Soviets Throw in Moon Towel...but What IF?

追加: 2026-05-10

[00:00:03]spin the little moon here as we're going to talk about the moon and I welcome you. I'm Mark Marquette of the American Space Museum. I'm so glad that you joined us today. Anita Trux and I are doing this without Marty who's Marty's on the uh the road and I got to I forgot to put up here to make sure we're going live and looked like everything kicked off with a good start today. So, just let me double check that to make sure. I know one thing. We fooled Dave Stangy because I said we weren't going to have a show today. And uh yep, we're there.

[00:00:37]Anita Sophia's throw in the towel. So, uh who needs Marty? We all do. Marty's been a great asset to this museum for 20 years, longer than I've been here. So, we'll see who joins us on the chat there. Welcome everybody. As we said, we're broadcasting live from the downtown Titusville where it's a scorcher the last few days. We've hit into the 90s. I put our beautiful peninsula up here. We're exactly right there. Okay. Where my thumb is across from the the horn that sticks out, which is the Cape Canaveral Space Force there and uh the U Kennedy Space Center. So, let me get uh I'm trying to fidget to this because I don't see the live chat.

[00:01:22]I'm going to hit a heart there.

[00:01:25]Looks like it's going on there. Somebody say good morning, good afternoon to me here, Mark to to Mark. So, I can see that you're indeed getting our show today. Does it look like it's working over there, Anita?

[00:01:36]>> Looks like it.

[00:01:36]>> Do you see a you see a record in the lower right and numbers clicking off in the tray?

[00:01:43]>> Uh yes. You know, it's keeping the time.

[00:01:46]>> Yes.

[00:01:47]>> Okay. Who's got nobody watching?

[00:01:50]>> Okay. RG Jubilee just >> There she is. Rosalie, now I feel better. And Rotten Piranha, he's got some uh off-the-topic stuff there.

[00:01:58]Rotten Piranha. Uh focus on what we're going to talk about today. And that is sponsored by gohistorytravel.org.

[00:02:06]Orita, you know the Romanam. They're just excellent people. Supported us financially so well. and this is their their uh travel website. It's really a hoot because they talk about things that that nobody else is talking about. So uh uh all right, thank you all for watching and um let's go forward here with uh Shuttle Fest 5, the fundraiser for the American Space Museum. We are really ramping up five weeks out. Uh, got to sell some more tickets, but we're in good shape. And we know people wait till the last minute to see Susan Kilra. All right. Her book is calling call slaying snakes in the cockpit, life lessons from an uh unlikely astronaut. All right. She was a uh uh she became a pilot on STS uh the one that was double I think 83 and 94 is the number of them there. And um so she's uh uh also the unlikely astronaut is a cute little kids book that she wrote. So you're going to meet her there. You're also going to meet Steven Holly who also wrote a book Eyes to the Sky. That book is new as is Susan's. I've met Susan before. She's awesome. Uh, you're going to want to see her. And there. Hello there, Chris Calli. Surprise, surprise.

[00:03:33]Anita and I threw the show here together. So, u, and no, I've not heard a reply to, uh, that email yet, but Steve Holly, he is certainly an A-list astronaut. five missions uh deployed to Hubble, then was on a Hubble repair mission where he grabbed it. An astronomer and he is one of the 35 new guys. Uh also was married to um Sally Ride. They were married for a couple years. So uh can't wait to see Steven Holly. So get your tickets. Susan Kilra and others like Mike Baker, Mike Mlain, Nikki Stodd, Norm Thagard, and Hoot Gibson. So, $150 for the weekend. Uh, and it's uh $95 for one day. And I don't think we're going to stream it live. I think we will record it and stream it live. We're going to talk about that, but I know some of you want to come and see it. And I don't think that'll be a factor in you actually coming to it. So on this date in space history is a couple interesting things that we're going to get to. But on yesterday's date on space history, which was May 7th, this beautiful lady had her birthday.

