National

History Day

March 18th, 2000

Welcome to LTU!

To Infinity and Beyond! ®©™

… Or, how about just off this planet!

A brief, selected history of Human Spaceflight

National History Day - March 18th, 2000

Dr. Scott Schneider - Physics

Background image … 20 minute exposure (driven) of the Milky Way (reverse image). Notice the large black dots forming the triangle .. That’s the Summer Triangle (Vega, Deneb, and Altair). Photo taken by Scott Schneider.

The streak right here > .. Is a firefly!

1903 - Wright Brothers

• Flight time = 12 seconds

• Distance = 120 feet• First heavier than air

machine to carry man under its own power

1920-1950 - Rockets, Planes and Jets, Oh my!

• Goddard - Successful liquid propellant rockets• JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) grew around this time• World War I - planes = fighting machines• 1937 - Hindenburg disaster (zeppelin)• Late 1930’s - turbo jets from Germany• World War II - use of jets in war• Rockets found wartime use in WWII

1957 - Sputnick (USSR)• First man-made satellite of the Earth• Shocked the world• Began the Space Age• Fired up the US Space Program• Nationalism!• Sputnick II - Dog in Space - first

being• Exporer 1 - 1958 First US Satellite

1960’s - “Ups and Downs”• Many successful Lunar/Solar flybys for USSR

– Safe recovery of two dogs - first living being to return from space (USSR)

– Images from “dark side” of the Moon (USSR)• Many failures for US (Ranger program)• Some successful impact missions

– (.. Just crash it!)• 1962 - Mariner probe - first

interplanetary (US)

April 12,1961- First man in Orbit!• Yuri Gagarin (USSR)• One orbit and safe return

(first human to return from space)

• One month later - Alan Shepard - suborbital flight

• 10 months later - John Glenn - first US in space

President Kennedy Sept 12, 1962“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the otherthings, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win and the others, too.”

“That's one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind.”

- Neil Armstrong from the surface of the Moon!

July 20, 1969 - Apollo 11 - Humans invade the Moon!

Images from the Moon

Apollo Missions - 1968-1972• Tragic Fire - Apollo 1 - 1967

– Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee perished

• First piloted orbiter - Apollo 8

• Tested Lunar Module within 10 miles of Moon - Apollo 10

• First man on the Moon - Apollo 11

• Apollo 13 - 1970 - Aborted - “quick thinking” triumph

• Last man on the Moon - Apollo 17

Post Apollo :

• Apollo-Soyuz - July 1975 - Historic linkup during détente

The 12 Moon Men!• Apollo 11 Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr.

• Apollo 12 Charles "Pete" Conrad and Alan L. Bean

• Apollo 14 Alan Shepard Jr. and Edgar D. Mitchell

• Apollo 15 David Scott and James Irwin

• Apollo 16 John Young and Charles Duke Jr.

• Apollo 17 Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt

• Shuttle missions - several hundred astronauts

Space Shuttle - 1981-????

• Workhorse of the Space Program• Launches Satellites and HUBBLE!!• New Shuttle designs in the works

Enterprise Columbia Challenger Discovery Atlantis Endeavor

Jan 28, 1986 Challenger Disaster

•Exploded soon after launch

•First civilian teacher to be in Space (Christa McAuliffe)

•After grounding program for 2 years, redesigned shuttles have flown around 70 missions since 1988.

•Cable new event

Mars Rover - July 1997• Sojourner - man-made robot

invades Mars!• Great geological analysis• Triumph of “faster better

cheaper” model• Sparked current public interest

in Mars• Impact of web - real-time images• 1.6 Gigs of data !?!• Web news event!

Recent Mars failures

• Mars Climate Orbiter

– Crashed into planet

– Mistaken measurement units!

• Mars Polar Lander

– No radio contact - given up

• Failure of “cheaper better faster”

Mars - Hollywood style ??

Rotatestoo

slow!

Excuse me?Open to

atmosphere??

REAL Mars Missions

• 20 years away ?

• Journey of 6 months to 2 years?

• Assemble a team?

• Survive the journey?

• Will require unparalleled cooperation and inter-disciplinary contributions across all segments of society!

Space on the Web• http://www.nasa.gov• http://www.jpl.nasa.gov• http://spacelink.nasa.gov• http://www.seds.org• http://www.marssociety.com

Almost all images, movies and “factoids” for this talk came from the Nasa-related websites. These images are copyrighted by Nasa but non-commercial use is allowed.

Find this powerpoint file (without movies) at : www3.ltu.edu\~s_schneider\astro

Thank You, and Good Luck!

http://www3.ltu.edu/~s_schneider/astro

s_schneider@ltu.edu