October was also the month for anniversaries. We celebrated 45 years of NASA with a history of the agency’s early years. October 4th was also the anniversary of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite in space.
Not one who easily gives up on fear, I asked the question, “Are we really safe from Near Earth Objects?”
Speaking of fear, since October is also the month for Halloween, we offered suggestions for space related costumes and gave you a ghostly astronomical image to space up your computer desktop.
On October 15, China joined the elite spacefarers club by launching Yang Liwei into orbit from the Jiuquan launch site in the western Gobi Desert.
In November, NASA named the crew for the return to flight space shuttle mission, though it’s nearly a year away. STS-114 mission is planned for launch no earlier than September 2004. The first US space station, Skylab, celebrated its 30th anniversary. Showing how far we’ve come since Skylab, SpaceDev auctioned off a world exclusive private space mission on eBay. This first of its kind eBay auction was being listed for the ten-day period November 10 – 20, 2003.
On November 20, the much newer International Space Station marked 5 years in orbit. The following month, December, NASA astronaut Michael Foale, International Space Station Expedition 8 Commander and NASA Science Officer, became the new U.S. space endurance record holder.
During December, we also celebrated a Century of Flight on the 17th, the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, NC. We learned how some people have spent Christmas in space in the past, and we lost the European Mars probe, Beagle 2.
It’s been a roller coaster year here at About Astronomy & Space, and this was just a sampling of what went on. What will 2004 bring? New discoveries in astronomy? More miraculous space exploration? I don’t know, but come on along for the ride.