Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager is a retired major general in the
United States Air Force and noted test pilot. He was the first man to
break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental
Bell X-1 (shown below) at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet.
TEST PILOT CHUCK YEAGER IS 88 TODAY
THIRD MOON LANDING ON THIS DAY IN 1971
Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the Apollo program , the third to land on
the Moon. It was the last of the "H missions", targeted landings with two-day stays on
the Moon with two lunar EVA’s, or moonwalks. The crew for the nine-day mission included , from left to right, Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell, Commander Alan
Shepard, and Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa. Shepard and Mitchell made their lunar landing on February 5 in an area originally targeted for the aborted Apollo 13 mission. During the two lunar EVS’s, 93 pounds of Moon rocks were collected and several surface experiments were conducted. Commander Shepard hit two golf
balls while on the lunar surface with a make-shift club he brought from Earth.
Commander Alan Shepard hitting a golf ball on the lunar surface
Autographed golf ball used by Shepard
FATAL APOLLO 1 FIRE ON THIS DATE IN 1967
Apollo 1 (official designation Apollo/Saturn-204) was planned to be the first manned mission of the Apollo lunar landing program, set to launch in February 1967. Its flight was precluded by a fatal fire which killed all three crew members (Command Pilot Virgil “Guss” Grissom (center), Senior Pilot Edward H. White (left), and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee (right), and destroyed the Command Module cabin(pictured below). This occurred during a pre-launch test of the spacecraft on Launch Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral. The name Apollo 1, chosen by the crew, was officially assigned retroactively in commemoration of them.
Charred remains of the Apollo 1 command module
A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM SPACE ON THIS DATE IN 1968
The Apollo 8 Astronauts, from left to right,were mission Commander
Frank Borman, Lunar Module Pilot William Andres, and Command
Module Pilot James Lovell. After coming out from the back side of
the Moon,the crew read ten verses of the book of Genesis from the
Bible. This was during a Christmas Eve TV broadcast, a portion
of this broadcast is below.
The crew members of Apollo 8 were the first Americans to directly
see the far side of the Moon and the first humans to see the planet
Earth from beyond it’s low orbit.
LAST MOON MISSION ON THIS DATE IN 1972
Today marks the day of the sixth and final lunar
landing mission of the NASA Apollo program.
The crew of Apollo 17 was, left to right, Commander
Eugene A. Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison H.
Cernan, and Command Module Pilot Ronald E.
Evans (seated).
Schmitt took this picture of Cernan posing with the
American flag on the moon’s surface.
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