Podcasts about space task group

Christopher C. Kraft is credited with creating the concept of NASA's Mission Control, helping put humans in space and on the Moon.

At NASA Headquarters, George Mueller and other planners created a far-reaching plan that Administrator Paine made even more ambitious in adapting it for Nixon's Space Task Group. The task group's timetable called for a twelve-man space station and a reusable space shuttle as early as 1975. By 1980, the station would have grown into a fifty-man space base; five years later there would be a hundred men in orbit. Meanwhile, there would be a base in lunar orbit by 1976, with a base on the lunar surface two years later. Then, as early as 1981, the first manned expedition to Mars would depart from earth orbit. Click Here for Homepage with Pictures

Integrated Manned Mars Landing Program presented to the "Space Task Group" by Werhner Von Braun on August 4, 1969... "Come With Me" - Original music written and performed by Jason Lindgren with accompaniment by Brett Dietz - Copyright © 2021 - Jason Lindgren and Wayne McRoy Please visit www.rokfin.com/waynemcroy Additionally, if you find value in the material presented here, please consider purchasing one of my books: https://www.amazon.com/Demic-Pan-Brea... https://www.amazon.com/Cybernetic-Mes... https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Epidemi... https://www.amazon.com/Alchemical-Tec... If you would like to make a one time donation, you can send it through PayPal to: dmcroy98@epix.net --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wayne-mcroy/support

Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. (February 28, 1924 – July 22, 2019) was an American aerospace and NASA engineer who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control Center and shaping its organization and culture. His protégé Glynn Lunney said in 1998: "the Control Center today ... is a reflection of Chris Kraft".Following his 1944 graduation from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a degree in aeronautical engineering, Kraft was hired by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor organization to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He worked for over a decade in aeronautical research and in 1958 joined the Space Task Group, a small team entrusted with the responsibility of putting America's first man in space. Assigned to the flight operations division, Kraft became NASA's first flight director. He was on duty during America's first crewed spaceflight, first crewed orbital flight, and first spacewalk. At the beginning of the Apollo program, Kraft retired as a flight director to concentrate on management and mission planning. In 1972, he became director of the Manned Spacecraft Center (later Johnson Space Center), following his mentor Robert R. Gilruth, and held the position until his retirement in 1982. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_C._Kraft_Jr. License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0;

