Michael Collins

Major General Michael Collins (born October 31, 1930) is a former American astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963, he flew in space twice. His first spaceflight was Gemini 10, when he and command pilot John W. Young performed two rendezvous with different spacecraft and Collins undertook two EVAs. His second spaceflight was Apollo 11 where he served as the command module pilot. While he orbited the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin performed the first manned landing on the lunar surface. He is one of only 24 men to have flown to the Moon.

Prior to becoming an astronaut, he had attended the United States Military Academy, and from there he joined the United States Air Force and flew F-86s at Chambley-Bussieres Air Base, France. He was accepted to the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1960. He unsuccessfully applied for the second astronaut group but was accepted for the third group.

After retiring from NASA in 1970 he took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs. A year later he became the first director of the National Air and Space Museum. He held this position until 1978 when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980 he took the job as Vice President of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in 1985 to start his own business.

He is married to Patricia, and they have three children: Kate, Ann and Michael.

Buzz Aldrin

Buzz Aldrin (born January 20, 1930 as Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.) is an American aviator and astronaut, who was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, the first lunar landing. He was the second man to set foot on the Moon, after Mission Commander Neil Armstrong. Aldrin was born to Marion and Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Sr., a military man in Montclair, New Jersey, where he became a Tenderfoot in the Boy Scouts of America. He attended Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey, and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The nickname "Buzz" originated in childhood: his sister mispronounced "brother" as "buzzer" as a toddler, and this was shortened to Buzz. He made it his legal first name in 1988.

Neil Armstrong

Neil Alden Armstrong (born August 5, 1930) is a former American astronaut, test pilot, university professor, and United States Naval Aviator. He was the first person to set foot on the Moon. His first spaceflight was aboard Gemini 8 in 1966, for which he was the command pilot. On this mission, he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft together with pilot David Scott. Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission on July 20, 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent 2.5 hours exploring while Michael Collins orbited. Armstrong is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was in the United States Navy and saw action in the Korean War. After the war, he served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he flew over 900 flights in a variety of aircraft. As a research pilot, Armstrong served as project pilot on the F-100 Super Sabre A and C aircraft, F-101 Voodoo, and the Lockheed F-104A Starfighter. He also flew the Bell X-1B, Bell X-5, North American X-15, F-105 Thunderchief, F-106 Delta Dart, B-47 Stratojet, KC-135 Stratotanker and Paresev. He graduated from Purdue University.
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Armstrong has received many honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, the Sylvanus Thayer Award, and the Collier Trophy from the National Aeronautics Association. The lunar crater Armstrong, 50 km (31 miles) from the Apollo 11 landing site, and asteroid 6469 Armstrong are named in his honor. Armstrong was also inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor and the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Throughout the United States, there are more than a dozen elementary, middle and high schools named in his honor. Many places around the world have streets, buildings, schools, and other places named for Armstrong and/or Apollo. In 1969, folk songwriter and singer John Stewart recorded "Armstrong", a touching tribute to Armstrong and his first steps on the moon.

Purdue University announced in October 2004 that their new engineering building would be named Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering in his honor. The building cost $53.2 million and was dedicated on October 27, 2007. Armstrong was joined by fourteen other Purdue Astronauts at the ceremony. The Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum is located in his hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, although it has no official ties to Armstrong, and the airport in New Knoxville where he took his first flying lessons is named for him.

Armstrong's authorized biography, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, was published in 2005. For many years, Armstrong turned down biography offers from authors such as Stephen Ambrose and James A. Michener. He agreed to work with James R. Hansen after reading one of Hansen's other biographies.

The press often asks Armstrong for his views on the future of spaceflight. In 2005, Armstrong said that a manned mission to Mars will be easier than the lunar challenge of the 1960s: "I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo (space program) in 1961." Armstrong also recalled his initial concerns about the Apollo 11 mission. He had believed there was only a 50 percent chance of landing on the moon. "I was elated, ecstatic and extremely surprised that we were successful", he said.

Women In Space

Twenty years after cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983. June 18-24, 1983: Sally Ride → became the first American woman in space during the shuttle Challenger's STS-7 mission. At age 32, she was also the youngest American astronaut in space. The Picture on the right shows Sally Ride in Space Shuttle Challenger's cabin during STS-7. Credit: NASA

1876 : Battle of Little Bighorn

On this day in 1876, Native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana's Little Bighorn River.
Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, leaders of the Sioux tribe on the Great Plains, strongly resisted the mid-19th-century efforts of the U.S. government to confine their people to reservations. In 1875, after gold was discovered in Montana's Black Hills, the U.S. Army ignored previous treaty agreements and invaded the region. This betrayal led many Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen to leave their reservations and join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana. By the late spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Native Americans had gathered in a camp along the Little Bighorn River--which they called the Greasy Grass--in defiance of a U.S. War Department order to return to their reservations or risk being attacked.
In mid-June, three columns of U.S. soldiers lined up against the camp and prepared to march. A force of 1,200 Native Americans turned back the first column on June 17. Five days later, General Alfred Terry ordered Custer's 7th Cavalry to scout ahead for enemy troops. On the morning of June 25, Custer drew near the camp and decided to press on ahead rather than wait for reinforcements.
At mid-day, Custer's 600 men entered the Little Bighorn Valley. Among the Native Americans, word quickly spread of the impending attack. The older Sitting Bull rallied the warriors and saw to the safety of the women and children, while Crazy Horse set off with a large force to meet the attackers head on. Despite Custer's desperate attempts to regroup his men, they were quickly overwhelmed. Custer and some 200 men in his battalion were attacked by as many as 3,000 Native Americans; within an hour, Custer and every last one of his soldier were dead.
The Battle of Little Bighorn--also called Custer's Last Stand--marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The gruesome fate of Custer and his men outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Indians as wild and bloodthirsty. Meanwhile, the U.S. government increased its efforts to subdue the tribes. Within five years, almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations.

