In 1970 the final three Apollo flights---18, 19, and 20---were cancelled, victims of the penny-pinching Nixon administration, and their hardware was either shelved or used for the Skylab program. As a result, only twelve humans from six missions have walked on the Moon. Or so the government would have you believe. I've recently rewatched Apollo 18,... Continue Reading →
Space History: The Lunar Orbiters
Post by Nic Quattromani: The Apollo missions, as intrepid as they were, did not venture into wholly uncharted territory. By the time Neil Armstrong famously planted his boots in the lunar soil, a whole fleet of US spacecraft had already explored and mapped out the globe of the Moon in meticulous detail. There were the... Continue Reading →
Space History: The Plan to Maroon an Astronaut
Post by Nic Quattromani: I’m sure many of us are familiar with the book and film The Martian, in which NASA ends up with one of its astronauts stranded alone on another world, and has to mount a desperate effort to rescue him. As far as space mishaps go, that is one of the most... Continue Reading →