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Introduction

Launch of STS-1, the first space shuttle flight
Launch of STS-1, the first space shuttle flight

Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly objects, usually spacecraft, into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in orbit around Earth, but also includes space probes for flights beyond Earth orbit. Such spaceflight operate either by telerobotic or autonomous control. The more complex human spaceflight has been pursued soon after the first orbital satellites and has reached the Moon and permanent human presence in space around Earth, particularly with the use of space stations. Human spaceflight programs include the Soyuz, Shenzhou, the past Apollo Moon landing and the Space Shuttle programs. Other current spaceflight are conducted to the International Space Station and to China's Tiangong Space Station. (Full article...)

Selected article

Launch of Apollo 11 on a Saturn V rocket, July 1969.
The Saturn V (pronounced "Saturn Five") was a multistage liquid-fuel expendable rocket used by NASA for Apollo and Skylab missions between 1967 and 1972. In total NASA launched twelve Saturn V rockets, plus one derived Saturn INT-21, with no loss of payload. It remains the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever brought to operational status, in terms of height, mass and payload capacity. The Soviet Energia, which flew two test missions in the late 1980s before being cancelled, had slightly more takeoff thrust.

The largest production model of the Saturn family of rockets, the Saturn V was designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft Company, and IBM as the lead contractors. The three stages of the Saturn V were developed by various NASA contractors, but following a sequence of mergers and takeovers all of them are now owned by Boeing.

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Selected biography

Sally Ride
Sally Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American physicist and astronaut.

Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. She remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. She worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering.

She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle disasters, the only person to participate on both.

Ride died following a 17-month-long battle with pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012. Shortly before her death, she came out as a homosexual in a statement through her philanthropic enterprise, Sally Ride Science.

Selected picture

The first Hermes A-1 test rocket, fired at White Sands Proving Ground on May 1, 1950. Built by General Electric based on the Wasserfall surface-to-air missile, the Hermes A-1 was capable of reaching an altitude of 150 km.

On This Day

14 January

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Did you know...

...that engineers claim the Ares I rocket (pictured) would be more aerodynamically stable if flying backwards than in the normal direction?

  • …that the Voskhod spacecraft was so cramped that the crew of Voskhod 1 were unable to wear spacesuits?
  • …that the backup crew of Apollo 11 consisted of Jim Lovell, Bill Anders and Fred Haise, although after Anders announced his intention to retire, Ken Mattingly was also assigned in case the mission was delayed until after Anders had left? The backup crew, with Mattingly replacing Anders, was later assigned to Apollo 13.

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