Ken Mattingly was a member of the prime crew for Apollo 13. But, he was removed from the crew just days before the flight.
It turns out, astronaut Charles Duke, who was on the backup crew, had caught measles and accidentally exposed the prime crew to the disease. Mattingly was the only member of the prime [...]

Most of the emerging private space companies are thrilled that the new NASA moon and beyond program—called Constellation—is probably going to be killed. I’m not sure why this is—there’s plenty of room for private companies to send astronauts into earth orbit. And private companies are a long way from sending people to the moon and [...]

Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in the Apollo 1 fire 43 years ago today. I can’t help but think that Gus, in particular, would be very unhappy with the state of America’s space program today.
A new committee to plan “the future” of the space program is starting. Previously, another committee put us [...]

Donn Eisele, an Apollo astronaut, had one flight: Apollo 7. This was the shakedown flight to test out “America’s moonship”and put the country back on track after the tragic Apollo 1 fire.
Eisele performed his job well on the mission. But he had problems nonetheless which contributed to his short career as an active astronaut.
Before the [...]

Imagine a shuttle launches, and…as has been the case…needs to inspect itself in flight for damage. But, instead of using a camera mounted to the vehicle’s robotic arm, it uses a different tool.
A tiny, maneuverable satellite carrying a camera—a nanosatellite. It’s no bigger than a beachball and weights less than 20 pounds.
With systems now being [...]

Appearing at The Free Library in Philadelphia, a day after the 40th anniversary of his moon walk, Buzz Aldrin spoke out against returning to the moon.
“It’s a bad place.” he said. “I ought to know. I’ve been there.”
Aldrin spoke before a packed auditorium (and an additional room full of paid simulcast viewers), projecting a lighthearted [...]

CNN has the perfect Apollo 11 story.
I, like so many boys in 1969, was riveted by the first moonlanding. Of course, I would have done anything to take part in that history-making event.
One 10 year old boy did.
On July 23, 1969, as Apollo 11 was racing back to earth, a problem developed with a communications [...]

Buzz Aldrin is again making…well, a buzz!
He’s on a book tour and, of course, the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 is coming up. And he’s been interviewed by Deborah Solomon for the New York Times.
In the article, we learn a few interesting tidbits:

Aldrin says the days of American predominance in space is past.
He thinks we [...]

There is a past with wheeled vehicles—both robotic and with human passengers—riding on the lunar surface. And, if all goes well, more wheeled vehicles will roll across the moon in the future.

Apollo and Lunakhod
The first wheeled lunar rover was the unmanned Soviet Lunakhod 1. It was carried to the surface by Luna 17 in 1970. [...]

Historic pad 39B, used for Apollo launches, and more recently launches of the space shuttle is being prepared for a new role.
Changes are being made to the pad so it can be used with Ares 1-X, the initial version of NASA’s newest launch vehicle for manned spaceflight. The first Ares 1-X test flight is scheduled [...]