Space Rocket History #189 – John Glenn Remembered

Posted on December 14, 2016 by spac9750

With the passing of John Glenn last week, I thought it would be appropriate to pause my coverage of Apollo 10 for a week and create an episode that celebrates the life of the American Icon, John Glenn. I covered John Glenn’s Mercury flight in episodes 30-31. I am going to re-release those episodes over the next 2 days. So I won’t spend a lot of time on his Mercury flight in this episode, that will be covered tomorrow.

John Glenn – Mercury-Atlas 6

Senator John Glenn

John Glenn – STS-95

Dec 07

Space Rocket History #188 – Apollo 10 – Command Module Pilot John Young

Posted on December 7, 2016 by spac9750

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John Young enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut thus far. Over the course of 42 years of active NASA service he made six space flights and is the only person to have piloted, and been commander of, four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo Command/Service Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle.

John Young training in the CM simulator

John Young looking at the flight plan

John Young suiting up

Nov 23

Space Rocket History #186 – Apollo 10 – Commander Thomas P. Stafford

Posted on November 23, 2016 by spac9750

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Thomas P. Stafford was the first member of his Naval Academy Class of 1952 to pin on the first, second, and third stars of a General Officer. He flew six rendezvous in space; logged 507 hours and 43 minutes in space flight and wore the Air Force command Pilot Astronaut Wings. He has flown over 127 different types of aircraft and helicopters and four different types of spacecraft.

Stafford & Cernan training in the LM

Apollo 10 crew inspect the emergency slide

Apollo 10 crew in front of the launch pad

Nov 16

Space Rocket History #185 – Apollo 10 – Preparations

Posted on November 16, 2016 by spac9750

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Although the contractors had shipped excellent spacecrafts, preparations at Kennedy did not go quickly from the assembly building to the launch pad. Testing was delayed several days in order to stay out of the way of Apollo 9 pre-flight activities. Also during maintenance to the Launch Control Center, the electrical power was switched off to replace a valve. The Apollo 10 launch vehicle’s pneumatic controls sensed the power outage, opened some valves and dumped 20,000 liters of fuel on the launch pad.