At the end of the 20th century, the United States government was already set to developing a reusable space plane to replace the aging Space Shuttle program. The resulting launch vehicle would be able to launch satellites into orbit as 1/10th of the cost, while also having the ability to carry passengers up. Funded by … Read More “VentureStar, aka X-33 (Cancelled in 2001)” »
Today 55 years ago, NASA formally opened for business on Oct. 1, 1958. You can read more about it here. Congratulations!
Following from Hubble’s story in part two, the year is 1995 and in June of that year space shuttle Atlantis lifts off. It’s mission: to dock with MIR, the Russian space station that by some is seen as the predecessor to the International Space Station. This event led to what was at the time the … Read More “The Space Shuttle (1981 – 2011) – Part 3” »
The ill-fated Challenger, the second space shuttle to be built was the first to conduct a spacewalk. Unfortunately 3 years later in January of 1986, disaster struck when a seal on a rocket booster failed, leading to the shuttle’s destruction 72 seconds into its mission. It was a disaster on many levels for NASA, because … Read More “The Space Shuttle (1981 – 2011) – Part 2” »
Nearly 2 years ago, NASA retired its fleet of space shuttles, which started operating 30 years before. Several companies have thrown their hat in the ring to be its successor in different ways, so let us have a look back at the program that gave us the Magellan spacecraft, the Hubble telescope, and the International … Read More “The Space Shuttle (1981 – 2011) – Part 1” »
They say that some events inspire a generation… Well, let us go back in time to July 1969 when millions were glued to their TVs and radios during the Apollo moon landing. Amongst them, a 9-year old boy called Chris Hadfield. Forward the clock to 2012 and this boy had already become the first Canadian … Read More “Chris Hadfield (1959)” »
When talking about rockets, shuttles, satellites, space telescopes, etc. one would undoubtly stumble upon NASA somewhere in that conversation, and truly, books could be (and have been) written about NASA but let us start at the beginning. They have been so prominent in the 2nd half of the 20th century, that it would be hard … Read More “NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) – How It All Started” »
