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The First Seven Astronauts
The First Seven Astronauts
Everything starts somewhere, and the space program began in earnest with the selection of the first seven astronauts that would participate in manned space flight. The NASA selection committee was made up of Charles Donlan, a senior management engineer; Warren North, a test pilot engineer; Stanley White and William Argerson, flight surgeons; Allen Gamble and Robert Voas, psychologists; and George Ruff and Edwin Levy, psychiatrists.
When the selection committee began their task, they received 508 applications. This number was reduced to 110 candidates after records were reviewed. The 110 candidates were brought together at an undisclosed location. A battery of tests were given and interviews were conducted. It took a month but the number of possible candidates was reduced to 32.
The 32 candidates were then subjected to even more stressful physical, psychological, and mental examinations. They were given full-body x-rays, tested in pressure suits, endured a variety of cognitive tests and really intense interviews. Finally, 18 or the 32 were recommended to the Mercury program without any medical reservations.
The final choices were made by Robert Gilruth, who was the head of the Space Task Group, as well as Charles Donlan, Warren North, and Stanley White.
The first seven astronauts selected for the Mercury program (the first manned space flight program) were Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Walter M. Schirra Jr., Alan B. Shepard Jr., and Donald K. "Deke" Slayton. Their names will resound through history forever.
Six of the original seven flew in Project Mercury. Only "Deke" Slayton did not fly because of a heart condition that had not been discovered. Deke later flew as a crewmember of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
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Our Sun's Twin
The Planet Saturn
The planet Saturn resembles the planet Jupiter in many ways. Saturn is also a planet that has very little if any solid matter. It is believed that there is a hard rocky core, but that belief is unproven (albeit very probable) theory. Saturn, like Jupiter, is made up of gases and liquids. There is an internal heat source. We know this because Saturn radiates more energy than it receives.
Saturn rotates fast. It makes one complete revolution once every 10 or 11 hours. Saturn rotates around the sun once every 29.5 years. Because it rotates so fast, Saturn is flattened at the poles, making it an almost oblate planet.
The space probes, Pioneer 11, Mariner 11 and 12, and Voyager I and II, provide the best and most accurate information to astronomers about the planet Saturn, even though the Hubble space telescope takes very good images of Saturn. The space probes get "up close and personal," so to speak, and have provided information about Saturn that nothing else could have provided.
Wind velocity on Saturn is extreme. Wind speeds of more than 1,118 mph have been recorded. Unlike the winds on Jupiter, however, wind speeds on Saturn do not seem to be closely related to the positions of the belts and bands.
The rings around Saturn are one of the most interesting features. Really high-resolution pictures taken on the Voyager missions tell us that the rings are actually made up of hundreds of thousands of very small rings. The evidence suggests that the rings are composed of particles that are mostly ice crystals. A lot has been learned about the rings of Saturn over the last 20 or so years, but there is so much about them that is still a mystery. |
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Stars
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The Stars
Our Sun
There is nothing remarkable about our sun in the scheme of things. It is very similar to millions of other stars (and our sun is a star) in the universe. You might even call our sun an "average" star.
The energy source for our sun is nuclear fusion. If the total energy output of the sun for just one second could be captured, it would provide the United States with enough energy at the current level of usage for nine million years.
There is a hard core at the center of the sun. The core is so dense and the sun is so large that energy released in the center of the sun takes 50 million years to reach the surface. That means that if the sun suddenly stopped producing any energy at all at the core today, it would be another 50 million years before we noticed it here on earth.
Our sun has been producing radiant and thermal energy for the last four or five billion years. There is enough hydrogen for it to continue producing energy for at least another hundred billion years. In about 10-20 billion years, the sun will begin to expand. It will engulf the closest planets (including Earth), and then it will be a giant red star. In another few billion years after that, our sun will become what is known as a dwarf star.
Most people think of the sun as this large (huge), constant featureless fireball in the sky. The large part is right, but the constant (or steady) and the featureless parts are all wrong. Sunspots are a feature of the sun that was first noted by Theophrastus about 325 BC. A moderate-size sunspot is about the size of Earth. Sunspots come and go over a period of days or weeks.
Related Topics: Famous Astronomy Quotes,
Ancient Astronomical Calendars, Asteroids, Comets and Meteors
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