November 12, 2018 - Mercury Man on the Moon
Mercury Man on the Moon Alan Shepard piloted America’s first space mission and was the only one of the seven original Mercury astronauts to walk on the Moon. Born 95 years ago this week, Shepard flew the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule on a 15-minute suborbital flight on May 5, 1961. When asked later what he thought about while waiting in his capsule for liftoff, Shepard quipped, “the fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.” An inner-ear disorder kept Shepard grounded during the Gemini program, but he became Chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office and was responsible for crew assignments. Corrective surgery landed Shepard back on active duty, and he commanded the Apollo 14 mission to the Fra Mauro region of the Moon in 1971. Shepard died in 1998.
Image credit: NASA
Weekly Calendar
November 12 - 18, 2018
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 12
Pluto 0.9° south 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
Tuesday 13
Venus appears stationary
1971: Mariner 9 becomes first spacecraft to orbit Mars
1978: Einstein Observatory (HEAO-2) launched
Wednesday 14
Moon at apogee
1969: Apollo 12 launched, second lunar landing mission
2008: STS-126 Endeavour launched
2011: Soyuz TMA-22 launched carrying ISS Expedition 29/30 crew
Thursday 15
First Qtr Moon 9:54 AM ET
Mars 1° north of Moon
1738: William Herschel born
1973: First powered flight of X-24B lifting body
1988: Green Bank 300-foot radio telescope collapses
1988: Soviet Shuttle Buran launched
Friday 16
1962: Saturn SA-3 launched
1973: Skylab 4 crew launched on 84-day mission
1974: Interstellar message broadcast from Arecibo radio telescope
2009: STS-129 Atlantis launched
Saturday 17
Juno at opposition
Neptune 3° north of Moon
Leonid meteor shower
1970: Luna 17 lands on Moon; Lunokhod 1 rover becomes first wheeled vehicle on Moon
2016: Soyuz MS-03 launched carrying ISS Expedition 50/51 crew
Sunday 18
Leonid meteor shower
1923: Alan Shepard born
1989: Cosmic Background Explorer launched
2013: MAVEN spacecraft launched to Mars