March 16, 2015 - Saluting Jim Irwin
Saluting Jim Irwin James Irwin, born eighty-five years ago today, flew in space only once, but that one flight was to the Moon. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 1966, Irwin was the Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 15 and the eighth person to walk on the Moon. In July 1971, Irwin and mission Commander Dave Scott landed on the Moon at the base of the Apennine Mountains and Hadley Rille. They were the first astronauts to drive a Lunar Roving Vehicle to travel greater distances from the Lunar Module. Irwin left NASA in 1972, and in subsequent years he achieved notoriety by leading several expeditions to Mount Ararat in Turkey, where he believed he would find the remains of Noah’s Ark. Irwin had a fatal heart attack in 1991; he was the first Apollo moonwalker to die and, at sixty-one, the youngest.
Image credit: NASA
Weekly Calendar
March 16-22, 2015
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 16
1750: Caroline Herschel born
1926: Robert Goddard launches first liquid fuel rocket
1966: Gemini VIII launched
1975: Mariner 10’s 3rd Mercury flyby
Tuesday 17
St. Patrick’s Day
1930: Jim Irwin born
1958: Vanguard 1 launched, first solar-powered satellite
1972: NASA issues request for proposals for Space Shuttle
2011: MESSENGER becomes first spacecraft to orbit Mercury
Wednesday 18
Neptune 4° south of Moon
1965: Voskhod 2 launched, Alexei Leonov takes world’s first spacewalk
1980: Soviet rocket explosion kills 50 workers at Plesetsk launch pad
Thursday 19
Mercury 5° south of Moon
Moon at perigee
1970: First powered flight of X-24A lifting body
Friday 20
New Moon 5:36 AM ET
Total solar eclipse (North Atlantic)
Equinox 6:45 PM ET
Saturday 21
Uranus 0.1° south of Moon
Mars 1° north of Moon
1965: Ranger 9 launched
Sunday 22
Venus 3° north of Moon
1982: STS-3 Columbia launched
1996: STS-76 Atlantis launched
1997: Comet Hale-Bopp closest approach to Earth