Astronaut Dale A. Gardner, getting his turn in the Manned Maneuvering Unit, prepares to dock with the spinning WESTAR VI satellite during the STS-51A mission in November 1984. Gardner used a large tool called the Apogee Kick Motor Capture Device to enter the nozzle of a spent WESTAR VI engine and stabilize the communications spacecraft sufficiently to capture it for return to Earth in the cargo bay of the space shuttle Discovery. (NASA)
Showing posts tagged astronaut
She floats, you don’t
Mae Jemison, Space Shuttle Endeavour, 1992.
A chemical engineer, physician, and former Peace Corp volunteer, Mae Jemison was inspired by Star Trek’s Lieutenant Uhuru to join NASA in 1987. On September 12, 1992 she became the first black woman in space. Mae spent a total of 190 hours 30 minutes 23 seconds in space as part of the joint US/Japan Space Shuttle Endeavor mission.
Janice Voss, Veteran Astronaut, Dies At 55
Astronaut Janice Voss, a veteran of five spaceflights and a former science director for a NASA exoplanet-hunting spacecraft, has died after a battle with cancer.
Chosen by NASA for the astronaut corps in January 1990, Voss served as mission specialist on five space shuttle missions, including the only repeat flight in the shuttle program’s 30-year history. She flew with the first commercial laboratory, rendezvoused with Russia’s Mir space station and helped create the most complete digital topographic map of the Earth.
Voss and her crewmates worked around the clock in two shifts to map more than 47 million square miles of the Earth’s land surface. (Space.com - msnbc.com)
Lost In Space
The crew of Apollo 14 hoped to reach the rim of Cone crater, a more recent impact crater about 1,000 feet wide a little over a mile from the Antares lander.
However, the terrain was hillier than expected, and the crew lost sight of the crater rim among the ridges of the hills. Eventually, they had to turn back because they needed to save enough oxygen and other supplies to return safely to the lander.
High-resolution photos of the area taken with LRO’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) reveal that they had come within about 30 yards of the rim, just a minuscule distance considering they had travelled over 250,000 miles to get there. (NASA)
Photo: Ed Mitchell consults a map on his way to Cone crater during the Apollo 14 mission.
Gemini Man
Astronaut Ed White floats in space during the Gemini IV mission, June 1965. This is one of the images unveiled as part of the Project Gemini Online Digital Archive by NASA and the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. The archive contains the first high-resolution digital scans of the original Gemini flight films. (March to the Moon Image Gallery)
H/T: The Verge
The dipstick indicates you’re a quart short
(Source: fromorbit)
Just realized he left his passport back at the ranch
McCandless Orbits in Jetpack
On Feb. 12, 1984, astronaut Bruce McCandless, ventured further away from the confines and safety of his ship than any previous astronaut had ever been. This space first was made possible by a nitrogen jet propelled backpack, previously known at NASA as the Manned Manuevering Unit or MMU.After a series of test maneuvers inside and above Challenger’s payload bay, McCandless went “free-flying” to a distance of 320 feet away from the Orbiter. This stunning orbital panorama view shows McCandless out there amongst the black and blue of Earth and space.
Image Credit: NASA
Best. Costume. Ever.
Spacewalking Astronaut John Grunsfeld (by NASA Goddard Photo and Video)
Hangin’ out
While anchored to a foot restraint on the end of the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS), astronaut Scott Parazynski, STS-120 mission specialist, assesses his repair work as the solar array is fully deployed during the mission’s fourth session of extravehicular activity (EVA) while Space Shuttle Discovery is docked with the International Space Station. (November 2007, NASA via ESA)
Was REM singing about him?
Charles M. Duke Jr. walks across the lunar surface in 1972. The Apollo 16 mission — man’s next-to-last visit to the moon — lasted 265 hours, 51 minutes and 5 seconds.
An early stroll in space
Ed White, first American spacewalker, June 3, 1965 (NASA on The Commons)
Astronaut Steve Robinson shot this reflected self portrait while in the middle of repairing space shuttle Discovery.
Astronaut Shoots Self-Portrait IN SPACE
HT: photojojo
(Source: pictureyourselves)