[00:04:47]Tammy Jernigan is 60 uh what is she? She is 60 68 year 67 years old. Uh born in May 7th, 1959 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

[00:05:00]one of my favorite towns in America and a veteran of five missions. That's why I didn't want to skip her. We had Bert Dict on here, the managing director of the uh subscriptions for the National Space Society. He's at Astro Magazine and all they do. We want to check out where was Bert. He did some cool travels about every six weeks we have him on to tell us where he was at. Tammy Jernigan, her birthday is to was yesterday. born in 1959. That makes her 67.

[00:05:31]Graduated Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe Springs, California in 1977. So many astronauts are born somewhere and and the family moves and they grow up in another place and she's one of them.

[00:05:43]University of Berkeley, masters in astronomy. Then she got her PhD in space physics and astronomy from Rice University. that had to be special to go to space where President Kenny delivered his famous moon speech that will be heard over a thousand years from now I guarantee you. Uh so her research focused on modeling of high velocity outflows in region of star formation gammaray bursters in the study of radiation produced by interstellar shock waves. Oh yeah, she's just not pretty.

[00:06:13]She is a brainiac there.

[00:06:16]Uh, five missions, three on Colombia, one each on Endeavor and Discovery. 63 days in space.

[00:06:23]Uh, 40, 52, 67, 80, and 96. For those you want to keep me straight, uh, there she is on the, uh, Astro One mission.

[00:06:34]Uh, that is the ream of paper that came off of the, uh, printer when they were up in space in the 80s. And she fanned it out like a Rolodex there. So, that's a cool thing to do. So, uh hello, uh uh Mitch Rothman down there. Hope it's a little cooler around Lake Wales because it's mid 90s here, but brother. And good afternoon to Tom Selantano.

[00:07:01]Tammy uh served as deputy chief of the astronaut office. And uh then she uh is is married uh failed to mention that that she's married to Jeff Weisshoff uh former astronaut Peter Weisshoff. Why do I say Jeff Weiss off? Because there he is. Peter Whis wisf. They both currently work at Lawrence Liverour National Laboratory as a brainiac think tank if there ever was one in California. Um and uh she held plenty of management positions. Uh also uh had something to do with Moscow. Maybe we'll get her to come to Shuttlefest 6 when we will continue the Moscow theme. So happy 67th birthday to Tammy Jernigan. Fivetime Shuttle Flyer born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, raised in Santa Fe Springs, California. We got another birthday today that is today's date May 8th and that is the popular uh New Englander specifically Charlie Kamardi he is 74 today born in Queens New York and his only mission was 114 the return to flight in 2005 with uh Eileen Collins is the commander of that he wrote a book mission out of control Charlie is quite vocal about what's wrong with NASA and the Aremis program. Uh very vocal about it. You could see probably go YouTube his name and hear him talk about that Artemis 3 was completely stupid and uh his words but uh and it was and has been changed to an Earth orbit mission and nobody's built a lander yet. So we'll figure that out. Uh he's holds seven patents on various innovations including NASA's heat pipe cooled sandwich panel. All right, that was sounds pretty cool. And uh more than 20 years experience in diverse shuttle technological applications.

[00:09:04]And he was part of the sardines, NASA's 1996 group 16 of 44, the largest class.

[00:09:11]And there he is as he is today walking around like me with a bunch of gray hair and a big smile on his face though. U so u Kamardia 114 May 8th 1952 in Queens, New York. All right. Happy birthday to you sir and keep telling the story and keeping NASA in check is his book his book out of control. All right. uh and uh so his assessment of this high-risk business.

[00:09:42]Okay, let's switch to something that's kind of fun. That's a May item that was this week in the month of May. And that is Hangar S, which uh there's the ocean right there in the back, the Atlantic Ocean. This is the legendary training center for the Mercury astronauts. They lived there with chimpanzees and and other primates uh that were going to go before them on the Mercury spacecraft and uh they got tired of smelling animals cages all around them. So they bought the Holiday Inn at Cocoa Beach and the rest is history as that is still there now as a um oh let me think it's either a it's a lintita I believe. Uh, so, uh, New York is New England. Okay. I said something wrong there, Cubing. All right. Forgive me. Uh, but they don't let me get away with anything. Uh, so at all. Uh, the UFOs files dropped today.

