By Ben Evans, on June 6th, 2020
Dragon Endeavour rises from historic Pad 39A on Saturday evening. The Falcon 9 is now the seventh American-made booster to have lofted American astronauts to space in almost six decades. Photo Credit: Mike Killian/AmericaSpace
Last month, America observed 59 years since Alan Shepard became the nation’s first man in space. Tucked inside his tiny […]
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By Ben Evans, on May 5th, 2020
One of the few grainy images of Shepard, acquired during his brief moments of weightlessness. Photo Credit: NASA
“A damn fine month,” actor Morgan Freeman’s character Ellis “Red” Redding remarked in the movie Shawshank Redemption and, indeed, for America’s space program, the month of May—newly dawned—has long been a historic one for off-the-planet U.S. […]
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By Ben Evans, on May 5th, 2019
Al Shepard is hoisted aboard the helicopter, deftly piloted by Wayne Koons, after completing his 15-minute suborbital flight. The patch of fluorescent green marker dye in the water around Freedom 7 is particularly obvious. Photo Credit: NASA
In the half-hour between 9:30 and 10 a.m. EDT on this day in 1961, the United States […]
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By Ben Evans, on April 9th, 2019
The “Mercury Seven”, pictured in an early training photograph. From left to right are Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Wally Schirra, Al Shepard and Deke Slayton. Photo Credit: NASA
Best known as the residence of the fourth First Lady of the United States, on this day in 1959 the Dolley […]
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By Ben Evans, on January 13th, 2019
One of the earliest rockets to be launched from Cape Canaveral was the Army’s Redstone missile, which later evolved into the vehicle seen here delivering America’s first man into space. Photo Credit: NASA
Sixty years ago, this week, a weapon of war became a rocket for space. On 8 January 1959, the U.S. […]
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By Ben Evans, on May 6th, 2018
On the deck of the U.S.S. Lake Champlain, Alan Shepard checks out the interior of Freedom 7 – the vehicle which had protected him from the rigours of a launch and high-G acceleration, had kept him alive and well in the most hostile environment ever encountered by humanity and sustained him throughout a […]
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By Ben Evans, on January 27th, 2017
On the 50th anniversary of their loss, America remembers the sacrifice of (from left) Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Photo Credit: NASA
At 6:31 p.m. EST on Friday, 27 January 1967, as night fell over Cape Kennedy in Florida, one of the worst disasters ever to befall America’s space program […]
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By Ben Evans, on July 24th, 2016
This was one of the final views of Liberty Bell 7 on 21 July 1961, before it was lost beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Not until 1999, more than three decades after Grissom’s death, would the sunken capsule be returned to the surface. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de
Fifty-five years […]
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By Ben Evans, on July 23rd, 2016
The white crack on the side of his capsule, paralleling that on the real Liberty Bell, is visible to the left of this pre-launch image of Virgil “Gus” Grissom. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de
Had Virgil “Gus” Grissom lived longer, wrote Deke Slayton in his autobiography, Deke, he would have been the […]
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By Ben Evans, on May 1st, 2016
Shepard’s 15-minute flight offered him a few minutes of weightlessness and a few minutes to glimpse the grandeur of Earth from space. He was only the second human being to leave the Home Planet. Photo Credit: NASA
In the half-hour between 9:30 and 10 a.m. EDT on 5 May 1961, the United States […]
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