[SamV]

And the first Mercury astronaut to orbit the earth was John Glenn (3 orbits). Later after serving as a US senator he became the oldest astronaut in the program at 77 to return to outer space by means of space shuttle Discovery. 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

From 1959, the first and original Astronauts of the USA, Project Mercury Astronauts from left to right in the back, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper. From left to right in the front, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter. Shepard would be the first American in Space and the only one of the Mercury program to go to the Moon on Apollo 14.

Gus Grissom died on the launchpad in Apollo I when they did a pressure test with 100% oxygen and a spark occurred.  Not sure who thought it was a good idea to test with pure oxygen, but the practice was abandoned, thankfully, after that. 

[solvegas]

Prior to the launch, Gordon "gordo" Cooper was so cool that he fell asleep while waiting for Mission Control to "Light this candle!" and so he was woken up while loudly snoring. President Eisenhower in 1958, demanded that all Astronauts be test pilots from the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps and the NASA top brass wasn't happy about it since they thought that chimpanzees were easier to control. 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Yes, the Mercury 7 were adamant that an astronaut be given some sort of control of the spacecraft.  Originally, there were to be no controls—the astronauts were simply along for the ride.  That’s why I included the pitch, roll and yaw controls in a picture from this post, earlier. 

Yaw, pitch and roll controls in the Mercury capsule giving astronauts control over their spacecraft.

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Woooo!  Six engine static fire on Starship prototype 25!  Shouldn’t be long before Booster 9 is tested, as well.  Will we see an orbital launch before the end of summer?

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Another view of Ship 25’s static fire.

Thunderbirds are go.

[SamV]

Yes, the Mercury 7 were adamant that an astronaut be given some sort of control of the spacecraft.  Originally, there were to be no controls—the astronauts were simply along for the ride.  That’s why I included the pitch, roll and yaw controls in a picture from this post, earlier. 

Yaw, pitch and roll controls in the Mercury capsule giving astronauts control over their spacecraft.

I seem to recall early Russian Cosmonauts had no controls in their space capsules. But that might have been because the Soviets were afraid a Cosmonaut might defect by landing in a capitalistic country, like the US.   

[solvegas]

The Space Shuttle was supposed to be a much cheaper alternative to the standard rockets since it was reusable but it turned out to be a lemon instead. Not until Elon Musk's Falcon series of rockets did we actually get a cheaper reusable rocket. 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

The Space Shuttle was supposed to be a much cheaper alternative to the standard rockets since it was reusable but it turned out to be a lemon instead. Not until Elon Musk's Falcon series of rockets did we actually get a cheaper reusable rocket.

I would hardly call the Space Shuttle a “lemon” and doing so spits in the face of a ton of dedicated men and women who had to make such a complex piece of machinery work.  The Space Shuttle suffered from trying to be too many things to too many people, unfortunately and with too little money.  I agree that it had severe deficits, though, including no launch escape system and poorly engineered solid rocket boosters, as well as tiles that should have been upgraded to a better system years after they were introduced but never were.  To me, Congress was the lemon for shorting them the proper R&D money.

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Okay, so usually when a second stage fires, the first stage has finished and is ejected first.  SpaceX is planning on having the second stage—in this case Starship—ignite its rockets while the main booster is still firing.  The idea is to give it an extra boost and they calculate that they can get a 10% increase in thrust this way—which is a LOT.  However, it’s really tricky, especially when you want to reuse the main booster, which they do.  How to keep from damaging the top of the main booster as Starship’s engines kick in will be a difficult task.  They have created scalloped openings at the top of the main booster to help direct the blast and they will toughen the top of the superstructure on the booster, but it will be interesting to see if they can manage it without damaging the main booster.

In the attached image you can see that the booster is still firing even as Starship pulls away.  Note the area at the top of the booster where scalloped ports (vents?) let the excess flames out.

[SamV]

Many may not know this but NASA original envisioned the space shuttle as a fully reusable, two-stage vehicle that would be piloted in both stages. A hypersonic winged first stage would carry the shuttle orbiter on its back up in to the stratosphere, where at around 50,000 feet the two stages would separate. The first stage would then fly back to Earth and land like an airplane, while the shuttle orbiter would use it own rocket engines to take it up in to orbit.

Government budget issues forced the Nixon administration to put the brakes on such a system, so NASA had to design a shuttle system with an orbiter that was carried aloft by two reusable solid rocket boosters. Similarly, funding issues would also kill the development of a second-generation space plane, leaving NASA to operate the shuttle for 30 years.

Now NASA can work on things like the Artemis program, while private contractors provide a lower cost means of placing things in to orbit, but it seems SpaceX might be looking to also send payloads much further in to space.  

[TheZookie007]

United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy launch from this week.

Now that's cool.

[TheZookie007]

For the record: 1° Kelvin is equal to - 457.87° Fahrenheit. Now that is DAMN COLD!
(Absolute zero is where all molecular motion stops and that occurs at a temperature of 0° Kelvin, or -273.15° Celsius, or -460° Fahrenheit.)

Now that's cool. (Literally!)

[TheZookie007]

From 1959, the first and original Astronauts of the USA, Project Mercury Astronauts from left to right in the back, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper. From left to right in the front, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter. Shepard would be the first American in Space and the only one of the Mercury program to go to the Moon on Apollo 14.

He's also the astronaut highlighted in the opening credits of the underrated series, Star Trek: Enterprise.

[TheZookie007]

Another view of Ship 25’s static fire.

Thunderbirds are go.

Gerry Anderson would be proud.