On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the United States’ goal of landing a man on the moon and bringing him safely home before the decade’s end. Three years later, […]
Betting the Moon on NASA’s Success
The Planet of Robotic Inhabitants
A planet inhabited solely by robots might sound like something out of science fiction, but it is all too real and much closer than you might imagine. Our nearest planetary neighbor, Mars, […]
Houston, We Have a Turd
Fans of television’s The Big Bang Theory are familiar with the memorable episode where Howard’s space toilet, the Wolowitz Space Disposal System, went horribly wrong and threatened to turn into a waste […]
Humor — It Really Is Rocket Science
A lot of brains are needed to get a man to the moon and back, but a little bit of humor doesn’t hurt, either. The computer program used to guide the first […]
Major Metric Malfunction Means Missed Mars Mission and Millions of Moolah
Hopes were high when the Mars Climate Orbiter launched from Cape Canaveral on December 11, 1998. The robotic space probe was designed to study the climate, atmosphere, and surface changes of Mars […]
No New Year’s Party in Orbit
Prior to 2007, Space Shuttles were not allowed to remain in orbit on New Year’s Day, due to concerns about whether the software would properly handle the rollover of dates. source
One Small Step for Man… One Giant Leap for Deadlines
Neil Armstrong’s footprints narrowly avoided being rejected as an astronaut. His application to NASA was one week late. Fortunately, Armstrong’s friend, Dick Day, worked at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center and happened to notice the […]
Now Free to Pursue E.T.
As of 1991, U.S. citizens are free to pursue contact with extraterrestrial beings or their vehicles without legal repercussions.
Hoping for the Best; Preparing for the Worst
When the Apollo 11 astronauts left earth for the moon in July 1969, it was the culmination of the best efforts to make good on President John Kennedy’s pledge to send a […]
Who Wants to Spend Christmas Looking at Planets?
For the Voyager space exploration program, engineers plotted around 10,000 potential trajectories and then narrowed them down to find the optimal mission objectives. They chose trajectories that would reduce or eliminate planetary […]
Commonplace Fun Facts 