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