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Able and Miss Baker survive their trip to space
Miss Baker was a squirrel monkey and Able was an American-born rhesus monkey. The missile launched early in the morning from Cape Canaveral and traveled 1,700 miles in 16 minutes, reaching an altitude of about 360 miles. The capsule was about as big as a large thermos bottle. They thought the capsules sunk in the ocean but then they noticed the nose popping up and there was no injuries to the monkeys. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104578202 -
Alan Shepard
Alan Shepard was the first American in space. He was one of the seven of NASA's astronauts. He flew on the Mercury spacecraft There was only enough room for one person and he named his capsule Freedom 7. Shepard did not orbit Earth he only flew 116 miles high and came back down. The flight lasted 15.5 minutes and the mission was a success.
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/.../who-was-alan-shepard-k4.htm -
Alexei Leonov first man to "space walk"
Leonov opened the airlock of his tiny space capsule, which was orbiting Earth, and stepped out into the void. For 12 minutes the Soviet cosmonaut floated above our planet. He was tethered to the ship by a 16ft cable. It nearly ended in disaster. In the vacuum of outer space, his spacesuit began to balloon out of shape and the fabric began to stiffen. His hands slipped out of his gloves and his boots came off, and he could no longer get through the airlock.
https://www.theguardian.com/ -
Accidental launch pad deaths of Grissom, White, Chaffee
Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee are killed on the launch pad when a flash fire engulfs their command module during testing for the first-Apollo mission. They are the 1st astronauts to be killed in a spacecraft. Before tragedy there was a lot of criticism for the potential of faulty in the module. Ex: are the use of more combustible, 100% oxygen atmosphere in the cockpit, escape doors opening inwards instead of outwards.
https://www.wired.com/2011/01/0127apollo-1-fire-kills-3-astronauts/ -
Mariner 9 Orbits Space
Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. It arrived in 1971 and changed the perceptions on the red planet. The spacecraft took close-up views of the planet's major features, including Mars' polar caps, and the Martian moons. Also it spotted evidence of flowing water sometime in the ancient past. After nearly a year in space the spacecraft ran out of attitude control gas in 1972.
https://www.space.com/18439-mariner-9.html -
Skylab Space station launched
Skylab was America's first space station. The space station was operating in a time where the U.S. budgets were financially limited, so they had to figure out a cheap solution for the Space Station and decided to use a rocket. Engineers and designers used an underwater simulator as they designed Skylab and then had to figure out a way to quickly repair the sunshield, which damaged on the launch.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/skylab.html -
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
July 15 -July 24, 1975 are the days that Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft docked in a demonstration of how the docking and rendezvous system of each spacecraft would work with each other. The project was the first spaceflight to include two participating nations working together. It included the Americans and Russians.
https://www.space.com/20833-apollo-soyuz.html -
First American women in space
Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly in space when the space shuttle Challenger launched on mission STS-7. She played a vital role in helping the crew deploy communications satellites, conduct experiments and make use of the first Shuttle Pallet Satellite.
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2533.html -
Challenger Explosion
The Challenger spacecraft exploded due to 2 rubber o-rings that were supposed to seperate the rocket booster failed because of cold weather. It took all 7 lives of the astronauts that were on the shuttle. The aftermath and it's tragedy received extensive media coverage and prompted all NASA shuttle missions to be temporarily suspended. USA
www.history.com/topics/challenger-disaste -
Astronauts on the spacecraft Columbia died
Seat restraints, pressure suits, and helmets of the passengers didn't work too well, leading to the "lethal trauma" as the out of control spacecraft lost pressure and broke apart which resulted in the seven deaths of the passengers. There was at least one crewmember still alive and pushing buttons for a good half of a minute after the first alarm sounded, as he tried to right Columbia during that day.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=6549678
