1976: Viking 2, the second mission to Mars, lands on the planet and begins transmitting pictures and soil analyses.
The Viking mission went to Mars to look for signs of life, to study the soil and atmosphere, and to take pictures. There were two launches of paired orbiters and landers, aboard Titan-Centaur rockets. Each orbiter took [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Space exploration’
September 3, 1976: Viking 2 Lands on Mars
September 3rd, 2010 |
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Aug. 25, 1989: Voyager 2, Meet Neptune
August 25th, 2010 |
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1989: Voyager 2 makes its closest encounter with Neptune, passing just 3,000 miles above the cloud tops of the most distant planet in our solar system.
The Voyager 2 space probe has been our most productive unmanned space voyage. It visited all four of the outer planets and their systems of moons and rings, including the [...]
Aug. 20, 1960: Back From Space, With Tails Wagging
August 20th, 2010 |
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1960: Belka and Strelka, a couple of stray mutts impressed into the Soviet space program, become the first living creatures to return alive from an orbital flight.
The Soviets had been using dogs for experimental high-altitude flights long before Belka (Russian for “squirrel”) and Strelka (“Little Arrow”) lifted off from Baikonur on what would be a [...]
July 29, 1958: Ike Inks Space Law, NASA Born in Wake of Russ Moon
July 29th, 2010 |
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1958: President Eisenhower signs the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The plot had thickened months before.
Beep … beep … beep …
They were steady, almost metronomic, signals coming from a tiny radio beacon orbiting the Earth every 96 minutes aboard an aluminum sphere measuring a mere 22 inches across. [...]
July 14, 1965: Mariner 4 Brings Mars Up Close and Cardinal
July 14th, 2010 |
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1965: After a few million years of watching Mars from afar, humanity meets the red planet — not quite in person, but through the eyes of NASA’s Mariner 4 satellite.
The half-ton space camera flew past Mars eight months after being shot from Earth on an Atlas rocket, having traveled 325 million miles. It flew within [...]
May 20, 1990: Hubble Opens Its Eye … and Blinks
May 19th, 2010 |
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1990: The Hubble Space Telescope sends its first image back to Earth.
The new telescope’s imaging prowess clearly exceeded that of the best ground-based telescopes, as shown in the image above of stars in the Carina cluster. But after a few weeks, scientists began to realize something was amiss.
Hubble’s images weren’t as sharp as they should [...]
March 22, 1995: Longest Human Space Adventure Ends
March 22nd, 2010 |
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1995: Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns to Earth from the longest-ever stay in space by a human. He spent just over 437 days in the Mir space station.
Thanks to a strenuous workout regimen, he returned to Earth looking “big and strong” and “like he could wrestle a bear,” in the words of NASA astronaut Norman Thagard. [...]
March 1, 1966: Probe Makes First Contact With Another Planet
March 1st, 2010 |
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1966: The Soviet probe Venera 3 successfully lands on the surface of Venus. It’s the first time anything man-made makes contact with an extraterrestrial surface beyond the Moon.
The Soviet Union originally designed the vehicle to explore Mars, but repurposed three of them as Venera probes to visit Venus. In February 1966, Venera 2 managed [...]
Dec. 24, 1968: Christmas Eve Greetings From Lunar Orbit
December 24th, 2009 |
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1968: The crew of Apollo 8 delivers a live, televised Christmas Eve broadcast after becoming the first humans to orbit another space body.
Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders made their now-celebrated broadcast after entering lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, which might help explain the heavy religious content of the message. After announcing the arrival [...]
Nov. 20, 1984: SETI Seekers Find a Home
November 20th, 2009 |
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1984: The SETI Institute is founded.
Man’s fascination with the possibility of intelligent life existing elsewhere has been around since the first Cro-Magnon cast a wondering eye to the heavens. The idea that we are not alone is embedded in our literature, folklore and consciousness. By the 20th century, the search for life outside our own [...]
Sept. 9, 1982: 3-2-1 … Liftoff! The First Private Rocket Launch
September 9th, 2009 |
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1982: It’s more than a quarter century since the start of the U.S.-Soviet space race. A decade after the seventh and final manned moon mission. Reusable space shuttles are already making regular sojourns, taking squads of astronauts back and forth into low-level orbit. But on this day, starry-eyed geeks get to witness something really special: [...]
Sept. 2, 1993: U.S., Russia Ink Space Pact
September 2nd, 2009 |
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1993: The space race officially comes to an end when the two old antagonists agree to set competition aside and cooperate in space. It has nothing to do with feeling warm and gooey inside: Both the U.S. and Russian space agencies are floundering and, as Bill Withers might say, need someone to lean on.
By the [...]
Sept. 1, 1902: Early Sci-Fi Flick Sticks It to the Moon
September 1st, 2009 |
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1902: Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon debuts in France at a lavish gray-carpet gala (as red hadn’t been invented yet). It’s arguably the earliest instance of science fiction ever committed to movie film.
