SPACE PROGRAMS

 CANADA IN SPACE

 

• Cmdr. Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut and recent commander of the Space Station, is back on Earth after stepping out of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in Kazakhstan on Monday. He was in space for five months.

• Don't forget the CanadArm, which was developed by Canada and is vital to space exploration.

USA SPACE PROGRAM

• Too bad the US has abandoned most of its space program. A country can't wage a war and have a space program, too.

  • 1965 USA National Aeronautics and Space Administration

   

• There were some tragic events in USA space history, not the least of which was the fire in the cockpit of Apollo 1 on Jan. 27, 1967,when  three of the first group of NASA astronauts - Virgil (Gus) Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee - died during a routine ground test of the Apollo capsule,  and of course, the explosion of space shuttle Challenger which killed a teacher and all on board in 1986. In 2003 the Columbia broke apart, killing all astronauts on board, including an Israeli astronaut.

• Israeli astronaut killed as well as entire crew in 2003.

RUSSIAN TRIUMPHS AND TRAGEDIES

• Russia, too, has had its space catastrophes, perhaps not so highly publicized.
  
  
  • In April of 1961, a Russian named Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit Earth.
    
• Russian astronauts shot around the moon in 1967 and attempted to land on the moon before the well known American moon landing in 1969.
  
  • The Russian landing before the Americans got there in 1969 didn't come about, after several failures, although there are stories to the contrary.
  
  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  INDIA AND CHINA SPACE PROGRAMS

  • India and China have their space programs, as well as many other countries such as Britain, North Korea, and Iran, less publicized in the USA.

BREWSTER rockit space guy

 

Welcome home, Chris!!