STP 7Following the release of 'The Right Stuff' on Disney+ this week, Dave and Emily discuss the history of Tom Wolfe's book, the original 1983 film and the first two episodes.With that in mind, they then get talking about the origins of NASA, the Space Task Group and the Mercury 7.NASA History files:"The Birth of NASA" - https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/whyweexplore/Why_We_29.html"The Space Task Group: - https://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/Space_Task_Group"Project Mercury Overview - Astronaut Selection" - https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/astronaut.htmlMichael Collins Washington Post Article about The Right Stuff from 1979: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1979/09/09/so-you-want-to-be-an-astronaut/42df935f-a624-44c9-b354-bb87ab1727e6/Full show notes: https://spaceandthingspodcast.com/podcast/stp-1-the-podcast-has-launched-d6e92-mpyzr-xswpe-5x8j3-3z645-xmxzfSpace and Things:Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/spaceandthings1Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spaceandthingspodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/spaceandthingspodcast/Merch and Info: https://www.spaceandthingspodcast.comPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/SpaceandthingsBusiness Enquiries: info@andthingsproductions.comSpace and Things is brought to you And Things Productions https://www.andthingsproductions.comSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/spaceandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Moon in 4K: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilifg26TZrI Venus Sensor Contest: https://www.herox.com/VenusRover/guidelines The Moon in 4K NASA with the help of the high-resolution camera of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, has recreated the Apollo 13 crew’s trip around the Moon, only this time it’s in4k. The video uses data gathered from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft to recreate some of the stunning views of the Moon that the Apollo 13 astronauts saw on their journey around the farside in 1970. These visualizations, in 4K, depict many different views of the lunar surface, starting with earthset and sunrise and concluding with the time Apollo 13 reestablished radio contact with Mission Control. Also depicted is the path of the free return trajectory around the Moon, and a continuous view of the Moon throughout that path. All views have been sped up for timing purposes — they are not shown in “real-time.” Link in the Show Notes. The Daily Beast Reports thatThe Pentagon wants to extend the reach of its satellites tens of thousands miles toward the moon. And it’s working on a high-tech, atomic-powered “nuclear thermal propulsion” engine to make it possible. Right now, almost all of the satellites between here and the moon and placed in orbit, then left to fall around Earth unless acted on by another force. The military’s goal is to deploy maneuverable satellites into the vast space between the Earth and the moon—“cislunar” space, it’s called—before China gets there with its own spacecraft. But this isn’t the first time the U.S. government has tried to develop an atomic rocket. And there’s no guarantee the same problems that ended previous efforts won’t also end this one.  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which oversees the atomic rocket effort, explains in its budget proposal that: “The capability afforded by this [nuclear thermal propulsion] will expand the operating presence of the U.S. in space to the cislunar volume and enhance domestic operations to a new high-ground, which is in danger of being defined by the adversary, here being China The U.S. and Chinese space agencies and even private corporations are eager to mine the moon for minerals that could support deep-space missions, potentially including humanity’s first trip to Mars.  DARPA’s budget request for 2021asks for $21 million for the “Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations” program, or DRACO.    Congress gave DARPA $10 million in 2020 to start studying the DRACO engine. The 2021 budget would allow the agency to start building components. The plan is for DARPA to test DRACO before handing it over to the U.S. Air Force for routine operations. DRACO is basically, it’s a small nuclear reactor atop a space rocket. The reactor heats up a propellant—hydrogen, for example—that accelerates through a nozzle, pushing the satellite in the opposite direction. These Nuclear-thermal engines aren’t for launching from Earth’s surface. They’re for cruising long distances through space or maneuvering a lot while keeping closer to Earth.  The moon is 240,000 miles from Earth. Most man-made satellites orbit no more than a few thousand miles from Earth’s surface. The United States and China are both in a scramble to fill that gap.    Would you like to make $15,000According to Tampa Bay’s Channel 10 News, you can enter your designs for NASA next Rover for exploring Venus. After sending four rovers to Mars -- with a fifth launching soon -- NASA is now eyeing Venus for future research missions. And, the space agency needs the public's help to design the perfect rover that can survive Venus's "hellish" landscape. On Venus -- the second planet from the Sun -- temperatures can reach more than 840 degrees Fahrenheit. The surface pressure on the planet can also be 90 times that of Earth. That level of pressure can turn lead into a puddle and easily crush a nuclear-powered submarine, NASA said.  Many missions have visited Venus, but only about a dozen have reached the surface of the planet before being destroyed by the heat and pressure. Soviet Vega 2 was the last spacecraft to touch Venus in 1985. That’s 35 years ago. Despite Venus's "hellish" environment, scientists say it and Earth are "basically sibling plants." But, they say at one point Venus took a turn and became inhospitable. More on that in our episode on Climate Change Jonathan Sauder, a senior mechatronics engineer at JPL and principal investigator for the Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments concept says that "By getting on the ground and exploring Venus, we can understand what caused Earth and Venus to diverge on wildly different paths and can explore a foreign world right in our own backyard," The "Exploring Hell: Avoiding Obstacles on a Clockwork Rover" competition aims to get public input for a sensor that could be incorporated into a future Venus rover. NASA said the biggest challenge is designing a sensor that doesn't rely on electronic systems, which fail during exposure to more than 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Submissions are open now through May 29. The first-place prize is $15,000, second place is $10,000 and third place is $5,000. The link to apply will be in the show notesAccording to NASA.com Katherine Johnson passed away Feb. 24, 2020 at age 101, after living a life filled with trail-blazing achievements.  But why should you care, and why was she important? With International Women’s day coming up on Sunday March 8th, let’s take a look! Being handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools is something that many people would consider one of their life’s most notable moments, but it’s just one of the breakthroughs that have marked Katherine Johnson’s long and remarkable life. Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, by thirteen, she was attending the high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College. At eighteen, she enrolled in the college itself, graduated with highest honors in 1937 and took a job teaching at a black public school in Virginia.   In 1953, Johnson began working in the all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) Langley laboratory. Just two weeks into her tenure in the office, she was assigned to a project in the Flight Research Division, and Katherine’s temporary position soon became permanent. In 1957, Johnson provided some of the math for the 1958 document Notes on Space Technology, a compendium of a series of lectures given by engineers in the Flight Research Division and the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD). Engineers from those groups formed the core of the Space Task Group, the NACA’s first official foray into space travel, and Katherine, who had worked with many of them since coming to Langley, “came along with the program” as the NACA became NASA later that year. She did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 mission Freedom 7, America’s first human spaceflight. Then In 1960, she coauthored a report called, Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite Over a Selected Earth Position, laying out the equations describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position of the spacecraft is specified. It was the first time a woman in the Flight Research Division had received credit as an author of a research report. In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Katherine Johnson was called upon to do the work that she would become most known for. The complexity of the orbital flight had required the construction of a worldwide communications network, linking tracking stations around the world to IBM computers in Washington, DC, Cape Canaveral, and Bermuda. The computers had been programmed with the orbital equations that would control the trajectory of the capsule in Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission, from blast off to splashdown, but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl”—Katherine Johnson—to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine.  “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space. So today, we remember her life and her contributions to space travel. 

