the NASA thread and anything related

[mmissile]

Blah, blah, blah.....everybody thinks they're so smart. No match for God and nature.

 

[DeltaV]

Eclipse of the Sun taken from the Apollo 12 spacecraft during its trans-Earth journey home from the Moon.

 

[DeltaV]

In an effort to see his father who was dying of cancer, Major Clifton Curtis "C.C." Williams, Jr. departed Cape Canaveral on October 5, 1967, en route to Mobile, Alabama, the location of his family home. At 22 thousand feet in altitude over Tallahassee, Florida, "C.C." Williams NASA T-38 suffered a major mechanical in-flight failure causing an uncontrollable aileron roll.

His aircraft immediately departed controlled flight, and dove straight down, quickly accelerating to a speed in excess of 700mph.

Williams attempted to eject at 1,480 ft altitude, but was not successful. At a near 90-degree angle of descent, the now supersonic T-38 impacted the forest at such a steep angle, that no trees were damaged. "The plane disintegrated and the CC Williams body disintegrated with it."

Prior to his death, Major Williams was selected to be the Lunar Module Pilot for an Apollo mission commanded by Pete Conrad. Following CC Williams' death, Alan Bean became the Lunar Module Pilot for Conrad's mission, which ended up being Apollo 12, the second lunar landing.

Apollo 12 launched from Cape Kennedy on Nov. 14th, 1969, into a dark cloudy, rain-filled sky. The Apollo 12 crew each wore a mission patch. The original Apollo 12 patch had 3 stars, one each for the three astronauts who flew the mission. In an act of honour, friendship, and remembrance, Apollo Astronaut Alan Bean requested that a fourth star be added...that one was for Major Williams.

 

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NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of interesting textures exposed in an outcrop at the base of the “Mishe Mokwa” butte, ahead of the rover, using its Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro Imager (RMI). Curiosity captured the image on June 13, 2025 — Sol 4569, or Martian day 4,569 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 17:53:55 UTC.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

 

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Taken on March 23, 1965, this photograph captures astronauts John W. Young (left), pilot, and Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, command pilot, inside the Gemini III spacecraft moments before hatch closure for their historic three-orbit mission. The Gemini III flight, named “Molly Brown,” marked the first crewed mission of NASA’s Gemini program, designed to test orbital maneuvering and spacecraft control systems critical for future lunar missions. The mission demonstrated that astronauts could change orbits manually—a key step toward Apollo’s lunar objectives—and helped refine spacecraft design and reentry procedures for the program’s upcoming flights.

Image Credit: NASA

 

[DeltaV]

Little Joe was a solid-fueled booster rocket used by NASA for eight launches from 1959 to 1960 from Wallops Island, Virginia to test the launch escape system and heat shield for Project Mercury capsules, as well as the name given to the test program using the booster. The first rocket designed solely for crewed spacecraft qualifications

 

[DeltaV]

The pogo effect consists of unstable, longitudinal (up and down) oscillations induced in a launch system, mainly due to fuel sloshing and engine vibration. These oscillations can lead to variations in the propellant flow rate, which in turn can cause the thrust from the affected engines to fluctuate several times a second. Periodic fluctuations in thrust occur in all rocket engines, but normally the mass of the rocket is sufficient to keep it from becoming noticeable or dangerous. However, when the thrust fluctuation approaches the resonant frequency of the rocket structure, the forces couple and the result is the sense that the rocket is surging backward and forward along its length several times a second. This motion resembles that of a pogo stick, hence the name.

If the oscillation is left unchecked, failures can result. One case occurred in the middle J-2 engine of the second stage, S-II, of the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970. In this case, the engine shut down before the oscillations could cause damage to the vehicle. Later events in this mission (an oxygen tank exploded two days later) overshadowed the pogo problem. Pogo also had been experienced in the S-IC first stage of the uncrewed Apollo 6 test flight in 1968, shown in the photo here. One of the Soviet Union's N1 rocket test flights suffered pogo oscillations in the first stage on 21 Feb. 1969. The launch vehicle reached initial engine cutoff but exploded 107 seconds after liftoff and disintegrated.

 

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This view of a region called Syrtis Major is from the 100,000th image captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its HiRISE camera. Over nearly 20 years, HiRISE has helped scientists understand how the Red Planet’s surface is constantly changing.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

One of NASA’s Key Cameras Orbiting Mars Takes 100,000th Image - NASA

 

[BDnFL]

This taken after Artemis launch.
View is 0 level or the actual deck the rocket sits on and launch’s from. Yellow hard hat guy is Safety. They enter first with sniffers to make sure it’s safe to enter.
As part of the HVAC shop we were next in-line to enter as we had high speed fans pressurizing the launcher maintaining positive pressure.
The doors were blown in on the elevators that we use to go up the launch tower. That means we had to walk the stairs to get to the top opening blast doors at different levels.

 

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This enhanced-color mosaic is made from three separate images taken on September 8, 2025, each of which was acquired using the Perseverance rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument. The images were processed to improve visual contrast and enhance color differences. The view shows a location known as “Mont Musard” and another region named “Lac de Charmes,” where the rover’s team will be looking for more rock core samples to collect in the year ahead. The mountains in the distance are approximately 52 miles (84 kilometers) away.

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NASA will soon find out if the Perseverance rover can really persevere on Mars