Black Holes Have Simple Feeding Habits

At the center of spiral galaxy M81 is a supermassive black hole about 70 million times more massive than our sun. A new study using data from Chandra and ground-based telescopes, combined with detailed theoretical models, shows that the supermassive black hole in M81 feeds just like stellar mass black holes, with masses of only about ten times that of the sun. This discovery supports Einstein's relativity theory that states black holes of all sizes have similar properties.

Return To the Moon

According to this plan, mankind will return to the Moon by 2018, and set up outposts as a testbed and potential resource for future missions.

Kennedy Space Center

The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is the NASA space vehicle launch facility and Launch Control Center (spaceport) on Merritt Island, Brevard County, Florida, United States. There is a visitor center and public tours and KSC is a major tourist destination for visitors to Florida. Because much of KSC is a restricted area and only nine percent of the land is developed, the site also serves as an important wildlife sanctuary; Mosquito Lagoon, Indian River, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore are also features of this area.The center employs about 15,000 civil servants and contractors.

Apollo 11 and the Moon Landing

Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. On July 20, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon, while Collins orbited above. This mission fulfilled John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s, which in his 1961 speech-"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Upon landing on the Moon Neil Armstrong says his famous quote "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." Once they returned to Earth Richard Nixon welcomed the astronauts back. The Center photo shows from left to right: Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin

John F. Kennedy & The Apollo Program

On May 25, 1961, Kennedy announced his support for the Apollo program as part of a special address to a joint session of Congress.Quote of his speech-"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." At the time of Kennedy's speech, only one American had flown in space. Some NASA employees doubted whether Kennedy's ambitious goal could be met. Answering President Kennedy's challenge and landing men on the moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources ($25 billion), ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 Americans and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities.

Apollo 1

The Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth. Apollo 1 ended tragically when all the astronauts inside died due to fire in command module during an experimental simulation. Because of this incident, there were a few unmanned tests before men boarded the spacecraft. Apollo's command module (CM-012) was destroyed by fire during a test and training exercise on January 27, 1967 at Pad 34. The crew onboard were the astronauts selected for the first manned Apollo program mission: Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee. All three died in the fire. The crew's picture is on the right. Left to right: Grissom, White, Chaffee

Boom De Yada

The Space Race

The Space Race was a competition between the Soviet Union & the United States. It lasted roughly from 1957 to 1975.It involved the efforts to explore outer space with satellites, to send humans into space, and to land people on the Moon. The Space Race began after the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957. Sputnik 1 was the size of a large beach ball & weighed more than 80 kg and orbited the Earth for more than two months. Nearly four months after the launch of Sputnik 1, the United States launched its first satellite, Explorer 1. In the meantime, several embarrassing launch failures had occurred at Cape Canaveral.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA was established on July 29, 1958. Meaning its 50th anniversary is about a month away (41 days). NASA's motto is: "For the benefit of all". The motto of NASA's Office of Education is: Shaping the Future: Launching New Endeavors to Inspire the Next Generation of Explorers.

Origins of Life

London (UK) - Scientists from the Imperial College of London claim to have found evidence that life on our planet did not originate from Earth itself. For the first time, the scientists say, it is confirmed that an important component of early genetic material found in meteorite fragments is of extraterrestrial origin.
We had a lot of space and alien stories lately, with one particular interesting making even the Larry King show. But any of that material could be considered insignificant, if Zita Martins’ claims, a research associate at the Department of Earth Science and Engineering of the Imperial College, are in fact correct. According to the researcher, at least parts of the raw material that are believed to have been required to create the first molecules of DNA and RNA may be of extraterrestrial origin.
Martins and her colleagues said they discovered uracil and xanthine, which are precursors to the molecules that make up DNA and RNA and are known as nucleobases in rock fragments of the Murchison meteorite, which crashed in Australia in 1969. She explained that "early life may have adopted nucleobases from meteoritic fragments for use in genetic coding which enabled them to pass on their successful features to subsequent generations."
Apparently, the researchers were successful in proving that the molecules came from space and were not a result of contamination when the meteorite landed on Earth. What supports Martins claims is the fact that meteor showers are believed to have been common several billions of years ago on Earth: "Between 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago large numbers of rocks similar to the Murchison meteorite rained down on Earth at the time when primitive life was forming," the press release from the Imperial College reads. "The heavy bombardment would have dropped large amounts of meteorite material to the surface on planets like Earth and Mars."
Mark Sephton, also of Imperial’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering, believes this research is an important step in understanding how early life might have evolved. "Because meteorites represent left over materials from the formation of the solar system, the key components for life - including nucleobases - could be widespread in the cosmos," he said. "As more and more of life’s raw materials are discovered in objects from space, the possibility of life springing forth wherever the right chemistry is present becomes more likely."

The findings are published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters