At 05:40:56 GMT on 14 December, 1972, Apollo 17 Mission Commander Gene Cernan returned to the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) Challenger, ending the last Extravehicular Activity (EVA) of what would prove to be the final expedition of the Apollo program. To date, no other humans have yet returned to set foot on the Lunar surface, foisting on Captain Cernan the dubious honor and title of being “The Last Man on the Moon.”

Gene Cernan, along with the rest of us who were space enthusiasts in that era, expected our off-planet explorations would continue, expanding our knowledge and reach across the cosmos at the same time.  Long before he passed away on  16 January 2017, Captain Cernan wrote “Too many years have passed for me to still be the last man to have left his footprints on the Moon. I believe with all my heart that somewhere out there is a young boy or girl with indomitable will and courage who will lift that dubious distinction from my shoulders and take us back where we belong. Let us give that dream a chance.”

It’s now fifty (50) years later, and still no one has set foot on soil beyond this globe we call Earth.  It’s time to go back, to the Moon and beyond, because there’s not enough room or resources here for the 8+ billion people living on our planet.  We need SPACE to grow, and a frontier where society can let off steam.  Government funded space programs are floundering in politics, and the only way commercial space will work is if investors can be shown a profit at the bottom line.  That’s a reasonable expectation on their part, and I believe I can make it happen.  Please see Race To Space, Space Power Now, L5 Condos, and some of the other projects I’ve got cooking to wake this up.

Given sufficient interest, I’ll reissue the Last Man on the Moon t-shirt.  Note that the shopping cart on L5Development.com isn’t working at this point (bit rot due to lack of time for attention), so you’ll have to email me or contact me on LinkedIn to let me know you’re interested.

          

When I was reviewing and updating the entries in today’s issue of the Space History Newsletter, I rediscovered something that I had forgotten in the intervening years:  The Space History Newsletter was first published online eighteen years ago today, 13 October 2004:  The site is now old enough to vote (in some jurisdictions, I’m sure…)

Please note that at the present time, you can’t sign up for the Space History Newsletter directly from the Web:  Spammers kept using bogus email addresses to create subscriptions, which resulted in negative action by some large providers.  Until I get to implement a two-step subscription request process for the newsletter, if you want to subscribe, you need to send me an email.  I hope to have the problem fixed within a couple of days – time and resources permitting (all it will take is back-porting some newer code into this ancient site…)

It’s been easy to remember that PhotoByFred.com is also turning eighteen this month, on the twenty-sixth.  The thing which makes that date easy to remember is I’ve been posting a picture a day since then, and after 6562 daily pictures, I’ve been reminded (and bragged) about it enough times to have that date firmly planted in my brain.

The Space History Newsletter hasn’t fared nearly as well:  It languished for years, going out automatically every morning (7AM EST) without me doing anything to add to or update the database.  Consequently, almost everything reported in the SHN happened before 2005, although there are a few exceptions.  A couple of years ago, I started going through the records a week at a time, mostly deleting things unrelated to space travel, and eliminating some dead links.  Since then, the time I’ve been putting into it has grown; now I often spend at least an hour a day on it – while trying to get everything else done.  What I need to do is hire a programmer to implement some of the changes that should be made, and at least one historian to add to the database …

All it takes is money.  So guess what I’m working on…?

          

Today is the 60th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, the first satellite humanity put into orbit, launched 4 October 1957 from Baikonur at 10:28pm Moscow time.

It’s a national holiday for those of us who are citizens of the #L5Nation, celebrate it appropriately!

This is picture of the day # 4727 on PhotoByFred.com

From the Space History Newsletter:

Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite successfully placed in orbit around the Earth.  (The Russian word “Sputnik” means “companion,” “satellite” in the astronomical sense.)  In 1885, in his book “Dreams of Earth and Sky,” Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had first described how such a satellite could be launched into a low altitude orbit.  Coming at the height of the Cold War, the launch caught the West by surprise, and began the space race by galvanizing interest and action on the part of the American public to support an active role in space research, technology, and exploration.

Sputnik 1 was launched on an R-7 (ICBM) booster from Baikonur Cosmodrome at Tyuratam (370 km southwest of the small town of Baikonur) in Kazakhstan, then part of the former Soviet Union, on 4 October 1957 at 10:28:04 pm, Moscow time.  It was the first in a series of four satellites in the Soviet Sputnik program, a contribution to the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958).  Three of these satellites (Sputnik 1, 2, and 3) reached Earth orbit.

The Sputnik 1 satellite was a 58.0 cm (14.7 inches) diameter aluminum sphere that weighed 84 kg (184.3 lb) with four whip-like antennas that were 2.4-2.9 meters long.  The antennas looked like long “whiskers” pointing to one side.  The spacecraft obtained data pertaining to the density of the upper layers of the atmosphere and the propagation of radio signals in the ionosphere.  The instruments and electric power sources were housed in a sealed capsule and included transmitters operated at 20.005 and 40.002 MHz (about 15 and 7.5 meters wavelength), the emissions taking place in alternating groups of 0.3 seconds duration.  The downlink telemetry included data on temperatures inside and on the surface of the sphere.

Since the sphere was filled with nitrogen under pressure, Sputnik 1 provided the first opportunity for meteoroid detection (no such events were reported), since losses in internal pressure due to meteoroid penetration of the outer surface would have been evident in the temperature data.  The satellite transmitters operated for three weeks, until the on-board chemical batteries failed on 26 October 1957, and were monitored with intense interest around the world.

The orbit of the then inactive satellite was later observed optically to decay 92 days after launch (4 January 1958), after having completed about 1400 orbits of the Earth over a cumulative distance traveled of 70 million kilometers.  The orbital apogee declined from 947 km after launch to 600 km by 9 December.

The Sputnik 1 booster rocket also reached Earth orbit and was visible from the ground at night as a first magnitude object, while the small but highly polished sphere, barely visible at sixth magnitude, was more difficult to follow optically.  Several replicas of the Sputnik 1 satellite can be seen at museums in Russia and another is on display in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

We are going to run out of oil. Before that happens, we MUST have a replacement source of energy and feed stock for our civilization that has become so dependent on plastic. The time to act is NOW!! Please visit SpacePowerNow.org to help build a solution.

#BlowUpTheTunnel – visit my campaign and help get my book written!

          

I am having a reception as part of the 2017 Yuri’s Night celebrations on April 12 from 4 pm through 10 pm. The event is listed on the Yuri’s Night Web site at https://yurisnight.net/events/yuris-night-2017-boston-reception/. The flyer for the Reception can be found on the L5 Nation Web site at http://l5nation.com/news/2017YuriReception.htm. All of like mind are welcome to attend, but an RSVP will be sincerely appreciated.