Happy Yuri's Night

Early in the morning of April 12, 1961, a Vostok spacecraft carrying Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) was launched from the secret Soviet base at Turyatam. Gagarin became the first human in space and the first man in orbit.

For nearly 30 years, the Soviets hid the fact that Gagarin ejected from his spacecraft about 23,000 ft above the ground. For the flight to have been officially declared a spaceflight under FAI rules, Gagarin would have had to land inside the capsule.

Whether this was an "official" flight or not, nothing can detract from Gagarin's heroism in taking this first flight into the unknown. "Yuri's Night" is now celebrated at parties all around the world.

This postcard from 1962 bears the pre-printed signature of Gagarin at bottom, as well as his hand signature along the right-hand side.

Launching Apollo 13

On April 11, 1970, the US launched what may be (in our day) the Apollo mission that more people have heard about than any others - Apollo 13. Thanks to Ron Howard's film, the words, "Houston, we have a problem" - even though a misquote of Jim Lovell - are just about as famous as Neil Armstrong's words on his first step onto the Moon.

Apollo 13 lifted off from Pad 39A at 13:13 Houston time. The ascent into orbit was far from ordinary. As the second stage pushed the craft toward orbit, violent "pogo" oscillations caused the center engine to cut out 2 minutes early. Had the engine not cut out, the entire vehicle might have been torn apart by vibrations that reached 68 times the force of gravity. The other four engines burned longer to compensate for the loss of thrust, and Apollo 13 eventually achieved a normal orbit.

The crew felt that this brush with danger was their major glitch for the flight. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and thought that things would go smoothly for Apollo 13 from there on out.

The first badge on this post was an access pass for official guests to view the launch. The other two badges gave access to the Firing Room, the headquarters at Kennedy Space Center which is responsible for overseeing the launch of a vehicle. Once the vehicle has "cleared the tower," responsibility for the mission is passed on to Mission Control in Houston.

Prepping for moonwalks that never happened

On April 9, 1970, the final map of the planned moonwalks for Apollo 13 was distributed for the planning team and crew. This map was based on Lunar Orbiter photography and showed a relatively detailed view of the Fra Mauro highlands, the landing site for Apollo 13.

The map included three sets of potential moonwalks. One was based on the LM touching down at the intended landing site (LM-1, visible near the intersection of the horizontal fold and the rightmost vertical fold). The EVA routes for this option included a visit to the rim of Cone Crater, the large crater at far right in this map. The second and third options were contingencies, in case Aquarius landed "long." Since the crew did not have a lunar rover, visiting Cone Crater would be too far for them to travel on foot. Consequently, there were additional sites for them to visit in the opposite direction, further downrange.

Of course, Apollo 13 never made its landing at Fra Mauro. The site was considered so geologically important, though, that Apollo 14 was targeted to the same landing site. Apollo 14's Antares landed very close to the spot originally chosen for Aquarius to land. Although the Apollo 14 moonwalk plans differed somewhat from those of Apollo 13, the general traverses and locations visited matched very closely with the plans for Apollo 13. Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell got within about 50 feet of the rim of Cone Crater, but the slopes were so gentle that they did not realize they were so close.

The original owner of this map had it postmarked at the Houston Post Office on April 17, 1970, the day Apollo 13 safely returned from its harrowing journey.

45 years since Gemini 1

On April 8, 1964, the unmanned Gemini 1 was launched. It was the first test of the Gemini-Titan spacecraft and launch vehicle combination. The Titan II was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that was being adapted for use with a manned spacecraft. Gemini 1 carried a load of instrumentation to measure performance and ballast to simulate the weight of two astronauts. There was no intent to recover the spacecraft. Indeed, the heat shield had holes drilled into it to ensure that the vehicle burned up on reentry.

