The Apollo 1 Fire: Astronaut Gus Grissom
NASA’s “Failure is not an option” started after the Apollo 1 fire. Too late for Gus Grissom.
NASA International Space Station: The Force Awakens
Space Station Happy New Year. “May the force be with you.”
Star Trek vs. International Space Station: Transporters & Robots & Tribbles (Oh my!)
“Three to beam up”. To compare Star Trek with ISS here, I need to stretch a bit.
Star Trek USS Enterprise vs. International Space Station: Computers
“Kirk to Enterprise …” Star Trek vs. ISS computers. Who wins Round 2?
Did Star Trek Get It Right?: USS Enterprise vs. International Space Station (Round 2)
“Earl Grey, hot.” The ISS is alreay breaking in prototypes of the tech Star Trek’s ships will employ in 2265 AD.
Did Star Trek Get It Right?: USS Enterprise vs. International Space Station (Part 1)
“These are the voyages”. Just how correct is Star Trek’s “future” so far?
Citizens of the Solar System: Cool TECHNOLOGY on the International Space Station
From Luke Skywalker’s “remotes” to Star Trek’s Mr. Data, science fiction is fast becoming fact on the International Space Station.
Citizens of the Solar System: Cool SCIENCE on the International Space Station
There’s a boatload of scientific research experiments currently being done on ISS. NASA doesn’t publicize this much, but I found the range and number of them staggering!
Citizens of the Solar System: 50 Years On and We’re STILL Stuck in Near-Earth Orbit?
We’ve been sending humans into near-Earth orbit for over 50 years now. Can’t we just move on?
Citizens of the Solar System: Who Owns The Planets?
Is the Solar System freely available for colonization? Are the asteroids fair game for commercial mining? Maybe. Maybe not.
Citizens of the Solar System: The Big Question, “But Why Human Spaceflight?”
When someone asks, “What are we spending taxpayers money on human spaceflight?”, what’s your answer?
Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane on “The Amazing Flight Software People”
Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane has some thoughts about the IBM team who built the Shuttle onboard flight software.
Space Shuttle First Flights: The Amazing Flight Software People
The people who designed, tested and supported the Space Shuttle Flight Software were the most exceptional technical team I’ve encountered.
Space Shuttle First Flights: An Era Ends, A New Age Begins
Space Shuttle is ended. The future of near-earth manned spaceflight is now in the hands of private industry. As I believe it should be.
Space Shuttle First Flights: The Legacy of Space Shuttle
Was Space Shuttle worth it? The International Space Station. The Hubble Space Telescope. How do you set a value on something that humans had only dreamed about?
Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane Describes Orbiter Damage on STS-27 (Atlantis 1988) & STS-107 (Columbia 2003)
Guest blogger veteran Shuttle astronaut Mike Mullane weighs in on the severe impact damage to Atlantis on his own 1988 flight (STS-27) and to Columbia’s disastrous flight in 2003 (STS-107)
Space Shuttle First Flights: Columbia (February 3, 2003)
As with Apollo 13, NASA “can do amazing things when they’ve got their back against the wall”. But for Space Shuttle Columbia they didn’t try.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Challenger (“Nature Cannot Be Fooled”)
Richard Feynman’s question about Space Shuttle Challenger was, “What is the cause of management’s fantastic faith in the machinery?”
Space Shuttle First Flights: Challenger (January 28,1986)
On the eve of the Space Shuttle Challenger launch the Morton Thiokol engineering team protested the decision to launch. They were overridden by NASA
Space Shuttle First Flights: Mike Mullane (Don’t Eat Yellow Snow)
Space Shuttle Discovery’s flight in 1984 dumped an unexpected “payload” in orbit.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Launch Of Discovery (STS-41D): August 1984
After Space Shuttle Discovery recovered from a dangerous launch abort in June 1984, the second try was flawless and spectacular.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Discovery Launch Abort (June 1984)
The maiden voyage of Space Shuttle Discovery was scheduled for June 25, 1984. The first-ever main engine shutdown launch abort scared the crap out of us.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Judy Resnik (“Best Wishes”)
Mike Mullane offered me a personal memento from Judy from their first Space Shuttle flight. I still have it.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Judy Resnik (First Encounters)
Shuttle astronaut Judy Resnik was a pilot, a classical pianist, and had a PhD in Electrical Engineering. And she was a terrific emissary for NASA, as I found out when I invited her to speak to the IBM Shuttle Software team.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Mike Mullane (“No Place for Civilians”)
Astronaut Mike Mullane knew Shuttle was an experimental spaceship sitting atop highly volatile explosives. When NASA allowed civilians to ride they were implying it was safe when it was not. Unfortunately, he was right.
Space Shuttle First Flights: STS-1 (Columbia) The First Orbital Flight
Our Shuttle flight software team had the “distinction” of hearing Walter Cronkite describe, live and on national television, whether we’d done our work correctly.
Space Shuttle First Flights: Dick Truly – The Approach and Landing Tests
I had visions of the Space Shuttle Enterprise getting jostled during separation and colliding with the 747’s vertical stabilizer – which would definitely make for a bad day all around.
Apollo 8 (Christmas 1968)
The crew of Apollo 8 delivered a special Christmas message from the Moon forty-six years ago this week.
Space Shuttle First Flights: John Aaron (“Exceptional” Flight Software)
NASA’s John Aaron set high standards for IBM, and Space Shuttle onboard software came closer to “error-free” than any large, complex software ever built.
Space Shuttle First Flights: John Aaron (Software Failure Is Not An Option)
I met with John Aaron to explain why IBM couldn’t fulfill a Shuttle software contract that required zero errors. His answer changed my mind.
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