[00:10:45]Oh, that'll be cool. I'll check that out. We'll get our resident expert on that. So, why am I talking about animals in space? because it was true today that in May 6th NASA put a an end to the drawings and the idea that they would fly a pig instead of a an ape, a primate. This is from the Pigs on the Wing album by Pink Floyd Anita. One of my favorite albums uh for various reasons, not just the music. All right, but uh Pigs on the Wing part one.

[00:11:20]Yes, they want to put inside as you see the serious sketch here a pig like that with his feet up.

[00:11:29]Pigs are anatomically more like uh uh some of the organs more like humans than any other person including the lungs and liver and uh there's uh people that are trying to put pig lungs in humans uh with ext and growing the pig pigs with these lungs that uh have things in them already to not reject the human body.

[00:11:51]And um a rocket called Little Joe was used for many important stress tests on animals and materials and pigs were considered as test subjects.

[00:12:03]Uh but pigs were eliminated as little Joe flights test subjects when studies disclosed they could not survive long periods of time on their back. However, McDonald did use a pig, Gentle Bliss, to test the impact, the crushability support, >> and the test was successful. Gentle Bliss walked away. So, uh, on today, May this week on May 6th, 1959, is when NASA nicks the idea to put pigs in space. And that would have just been so cool thinking about this Pink Floyd song playing and knowing that pigs had been in outer space before, but they're not. And you know, that's that's life.

[00:12:48]But what a sketch. I tried to find more things about it, but it didn't get too far. And I talked to somebody today. In fact, uh, Cali, I was talking to John Tilco today. He's probably on his way out to Boston Red Sox Park right now to sit in his fancy seats as they're playing Tampa Bay, I understand. Uh, and lost to him last night. Tampa Bay One.

[00:13:11]Anyway, you're going to hear about John, Dr. John Tilkco at Shuttlefest as he's going to he's going to rip open the truth of why US cooperated with Russia uh on the Mirror and International Space Station. Uh, but he told me out of about a hundred suggestions, 95 of them are thrown away. It's incredible the amount of brain work done that people are throwing spaghetti on the wall, I call it, and what sticks and what doesn't.

[00:13:36]So, pigs in space did not stick in Little Joe.

[00:13:41]All right, let's talk about something that I love talking about, and that is the moon race between Russia. This is China here. I threw up the wrong wrong slide there. Don't know why I did that or even how that got in there. All right, there we got December 1968. That's China.

[00:14:01]We're in a moon new moon race with China. You better believe it. And their moon lander is already, I think, pretty well perfected. But in December 1968, when this crew of Apollo 8 orbited the moon, that pretty much won the moon race. Russia knew that they were whipped, but they weren't quite ready to give up. How' they know they were whipped? because there was a um uh crap. Did I did I not bring that up here with me? I may have to go off set and get something. Oh, here it is. Right.

[00:14:35]Moon landing scenario. And I've got this here. Okay, good. U I'm going to read some of this stuff because uh one uh uh I need to and two don't call me out on some of the details on this because uh even it is sketchy to the the historians in many books but I'm going to going to tell the story a little bit of December 68 their N1 rocket I think it already failed a couple times. It looks like Elon Musk's big rocket with 30ome engines on it. And uh they it had four p unbelievable failures. One on the pad may have killed hundred of its rocket scientists. That sort of thing. So uh they still weren't going to give up. If they could get this rocket going, then they thought they would try to beat us to the moon. But it looked like we were going to land sometime in the middle of 1969.

