abluegirl:

US Navy Names Research Ship After Sally Ride

The United States Navy’s first academic research ship to be named for a woman will be christened after NASA’s first female astronaut to fly in space.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced Friday (April 12) the next ocean-class auxiliary general oceanographic research (AGOR) ship will be named the R/V Sally Ride.

“As secretary of the Navy, I have the great privilege of naming ships that will represent America with distinction as part of the fleet for many decades to come,” Mabus said in a statement revealing the names of seven ships, including the Sally Ride. “These ships were all named to recognize the hard working people from cities all around our country who have contributed in so many ways to our Navy and Marine Corps team.”

Mabus named the future R/V Sally Ride in memory of the astronaut, who also served as a professor, scientist and innovator at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego. Scripps will operate the R/V Sally Ride when it enters the Navy’s fleet in 2015.

Ride, 65, died on July 23, 2012, to pancreatic cancer.

She made history when she lifted off with the STS-7 crew on space shuttle Challenger in 1983. The first U.S. female astronaut to fly into space, she was only the third woman worldwide to reach orbit, following two Soviet cosmonauts, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982.

Full Article

What this article doesn’t mention is that Sally Ride was a lesbian, and it is also significant that a US Navy vessel is named after a gay person, two years after DADT is repealed.

itsfullofstars:

colchrishadfield:

Taking the new telescope out of the box - like weightless Christmas!

Best GPOY on Tumblr. Follow an astonaut’s tumblr account here

^^ What they said!

Apollo

A new print entitled ‘Apollo’ designed by Berg and arriving in the Editions of 100 online store sometime soon.

(via sagansense)

goodluckmrgorsky:

Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, command pilot of the Gemini 9-A space flight, is photographed during the Gemini 9 mission inside the spacecraft by Astronaut Eugene Cernan, Gemini 9 pilot.

(via kenobi-wan-obi)

archiemcphee:

LEGOs are already awesome, but LEGOs in space are Super Awesome!

Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa built a Lego model of the International Space Station while he was actually ON the International Space Station. It’s the geekiest, most wonderful example of meta we’ve ever seen. CollectSPACE.com reports that the model was “part of an educational collaboration between the Danish toy company and NASA.” You can watch a brief time lapse video of the model coming together and read more about it over on CollectSPACE.com.

[via Craftzine]

(via kenobi-wan-obi)

discoverynews:

Uniting the Planet for a Journey to Another Star

Former astronaut Mae Jemison (and living legend) will spearhead the audacious 100 Year Starship plan to send mankind on an interstellar adventure.

keep reading

(via discoverynews)

ikenbot:

Apollo 12 and Surveyor 3 Stereo View

(via sagansense)

cwnl:

Remembering Apollo 1

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the tragic fire that killed the 3 crew members of Apollo 1.

Apollo 1’s crew, consisting of Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee, died when a fire broke out in their capsule during a “plugs-out” test.

The mission, originally known as AS-204, was redesignated Apollo I in honor of the crew. This photo shows the astronauts in training: (L to R) Roger Chaffee, Ed White and Gus Grissom.

cwnl:

NASA Honors Fallen Astronauts in Solemn Ceremony

Image: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, NASA personnel, and others, participate in a wreath laying ceremony as part of NASA’s Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012, at Arlington National Cemetery. Wreaths were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration.

This week, NASA is paying tribute to fallen astronauts who lost their lives in the pursuit of space exploration by holding a remembrance ceremony today (Jan. 26) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Today’s Day of Remembrance will honor the 45th anniversary Friday (Jan. 27) of the three astronauts who died in a fire at the launch pad while training for the Apollo 1 mission. The tribute ceremony also marks 26 years since the fatal shuttle Challenger accident on Jan. 28, and nine years since the loss of shuttle Columbia and its crew on Feb. 1.

“NASA’s Day of Remembrance was actually started after the Columbia accident,” agency spokesman Allard Beutel said. “By pure happenstance, the three high-profile accidents at NASA related to astronauts happened at relatively the same time of the year, separated by years, but all within a few days of each other. It was decided that NASA would put aside the last Thursday of January — whatever that date happens to be — to pay tribute.”.

(via kenobi-wan-obi)