Original Mercury astronauts flew solo flights. The early Soviet cosmonauts also went into space alone. Then, after the fatal Soyuz flight of Vladimir Komarov, single passenger flights came to a halt. Bigger spacecraft, bigger crews NASA’s Gemini was a two-man spacecraft. Apollo carried three. And Soyuz, after Soyuz 1, normally carried three cosmonauts. Still, others were [...]

The cancellation of Constellation continues. In the budget, Congress inserted text that prohibited the Obama administration from cutting funding for the Constellation manned lunar program without their consent. And now the Obama administration is instructing contractors to wind down their work on the program. It’s hard to imagine Constellation surviving. Although some members of Congress [...]

I had a correspondence with H. D. McDaniel, a man who worked at the Cape in the early sixties and beyond. He worked in “Launch Sequencing” which is monitoring preparations and activities up to (and including) the launch of a space vehicle. This is a pretty obscure area. Even as a space buff, I really [...]