51 Years Ago Today-
We Choose to Go to the #Moon.
At 9:32 a.m. EDT on July 16, 1969, a Saturn V rocket carrying three American astronauts set off on a journey to land on the surface of the Moon. #Apollo#Space
Apollo 11 is pictured here at liftoff, with an American flag flying in the foreground. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were on their way to the Moon, riding nearly 7.6 million pounds of thrust from the first stage of the Saturn V.
The Apollo 11 astronauts spent thousands of hours in simulators and test vehicles in the years and months leading up to their mission.
Through the combined effort of over 20,000 companies, and over 400,000 NASA personnel, three humans were sent to the Moon.
All of that preparation went into a mission that lasted 8 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes, & 35 seconds. Apollo 11 may have been brief, but it’s one of the most important historical events in human history.
Pic- @NASA
Post- A piece I wrote for the @kscosmosphere’s #50DaysofApollo11
Here’s another post I did for the @kscosmosphere last year!
The Apollo 11 prime crew are all smiles in this picture that was captured during a “walk-through egress test” in June of 1969.
Pictured here, from left to right, are Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin. They were inside the Command Module (CM) for a “hands-on test… in preparation for the first manned lunar landing mission.”
If they look cramped in the CM, it’s because that spacecraft wasn’t very big on the inside. While the Apollo CM was larger than the Gemini and Mercury spacecraft, it wasn’t exactly roomy when you put three fully grown astronauts inside.
The CM had “a habitable volume of 210 cubic feet” while the Lunar Module had an even roomier 235 cubic feet.
Who else would be willing to cram themselves into a small #spacecraft if it meant you could head to the #Moon? #Space#Apollo50
The Apollo 11 Saturn V is shown here starting the 3.5-mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Pad 39A. The rollout took place on 5/20/69, just 2 days after Apollo 10 launched from Pad 39B. #space
Today's picture shows the VAB to the left, the Launch Control Center (the shorter building painted white), and the crawler-transporter moving the mammoth Saturn V to the launchpad.
One of NASA's massive crawler-transporters carried the Saturn V rocket to the launch pad. #SaturnV
These machines were built in 1965, and have supported Apollo, Skylab, and Shuttle missions.
NASA's crawler-transporters have a top speed of 1 mph while loaded, so the journey from the VAB to Launch Pad 39A wasn't exactly quick.
Crawler-Transporter 2 is being refitted to accommodate the future launches of the Space Launch System. The other crawler is "expected to take commercially operated rockets and spacecraft" to a launch pad. #SLS
Picture & quote- @NASA
Steak and Eggs, Part of a Well Balanced Pre-Launch Breakfast.
The pre-launch breakfast tradition of steak and eggs started during the Mercury program when Alan Shepard had steak and eggs for breakfast before his historic first launch.
From left to right, astronauts Bill Anders, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, and Deke Slayton, are pictured as they dined on steak, eggs, and toast, plus some coffee and orange juice. #Apollo
Traditions are an essential part of spaceflight, and the pre-launch breakfast tradition carried through to the Space Shuttle era.
We don’t know about you, but this meal sure looks tasty! Count us in during the next pre-launch breakfast!
Picture- @NASA
That’s it for tonight. It’s been a busy day with work. Looking forward to a week off of everything so I can relax, write, & enjoy some time with my GF and her family. Happy 51st Apollo 11 anniversary to all of you!
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PEOPLE OF SPACE! I’m super excited to be hosting this week! We’ll be covering a bunch of topics that are near and dear to me including #space (obviously), astronomy, supernovae, radio astronomy, science communication, and MORE
🧵 #science#scicomm#spacetwitter#intro#Thread
But who is this random dude yelling at us about space?
Well the short version is that I’m a physicist who finished high school with every intention of becoming a lawyer - pictured is 19yo me not caring about science #accidentalscientist#accidentalphysicist#throwback#SPACE
The mission patch was based on a design from well known Italian fashion designer, Emilio Pucci. The design has three stylized birds flying over the Hadley-Appenine landing site with the crew names on the lower part of the outer border.
In an early version of an Easter egg, the crew snuck a Roman numeral XV into the crater shadows. According to a story I heard from one of Al Worden's @ExploreSpaceKSC presentations, NASA discouraged Roman numerals on the Apollo patches, thus the hidden nature.
Before his passing last year, @WordenAlfred was a regular astronaut host at @ExploreSpaceKSC giving presentations guiding tours and being an affable ambassador of the Apollo program to a new audience.
On board were (left to right) Lunar Module Pilot Jim Irwin, Commander Dave Scott, and Command Module Pilot Al Worden
The landing site was Hadley-Appenine, on the edge of Mare Imbrium. It was bordered by Hadley Rille, a valley-like geological structure and the Montes Apenninus, or Appenine Mountains. The Palus Putredinus was a lava field that filled the area.
Today I’ll be working on some research for the big Mars exhibition! As I said yesterday, I’m working on researching how people have been imaging the Red Planet throughout history.
Today we have orbiters circling Mars and rovers that take pictures of the surface. But the history of imaging Mars stretches back centuries, from depicting Mars in art to the canals people thought they saw on the planet.
What are some of your favourite images of Mars and why?
Going to talk about designing a temporary display today!
In Science Museum lingo, there are 2 kinds of displays:
🚀Exhibitions (temporary displays) - these can last up to a year
🚀Galleries (permanent displays)
Even a temporary display might take several years to prepare for, with overviews and detailed proposals.
Exotic solvents & life's building blocks are among the more speculative #astrobiology topics, but still important to study scientifically! Our own system contains places potentially able to host life unlike on Earth. Not just Titan!
All Earth life is carbon-based and needs water to survive. 💦
'Mildly' exotic life might share these traits, but use e.g. other information molecule (or differently coded DNA, even with different/more 'letters') or opposite chirality (left/right-handedness) of some compounds.
There are countless possibilities of different information molecules and their coding. Is Earth DNA and RNA a ', frozen accident', or does it have a phys/chem reason? And is all life chiral? In the same way, or is that another frozen accident? What about the amino acids we use?