Total Lunar Eclipse
This montage of images taken by skywatcher Kieth Burns shows the Dec. 20, 2010 total lunar eclipse.
Apollo 14 Moon Rock
Between 1969 and 1972 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully landed 12 astronauts on the lunar surface. The astronauts who visited the Moon carefully collected 2,196 documented samples of lunar soils and rocks weighing a total of 382 kilograms (843 pounds) during approximately 80 hours of exploration. It is important to note that these samples were gathered from a harsh lunar environment that included wildly fluctuating temperatures in an almost complete vacuum, dangerous solar radiation, and the uncertainty of return to Earth due to equipment failure.
Kim, New Admin,(expose-the-light).
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Welcome to the Moon!
Galileo maps the Moon
Sir Patrick Moore and his guest Dr Allan Chapman from Oxford University marvel at how accurate Galileo’s maps of the Moon were given that he was using only the most basic of telescopes.
(Source: BBC)
The first photograph ever taken by astronauts of an “Earthrise”, from Apollo 8
Earthrise is the name given to a photograph of the Earth taken by astronaut William Anders in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission. It has been called “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”
Moon Shadows
A total lunar eclipse is seen as the full moon is shadowed by the Earth on the arrival of the winter solstice, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 in Arlington, VA. The eclipse lasted about three hours and twenty-eight minutes.
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth lines up directly between the sun and the moon, blocking the sun’s rays and casting a shadow on the moon. As the moon moves deeper and deeper into the Earth’s shadow, the moon changes color before your very eyes, turning from gray to an orange or deep shade of red.
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
How NASA kept astronauts from swearing on the Moon
In the 1960s, NASA’s astronauts were the cool, calm, and collected faces of the space program who represented American values - most were married and had some sort of religious affiliation. NASA’s public affair office took great pains to keep its astronauts’ images clean, but they were still men who occasionally cursed when faced with a bad situation. As NASA gathered steam and took a firm place in the public eye, the organization had a job covering up some of the less radio- and family-friendly transmissions.
Every so often, astronauts forgot that their every word was broadcast live throughout the world. Some slip-ups, like Tom Stafford’s on Apollo 10, were easier to cover.
Four days, four hours, and forty-four minutes after launch, Commander Stafford and Lunar Module Pilot Gene Cernan were taking the LM Snoopy to a low lunar orbit; Command Module pilot John Young remained in the CM Charlie Brown. As Snoopy passed over the lunar surface, Stafford and Cernan took pictures of surface features to give future crews a better idea of the terrain they’d be facing when coming in for a landing. (Image: Tom Stafford poses with his LM’s namesake, Snoopy. 1969.)
At one point, Stafford recognized a landmark crater, Censorinus A. He was momentarily distracted by the dramatic shadows and giant boulders surrounding the crater. “I’ve got Censorinus A right here,” he said out loud to the world, “bigger than shit!”
A shocked reporter listening to the transmission in mission control turned to astronaut Jack Schmitt. “What did Colonel Stafford just say?” Thinking quickly, Schmitt covered for his colleague and replied “He said, ‘Oh, there’s Censorinus… bigger than Schmitt!’”
Stafford’s was an isolated incident, but some astronauts were harder to censor. One in particular had the unfortunate habit of filling space when his mind wandered with profanities. This posed a problem for NASA - with the world watching astronauts walking around the lunar surface, how could the organization be sure the his transmissions from the Moon would be family-friendly? (Image: Al Bean, Apollo 12 LMP, on the Moon. 1969.)
In preparing for his mission, NASA had the astronaut hypnotized. Rather than curse, a psychiatrist put the idea in his head that he would rather hum when his mind wandered. The hypnotized astronaut is rarely named, but only one man can be heard humming as he skipps across the lunar surface. Transmissions from Commander Pete Conrad are punctuated with “dum de dum dum dum” and “dum do do do, do do” making him the likliest candidate. (Image: Pete Conrad visits samples he returned from the Moon.)
Suggested Reading:
Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox. Apollo. 2004.
Tom Stafford and Michael Cassutt. We Have Capture. 2004.
This post originally appeared as “How Not to Swear on the Moon” on Vintage Space.
An interesting perspective of a normal monochrome subject.
Spectacular Space Station Moon Dash
Jan. 6, 2012 — The right place at the right time… that’s all it took (along with some great camera skills!) for a NASA photographer at Johnson Space Center in Houston to capture some fantastic photos of the International Space Station (ISS) passing across the face of the moon!
(Source: news.discovery.com)
Illustration of the Moon’s Interior
An artist’s concept of the moon’s interior. NASA’s twin GRAIL probes will gather data that should help scientists better understand the moon’s composition and evolution.
Credit: NASA
They was Here
The International Space Station can be seen as a small object in lower right of this image of the moon in the early evening Jan. 4 in the skies over the Houston area flying at an altitude of 390.8 kilometers (242.8 miles).
CREDIT: NASA
Let it Set
Hold it with both hands
