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Apollo 8 The Bold Odyssey to the Moon's Far Side

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Neil Armstrong - A Tribute to a true hero & engineer.

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Neil Armstrong; Credit Wikipedia, NASA. Neil Alden Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930. He began his NASA career in Ohio. After serving as a naval aviator from 1949 to 1952, Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1955. His first assignment was with the NACA Lewis Research Center (now NASA Glenn) in Cleveland. Over the next 17 years, he was an engineer, test pilot, astronaut and administrator for NACA and its successor agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). As a research pilot at NASA's Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., he was a project pilot on many pioneering high speed aircraft, including the well known, 4000-mph X-15. He has flown over 200 different models of aircraft, including jets, rockets, helicopters and gliders. Armstrong transferred to astronaut status in 1962. He was assigned as command pilot for the

The 1969 Moon Landing Was Almost a Disaster.

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If you were around in 1959, and told your friends that 10 years from now, we'll be sending men to the moon and bringing them back safely to earth, you would have been laughed at, ridiculed and probably told to see a psychiatrist. (Image: © NASA Johnson) This was considered a fantasy at the time, not too different than saying that in 2029 we're going to visit Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. Yet on July 20th 1969, that's what happened. Neil Armstrong took Man's first step on the moon on that day. A thousand years from now, when historians look back on the history of mankind, Neil Armstrong's name will likely still be remembered. The moon landing is perhaps man's greatest technological accomplishment, ever in the history of human civilization. The 50-year anniversary of this momentous event is in 2019. and we should celebrate. This is not just a celebration for the United States, the flag of which these three men represented, but

Nasa's Gateway to Space.

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They were seen on the most significant missions like Apollo, Skylab and the Space Shuttle. They've been used for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy and they'll be there on the upcoming SLS missions but they're hardly ever talked about and without them who simply wouldn't be able to get the rockets off the ground, what are they? They were the gateway to the moon and the starting point for every space shuttle mission. NASA launch pads 39A and 39B so what do these massive feats of engineering do and just how important are they. Launch pad 39A NASA has over 40 launch pads in various locations from the US mainland to the Pacific. Their position chosen to best get the spacecraft to the correct orbit and to be safely away from population centers. Cape Canaveral in Florida is better for launching spacecraft requiring a west-east orbit and others like Vandenberg in California are preferred for spacecraft requiring a north/south orbit. But wherever they are the launch