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Welcome to the Space Rocket History podcast
Due to the deterioration of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, no follow-on missions to ASTP took p...
Celebrations erupted in Mission Control, with broad smiles and cigar smoke marking the successful conclusion. But, while Mission control was...
“I had thoughts I couldn’t express at the time. It felt like we weren’t just opening a hatch in space, but opening the door to a new era on...
On July 17, 1975, orbiting in space high above the French city of Metz, the American and Russian commanders shook hands. Their conversation,...
CapCom Truly radioed at 10:46 with the go-ahead: “I’ve got two messages for you: Moscow is go for docking; Houston is go for docking. It’s u...
Reports from Baykonur indicated that the weather was perfect for the launch: clear skies, light winds, and hot July sunshine. The post Space...
Television coverage involved meticulous planning of specific television transmissions, detailed preparation for an onboard press conference,...
Eight cosmonauts arrived in Washington, D.C. on February 7th, 1975 to start their final training session in the U.S. as the technical specia...
The origin of the Soviet’s concern, regarding the potential impact of the Apollo Command Module’s Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters on...
Soyuz 16 served as a comprehensive rehearsal for the Soviet contribution to Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). The post Space Rocket History...
The American astronauts acknowledged the necessity of enhancing their Russian language proficiency. They observed that their Russian counter...
For the first time, the Soviet Union publicly announced the crew assignments for a Soyuz mission before the flight. Previously, cosmonaut id...
According to George Low, the Soviet mission operations control room was quite large – it contained 16 two-man consoles, thus allowing them 3...
In April of 1972, George Low returned to Washington from Moscow and briefed Henry Kissinger. He conveyed NASA’s assessment that a joint spac...
In a re-evaluation of the proposed test mission, the Soviets concluded that utilizing the Salyut spacecraft would not be technically and eco...
Finally Kraft and Gilruth told the Soviets that if they were unwilling to agree to the telephone conversations then the NASA delegation migh...
The spacecraft designers led by Caldwell Johnson faced a demanding task. Director Gilruth urged them to accelerate the development of the do...
Two options were presented: Apollo docking with Salyut/Soyuz or Soyuz with Skylab/Apollo. Caldwell Johnson was taken aback by the Soviets’ e...
On January 20th, 1971 in private negotiation, Low and Frutkin met with Keldysh and Feoktistov to discuss rendezvous and docking. NASA propos...
A critical problem emerged during the separation and ignition of the third stage approximately five minutes into the flight. A failure in th...
A critical problem emerged during the separation and ignition of the third stage approximately five minutes into the flight. A failure in th...
A critical problem emerged during the separation and ignition of the third stage approximately five minutes into the flight. A failure in th...
A critical problem emerged during the separation and ignition of the third stage approximately five minutes into the flight. A failure in th...
The crew of Soyuz 17 embarked on a historic 29-day mission, surpassing the previous Soviet mission-duration record of 23 days set by the Soy...
The Salyut 4 space station, designated DOS-4, marked the second phase of the Soviet Union’s civilian space station program. It was an improv...
Initially, the rendezvous with Salyut 3 proceeded smoothly. However, as the Soyuz spacecraft approached the station, a critical problem aros...
Salyut 3 featured a “self-defense” gun purportedly designed by Alexander Nudelman for station use. Some reports suggest it was outfitted wit...
NASA’s Explorer 50, also known as Interplanetary Monitoring Platform-8 or IMP-8, stands as a testament to humanity’s relentless pursuit of k...
Scientists had long been intrigued by Mercury, the innermost planet of our solar system. Despite its proximity to the Sun, Mercury remained...
Pioneer 11 detected Saturn’s bow shock on Aug. 31, 1979, about 932,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) out from the planet, thus providing th...
This second generation of the Soyuz spacecraft, the Soyuz 7k-T was flown on Soyuz 12 through Soyuz 40 missions from 1973–1981. The new 7K-T...
At this point in 1973, the Soviets were attempting to fly 2 types of space station, the long duration orbital station scientific version cal...
Despite predictions, events seldom occur precisely as expected. The calculated breakup altitude of Skylab was based on its intended structur...
The official decision to proceed with the Skylab reboost mission was made on September 1st 1977, initiating a two-year preparation period fo...
Early in the planning stages of the Skylab flight, there was a desire to keep it in orbit long enough to use it as the core of a larger stat...
Activating the station upon arrival was a challenge, but packing up to return home was also a major event that took several days. For Carr a...
The next time an American would venture outside of a spacecraft would be on a Space Shuttle flight and that was nine years later. In less th...
This crew was the first to celebrate a new year in space 17 times as they orbited the earth and moved through the time zones. The post Space...
“We and everybody on the ground thought that it was going to be a beautiful, brilliant comet. It turned out to be beautiful all right, but i...
“Nothing was outside, three times I went out that hatch into the ‘truly great outdoors.’ When I was out there, it was a silent world, except...
“There was no strike in space by any stretch of the imagination. What could we threaten to do, go live on the moon? If any of these writers...
One stowaway was on the bicycle ergometer, another was in the LBNP (lower body negative pressure device), and the third was sitting on the t...
“As we rode, the big blue eyes of Al Shepard bored into each of us looking for any sign of weakness, any indication that one of these rookie...
In space, on the day the second crew left Skylab, which was September 25, 1973, the orbital workshop began it’s third unmanned period. The p...
“I felt like that mission was from my viewpoint the highlight of my career, as being the best astronaut that I could be. I felt like our cre...
“The thing I remember about reentry was not positioning some RCS switches correctly. We got behind and Owen could not read my notes in the c...
“Hello Houston. Roger. Well I, haven’t talked with you for a while. Isn’t that you down there. Bob? This is Helen, here in Skylab. The boys...
On mission day 28, August 24th 1973, it was time to perform the 2nd EVA. Garriott and Lousma once again stepped outside the orbital workshop...
Finally, the crew became efficient enough to get all of the work done that was scheduled for a given day. But, that did not make up for the...
“I had to connect eleven five-foot sections of aluminum poles, twice, forming two long poles. These were then extended to Jack some forty or...