Aug 23

Space Rocket History #421 – Skylab – Skylab 3 – Recovery & Re-acclimation

“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 crew was the best crew we could be because we had done the best we could. We got sick; we couldn’t help that. We bundled along. And then we went normally, and then we went to overdrive to catch up, and then we passed.” Alan Bean

Skylab 3 CM Hoisted on Ship. Credit SpaceFacts

Crew Fork-Lift Ride

Skylab 3 CM at National Air & Space Museum

Aug 10

Space Rocket History #420 – Skylab – Skylab 3 – De-orbit, Re-entry, & Splashdown

“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 checklist because of the limited space (and my ‘unique’ penmanship). I said, ‘Give me the book, and I’ll reconfigure the switches.’ So he gave me the book; then I reconfigured a few. I had a lot of other things going on, and I didn’t reconfigure them all. About ten minutes later, we began to drift out of attitude and we got a master alarm” Alan Bean

Parachute Deployment

Frogmen Enter the Water after Splashdown

Command Module in the Pacific

Sep 13

Space Rocket History #270 – Apollo 13 – The News Breaks

Cronkite did not look good. He called Schirra over and thrust a sheet of wire-service copy at him. Schirra scanned the text hurriedly, and with each sentence his heart sank. This was bad. This was worse than bad. This was . . . unheard of. He had a thousand questions, but there wasn’t time to ask……

Jules Bergman, ABC Science Editor

Walter Cronkite & Wally Schirra, CBS

Jim Lovell family except son James

Dec 21

Space Rocket History #190 – Apollo 10 – The Launch

On May 18th 1969, a king, some congressmen, other distinguished guests, and a hundred thousand other watchers waited at scattered vantage points around the Cape area. At 49 minutes past noon, Rocco Petrone’s launch team sent Apollo 10 on its way to the United States’s second manned rendezvous with the moon.

Apollo 10 crew on the way to Pad 39B

Apollo 10 crew on the way to Pad 39B

Launch of Apollo 10

Launch of Apollo 10

Apollo 10

Apollo 10