Portal:Space exploration/Featured
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[edit] This month's featured article
A space elevator is a theoretical structure designed to transport material from a planet's surface into space. Many different types of space elevators have been proposed. They all share the goal of replacing rocket propulsion with the traversal of a fixed structure via a mechanism not unlike an elevator in order to move material into or beyond orbit. Space elevators have also sometimes been referred to as beanstalks, space bridges, space lifts, space ladders or orbital towers.
The most common proposal is a tether, usually in the form of a cable or ribbon, spanning from the surface to a point beyond geosynchronous orbit. As the planet rotates, the inertia at the end of the tether counteracts gravity and keeps the cable taut via centrifugal force. Vehicles can then climb the tether and escape the planet's gravity without the use of rocket propulsion. Such a structure could eventually permit delivery of great quantities of cargo and people to orbit, and with transportation costs of a fraction of the traditional methods of launching a payload into orbit.
Recently featured: Hubble Space Telescope – Spacecraft propulsion – Saturn V
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[edit] January 2007
Apollo 8 was the second manned mission of the Apollo space program, in which Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first humans to orbit around the Moon. It was also the first manned launch of the Saturn V rocket.
NASA prepared for the mission in only four months. The hardware involved had only been used a few times—the Saturn V had launched only twice before, and the Apollo spacecraft had only just finished its first manned mission, Apollo 7. However, the success of the mission paved the way for the successful completion of U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of landing on the Moon before the end of the decade.
After launching on December 21, 1968, the crew took three days to travel to the Moon, which they orbited for 20 hours. While in lunar orbit they made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which the crew read from the book of Genesis. It had been the most watched broadcast to date.
Recently featured: Space elevator – Hubble Space Telescope – Spacecraft propulsion
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[edit] February 2007
Atmospheric reentry is the process by which vehicles that are outside the atmosphere of a planet can enter that atmosphere and reach the planetary surface intact. Vehicles that undergo this process include spacecraft from orbit, as well as suborbital ICBM reentry vehicles. Typically this process requires special methods to protect against aerodynamic heating. Various advanced technologies have been developed to enable atmospheric reentry and flight at extreme velocities.
The technology of atmospheric reentry was a consequence of the Cold War. Ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons were legacies of World War II left to both the Soviet Union and the United States. Both nations initiated massive research and development programs to further the military capability of those technologies.
Recently featured: Apollo 8 – Space elevator – Hubble Space Telescope
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[edit] March 2007
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was a space disaster that occurred at 11:39 a.m. EST on January 28, 1986, when the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds into its flight after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed. The seal failure caused a flame leak from the solid rocket booster that impinged upon the adjacent external propellant tank. Within seconds, the flame caused structural failure of the external tank, and the orbiter broke up abruptly due to aerodynamic forces. The shuttle was destroyed and all seven crew members were killed, probably when the crew compartment hit the surface of the ocean. The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and rescue operation.
The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found that NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been a key contributing factor to the accident. NASA managers had failed to deal with the flawed design of the O-rings, had ignored warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching on such a cold day, and had failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors. The Rogers Commission offered NASA nine recommendations that were to be implemented before shuttle flights resumed.
Recently featured: Atmospheric reentry – Apollo 8 – Space elevator
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[edit] Archive
- November 2006: Hubble_Space_Telescope
- October 2006: Spacecraft propulsion
- September 2006: Saturn V