Happy New Year! And happy new decade! 2020 could well be an important year for manned space flight. It might be the year that America finally puts humans back into space on American spacecraft. If this happens it will be on spacecraft designed and built by commercial companies rather than NASA. . The landing of… Continue reading Happy New Year 2020
Tag: NASA
Apollo 11 lunar landing
20 July 2019 is the fiftieth anniversary of the first manned landing on the Moon. Mission Insignia of Apollo 11- Image from NASA On 21 May 1961 President John F Kennedy made the following address to the United States Congress: 'I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade… Continue reading Apollo 11 lunar landing
Paperback and e-book from The Science Geek on Venus
I have now produced a paperback version of my book on Venus, the planet closest to the Earth in distance, size and internal composition, and the third brightest natural object in our sky after the Sun and the Moon. Topics include how Venus appears from Earth and the fact that Venus’s phases can only be… Continue reading Paperback and e-book from The Science Geek on Venus
American manned spaceflight in 2019
Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in July 2011, America has been unable to put any astronauts into orbit around the Earth. Instead, it has been in the difficult situation of having to rely on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). This situation may change… Continue reading American manned spaceflight in 2019
Chinese Moon missions
Like many people, I was very excited to hear the news on 3 January that the Chinese spacecraft, Chang'e 4, had landed as planned in the Von Karman crater on the far side of the Moon. Chang’e 4 in the Von Karman crater. The crater lies in the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of… Continue reading Chinese Moon missions
