Tag Archives: Space exploration

You Don’t Have to be a Rocket Scientist—A Monkey Can Do It!

The first animals to reach space were fruit flies that the United States launched aboard captured German rockets in 1947. However the first mammal in space was Albert II, a rhesus monkey launched by NASA who reached an altitude of 83 miles (134 km) on 14 June 1949. Albert was anesthetized during flight and implanted with sensors to measure his vital signs but died upon impact at re-entry.

Albert II was carried aboard a V2 rocket as well, though his fate was not as lucky as that of the fruit flies: a problem with the parachute on the recovery capsule sadly led Albert II to his death from the force of the impact upon landing.

Everything was proceeding smoothly until the parachutes were released, and failed to billow out to slow Albert II’s descent. About six minutes after he had been blasted from Earth, the six-pound monkey was killed upon his return, leaving a 10-foot-wide crater to mark the impact.

His distress throughout this tumultuous ordeal is preserved in electrocardiographic data captured by sensors attached to his furry body. David Simons, the Air Force project officer for V-2 animal studies, reported that Albert II’s heart rate was “clearly disturbed” by disorienting g-force shifts.

sources

https://www.spacelaunchschedule.com/space-news/first-monkey-in-space/

Who was the First Monkey to go into Space?

https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbgpdd/albert-first-primate-in-space-nasa-anniversary

Earth-the final frontier.

Space-tourism is the buzzword nowadays. It seems like some of earth richest men are desperately trying to leave this planet. I have no issues with space travel, far from it, if I would be offered a place on one of those rockets. I would grab that chance with both hands and feet.

But I do think that there is still so much to explore here, on the 3rd rock from the sun.

You could argue that ‘space-tourism’ started this day 75 years ago. The first photos taken from space were taken on October 24, 1946 on the sub-orbital U.S.-launched V-2 rocket (flight #13) at White Sands Missile Range. Photos were taken every second and a half. The highest altitude (65 miles, 105 km) was 5 times higher than any picture taken before.

The V-2 No. 13 was a modified World War 2, V-2 rocket that became the first object to take a photograph of the Earth from outer space.

The famous photograph, as seen above, was taken with an attached DeVry 35 mm black-and-white motion picture camera.

source

Click to access 449089main_White_Sands_Missile_Range_Fact_Sheet.pdf

William Herschel-11 January 1787

Many people think that space exploration only started in the 20th century, but in fact it started centuries before.

The first telescope was said to be invented in 1608 in the Netherlands by an eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey..

Ever since that time there have been many scientists who made it their life’s work to investigate what is out there in that vast universe. William Herschel was one of those scientists. Herschel was a a German-born British[3] astronomer and composer.

I won’t be going to deep into his work in this blog, because I will do a follow up soon. However since today is the 234th anniversary of his discovery of 2 of Uranus’s moons. Six years after he had first discovered Uranus.

Titania

Oberon , also designated Uranus IV

As I mentioned earlier he was also a composer..

This is William Herschel’s Symphony No.17, in C major. Played by London Mozart Players.

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Source NASA

The “wow” signal:A scientific event hardly anyone knows about

Wow_signal

The Wow! signal, an intriguing radio signal detected on Aug. 15, 1977 that some thought was a call from extraterrestrials. The 72-second transmission was picked up by the Big Ear radio observatory at Ohio State University, coming from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

Because the radio signal was 30 times more powerful than the average radiation from deep space, a volunteer astronomer named Jerry Ehman who was watching the telescope data scrawled “Wow!” on a computer printout, leading to the signal’s moniker. No evidence ever arrived actually linking the transmission to an alien civilization, and no repeat message from the same direction has ever been detected, and the Wow! Signal remains a mystery.

Dr Ehman, who had been working on a project for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, noticed the surprisingly strong signal in a column of alphanumerical data.

With a red pen he scrawled the word ‘Wow!’ in the margin and circled the sequence.

Astronomers ruled out that the signal came from Earth and could find nothing in our solar system to have produced it.

Although it is quite a scientific event is has stayed below the radar for one reason. The day after the ‘wow signal, on August 16 1977, Elvis Presley died.

newselvispresleydead-tl

 

Seti

 

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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Sources

Space.com

The Guardian