Modern Astronomy Timeline Images

1. Modern Astronomy Timeline Images Reese

2. Ancient Rocketry • The Chinese make solid rocket fuel out of gunpowder.

3. Space Age Begins! • Space age began in 1957 when USSR launched the first ever artificial satellite called Sputnik 1.

4. Sputnik 2 • In 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik 2 carrying a dog named Laika. The dog survived the launch but died in Space because it ran out of oxygen.

5. Sputnik • In 1960, Sputnik 5 carried two other dogs (Belka and Strelka) and they became the first creatures to survive the journey into Space as well as the re-entry.

6. First Human to Orbit Earth • In 1961, the USSR sent the first human (Yuri Garagin) in a Vostok rocket. He orbited once around the Earth and then safely made it back.

7. U.S. Chimps in Space (1961) • On January 31, 1961, Ham the chimp was launched in a Mercury capsule aboard a Redstone rocket. The chimp had been trained to pull levers to receive rewards of banana pellets and avoid electric shocks. His flight demonstrated the ability to perform tasks during spaceflight. Another chimp, Enos, became the first chimpanzee in orbit on November 29, 1961, in another Mercury capsule using an Atlas Rocket.

8. Ham the Chimp

9. Enos the Chimp

10. Gemini Project • On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the goal to land humans on the surface of the moon and return them safely to earth by the end of the decade.

11. John Glenn • In 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit around Earth using the Mercury capsule.

12. Apollo Missions (1963-19720 • The Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth. • Apollo 1: Ended in tragedy. Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White, Roger B. Chaffee were killed in a command module fire on the launch pad during a launch simulation at the Kennedy Space Center. • Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) landed on moon and safely brought back astronauts. • Apollos 7 and 9 were Earth orbiting missions to test the Command and Lunar Modules, and did not return lunar data. Apollos 8 and 10 tested various components while orbiting the Moon, and returned photography of the lunar surface.

13. What did they bring back? • The six missions that landed on the Moon returned a wealth of scientific data and almost 400 kilograms of lunar samples. Experiments included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind experiments.

14. Buzz Aldrin & Neil Armstrong • In 1969, the Saturn V rocket was used to take the first astronauts to the moon along with a lunar rover.

15. Aldrin and Armstrong on Moon

16. Apollo Missions Lunar Rover

17. Sally Ride • In 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman astronaut to go on a mission on the Challenger.

18. Main Parts • The space shuttle has three main parts—the orbiter, rocket systems (two solid rocket boosters and three main engines), and an external fuel tank. The orbiter has the crew cabin (which can carry up to seven crew members) the cargo bay, and the three main engines. Located on each side of the shuttle, the solid booster rockets holds solid fuel. When the fuel is gone, the boosters fall back down to Earth. The external fuel tank holds the shuttle’s liquid fuel HYDROGEN AND OXYGEN FUEL.

19. Challenger(83), Discovery (84) Columbia (85), Atlantis (89), Endeavour(93) • Columbia was named after a sailing vessel the explored the Columbia River in 1792 and was the first American ship to sail around the world. • Discovery was named for two famous ships—Henry Hudson’s ship that searched for a route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in the 1610’s and Captain James Cook’s ship that sailed the Pacific Ocean where he found the Hawaiian Islands in the 1770’s. • Atlantis was named after the first U.S. ship used for ocean research. • Endeavour was named after the first ship commanded by Captain James Cook. In 1788 the ship sailed to the South Pacific and around Tahiti, discovered New Zealand, mapped Australia, and sailed around the Great Barrier Reef. His ship often took scientists on explorations. • Challenger was named after a British Naval research ship, The HMS Challenger, that sailed into the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean in the 1870’s.

20. Space Shuttles Disasters • In 1986 Challenger Explodes 73 seconds into flight and seven people die (including Christa McAuliffe). • In 2003 Columbia disintegrated as it tried to re-enter the atmosphere after a 16 day mission in space. All seven crew members died.

21. How The Shuttle Leaves Earth • The "strength" of a rocket engine is called its thrust. • Rocket engines are reaction engines. The basic principle driving a rocket engine is the famous Newtonian principle that "to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." A rocket engine is throwing mass in one direction and benefiting from the reaction that occurs in the other direction as a result.

