November 7, 2016 - Buzz's Selfie Stick?

Buzz’s Selfie Stick?  Launched fifty years ago this week, Gemini XII was the tenth and last crewed flight of the Gemini program, which aimed to perfect docking procedures and technology for future lunar missions. It was also the first spaceflight for Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., a former USAF fighter pilot and MIT astronautics engineer who would become, in 1969, the second person to walk on the Moon. Here, Aldrin stands in the open hatch during Gemini XII’s first EVA, with the docked Agena target vehicle in the background. What appears to be a selfie stick is actually a spacewalk handrail he installed; the image itself is a still frame from a remote movie camera. Aldrin’s Gemini XII crewmate, James A. Lovell, Jr., later flew as Command Module Pilot on Apollo 8 and Commander on Apollo 13.

Image credit: NASA

Weekly Calendar

November 7-13, 2016

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

 

Monday 7

First Qtr Moon 2:51 PM ET

1963: First flight test of Apollo Launch Escape System
1967: Surveyor 6 launched
1996: Mars Global Surveyor launched
2013: Soyuz TMA-11M launched carrying ISS Expedition 38/39 crew

Tuesday 8

Election Day

1656: Edmund Halley born
1984: STS-51A Discovery launched
1995: STS-74 Atlantis launched
2005: ESA’s Venus Express launched

Wednesday 9

Neptune 1° south of Moon

1934: Carl Sagan born
1967: Surveyor 6 lands on Moon
1967: Apollo 4 launched, first Saturn V launch

Thursday 10

1970: Luna 17 launched

Friday 11

Remembrance Day (Canada)
Veteran’s Day

1875: Vesto Slipher born
1966: Gemini XII launched
1982: STS-5 Columbia launched

Saturday 12

Uranus 3° north of Moon

1833: Great Leonid Meteor Shower
1980: Voyager 1 flies past Saturn
1981: STS-2 Columbia launched
2014: Philae probe becomes first spacecraft to land on a comet

Sunday 13

1971: Mariner 9 becomes first spacecraft to orbit Mars
1978: Einstein Observatory (HEAO-2) launched