America's Contribution to Space Exploration

Growing up, when I did, a lot of kids my age kept up with the 'space race.' That is what the 'race,' between the USA and Russia was coined, for who could make it to the moon and back, successfully and first.

I watched on a B/W TV set, on May 5, 1961, as Alan Shepherd launched to become the first American to make it into space. After that milestone, I was officially hooked. I watched and kept up with every NASA mission through July 20, 1969 (and beyond), when Neil Armstrong (Apollo 11) stepped of the bottom rung of the LEM ladder and made his historical quote, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". It after that mission that I acquired a four-foot tall model of the Saturn V rocket, complete with the separate Lunar Module. 

I watched every live launch from Cape Kennedy (and all recoveries except for a few Shuttle landings), through the final Shuttle Mission (STS-135), on July 8, 2011. I've since watched a handful more but my self-dubbed 'passion years' were officially behind me. If you have read this far, I said all of the above to say this.

I've collected a few, short videos which I found to be entitely interesting and thought I would share them here, for others to hopefully enjoy. I have included a brief history and description below each of the videos, so you will have an idea as to what you're viewing. 

The LEM (Lunar Excursion Module)

The LEM - Lunar Excursion Module in Detail

This is one of the most and best, detailed views of the Apollo programs Lunar Excursion Module that I have ever, personally seen. I won't go into any detail, as the video itself does that, far better than I ever could. However, I would like to add that, for the time (1960's), this was simply amazing technology. I hear people, on a regular basis say that certain events in our history took millions of years to manifest, as it was impossible for anything like whatever was being discussed, to happen in any shorter time.

Whenever I hear that or similar, I think to December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, when the Wright brothers made their first successful airplane flight. Sixty-six years later, within one's lifetime, man stepped foot on the moon, 240,000 miles away. Amazing.

Untethered Spacewalk

In 1984, Astronaut Dale Gardner pulled off one of the boldest satellite rescues ever! These satellites had failed to reach their proper orbits, so using a jetpack (MMU), he flew untethered in space, to manually capture Palapa B2 & Westar 6!

With fellow Astronaut Joseph Allen, they secured the satellites in Discovery’s cargo bay and brought them back to Earth for a second chance.

Catching a Rocket

Folks, as I mentioned previously, I grew up in a generation, whereas watching these events on a B/W TV was the norm, just like landing, which was a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. NEVER, in my wildest imagination, did I ever envision where we are now. Catching the booster that, just minutes before, lifted it's payload off the launch tower and return to that tower, to be used again!! I asked one day, "HOW is this even possible?" Well, of course, somebody, far more knowledgeable than me, created a video, explaining it, in detail.

Well, that's it folks. I hope you enjoyed it. I know I did.