|
My husband was a teacher for 32 years in Joplin, Missouri and created a website over 15 years to document his classes, his adventures, and research. He has many posts about things related to space exploration. These posts have been recreated from his website, I strongly encourage you to take some time and browse his website. 8-15-2020The race was on! The United States and the Soviet Union were in a race to be the first in everything space-related. The Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas, has an extensive collection of artifacts documenting the Space Race. In fact, here is the most complete collection of Soviet artifacts outside of Russian itself. Here is a flight-ready backup of the first artificial satellite to successfully orbit the earth. Since Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev did not have access to Sputnik to show people, he had a scale model to with which he could demonstrate the satellite: this is also on display. The USSR also beat the United States in getting the first living creature into space. The living creature, Laika, was a dog who fit into the Sputnik II. Laika is also the only living thing from earth that has ever died in space, having overheated during her fourth orbit. Luna II is the first manmade item to impact the moon. This baseball-sized sphere gave the USSR yet another first in the race to putting a man on the moon. Clearly the Soviets were winning the contest. The item on display at the Cosmosphere is one of only five that were made. Enos was the United States' entry into getting a living creature into space. A trained chimpanzee was placed into the Mercury-Atlas 5 and launched. The difference between Laika and Enos, however, is that Enos made it back to earth alive. Sections of the German Wall, representing an ultimate division between the two superpowers of the day, are located at Cosmosphere. This room in the museum helped include broader historical context to the space race. That division kept the superpowers divided symbolically in Germany, but in reality the separation was made starker with every success. The Soviets lunged ahead again by launching the first man into orbit. This was Yuri Gagarin's only venture into the final frontier, but it forever launched him into the history books. Not only are Gagarin's space suit and helmet displayed at the Cosmosphere, but the very vehicle he rode in is also behind the glass. Other Soviet citizens traveled in Vostok pods, having to parachute to earth, separate from their vehicle, after reentry. These include the first woman in space, who did not know that she was pregnant at the time.
Meet Mission Team 30, our latest recipients of the Al Worden Endeavour Scholarship! Taken from the Endeavour Scholarship FB page
Mission Team Ukraine has been selected, and we could not be prouder! Taken from Endeavour Scholarship FB Page
My husband was a teacher for 32 years in Joplin, Missouri and created a website over 15 years to document his classes, his adventures, and research. He has many posts about things related to space exploration. These posts have been recreated from his website, I strongly encourage you to take some time and browse his website. 8-1-2020In our July visit to Hutchinson, Kansas, we learned about the ultimate social distancing. While the floor at the box office told us to wait "one small step" away from the people in front of us, I couldn't help but imagine how people have yearned to break the bonds of earth altogether. Cosmosphere is an unexpected treasure in the Kansas prairie. We all expect to see rocket and space history in Houston, Huntsville, and Cape Kennedy, very few would expect it in Hutchinson. In fact the building is off the highway, on a side street past a couple of convenience stores and a city park. When a visitor enters the lobby at Cosmosphere, he is immediately faced with the SR-71A Blackbird and the T-38 Falcon hanging overhead. Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell capsule is also on display here, recovered from the ocean floor after it, infamously, sank shortly after splashdown. Models of a lunar surveyor, the Mars Rover, and a lunar module are also visible from the rotunda. We would soon enter the galleries with our tickets. My wife would want to read every display thoroughly, having always possessed a love of space travel, while I just wanted to see real things. While I would read highlights, the greatest distraction was my desire to see the real items, the flown items. I was less interested in models and replicas. Soon I would be immersed in the history of many such items, and surprisingly other world history intertwined with the sciences involved in space travel. I will share more photos on our website in coming days
The competition tasks - designed by POLSA Polska Agencja Kosmiczna Polish Space Agency - ranged from creating an opening and closing mechanism for a Starshade origami sail to building a structure to protect an egg through a simulated 6.9 magnitude earthquake. Taken from Endeavour Scholarship FB page
Jason, Ethan, Chloe, Itzel
|
RSS Feed
