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Seventy-five years ago today, pioneering rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard and staff fired a liquid-fueled rocket to a record altitude of 7,500 feet above ground level. The record-setting flight took place at Roswell, New Mexico. Robert Hutchings Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on Thursday, 05 October 1882. He was enamored with… Read More
Thirty-seven years ago this week, astronauts Pete Conrad, Joe Kerwin and Paul Weitz became the first NASA crew to fly aboard the recently-orbited Skylab space station. Not only would the crew establish a new record for time in orbit, they would effect critical repairs to the space station which had been seriously damaged during launch.… Read More
Forty-one years ago this week, Apollo 10 set sail for the Moon on a mission that would see American astronauts fly within a mere 8 nautical miles of the lunar surface. This historic flight cleared the way for the first manned lunar landing just 2 months later. The infamous Apollo 1 fire in January… Read More
Forty-three years ago today, NASA’s experimental M2-F2 lifting body flight research aircraft was demolished in a horrific landing mishap on Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base. Although critically injured, NASA test pilot Bruce A. Peterson survived the mishap. A lifting body is a wingless aircraft wherein the aerodynamic lift… Read More
Forty-nine years ago this week, United States Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. became the first American to be launched into space. Shepard named his Mercury spacecraft “Freedom 7”. Officially designated as Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) by NASA, the mission was America’s first true attempt to put a man into space. MR-3… Read More
Fifty-nine years ago today, the first flight test of a full-scale Lockheed X-7A ramjet test vehicle took place near Alamogordo, New Mexico. However, the dreaded flight test gremlins prevailed on this occasion as the entire X-7 launch stack disintegrated shortly after drop from its USAF B-29 launch aircraft. The… Read More
Fifty-one years ago this month, NASA held a press conference in Washington, D.C. to introduce the seven men selected to be Project Mercury Astronauts. They would become known as the Mercury Seven or Original Seven. Project Mercury was America’s first manned spaceflight program. The overall objective of Project Mercury was to… Read More
Twenty-nine years ago today, the United States successfully launched the Space Shuttle Columbia into orbit about the Earth. It was the maiden flight of the Nation’s Space Transportation System (STS). The Space Shuttle was unlike any manned space vehicle ever flown. A giant aircraft known as the Orbiter was side-mounted on a huge… Read More
Twenty-years ago today, the Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) orbited a PegSat satellite using the then-new Pegasus 3-stage launch vehicle. This historic event marked the first successful implementation of the air-launched satellite launcher concept. The concept of air-launch dates back to the 1940’s and the early days of United States X-plane flight research. A multi-engine aircraft known… Read More
Thirty-nine years ago today, the USAF/NASA X-24A lifting body was flown to a speed of 1,036 mph (Mach 1.6) by NASA Research Pilot John Manke. It was the fastest flight of the rocket-powered lifting body. A lifting body is an unconventional aircraft in that the vehicle generates lift without the benefit of a wing. … Read More
