drew@drewexmachina.com
As the year 1962 unfolded, NASA was beginning its series of crewed orbital spaceflights as part of the Mercury program. But with the crewed Gemini and […]
While remote sensing techniques are useful in determining the composition of other worlds, the Rosetta Stone for planetary scientists is actual samples which can be subjected […]
One of the most exciting moments in a landing mission is when the first images from the surface of another world are returned back to Earth. […]
According to the FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) which maintains records for aeronautical achievements, the “official” threshold of space is at an altitude of 100 kilometers which […]
As 1960 unfolded, the United States and Soviet Union were racing to develop their own crewed spacecraft to loft the first human into space. One of […]
On January 25, 2004, NASA’s MER B (Mars Exploration Rover B) named Opportunity successfully landed at 1.95° S, 354.47° W on Meridiani Planum. After moving out […]
With test flights of America’s latest generation of crewed spacecraft being followed by space enthusiasts around the globe, it is widely expected that these flights will […]
When I was growing up in the 1970s, I was already an avid space enthusiast who tried to keep abreast of all the latest space missions. […]
During the opening decades of the Space Age, crewed spaceflight was restricted to programs sponsored by the world’s largest governments. In order to spur civilian commercial […]
For almost as long as I have had a serious interest in the Soviet space program, I have been enjoying Soviet space art. In addition to […]
With the start of the Apollo program in 1960, a wide range of technologies and techniques needed to be developed to mount advanced missions beyond Earth […]
At the same time American agencies like NACA and the USAF were studying manned spaceflight through the 1950s (see “The Origins of NASA’s Mercury Program”), comparable […]
