JFK today 1962: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard": pic.twitter.com/L1T8SLAwPy

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) September 12, 2017

Astronauts!

A few weeks ago I wrote about my "retro-astro space race place," after revisiting the 60s and 70s via Hidden Figures, Apollo 13 and The Astronaut Wives Club. (Read it here.) At the time I had the idea in my head that the U.S. was mostly out of the astronaut business, but that's not true. Yesterday NASA introduced 12 new American astronauts who will train for two years to do cool stuff like launching on spacecraft built by commercial companies and departing for deep space missions (and hopefully coming back.) Here's NASA's Instagram announcement:

People of Earth…we happily introduce you to America’s #NewAstronauts! These 12 humans were selected from more than 18,300 applicants, which is more than double the previous record of 8,000 set in 1978. These astronaut candidates will return to Johnson Space Center in August to begin two years fo training. Then they could be assigned to any of a variety of missions, including: performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and departing for deep space missions in our Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.  Applicants included U.S. citizens in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories Puerto Rico, Guam and America Samoa. The talented women and men selected for the new astronaut class represent the diversity of America and the career paths that can lead to a place in America’s astronaut corps.  Credit: NASA  #nasa #NewAstronauts #astronauts #space #humanspaceflight #exploration #classof2017 #2017 #astronautcandidates #training #announcement #picoftheday #spacecraft

A post shared by NASA (@nasa) on Jun 8, 2017 at 5:53am PDT

This Day In History, 1969: The View From Apollo 10

Shrouded in clouds today in 1969, this image was taken by the crew of Apollo 10 as they began their lunar journey. From 36,000 nautical miles away, this full disk view of our home planet shows the crew’s vantage point from space. The crew members on Apollo 10 were astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, commander; John W. Young, command module pilot; and Eugene E. Cernan, lunar module pilot. Astronaut Young remained in lunar orbit, in the Command and Service Module (CSM) "Charlie Brown", while astronauts Stafford and Cernan descended to within nine miles of the lunar surface, in the Lunar Module (LM) "Snoopy". Credit: NASA #nasa #space #moon #earth #home #homeplanet #astronauts #apollo #apollo10 #tbt #throwbackthursday #Thursday #picoftheday #spacecraft #spacepic #otd #history #nasahistory #spacehistory

A post shared by NASA (@nasa) on May 18, 2017 at 3:29pm PDT

This Day In History, 1970: Apollo 13 Returns Safely

I've been in a bit of a 60s-retro-astro-space-race place recently, at least in my head. First I watched Hidden Figures, the great movie about black female mathematicians at NASA during the Gemini program. That got me thinking about ABC's fun miniseries about the other women of the times, the Astronaut Wives Club, and Eureka! The whole show is online at abc.com so I watched that too. Finally, to round things out with some Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Gary Sinese, I watched Apollo 13. I probably won't be seen today in a psychedelic miniskirt and bouffant hair, but no promises.

Anyway it was 47 years ago today that Apollo 13 returned safely to earth.

Mission Control celebrating Apollo 13 splashdown today in 1970 https://t.co/fEeFC4f0uu pic.twitter.com/oJTLFIFiSL

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) April 17, 2017

 

This Day In History, 1969

47 years ago today Neil, Mike & I took a ride on a big rocket to the moon.
Liftoff on #Apollo11 pic.twitter.com/FrvdmddkYo

— Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) July 16, 2016

This Day In History: Man On The Moon

Coolest Website Ever?

I had kind of forgotten that this summer marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, until I ran across what may be the coolest website ever. Well, maybe not, but it's a lot of fun. It's a real-time countdown of the entire mission, exactly 40 years after the fact. As I'm writing this on Monday, July 13, the mission countdown clock shows just under 65 hours until launch, and there's a pretty realistic looking graphic of the Apollo 11 rocket sitting on the launch pad. It's mesmerizing and I'm going to be checking it often in the next few days.

You can find the website here.