Spaceflight is a team sport that takes more than just skilled engineers and technicians to win the game. We need managers and accountants, mechanics and janitors, clerks and cooks. And we need people skilled at telling others about what we do here, and why it is so important. Harry Kolcum told the story of launch[…]
As a lifelong fan of the Minnesota Vikings, an NFL team that has been to the Super Bowl four times and never won the big one, and a team that is well known for looking good and scoring well early in the game, only to fall behind and give it up to lose at the[…]
Space Shuttle Atlantis arrived at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Friday after a day-long parade through the streets of America’s rocket ranch that concluded with an unforgettable evening fireworks display. Eight years after the decision was made to end the Shuttle program, at long last, Enterprise, Discovery, Endeavour, and now Atlantis — all[…]
I almost missed seeing Felix Baumgartner’s historic and record-setting jump from a balloon last Sunday. If it weren’t for the fact that my Minnesota Vikings had a late afternoon kickoff against the Redskins I would have missed it altogether. Watching on live TV as Felix sat there and the balloon climbed to altitude, and listening[…]
With the launch last Sunday of a Falcon 9 rocket and subsequent berthing of a Dragon capsule to the International Space Station on Wednesday, it really is true we have entered a new era in space exploration — just like all the press releases and hype from NASA and SpaceX have claimed. Although what happened[…]
With the election now exactly one month away, it seems we are stuck with the plans for our space program that both candidates for president have promised they will pursue if elected. Based on their campaign rhetoric and official position papers, both candidates say they support our space program for all the good reasons we[…]
Before the Kennedy Space Center – or even NASA – officially existed, a team of expert managers, engineers and technicians were making history on Florida’s Space Coast, involved as they were with our nation’s early missile and rocket launches. They would go on to create KSC and call it home, laying the foundation for the[…]
We live in a world that some might describe as having a bi-polar disorder. We are given choices between Coke or Pepsi, hamburgers or hot dogs, Target or Wal-Mart, Vikings or Packers. More seriously, we are faced with good and evil, the rich and the poor, and the living and the dying. And for every[…]
We should never forget that the first A in NASA stands for Aeronautics, and that research into all things aviation is something NASA and its predecessor organization the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics – the NACA, not NACKA, but the N.A.C.A. – has been doing for nearly 100 years. I just spent the past two[…]
As the years go by, and we all get older, it’s inevitable that the heroes many of us grew up with will pass on. Those of us who work within the space community have seen that fact hit close to home too many times during the past few weeks as we’ve been forced to say[…]
April 6, 2013 This week President Obama will officially present his administration’s request to Congress for a budget to run the government during the fiscal year that begins this October 1st. (We’ll just ignore that he was required by law to have done this by the first Monday in February, and that both the House[…]
March 16, 2013 A half century ago, a charismatic young president stood before the nation and threw down the challenge of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth, and to do it before the decade of the 1960s was out. At that time, in May of 1961, there was[…]
Feb. 23, 2013 There was another report in the news on Friday of a fireball in the sky over Southern California. The glowing green object was caught on camera as it burned up, with the spectacle lasting just a few seconds. When I read of the incident I smiled to myself, not really because of[…]
Feb. 9, 2012 A couple of weeks ago, or so, I had the rare privilege of being on TV for about five seconds. My brief, far-short-of-15-minutes-of-fame appearance was part of a WFTV channel 9 news report by Vanessa Welch about NASA and its foray into the world of computer apps and gaming. Now I should[…]
Feb. 2, 2003 Friday was the official Day of Remembrance this year for NASA and the entire space community. At events around the country, in our nation’s capital, around the world in places like Israel, and certainly here in Florida, people took time to reflect on the losses we experienced related to the Apollo 1[…]
Jan. 19, 2013 To paraphrase Will Rogers, I never met a Russian that I didn’t like. Like others in my general age bracket, I grew up at a time when the Cold War was just a term I heard on TV. I wasn’t old enough to comprehend the potential horror of nuclear war, or understand[…]
Jan. 12, 2013 Having survived the end of 2012 with our planet and civilization intact — such as it is and despite supposed predictions by ancient Mayan calendar makers — if you were one of those who were truly worried about the end of everything then you may take great comfort to know that it[…]
Dec. 8, 2012 Forty years ago on Dec. , 1972, at 12:33 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, Florida’s Space Coast and indeed the entire southeast of the United States lit up in a way never seen before, and not seen since, as Apollo 17 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center to begin our nation’s final[…]
Dec. 1, 2012 Scientists this past week announced that NASA’s Messenger probe, launched from Cape Canaveral and now in orbit around Mercury, has confirmed the presence of ice on a planet whose daytime highs can reach 800 degrees Fahrenheit. The ice is located at Mercury’s north pole within deep craters that are forever in shadow,[…]
As we gain more distance from the election and watch as our elected leaders continue to posture along party lines, assuring continued gridlock with Congress that may indeed drive us over the fiscal cliff everyone is talking about, we also are seeing subtle signs of change within the Obama Administration. Possibly as an example of[…]
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