Well here we are, a month into Summer. How is it going for everyone? Hot enough for ya? July 21, a momentus day in history. A big day in the realm of air, water, space and space exploration. Heck, stretch the truth and you could say that the USSR conducted a terrorist attack on the US, more on that later. After years of Mercury and Gemini and Apollo test flights, man was ready to take the next “giant leap”. Following a successful lift off, just past midnight on July 16th, on this day at 2:56AM, Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on a foreign body. But on this day, two competing space programs would cross paths and suffer in galactic terms, a close call. Chalk this up to, “Hey I learned something doing Spark this week”, I found that Russia had launched an unmanned moon mission on July 13th. As a sign of good faith they did communicate with NASA to ensure that they two missions would not collide on their way to the moon or while orbiting. Luna 5 was designed as a recovery mission and the USSR hoped to bring back samples from the Moon before America did. After 52 orbits, the lander crashed into the surface of the moon, about 344 miles from the Apollo landing site. Pretty close when you consider a crash there would be the end for the astronauts. AAA is not going to help you. I was surprised that I had not heard of this incident before.
You can see a detailed timeline of the Apollo 11 mission here: https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_11i_Timeline.htm
But those are only a few of many events from this day.
1966 - Gemini X mission returns to earth.
1961 - Launch of Mercury 4 (Liberty Bell)
1959 -1st nuclear powered merchant ship, NS Savannah, named, Camden NJ
1955 - USS Seawolf launched, 1st submarine powered by liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor
Breaking with my promise that no one dies on Friday, I have to mention the Wingfoot Air Express crash of 1919. The Wingfoot was a non-rigid airship filled with Hydrogen (owned by the GoodYear Rubber Company). The flight was going from Grant Field to the White City Amusement Park. For unknown reasons, the blimp caught fire, several crew members immeditately parachuted to safety, while other occupants suffered parachute failures and were killed. The flaming wreck, crashed through the skylight roof of the Illinois Savings and Trust, killing 10 employees as they prepared to leave for the day. It was the worst dirigible accident to that point in the US and forced changes in flight rules in Chicago.
Five songs about Space:
Fly me to the Moon - Frank Sinatra
Space Oddity - David Bowie
Major Tom - Peter Schilling
Walking on the Moon - The Police
Rocket to Nowhere - Webb Wilder
Hack of the Day:
Hey, build your own rocket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFyKgmnCF-8
Quote of the Day:
Cleaning off my book shelf, I found my Dad’s old “5000 Quotations for any Occasion”, published in 1945. No more browsing the internet for me, good old page turning for a gem for each Spark.
“He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed”
Socrates
Cartoon of the Day:
Inspirobot:
Music to get you moving on Friday:
Back to the 70’s, back to Canada.
Well it appears that @jimender2 and I will have to have a cage match over the whole Apollo thing. I refer you to the official timeline posted in my Spark. If you want to read the day early version of the lunar excursion, you can find it here: Spark! Pro series 20th July 2023 (maybe the confusion is the reason some people think it never happened)