See also:
Photo Gallery: Wired’s Favorite Sci-Fi Flicks of All Time — Pre–Star Wars
Photo Gallery: Wired’s Favorite Sci-Fi Flicks of [...]
Aug. 21, 1989: Voyager 2 Reaches Triton
August 21st, 2009 |
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1989: Twelve years and one day after liftoff, Voyager 2 reaches Triton, the largest of Neptune’s eight moons and the coldest, most unusual satellite in our solar system.
Launched from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 20, 1977, Voyager 2, as the name suggests, was the second of two identical deep-space probes originally dispatched by NASA to gather [...]
July 31, 1971: Astronauts Drive on the Moon
July 31st, 2009 |
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1971: Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin drive the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the surface of the moon. It’s the first off-planet automobile ride.
Forty years after Neil Armstrong made his giant leap for mankind, the Apollo program remains a singular cultural and technological achievement. The application of so much technology to a single [...]
The politics of climate change
July 28th, 2009 |
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This week’s guest is writer and eco-warrior Jonathon Porritt.
As the founding director of the sustainable development NGO, Forum for the Future, and, until this month, chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, when Porritt speaks about global warming people listen. The former director of Friends of the Earth and trustee of WWF came into the pod to fill in the British government’s scorecard on tackling climate change.
The astronomer Carl Sagan was a prolific scientist, pioneering the study of exobiology and astrochemistry and promoting the search for extraterrestrial life. One of his biggest achievements was Cosmos, a 13-part science documentary series first aired in the US in 1980. In it, he took viewers on a journey around the universe describing everything from atoms to galaxies and set a gold standard for science on television.
Alok Jha speaks to Sagan’s widow Ann Druyan, who was also one of the writers on Cosmos.
You can win a DVD box set of the classic documentary series by entering our competition.
Pursuing the cosmic theme, we visit a new exhibition at London’s Science Museum that shows how astronomy has influenced culture, and how it has changed our behaviour and been popularised. Exhibits include Astronomy Monopoly and a telescope built from baked-bean cans, spare car parts and coat hangers.
As ever, there’s the Newsjam which this week has details of a sharp rise in the number of animal experiments in the UK, the discovery that humans glow in the dark, and fatherhood beckons for our favourite tortoise, Loneseome George.
Stick your neck out. We’d love to hear your views on the show and the week’s science news …
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July 24, 1950: America Gets a Spaceport
July 24th, 2009 |
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1950: Cape Canaveral, Florida, launches its first rocket.
Cape Canaveral, a name that would become synonymous with the U.S. space program by the late ’50s, was just an obscure spit of land jutting into the Atlantic Ocean along Florida’s eastern shore when, in 1948, an Air Force committee recommended its procurement for a missile testing range.
Actually, [...]
UK space research centre opens
July 22nd, 2009 |
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New facility will focus on climate change science and robotic space exploration, and will develop procedures to ensure future missions do not contaminate other planets with chemicals and microorganisms from Earth
The European Space Agency has opened its first research centre in the UK in a move designed to bring more British scientists and engineers into contact with the space industry. The agency has earmarked £1.3m for the facility’s first year of operation.
Work at the centre, which is based in a former computing lab built in the 1960s at Harwell science park in Oxfordshire, will focus on climate change science and robotic missions. Other plans include a “planetary protection facility” that will develop procedures to ensure missions to other planets do not contaminate them with terrestrial chemicals or bugs.
The centre will also operate as a storage facility for moon rock, meteorites and other material brought back from space that needs to be kept under clean-room conditions to protect it from the environment.
At an official opening ceremony in London, Esa’s director general Jean-Jacques Dordain said: “The European Space Agency is landing in the UK, one hundred years after Louis Blériot,” in a reference to the French aviator who became the first person to cross the English Channel in an aeroplane in 1909.
Britain’s science minister, Lord Drayson, said the centre was part of Britain’s “space renaissance”. Earlier this year Esa announced that it had chosen Major Tim Peake as the country’s first official astronaut.
“In a few years’ time, we’ll look back on this period and see it as a generational change in space technology,” Lord Drayson said.
The Harwell facility will be run by Martin Ditter, an Esa engineer. Climate scientists from the space agency will arrive at the facility in September.
The centre’s climate change unit will work on data from environmental monitoring satellites, helping to refine models of climate change impact. Other projects will look at how to put space technology to good use on Earth, for example to improve transport information and mobile communications.
Further work is planned on robotics and the use of radioactive materials as power sources for space probes.
Earlier this week, Lord Drayson opened a 12-week public consultation on whether Britain should have its own dedicated space agency which would have the power to initiate its own missions.
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Hot topic news quiz: space exploration
July 22nd, 2009 |
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