{"id":6834,"date":"2023-08-08T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=6834"},"modified":"2023-07-28T03:12:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-28T03:12:41","slug":"65-years-of-nasa-an-astrophysicist-reflects-on-the-agencys-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/65-years-of-nasa-an-astrophysicist-reflects-on-the-agencys-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"65 years of NASA \u2013 an astrophysicist reflects on the agency\u2019s legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n NASA\u2019s missions have inspired generations of young people to pursue the sciences.\n Patrick Semansky\/AP<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\nStephen G. Alexander<\/a>, Miami University<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

Sixty-five years ago, in 1958, several government programs that had been pursuing spaceflight combined to form NASA. At the time, I was only 3 years old.<\/p>\n\n

I\u2019ve now been a professor of physics and astronomy<\/a> for nearly 30 years, and I realize that, like countless others who came of age in the 1960s and \u201870s, NASA\u2019s missions have had a profound effect on my life and career path. From John Glenn\u2019s first flight into orbit to the Hubble telescope<\/a>, the agency\u2019s legacy has inspired generations of scientists.<\/p>\n\n

First flight into orbit<\/h2>\n\n

The date was Feb. 20, 1962. My first grade teacher, Ms. Ochs, told the class that we would be doing something different on that day. She went to the blackboard and wrote in large block letters \u201cJohn Glenn\u201d and \u201cNASA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

She asked if any of us knew what those words meant. None of us did, so she grabbed a globe, and using a pen with a plastic cap, she demonstrated that John Glenn, an astronaut<\/a>, would soon be launched on a rocket \u2013 the pen \u2013 from Florida. When the rocket got high enough, Glenn in the Mercury capsule \u2013 the cap \u2013 would separate from the rocket and go into orbit around the Earth. She demonstrated this by moving the pen cap around the globe.<\/p>\n\n

My class then sat and listened to the historic launch of Friendship 7 carrying Glenn<\/a>, which was the first U.S. mission to send a man into orbit around the Earth.<\/p>\n\n

\n \"A<\/a>\n
\n During the Gemini mission, two spacecrafts attempted the first-ever space rendezvous. This image, taken in the Gemini 6 craft, shows the Gemini 7 craft just 43 feet away.<\/span>\n NASA<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

There would be three more missions in the one-manned Mercury program, culminating in Gordon Cooper\u2019s Faith 7 mission<\/a>, which completed 22 Earth orbits. The program proved that NASA could put a manned spacecraft in orbit and bring it back safely to Earth. Next, NASA was ready to move on to a more maneuverable two-person spacecraft.<\/p>\n\n

A two-person spacecraft<\/h2>\n\n

In 1965, NASA planned to launch the two-person Gemini spacecraft<\/a>, and I moved on to the fifth grade where my teacher, Mrs. Wein, was also a space enthusiast. In December, NASA launched the joint missions of Gemini 6 and 7, and Mrs. Wein gave me permission to stay home from school to watch the TV coverage. <\/p>\n\n

This was the first time that two piloted spacecraft performed what is called a rendezvous<\/a> maneuver, where they meet up in orbit. Orbital maneuvers like this require very precise calculations and a spacecraft in which astronauts can make path changes in orbit \u2013 which is what the Gemini capsule was designed to do.<\/p>\n\n

\n \"A<\/a>\n
\n A lunar orbit rendezvous occurs when a smaller lunar lander breaks off a main spacecraft while in orbit to land on or circle the Moon before returning to the main craft.<\/span>\n NASA<\/a>, CC BY-ND<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

The Gemini 6A and 7 spacecrafts practiced a rendezvous maneuver in Earth\u2019s orbit<\/a>. At the time, I didn\u2019t understand the importance of this mission, until Mrs. Wein directed me to the \u201cS\u201d volume of the World Book Encyclopedia<\/a>. There, under \u201cSpaceflight,\u201d was a full-page diagram of the lunar orbit rendezvous plan<\/a> that a NASA engineer, John Houbolt<\/a>, had developed to get the astronauts to the Moon and back. <\/p>\n\n

The central feature of the lunar orbit rendezvous was that two spacecraft, the Apollo Command Module and the Lunar Excursion Module, would rendezvous in orbit around the Moon<\/a> using the same technique the Gemini 6 and 7 missions had demonstrated. The technology of this maneuver, used in Apollo missions, would later help land Neil Armstrong on the Moon.<\/p>\n\n

On to the Moon<\/h2>\n\n
\n \"The<\/a>\n
\n \u2018Earthrise,\u2019 captured by the Apollo 8 mission, was the first look at Earth from afar.<\/span>\n NASA<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

In December 1968, when I was in eighth grade, I watched the Apollo 8 mission orbit the Earth on TV. It was the first time that anyone, whether U.S. astronaut or Soviet cosmonaut, had left low Earth orbit. This mission gave us \u201cEarthrise<\/a>\u201d, the first look at our home planet<\/a> as seen from afar.<\/p>\n\n

The Apollo 11 Moon landing happened in July 1969. I will never forget sitting in my living room as Armstrong stepped off the Lunar Excursion Module onto the lunar surface<\/a>. With Armstrong\u2019s steps, the aspirations of a lost president<\/a>, thousands of NASA scientists and engineers and millions of public followers were fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n

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