22. Newton’s Third Law

23. How the Shuttle Leaves Earth • The Orbiter weighs 165,000 pounds empty. The external tank weighs 78,100 pounds empty. The two solid rocket boosters weigh 185,000 pounds empty each. But then you have to load in the fuel. Each SRB holds 1.1 million pounds of fuel. The external tank holds 143,000 gallons of liquid oxygen (1,359,000 pounds) and 383,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen (226,000 pounds). The whole vehicle -- shuttle, external tank, solid rocket booster casings and all the fuel -- has a total weight of 4.4 million pounds at launch.

24. Space Shuttle • Shuttle travels at 160 km/hr (100 miles per hour) after the first 8 seconds, then it accelerates to 1,600 km/hr ( 1,000 miles per hour) in order to leave our atmosphere.  It travels at 18,600 miles per hour to orbit around Earth. 

25. Shuttle Re-entering Earth • When it comes back into Earth, friction increases the temperature of the shuttle to 1700 degrees Celsius on the wing tips and nose of the shuttle!  The space shuttle is covered with special tiles to protect it from the intense heat when it reenters the Earth’s atmosphere. Without these tiles, the space shuttle would burn to a crisp, killing all the astronauts inside.

26. End of the Shuttle • On July 8, 2011 the 135th and final space shuttle mission (Atlantis) lifted off, capping off the 30-year-old U.S. space shuttle program.

27. Space Suits • When outside the Space Station, the astronauts must wear spacesuits.  These act like miniature spacecrafts that provide the astronaut with everything an astronaut needs to survive short periods of time in space.  Spacesuits provide:  Oxygen to breathe, water to drink, heating and cooling, communication devices (radio c, and toilet facilities, pressurized atmosphere, removing carbon dioxide (lithium hydroxide canisters), protect from micrometeorites (layers of Dacron and Kevlar), protect from radiation (reflective coatings of Mylar).

28. Evolution of Space Suit GEMINI MERCURY APOLLO

29. Evolution of Space Suit SPACE SHUTTLE “PUMKIN” SUIT APOLLO MOON WALK SPACE SHUTTLE ‘81

30. Evolution of Space Suit JET PACK MANNED MANEUVERINGUNIT FUTURE-2020

31. Space Suit

32. Space Suit Site • http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/spacesuit_gallery/

33. What is a Space Probe? • A probe is a spacecraft that travels through space to collect science information. Probes do not have astronauts. Probes send data back to Earth for scientists to study.

34. Hubble Telescope • In 1990 Discovery mission launches the Hubble telescope after half a century of planning. Hubble orbits at about 610 km above the Earth’s surface. • In 1993 Endeavour made repairs on the Hubble and gave it a corrective contact lens that helped provide better images and better resolution. • In 2003 Hubble got maintenance/repair • In 2009 it was the last servicing mission for Hubble.

35. Hubble Telescope Image

36. ISS • In 1998 the ISS (International Space station) was created/ launched by a group of countries.  It is the size of a football field.  It is powered by 43,000 square feet of solar panels.  There is almost no gravity in the Space Station and astronauts are free-falling.  Handles and special foot holders are placed in various areas to help astronauts move around.  If they need to move around outside the space station, the can use Manned Maneuvering Units that have rockets built into them.   

37. ISS

38. Space Probes • One of the most famous probes is Voyager 1. It has traveled further in space than any human-made object. It launched into space in 1977. Voyager 1 has left our solar system and it is now in interstellar space. • http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/final-frontier.html

39. Space Probes • Messenger (launched 2004) to study Mercury has found polar ice caps with frozen water. • New Horizons (launched 2006) to study Pluto and Kuiper Belt (2015). It is half-way there… • Dawn (launched 2007) to study asteroid belt VESTA (2012) and (CERES-2015)

40. Space Probes • Kepler (launched 2009) spacecraft will watch a patch of space for indications of Earth-sized planets moving around stars similar to the sun. The area that Kepler will watch contains about 100,000 stars like the sun. Using special detectors similar to those used in digital cameras, Kepler will look for a slight dimming in the stars as planets pass between the stars and Kepler.

41. Spirit/Opportunity Mars Rover http://marsrover.nasa.gov/home/index.html

42. Phoenix • http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

43. Curiosityhttp://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html Landed on August 2012, the rover will assess whether Mars ever was, or is still, an environment able to support microbial life.