[00:15:28]And of course we did with Apollo 9 orbiting Earth, testing the moon ship uh and then uh in May going there to the moon with humans orbiting it again and then uh separating two ships and landing on the moon like the Russians wanted to do. They knew that they were whipped then, but they still didn't give in until this date, May 8th. All right. uh they went together and and knew that Apollo 10 was going to be successful and uh the Soviets threw in the towel on May 8th, 1969 as the two top space program leaders and three government officials in charge of the moon race met and conceded defeat unless Apollo 10 to be launched on a full dress rehearsal on May 18th was a disaster. So, they had their fingers crossed that these people would probably die in space and then that would clear the way for Russia to give them another year to uh perfect their N1 rocket. Uh or some sort of catastrophe would happen. They needed at least two more years to reach the moon.

[00:16:39]All right. So uh the following facts were unknown to the world until the mid 1990s as Soviet space program was top secret to the world and often propaganda infused with dangerous space spectaculars to upstage the efforts of NASA and make it look as propaganda that they were ahead when truly they were not. All right. Um the a lot of what I'm reading here is condensed from other sources, but there's a good read on the website astronautics. Mark Wade was the Australian that put together this fabulous by date uh that I use religiously six years ago to to pioneer our dayto-day of shuttle fest. Uh, so astronautics a s o n a u- t iix by markden and he doesn't update it anymore but there's a great resource of day-to-day there if you've not found that with all kinds of stuff he is one of the first people to have really a a good website out there with facts. So um our great web designer let's see here. All right so of course Apollo 10 a tremendous success. It had a few moments there with the uh the little buckaroo ride that Jean Cernin and Tom Stafford took when the uh uplink and down link of radar was mixed up. So uh but they survived that and proved that the the limb could could uh handle an emergency.

[00:18:11]Also when you have a failure that people live through uh that's a successful failure where you learn a lot and adapt things that you didn't know you'd have to adapt.

[00:18:21]So, um, but this was our guy, Warernner von Braonn, of course, in front of some of the rockets that he developed, he had the idea for things. And if you watch Mitch, uh, if Mitch Mitch Rothman, if you watched yesterday's show with uh, Bert Dict, he actually showed a closeup out at Pad 5, the Allen Shepard control room, where Von Braonn had made some of the serial numbers of the equipment in the shape of a rocket. Uh he also had the windows panes up, one looking out and some looking up so they could sit in there and look up uh into the sky where the rocket was going. This guy had a lot of things figured out to the minutia.

[00:19:05]And I've seen his own papers. He writes with a pencil, very small, just check marks on reports. Really an amazing human. And the reason why we went to the moon before and beat the Russians because the Russian propaganda machine like this poster, you know, saying, you know, first in outer space was always on their mind to show the world that communism was better than democracy.

[00:19:34]This was their Russia's Warner von Brown. All right. Uh this is the great designer uh Corv. Okay. uh uh he was the brains and and everything behind it on there. Um Sergy Corv was Russia's rocket genius, the counterpart to Warner von Braonn and only known to the world as the great designer. What a puffed up title Russia put on things. This is the Soyuse spacecraft that he developed. I excuse me, the Vosque talk spacecraft behind you there. But uh uh and then it became the Vos Hod for two missions when they crammed three people in it without space suits and then they uh the spacew walk of Alexi Leonoff with the other cosminaut. Uh so it was Sergy Coralof who was designer of the moon. He got his way but he died in 1966 from a surgery.

[00:20:38]uh he had cancer and didn't even tell people he had cancer for about a year and uh uh he kept a secret from his colleagues and he died on the operating table in January 66 at age 59. A huge blow to the Soviet space program. There he is with his handchosen first man in space. Uh of course Yuri Gagarin. These pictures did not surface until the 1980s as the Soviet propaganda machine didn't start to diffuse until astronauts from America and other countries started talking to cosminauts at reunions and so forth as the the uh thaw was beginning of the cold war between our superpowers.

