So I’ll say from the outset that the above image is going to make no sense to you unless you’ve read The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, if you haven’t read the book, go grab a copy and then come back when you’re ready.
The Lunar Rover Operations Handbook was standard issue to the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 crews – the date on the handbook listed here indicates that it was the first of the rover manuals as Apollo 15 left from Houston on July the 26th 1971.
This excellent photograph of Buzz Aldrin was taken by Neil Armstrong in 1969, aboard the Apollo 11 Lunar Module just before they landed on the surface of the moon.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has been made into a book, a radio play, a television series and a movie or two. It was written by the staggeringly gifted Douglas Adams and has become one of the most oft-quoted works of literature outside of Shakespeare.
The Endeavour was the last of the shuttles to be made and was set to be the last shuttle to be launched until a last minute change of plans saw Atlantis take the honours.
This is the Saturn V Flight Manual used by astronaut and Lunar Module pilot Edgar Mitchell during the Apollo 14 program, Mitchell was just the 6th man to walk on the moon and spent 9 hours in the Fra Mauro Highlands region on February the 6th 1971.
This BBC documentary, titled “To Mars By A-Bomb – The Secret History of Project Orion”, is one of the most fascinating 60 minute films I’ve seen so far this year.
Wernher Von Braun’s first lunar lander design had room for 25 astronauts, the extraordinary behemoth weighed in at 8,739,000 lbs, was 160 ft tall, 108 ft in diameter and could (theoretically) produce 390,043 ft-lbs of power.
I only recently learned of the Gemini XI mission and their use of the Agena Target Vehicle, I was previously unaware that experimentation with creating artificial gravity in space had taken place all the way back in 1966.
Although Curiosity isn’t technically gasoline powered, I think the rover is one of the finest machines we’ve ever built as a species. She’s the size of a Mini Cooper (the new one) and is powered by a reactor fuelled by 4.8 kg of decaying plutonium-238 dioxide…