He created the concept of NASA’s Mission Control.

On January 19, 1961, Robert R. Gilruth, the director of NASA's Space Task Group, informed the seven astronauts that Shepard had been chosen for the first American crewed mission into space. The post Space Rocket History #302 – Apollo 14 – Commander Alan B. Shepard Jr. – Part 2 first appeared on Space Rocket History Podcast.

On January 19, 1961, Robert R. Gilruth, the director of NASA's Space Task Group, informed the seven astronauts that Shepard had been chosen for the first American crewed mission into space.

On January 19, 1961, Robert R. Gilruth, the director of NASA’s Space Task Group, informed the seven astronauts that Shepard had been chosen for the first American crewed mission into space.

At NASA Headquarters, George Mueller and other planners created a far-reaching plan that Administrator Paine made even more ambitious in adapting it for Nixon's Space Task Group. The task group's timetable called for a twelve-man space station and a reusable … Continue reading →

At NASA Headquarters, George Mueller and other planners created a far-reaching plan that Administrator Paine made even more ambitious in adapting it for Nixon's Space Task Group. The task group's timetable called for a twelve-man space station and a reusable … Continue reading → The post Space Rocket History #235 – Apollo 12 – Introduction first appeared on Space Rocket History Podcast.

At NASA Headquarters, George Mueller and other planners created a far-reaching plan that Administrator Paine made even more ambitious in adapting it for Nixon’s Space Task Group. The task group’s timetable called for a twelve-man space station and a reusable … Continue reading →

On April 1, 1959, Robert Gilruth, the head of the Space Task Group, Charles Donlan, Warren North, and Stanley White selected the first American astronauts. The “Mercury Seven” were Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., John H. Glenn, Jr., Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Alan B. Shepard, Jr., and Donald K. “Deke” Slayton. 

This was space from scratch –the tools and technologies necessary for successful human spaceflight had to be developed and tested. So Langley aeronautics engineers were asked to help solve problems far removed from their original training and experience.

Once the country’s goal became putting a man in space, many from this Pilotless Division would transition to a newly formed Space Task Group.

On April 1, 1959, Robert Gilruth, the head of the Space Task Group, Charles Donlan, Warren North, and Stanley White selected the first American astronauts. The “Mercury Seven” were Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., John H. Glenn, Jr., Virgil … Continue reading →