[00:21:23]Uh the players involved behind Coralof in the failed moon rocket was were names like Kelish who was a omit theorotrician. The real guy was Vaseli mission. Mission was the Soviet chief designer after Coralov. They call him chief designer not great designer. uh and he led the test fls of the uh moon stages as well as Soy use and cellot programs. All right. Another one named Glushko uh was part and he had he failed at at leading the space program. And I got another guy named Leonard Smeirnoff chaired the military industrial part of it. So Leonard Smeirnoff was behind the Salute station, things like that later on. Uh, and there's some other ones, but Coralef was and here he is a cute little picture or there's I was talking about some of the don't know if these people are named like that. Uh, all of these people's heads could have been transferred to another body because the Russians became very good at that. In fact, the person on the far right has to be something different because the shadows on him don't match up the other guys as you see. Anyway, they were the propaganda. They learned how to do Photoshop with film. All right, is what I'm trying to say. Um, also Chelmier, C H E L O Ma, was also the chief designer uh in the military program of cruise missiles, ICBMs, and he fought with Coroff for the lead role in space launchers and man spacecraft.

[00:23:04]And uh in August 64, Coralof finally obtained approval by the Soviet man lunar landing program. Uh of course this was decided by the big political bureau and so forth. Despite starting three years after America, Corv promised the leadership to beat the Americans to the moon. the overthrow of Cruchef. Okay. In uh September or October 64, while the Voscod one mission was orbiting with three cosminauts, uh one was probably laying across the other two like some Ed Sullivan uh uh Carnival Act. Um well the overthrow of Kruef allowed Coralef to gather into his hands all man space projects including Chmula's man circum lunar project that he was working on just uh they thought if they could just get around the moon in a in a big old loop just like Artemis 2 did that the world would think that we were still ahead. That was what they want to do. We might not be able to land, but if we can beat them to just loop around the moon and look how the reaction of Artemis 2 has has just fired a great generation or a younger generation to go to the moon. So, uh, what could have been? All right.

[00:24:26]Now, uh, the secret that Corv took to his grave was that the weight specifications for the lunar lander, the L3, was impossible to meet.

[00:24:38]He had known from almost day one that the project was uh was doomed because of this weight factor and they needed a bigger booster. Uh and uh it was they thought it was the payload on the N1 rocket and I I didn't put a picture of an N1 up there. Sorry.

[00:25:00]Um it uh was 75 metric tons it could take to take to space. And this vehicle, the L3, uh, shown on this art artist rendering of Russians on the moon was 95 metric tons. Okay. Uh, so close to 200,000 lb.

[00:25:22]Uh, so instead of 150,000 lbs.

[00:25:27]So there's an interesting look at what we have there. And what we have there is a very claustrophobic, very risky with no docking collar. Okay. Well, wait a minute. What was going to happen? Stay curious. Okay. Here's a replica or or or a maybe it was this is a uh a real artifact. Don't know for sure. With a person standing beside it at one of the museums around the world. Robert Law, you probably know where that is. And Jim McDade, you may know. Uh, and uh, Fred 36956 recommends meet meeting Kamardi's book.

[00:26:04]And uh, yeah, Rosalie Jubilee, they had a Muppet show called Pigs in Space. Next year when I talk about this, I'm finding that slide girl. All right. Thank you so much. Well, look at this thing. Not much room. Claustrophobic. Look at the window that he's looking out. Now, that was kind of ingenious because they anticipated a lot of dust and the dust wouldn't get on the the window and and cloud the uh thing there. So, you got a lot of stuff going on there. What is all this stuff? Well, buy a fantastic plastic moon kit. I know you've got one, Steve Jos. I'd be surprised if if Robert Law didn't. Uh but uh 148 scale. Uh so, uh this is another look at a replica of it there. And I'll tell you a sec. Look at the ladder on the right. So there's actually looking out the window as you land with some controls. And I've got a story about that.

[00:27:02]All right. How many All right. I've got some Yeah. Okay.