This Mission Control Center badge was issued to G. Merritt Preston, who at the time was Chief of Preflight Operations for Gemini. Shown below are photos from President Kennedy's tour of the Cape in November 1963, one week before he was assassinated. These two photos were taken in front of the actual Gemini 1 spacecraft. The first photo shows, from left: George Low (Chief of Manned Spaceflight), President Kennedy, Gordon Cooper, Gus Grissom, and Preston Merritt. The other photo shows a wider view of the dignitaries gathered around Gemini 1.

Badges? We don' need no [more] steenkin badges!

I enjoy collecting access badges that were issued to people who worked in the early days of the US space program. These simple pieces of paper and plastic granted their bearers access to the inner workings of the launch vehicles, spacecraft, and even to the decisions that made the missions possible.

I began collecting access badges from Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo several years ago. I hit a bonanza this year with the Lunar Legacies auction in March, when I was able to add several missions for which I previously had no access passes. I now have at least one access badge for every manned Gemini and Apollo mission, and for many of the unmanned ones as well. They include passes to the White Room, launch vehicle, Operations Support Room, Flight Readiness Reviews, Launch Readiness Reviews, booster tests, Engineering and Operations Building, Mission Control, and Firing Rooms, as well as press passes, parking passes, vehicle roll-outs, and launch viewing stand passes.

The photo to the left is a collage of all the passes currently in my collection. (Please click the image for a clearer view.) The next challenge is to figure out how best to display them!

I'm also researching the holders of the passes to learn more about them and their work. For example, I have several that were issued to G. Merritt Preston, who was the Branch Chief for all ground facilities at Kennedy Space Center during Gemini and Apollo.

Happy birthday, Jim Irwin

Happy birthday to Jim Irwin, one of the moonwalkers who I regrettably will never be able to meet.

Irwin's only mission was as the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 15, which landed near Hadley Rille in July 1971. Irwin and Dave Scott were the first mission to use the lunar rover and to take three moonwalks during their stay. The two astronauts exerted themselves so greatly in their final day on the Moon that they were both showing signs of irregular heartbeats after they rendezvoused with the Command Module. [Dave Scott told me at Spacefest that Mission Control was monitoring their hearts, but never actually told the astronauts that they were seeing the irregular heartbeats.] Irwin later suffered two heart attacks, the second of which proved fatal on August 8, 1991.

The photo above is from the pre-launch breakfast for the Apollo 15 crew and their backups. It shows Irwin and Vance Brand, who was the backup Command Module Pilot, obviously having an enjoyable time together.

Also shown is a photo of Irwin on the Moon. For autograph requests, he had copies of this photo printed with the pre-inscribed notation, "His love from the Moon." After leaving NASA in 1972, Irwin founded High Flight, a Christian ministry. Beginning in 1973, he led several expeditions to Mt. Ararat, Turkey, in search of the wreckage of Noah's Ark.

Happy birthday, Alan Bean!

Apollo 12 Lunar Module Pilot and Skylab 2/3 Commander Alan Bean turns 77 today. Al Bean is perhaps one of the friendliest astronauts you will ever hope to meet. He's a fabulous artist, too.

After getting into the astronaut corps, Bean looked to be on the track to go straight to the Apollo Applications Program (later called Skylab), bypassing the Moon missions. After astronaut C. C. Williams died in an air crash, Bean, his backup, moved into the rotation at the behest of Pete Conrad, who was Bean's instructor at the Naval Flight Test School. Conrad and Bean were perhaps the best matched pair of moonwalkers - at least they had the most fun!

I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Al Bean at Spacefest in February. I asked him if he had ever considered painting scenes from Skylab. His response was fascinating. First, he said, there was a purely technical reason. It normally takes him a month or two to get a scene just right when he paints an Apollo moonwalk picture. With Skylab, since there was so much complicated equipment to be considered, he said he could spend 6 to 8 months before getting the equipment and perspective right. The primary reason for not painting Skylab, though, was the historical significance. He said that in generations to come, the Apollo Moon landings will be all that is remembered about this time in space exploration - not Mercury, Gemini, and certainly not Skylab. Therefore, he said, it was more important for him to be capturing what it was like to be part of Man's first voyages to the Moon.