Boeing’s on a streak...

[flyingcheesehead]

Yeah, I forgot to qualify "American" astronaut. But wasn't Vladimir a cosmonaut?

What is the difference between a космонавт and a Russian astronaut? There is none, beyond the cold war "need" for us and the Russians to use different words.

https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/6oxnek/the_difference_between_cosmonaut_and_astronaut

I think Wait But Why kinda nailed why we "needed" to use different words:

WWII advanced the possibility of human space travel, but it was in late 1957, when the Soviets launched the first man-made object into orbit, the adorable Sputnik 1, that space travel became the defining quest of the world’s great powers.

At the time, the Cold War was in full throttle, and the US and Soviets had their measuring sticks out for an internationally-televised penis-measuring contest. With the successful launch of Sputnik, the Soviet penis bolted out by a few centimeters, horrifying the Americans.



To the Soviets, putting a satellite into space before the US was proof that Soviet technology was superior to American technology, which in turn was put forward as proof, for all the world to see, that communism was a system superior to capitalism.

Eight months later, NASA was born.

The Space Race had begun, and NASA’s first order of business would be to get a man into space, and then a man into full orbit, preferably both before the Soviets. The US was not to be shown up again.

In 1959, NASA launched Project Mercury to carry out the mission. They were on the verge of success when in April of 1961, the Soviets launched Yuri Gagarin into a full orbit around the Earth, making the first human in space and in orbit a Soviet.



It was time for drastic measures. John F. Kennedy’s advisors told him that the Soviets had too big a lead for the US to beat them at any near-term achievements—but that the prospect of a manned moonlanding was far enough in the future that the US had a fighting chance to get there first. So Kennedy gave his famous “we choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hahhd” speech, and directed an outrageous amount of funding at the mission ($20 billion, or $205 billion in today’s dollars).

The result was Project Apollo. Apollo’s mission was to land an American on the moon—and to do it first. The Soviets answered with Soyuz, their own moon program, and the race was on.

As the early phases of Apollo started coming together, Project Mercury finally hit its stride. Just a month after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, American astronaut Alan Shepard became the second man in space, completing a little arc that didn’t put him in full orbit but allowed him to give space a high-five at the top of the arc. A few months later, in February of 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.

The next seven years saw 22 US and Soviet manned launches as the superpowers honed their skills and technology. By late 1968, the furiously-sprinting US had more total launches under their belt (17) than the Soviets (10), and together, the two nations had mastered what we call Low Earth Orbit (LEO).



But LEO hadn’t really excited anyone since the early ’60s. Both powers had their sights firmly set on the moon. The Apollo program was making quick leaps, and in December of 1968, the US became the first nation to soar outside of LEO. Apollo 8 made it all the way to the moon’s orbit and circled around 10 times before returning home safely. The crew, which included James Lovell (who a few months later played the role of Tom Hanks on the Apollo 13 mission), shattered the human altitude record and became the first people to see the moon up close, the first to see the “dark” side of the moon, and the first to see the Earth as a whole planet, snapping this iconic photo:4



Upon return, the crew became America’s most celebrated heroes—which I hope they enjoyed for eight months. Three Apollo missions later, in July of 1969, Apollo 11 made Americans Neil Armstrong3 and Buzz Aldrin the first humans on the moon, and Armstrong took this famous photo of Aldrin looking all puffy:5



It’s hard to fully emphasize what a big deal this was. Ever since life on Earth began 3.6 billion years ago, no earthly creature had set foot on any celestial body other than the Earth. Suddenly, there are Armstrong and Aldrin, bouncing around another sphere, looking up in the sky where the moon is supposed to be and seeing the Earth instead. Insane.

How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars — Wait But Why

One of life’s great leaps may be just around the corner.

waitbutwhy.com

 

[JOhnH]

What is the difference between a космонавт and a Russian astronaut?

There is no difference in the definition of the words, but there is a difference in that the Americans chose "astronaut" to distinguish themselves from Soviet "cosmonauts". So when one references astronauts, they are referencing Americans.

The Americans wanted to distinguish itself from their competitors in the upcoming space-race, so they took the title "astronaut". TL;DR: -There's no (real) difference between the two

 

[flyingcheesehead]

There is no difference in the definition of the words, but there is a difference in that the Americans chose "astronaut" to distinguish themselves from Soviet "cosmonauts". So when one references astronauts, they are referencing Americans.