[00:27:08]Uh imagine probably the summer of 72, maybe the fall uh winter of 71. The Russians could have made it with this vehicle. Alexi Leonghov. That's a familiar name. The first man to walk in space, Alexi Leonov. And then of course the commander to shook hands with Tom Stafford and Apollo's test project. He was tagged to be the first man on the moon and they say Oleg Makeoff. Uh also M A K A R O Mearov.

[00:27:41]Well, they rocket towards the moon. All right. with the soy use lander already mated before the launch. The Apollo plan was to do this on the way to the moon.

[00:27:51]So uh se so they were already mated together. Several days later they would enter circular lunar orbit in preparation for the landing. The orbit is modified so that the vehicle pair briefly skirt within 10 miles of the lunar surface. So this was going to be attached to the other kind of it was called Zand and it was like it was the soy use spacecraft that that is much in use today. Uh here is the comparison size that I found. Hope it's accurate. But to the lunar module of Grumman and NASA and the uh L uh K3 uh of the uh Russians there. I got that wrong. The L Yeah, L3. The L3 sometimes called the LK3 I believe off the top of my head there. Uh so um quite a difference there. Whereas the uh PA command, the PAL lunar module has an asset and descent stage. It's about the size of a two-story condo. The only room you can use though is the bathroom looking out the windows. The rest of it fuel and avionics and the base of it is of course the launch pad with the landing on there. But they were going to use one engine to lift off the moon, not separate anything here. And here's the concept. There is our Apollo spaceship.

[00:29:18]Uh that's our moon spaceship, the Lamb and command module attached. Not very Star Wars or Star Treky any of these. In the middle is the the way they were going to go with that on the N1 rocket.

[00:29:30]You see the cutaway shows the lunar lander. It's already attached though inside to the uh command the uh the ZH spacecraft which had a a re-entry bell in the middle and a habitat bell on the outside with you see a docking hatch attached to it. That's a later model because they weren't going to have docking hatch between them. On the right is the concept for the uh one spacecraft to go to the moon and land. Okay. Direct descent where you don't have anybody orbiting waiting for you. Direct descent where you go straight down. And I don't see any lunar landing legs and stuff like that. They were This was a complex system. That's the engine to get them to the moon. The the part where you see the the grid marks of opening for that would be where the uh um uh lander see the landing legs right there. The the on the right side is a ladder that they would apparently get out of. So uh hard to find sketches like these even in the 19 in 2026 but uh this first time I found this one but it gives you a nice comparison with the so several of the people wanted to go with direct descent others with this system that they ended up uh really trying to beat us with and that was landing on the moon like that.

[00:30:50]What was going to happen was the Soyuse capsule's depressurized and Leongh walks out along handrails outside of it. He goes outside on another spacew walk, so to speak, along handh holds to climb into the dock lander. He gets in the dock lander and it's much like a foam booth. If you all, how about some of you uh Doctor Who fans out there, you would know what a foam booth is. Uh he descends on retro rockets to a mile above the cratered surface. The rocket engine is jettisoned and Leonov has just one minute to use the later's remaining engine to make a soft landing. If he uses up any more fuel than a one minute, he has to abort because he has to use the same engine with fuel and save enough fuel to get back off the lunar surface. This was an incredible risk. Oh my gosh, such a dangerous risk there.

[00:31:47]Imagine that in some another uh interpretation by another artist.

[00:31:55]After uh stepping off the ladder and before 1 billion viewers, assuming the Soviets did bring along a TV camera, of course they would cuz they photographed him on his spacew walk with the TV camera. Leonov says something like, you know, one giant leap for socialism. Uh and haha, just kidding there. Uh but uh after a 4-hour moonwalk to collect rock and soil samples and leave behind a te robotic mini rover, why didn't we leave a little mini rover? Cuz we couldn't create one. It have been like the size of a a a refrigerator probably in those days and you couldn't take that with you. So good luck with that. But they would have tried something interesting.

