Recently, we have celebrated the 50th Anniversary of “One Small Step”. History records that Neil Armstrong was the First Man and that the first manned landing on the Moon was made by Armstrong and Aldrin. History also records that, had things been only slightly different, the first landing could have been made by Grissom and [...]
The Apollo 11 Landing: staring-down disaster The multiple issues that faced the Apollo 11 Moon landing are generally well known. Alarms, fuel, … so many things happened in such a short time that could have led to disaster, or to an abort. Much has been said about the coolness of Neil Armstrong under massive [...]
One of the articles of faith of the Apollo Moon landing is that the items left on the lunar surface will last, if not for all time, at least for millions of years. We can see the tracks left by the astronauts of each of the Moon landings. The disturbed earth – more accurately, disturbed [...]
It is now almost exactly one month until the fiftieth anniversary of that “One Small Step”. It is a couple of months since I have posted anything here about it. Life has been rather busy. However, the events of fifty years ago are ever present. Over the last few months we have seen the fiftieth [...]
Earlier this week, my attention was drawn by a colleague to the poll in Twitter below, started last summer by a prominent Spanish footballer (ex-Captain of the national team, so you suppose that he must be fairly level-headed). The player in question recounted how he was arguing over dinner the previous night about whether or [...]
Left: A Saturn 1 test with a dummy payload on October 27th 1960. Right: the Apollo 4 launch on November 9th 1967. Images: NASA. In previous Blog entries I have explored some of the lesser-known aspects of the Apollo Moon landings. Some of these are explored by the excellent film “First Man”. Still more are [...]
The Red Planet has fascinated man for centuries, ever since the first telescopic observations that revealed pole caps, seasonal changes and signs of atmosphere. A new study is likely to re-open the debate about the possible presence of fossils in Martian rocks, even though it is unlikely that the claims made will be accepted. For [...]
Some months back I made some from the hip comments about ‘Oumuamua, that strange little visitor from outside the solar system. Some of them were superseded by later events, others are certainly debatable. However, in the last week or so, ‘Oumuamua has been in the spotlight due to renewed speculation that it could be artificial, [...]
Remembering History We are starting what is going to be an emotional period of time. We have just passed the fiftieth anniversary of the first of the manned Apollo flights – Apollo 7, although the mission badge showed it as Apollo VII – which launched on October 11th 1968 and landed, after a fraction under [...]
[I have updated this article again after previously re-releasing it when news of the death of Apollo 12 and Skylab 2 commander, Al Bean became widely known, although it had been announced a few days previously. With the death of Al Bean, just four Moon-walkers survive, the youngest of them, 83 years old. Al Bean [...]
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