Apollo
QuizMe: Project Apollo
Project Apollo encompassed more than 400,000 Americans working together to make it possible for 24 NASA astronauts to journey to the Moon between 1968 and 1972. This mammoth engineering feat is the featured topic in this edition of our QuizMe series of educational content. Put your knowledge to the test with these 11 questions about …
‘Apollo 13: Home Safe’ documentary gives inside look at mission
Apollo 13 suffered a catastrophic explosion en route to the Moon but has since become known as “a successful failure” because the three-man crew was able to safely return to Earth thanks to the round-the-clock heroic efforts of the entire NASA team to devise a solution to save the trio. NASA’s third planned manned lunar …
Max Faget was America’s chief spacecraft designer
Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil Armstrong is rightfully remembered for taking mankind’s first steps on the Moon nearly 50 years ago on July 20, 1969. Less well known, perhaps, is LSU Mechanical Engineering alumnus Maxime “Max” Faget, who designed the spacecraft responsible for that “giant leap for mankind.” Born in Stann Creek, British Honduras (now Belize) …
Piers Bizony peers into NASA’s history through the lens of Hasselblad cameras
Piers Bizony is an accomplished science journalist, space historian and documentary film maker. His books have explored the enormity and spectacle of the Universe as well as focused all way down to the sheer emptiness of a single atom. In his 2017 book Moonshots, Bizony takes readers on a photographic journey of 50 years of …
Jerome Pohlen brings alive ‘The Apollo Missions for Kids’
All across America and throughout the world, celebrations are being held this month to mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s first landing on the Moon. Well-traveled author Jerome Pohlen was just a kid when the Saturn V rockets were launching astronauts to the Moon from 1968 until 1972, but that era still has left …
Farouk El-Baz’s space odyssey from NASA to Star Trek
Farouk El-Baz once trained the astronauts who were planning for the 1969 Apollo Moon landing. Today, the former NASA geologist is training students at Boston University in how to use satellite images and other sensors to study the Earth. Of his role within the Apollo program, particularly Apollo 11’s crewed lunar landing, the Egyptian-born El-Baz said, “We …