[00:32:39]Uh Leonov blasts off to rendevous the Soyos. All right. There's no time for sleep when you're the only man on the moon. So imagine how lonely that would feel. You're not even in communication with with another cosminote on the moon with you or uh for a time your cosminaut going with you would be on the back side of the moon. That is something to experience. a human being on the surface of the moon completely out of contact.

[00:33:09]Well, yeah, he'd be talking to his comrades in in Star City, but uh uh and he did admit that he trained for this.

[00:33:19]Uh so there they're blasting off and uh certainly glad this didn't happen. And uh uh so uh the red the blood red flag of Russia emlazing with the infamous hammer and sickle remains a sentinel at the landing site for countless centuries to come and America senses defeat. Okay, in there.

[00:33:45]Now, the only good thing about this whole story and talking about red flags and such, of course, is I'm wearing scarlet and that's the best color.

[00:33:54]Scarlet and gray. The colors of Ohio State. So, also the colors that the US Space Force chose here. Oh, yeah. Let me that the US Space Force chose. All right. Uh to have this shirt printed on.

[00:34:08]All right. So, take that Chris Calli.

[00:34:11]He's And he's saying go blue. All right.

[00:34:14]So, I hope you like this little look at the Russian space program. Kind of a quick off the off-the cuff story here. I think I got another slide. Oh, yeah. The Lun Luna uh rover Luna Hod. Now, after we went to the moon from 73 to 77, something like that. Russia put not only three or four rovers on the moon, but they brought back three probes, landed on the moon, scooped up about a a couple ounces of lunar regulith, put them in a tube, rocketed them back to the Earth.

[00:34:47]So, that's something we've never done.

[00:34:48]And they have done some amazing things with robotics on the moon like we have on the uh Mars, but they abandoned it.

[00:34:56]And part of the reason is they didn't have money. Come to Shuttlefest and find out who gave them money. All right.

[00:35:02]Oops. I'm letting the cat out of the bag. But uh the Russian space program u uh did a lot of good things on Venus and the moon that we didn't do like land on both of those structures with rover with Venus with the stationary landers and the moon with rovers and several that stationary ones that sent back a couple ounces of lunar dirt there. So, um, ah, and I forgot to plug it up there. I all fairness, I wanted to put up a picture of some of the books that have been written about the American and Russian space program. The best overall is uh, the Soviet Union and space 1945 to 74 by Aie Sedit Sedit. Sediti sidiq iqi s i d iqi a massive authoritative and meticulously researched two volume work. Uh also available free ver ver v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v via NAS is the AI print out that I did do.

[00:36:11]Rockets and people by Boris Ch talk. Uh a four-part memoir by a top Soviet designer offering a firsthand account.

[00:36:21]Uh, the best narrative engaging reading is epic rivalry. The inside story of Soviet and American space race by Von Hardesty and Gene Iceman. Uh, and the best detailed technical one is Soviet and Russian lunar exploration by Brian Harvey. So, there you go everybody. I'm going to breeze through my May 8th show.

[00:36:46]Well, let's see here. Let's go over here and get this uh ending today's week with a surprise show because Marty's on the road and couldn't even do it remotely.

[00:36:56]And so there you had little space history as Anita's watching there for me and got us rolling. Thanks a lot, Anita.

[00:37:03]Uh we've had a slow day today too at the space museum. Shuttles of the month of May. We're going to land with one that was launched on May 7th, 1992.

[00:37:14]And that is one of my favorite ones. Uh let's go back here to say 10 shuttles were launched in the month. Uh Challenger and Colombia had none. All right. Discovery 2 Atlantis had five missions. When I go out there, she's a Mayb obviously when I go out there and see her uh and uh at the U Atlantis building at K Space Center.

[00:37:38]This was the first threeman EVA. It was a long mission almost nine days. we had on board there. I think I got the astronauts. Yes, I do.

