Astronaut
dr. dolittle | August 20, 2016 Photo of Astronaut Robert Overmyer from NASA, via Wikimedia Commons.
I recently went on a trip to visit the Endeavour space shuttle currently on display in Los Angeles. Seeing the shuttle up close brought back memories of watching the space shuttle launches on TV and the childhood dream of visiting other planets...a dream that also inspires Hollywood to continue to produce movies and TV shows about space exploration. Turns out, The Martian movie may soon become reality. In fact, NASA is working towards sending astronauts to Mars sometime in the 2030's. Aside from the technological…
carlyo | October 3, 2014Teachers- the USASEF Team is thrilled to announce the launch of our video resource library featuring presentations from our 2014 X-STEM Symposium! The 2014 X-STEM Extreme STEM Symposium- presented by Northrop Grumman Foundation and MedImmune- featured interactive presentations and workshops by an exclusive group of visionaries who aimed to empower and inspire elementary through high school students about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Now, you can bring these STEM Professionals into your classroom with our FREE library of 15-20 minute videos covering a…
carlyo | February 4, 2014Ed Dwight, Jr. – Test Pilot, Aerospace Engineer and America's First Black Astronaut Candidate
Chosen in 1962 by President Kennedy as America's first black astronaut candidate; due to racism in the astronaut program, he resigned; now is a world-class sculptor, specializing in sculptures depicting aspects of Black History
Ed Dwight, Jr. was a 28-year-old Air Force captain at Travis Air Force Base in California when he got a letter from President Kennedy in 1961 urging him to apply to test-pilot school as a prelude to becoming America's first black astronaut. The son of a Negro League baseball…
carlyo | July 24, 2013Peggy Whitson -- NASA Astronaut and Biochemist
We continue to recognize 50 Years of Women in Space with STEM Role Model Peggy Whitson. Peggy Whitson grew up on a farm in Iowa with big dreams of becoming a NASA Astronaut. She was the first female commander of the International Space Station and a veteran of six space walks. She set records among American Astronauts for spending the most time in space.
Her achievements as a veteran space explorer are well known among the distinguished ranks of NASA astronauts, but learn of her harrowing and life-threatening journey back to Earth after her…
carlyo | June 26, 2013Kalpana Chawla -- Aerospace Engineer, NASA Astronaut
Born in the small town of Karnal, India, she became hooked on flight when she took her first plane ride in a small craft through the local flying club. Kalpana Chawla would later become a certified FAA flight instructor, a talented aerospace engineer, and a NASA astronaut. She was the first Indian American Astronaut and the first Indian-born woman in space. Her promising future ended in 2003 when she died with 6 fellow astronauts aboard the shuttle Columbia over Texas.
Read more to discover how her memory and love of spaceflight are being…
dr. dolittle | June 20, 2013I am thrilled that Comparative Physiologist Dr. Jessica Meir, who was featured in a prior post, has been chosen as a 2013 Astronaut Candidate by NASA! I really enjoyed learning more about her life story in this video and I am looking forward to hearing more about her accomplishments as an Astronaut in the years to come.
Congratulations Dr. Meir and the rest of the 2013 Astronaut Candidates!
Dr. Meir's introduction as a candidate is at 10:30. Listen to her speak about being chosen at 28:50.
Click on this link for an article about Dr. Meir published yesterday in the Boston Globe.
esiegel | July 23, 2012"Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we've ever known." -Ronald Reagan
Earlier today, Sally Ride, the first American woman ever to fly in outer space, passed away at the age of 61 from pancreatic cancer. To many different people, her life, her achievements, and her death means a great diversity of things. To anyone with a love of outer space, human exploration, and achieving your dreams, her story will likely resonate with you, too. I'd like to share with you what are,…
esiegel | June 8, 2012"Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen." -Larry Niven
Here on the solid ground of the Earth, the Sun and Moon rise and set on a daily basis. During the hours where the Sun is invisible, blocked by the solid Earth, the stars twirl overhead in the great canopy of the night sky.
Image credit: Chris Luckhardt at flickr.
In the northern hemisphere, they appear to rotate around the North Star, while in the southern hemisphere, the stars appear to rotate about the South Celestial Pole. The longer you observe -- or for photography, the longer you…
sciencepunk | August 30, 2011A group of 'astronauts' and a mechanical rover have set sail through the stars across North America to an impact crater near Mistastin Lake in the wilderness of Canada, travelling by helicopter rather than rocket ship, in what is known as an "analogue mission":
Beginning today (August 29), a team of scientists and engineers led by Dr. Gordon Osinski from The University of Western Ontario will travel to an impact crater at Kamestastin Lake, Labrador, where they will run analogue human and robotic sample return mission scenarios. An "astronaut" team will conduct a series of investigations in…
cevans | June 17, 2010
Last week, fresh off the fourth-to-last Shuttle mission, STS-131, NASA astronaut Jim Dutton came to speak at OMSI, my local science museum. When I got the email about this event, I RSVPed immediately -- after all, an astronaut in my town? How urbane. Surely the intelligentsia of Oregon would come in droves to discuss the boggling phenomenological experience of spaceflight and the uncertain future of NASA with one of our nation's "right stuff." As usual, I was wrong; the only adult in the museum unaccompanied by a least one small child, I felt somehow like a pervert, as though the harried…
sciencepunk | March 1, 2010Graphic artist Philip Bond drew this awesome set of female astronauts.
You can see the whole collection on his Flickr page.
esiegel | April 22, 2008As you may have noticed from yesterday's unusual post, today is Earth Day! I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite pictures from space of it, including the famous photograph from Apollo 8 known as Earthrise:
This combination shot made from NASA’s Terra satellite and NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite:
The known satellites at least 0.1 meters in size in orbit around Earth (there are ~11,000 of them as of April 2005, and another 100,000 between 1 cm and 10 cm in size):
Looking at the Earth and the docked Space Shuttle from the International Space Station:
And…