Soviet Space History

12 April 1961 is another of those important dates humans shouldn’t forget. It was the day a human first entered space, if only for 108 minutes. That human was a Soviet Cosmonaut named Yuri Gagarin. The Daily Kos posted this article yesterday, giving some information on the Space Race between the US and USSR, and […]

From German Tunnels to Space, Part 2–Peenemuende

In the first post to this series, I established my impressions of the German countryside and the Germans themselves: pretty, green country full of great, hospitable people (some are still friends). My family lived at the edge of the Ardennes in an area of hills and forests full of bunkers, pillboxes, etc. All of these […]

Why Space Matters: GEO Satellite operations, Part 7–Curves and Angles

Geosynchronous (GEO) satellites are wonderful. They can see a lot of the Earth from 22,236 miles in space. It’s why they make great observation and communications satellites. Previous chapters explained some of the problems facing GEO satellites, too, such as solar influence and eclipses. But now’s the time for a few lesser known problems GEO satellites […]

From German Tunnels to Space, Part 1

Stay with me here, this will eventually lead to space-related topics. When I was much younger, I was privileged to live overseas twice. Both times my Dad moved us to the Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland Pfalz for German speakers)/Eifel region of Germany. It was very pretty—forested and hilly with networks of small, curvy roads. The first time […]

Explorer 1, the First US Satellite

January 31st, 1958. 56 years ago, and the United States had finally succeeded in launching its own satellite, the Explorer 1. According to this Yahoo! Travel post, the launch of Explorer 1 was linked to the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The big deal about that, as explained in this wiki entry, is the IGY marked the beginning […]