[00:37:50]Uh, and this is one that we have the signed cap by Kathy Thornton of the walk out with the hats on. They had a lot of delays of this. Uh, commander was Dan Brandenstein. Fourth and last. All right. Yes, you got to know. I'm not uh the obvious of this is as I look for the book with the patches in it. All right. And uh let me go to 49 real quick here. Space fans to end your wonderful week. the maiden flight of Endeavor, the newest orbiter in the STS space transportation system fleet and the last to ever be built at about two billion dollars. Okay. in 1990s money.

[00:38:40]Uh the large sailing ship in the center is the HMS Endeavor Our R that the 18th century Royal Vessel, Royal Navy vessel Commander, Captain James Cook took on famous scientific voyages in the uncharted waters of the south of the Pacific Ocean. Uh and it honors the HMS. All right, the small stars set against the blue background. recall the US flag as well as the waves in the ocean. The flags flying from the ship's mass represent the schools that won the contest to name NASA's new shuttle endeavor. The blue and yellow is Senatoia Middle School in Mississippi and the green and white is Talahoo Tula Falls School in Georgia.

[00:39:30]Excuse me.

[00:39:32]Uh the artwork was produced by graphic artist Sean Collins to create guidance with guidance from the crew.

[00:39:41]And of course this base show soaring off the winds of the sailing ship there. Uh and um this was the first uh under Dan Golden, NASA director, and he said, "Please don't do anything crazy on this mission." Okay? And what' they do? A threeperson space walk. you're going to see here in a second that leading them out is Dan Brandenstein, his fourth and last. Kevin Chilton is the pilot. Kevin is Chile Chilton is over there uh on the in the far left uh the big smile born on my birthday. Beside the man to the left there is the Navy's f uh is the Coast Guard's first astronaut, Bruce Melnik, his second of two. Bruce is a good supporter of the American Space Museum.

[00:40:28]you might see him at Shuttlefest, uh, just running around there.

[00:40:34]Then you've got Peter Thet, uh, Richard Heb, and Tom Acres. And of course, the only girl is Kathy Thornton, KT, and I can't wait to see her at next week's astronaut Hall of Fame because uh, she's really a good one and loves the museum. The first EVA involving three astronauts. As you look at the launch, the first and second longest EVA to date, uh, 8 and 1/2 hours, the first shuttle mission to feature four extra vehicular activities as you see it lift off at 7:40 p.m. on May 7th, a nice twilight launch. U EVA time was, uh, over 25 hours. Uh the first shuttle mission requiring three rendevous with an orbiting spacecraft.

[00:41:26]The first mission uh attachment of a live rocket during orbiting satellite and the first use of a drag shoot during landing. There's the three EVA there. That's Acres. Uh who's going in the Hall of Fame next week? Richard and Peter Thet uh holding on to that baby. And it's everybody's going 17,500 miles an hour. And if somebody's going 17,495 miles an hour, then you got a problem.

[00:41:57]Something that's going to move around.

[00:41:59]All right, folks. That I I thought I had a drag shoot landing in there, and I guess I didn't. So, shuttle fest coming up here in five short weeks. Get your tickets and make arrangements. You will not be disappointed. We've got a lot of fun planned for you. So, uh, Anita, we did it. Thank you, Anita. And I'm going to um you see the the you see the button on the right that says stop or is there a big button right? But I'm just going to go out and then I'm going to walk over there and hit that >> end stream.

[00:42:31]>> End stream.

[00:42:32]>> That it. No.

[00:42:36]>> All right. I'm going to go over there.

[00:42:37]I'm going to sign off and I'll go over there and sign off. Okay. Everybody make sure we're do it right there. So, and thank y'all for watching this week. Our numbers are huge. It's all because of you that our space museum is thriving. I might start talking a little about astronomy this weekend. We'll see. Is the moon's in the morning sky and stargazers are going to be looking at those faint fuzzies around 9:30, 10:00.

[00:43:01]And the brightest star west after sunset is Venus. So, see y'all later. Mark Marquette saying have a great weekend and I can't wait to see you again to bridge the space between us.