In the 60s and 70s, yes. These days, Americans call people from any country who go to space "astronauts" and Russians call people from any country who go to space "cosmonauts". Within that community, an American will call John Glenn, Chris Hadfield, Satoshi Furukawa, and Valentina Tereshkova all "astronauts" and a Russian today will call them all "Cosmonauts", unless they're specifically trying to emphasize the person's national origin or timeframe of their spaceflight.

 

[Albany Tom]

That was not NASA, that was Morton Thiokol. The infamous "We'll call you back in 10 minutes" followed by the "Take off your engineer hat and put on your manager hat"... Thiokol called back and said go, so NASA went. There was certainly pressure to go from NASA with all of the publicity around the teacher in space program, but NASA didn't override a no-go from Thiokol - Thiokol changed to "go".

It's actually worse than that. NASA knew, but it wasn't published at the time, to protect NASA employees. Like probably many here, I watched as much of the televised portions of the Rogers hearings as I could, and I saw the Feynman demonstration of the o-ring snapping after being chilled in ice water.

What only 2 people knew at that time, and that wasn't released until after Ride's death, was that it was Sally Ride that first found and presented that info. The following is from the wiki page of AF General Joe Kutyna, who was on the panel with Ride and Feynam:

"Feynman knew an astronaut had give Kutyna the crucial piece of information that led to his O-Ring insight; Kutyna later revealed that it was Sally Ride, a fellow member of the investigation commission but still a NASA employee at the time:

One day [early in the investigation] Sally Ride and I were walking together. She was on my right side and was looking straight ahead. She opened up her notebook and with her left hand, still looking straight ahead, gave me a piece of paper. Didn't say a single word. I look at the piece of paper. It's a NASA document. It's got two columns on it. The first column is temperature, the second column is resiliency of O-rings as a function of temperature. It shows that they get stiff when it gets cold. Sally and I were really good buddies. She figured she could trust me to give me that piece of paper and not implicate her or the people at NASA who gave it to her, because they could all get fired. I wondered how I could introduce this information Sally had given me. So I had Feynman at my house for dinner. I have a 1973 Opel GT, a really cute car. We went out to the garage, and I'm bragging about the car, but he could care less about cars. I had taken the carburetor out. And Feynman said, "What's this?" And I said, "Oh, just a carburetor. I'm cleaning it." Then I said, "Professor, these carburetors have O-rings in them. And when it gets cold, they leak. Do you suppose that has anything to do with our situation?" He did not say a word. We finished the night, and the next Tuesday, at the first public meeting, is when he did his O-ring demonstration ... I never talked with Sally about it later ... I kept it a secret that she had given me that piece of paper until she died [in 2012].[2]

"
MT was absolutely at fault, but so was NASA. I'm OK with the way they handled it, but it's a little spooky that a group of highly intelligent and seemingly ethical people gave NASA a bit of a free pass, and it isn't certain that we were ever going to find out about it.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

It's actually worse than that. NASA knew, but it wasn't published at the time, to protect NASA employees.

MT was absolutely at fault, but so was NASA. I'm OK with the way they handled it, but it's a little spooky that a group of highly intelligent and seemingly ethical people gave NASA a bit of a free pass, and it isn't certain that we were ever going to find out about it.

Well, not a lot was said about the guys at Thiokol who overruled Boisjoly, Ebeling, McDonald, et al at the time either, probably for the same reason. It's easy to blame a faceless corporation, but start naming people and the pitchforks come out.

It also seems that NASA had some internal organizational communication issues, and they had forgotten their own lesson from 19 years earlier.

"Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, "Dammit, stop!" I don't know what Thompson's committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.

From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: "Tough" and "Competent". Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write "Tough and Competent" on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control."

 

[FlightmechH3]

Well, not a lot was said about the guys at Thiokol who overruled Boisjoly, Ebeling, McDonald, et al at the time either, probably for the same reason. It's easy to blame a faceless corporation, but start naming people and the pitchforks come out.

It also seems that NASA had some internal organizational communication issues, and they had forgotten their own lesson from 19 years earlier.

"Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, "Dammit, stop!" I don't know what Thompson's committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.

From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: "Tough" and "Competent". Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write "Tough and Competent" on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control."

Those days are LONG gone and no one is held accountable whatsoever.

NASA has been a jobs program since 1984. The purpose of the shuttle was to get Keyhole satellites up, not a taxi up into LEO for joyride "experiments" with elder Senators.

 

[Palmpilot]

The Mars landers have been pretty worthwhile, IMO.