Osobistości - wątek zbiorczy

[mss]

Były podobno kandydatury kobiety na to stanowisko!

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/18/22337787/biden-nasa-chief-choice-senator-bill-nelson

Some had hoped Biden would pick a woman to lead NASA, which has only been led by men in the past. Other people considered for the role included Melroy and Ellen Stofan, the director of the National Air and Space Museum, two people familiar with internal personnel discussions said. Stofan accepted a different position earlier this month as the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Science and Research.

[mss]

Chyba to dobry watek na taką osobistość.

https://spacenews.com/nelson-expected-to-be-nominated-for-nasa-administrator/

Były astronauta (niezawodowy) kandydatem na nowego administratora NASA.

Clarence William «Bill» Nelson (obecnie w wieku 78 lat) był uczestnikiem programu "Polityk w kosmosie" i odbył lot na pokładzie Columbii w styczniu 1986 (w misji STS-61C).

NewMan

Jeśli będzie powołany na to stanowisko to będzie najstarszym administratorem NASA w historii:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_administrators_and_deputy_administrators_of_NASA#Administrators

[NewMan]

Jeśli będzie powołany na to stanowisko to będzie najstarszym administratorem NASA w historii:

Starszym o dwa miesiące od samego prezydenta.
No ale skoro Joe Biden jest najstarszym prezydentem, to Bill Nelson może być najstarszym administratorem.

NewMan

[mss]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/19/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-bill-nelson-for-the-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration/

http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum38/HTML/002386.html

[mss]

Wszystko wskazuje, że drugi członek załogi misji STS-61-C Columbia/F-7 może zostać po
Charlesie Boldenie administratorem NASA.

[Orionid]

Will Bill Nelson be the next NASA administrator? Twitter raises that possibility
RACHAEL JOY   | Florida Today 23.02.2021


Bill Nelson at Cocoa Beach Astronaut Parade in 2019 as part of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. 


Then U.S. Rep. Bill Nelson flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia's STS-61C mission in January 1986. Astronaut Robert Gibson (lower right corner), commander, is surrounded by, counter-clockwise from upper right: astronaut Charles Bolden, pilot; Nelson, payload specialist; Robert Cenker, RCA payload specialist; and astronauts Steven Hawley, Franklin Chang-Diaz and George Nelson, all mission specialists.
https://eu.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2021/02/23/bill-nelson-next-nasa-administrator/4547251001/

Widespread support for Nelson nomination to lead NASA
by Jeff Foust — March 19, 2021


Bill Nelson, seen here at a September 2018 Senate hearing, has support for his nomination to lead NASA from members of Congress and the space industry. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s nomination of former senator Bill Nelson as the next administrator of NASA has won widespread support from both members of Congress and the broader space community.

The White House announced March 19 its formal intent to nominate Nelson, a Democrat who served three terms in the Senate from Florida, as NASA administrator. The announcement confirmed weeks of rumors that Nelson was the leading candidate for the job.

“Most every piece of space and science law has had his imprint, including passing the landmark NASA bill of 2010 along with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison,” the White House said in its statement, a reference to the 2010 NASA authorization act that Nelson and Hutchison, a Republican from Texas, authored after the Obama administration canceled the Constellation program. That bill instructed NASA to develop a new launch vehicle, the Space Launch System, and continue work on the Orion spacecraft, while also authorizing the commercial crew program that was an Obama administration priority. (...)
https://spacenews.com/widespread-support-for-nelson-nomination-to-lead-nasa/

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/03/19/biden-to-nominate-former-sen-bill-nelson-a-shuttle-veteran-as-nasa-administrator/

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/03/bill-nelson-biden-nasa-administrator/618333/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/science/nasa-bill-nelson.html

Posty w innych wątkach:
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=852.msg158918#msg158918
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=496.msg158919#msg158919 (3)

[Orionid]

Glynn Lunney 1936-2021


Former NASA flight director Glynn Lunney speaks to students in the historic Apollo Mission Control Center in July 2015. (NASA)

NASA Remembers Legendary Flight Director Glynn Lunney
Mar 20, 2021 RELEASE: J21-001 Kelly Humphries  Johnson Space Center, Houston


Standing at the flight director's console, viewing the Gemini-10 flight display in the Mission Control Center on July 18, 1966, are (left to right) William C. Schneider, Mission Director; Glynn Lunney, Prime Flight Director; Christopher C. Kraft Jr., MSC Director of Flight Operations; and Charles W. Mathews, Manager, Gemini Program Office. Credits: NASA

Legendary NASA Flight Director Glynn Lunney, 84, died Friday, March 19.

Lunney was a flight director for the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission, and was lead flight director for Apollo 7, the first crewed Apollo flight, and Apollo 10, the dress rehearsal for the first Moon landing, in NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston. He led the mission control team credited with key actions that made it possible to save three Apollo 13 astronauts aboard a spacecraft disabled on the way to the Moon.

Throughout his career, he was a key leader of NASA human spaceflight operations, beginning as a member of the original Space Task Group at NASA’s Langley Research Center established shortly after NASA was formed to manage America’s efforts to put humans into space. After moving to Houston, the task group eventually became the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.

“Glynn was the right person for the right time in history. His unique leadership and remarkably quick intellect were critical to the success of some of the most iconic accomplishments in human space flight,” said Johnson Director Mark Geyer. “Although he retired from the agency many years ago, he is forever a member of the NASA family.  While he was one of the most famous NASA alumni, he was also one of the most humble people I have ever worked with. He was very supportive of the NASA team and was so gracious in the way he shared his wisdom with us.”

Using the call sign “Black Flight,” he was selected in the Class of 1963 with John Hodge and Gene Kranz, and became NASA’s fourth flight director. Flight directors are responsible for leading teams of flight controllers, research and engineering experts, and support personnel around the world, and making real-time decisions critical to keeping NASA astronauts and missions safe and successful in space.

Lunney worked on the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle programs. He retired from NASA in 1985 as manager of the Space Shuttle Program, but continued to lead human spaceflight activities in private industry with Rockwell International and, later, United Space Alliance until his retirement in 1995.

At NASA, he also was a flight director for Apollo missions Apollo-Saturn-201, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, and 15. He served as lead flight director for Gemini missions 10 and 12, and was a flight director for Gemini missions 9 and 11.

He took on a leadership role in the planning and negotiations that led to the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) which culminated in the docking of an American Apollo and a Russian Soyuz spacecraft July 17, 1975. The effort led the way for today’s cooperative international efforts on the International Space Station.

One of the most notable events in his career came April 13, 1970, after an oxygen tank in the Apollo 13 service module exploded on the way to the Moon. His team reacted quickly and effectively to prepare the astronauts and their spacecraft to complete a safe-return trajectory around the Moon and return home safely. Under Lunney’s direction, the team innovated and worked with the astronauts to deliberately shut down the command module systems so that the lunar module could be used as a lifeboat for the crew during the journey home to Earth. His team’s work was widely credited with keeping the crew alive and safe while longer-term plans were developed for a successful reentry and splashdown.

Lunney received the Presidential Medal of Freedom as part of the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team.

In Lunney’s own words from his NASA oral history:

“I felt that the Black Team shift immediately after the explosion and for the next 14 hours was the best piece of operations work I ever did or could hope to do. It posed a continuous demand for the best decisions often without hard data and mostly on the basis of judgment, in the face of the most severe in-flight emergency faced thus far in manned space flight. There might have been a ‘better’ solution, but it still is not apparent what it would be. Perhaps, we could have been a little quicker at times but we were consciously deliberate.”

He was born Nov. 27, 1936, in Old Forge, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania.

Photo gallery: Glynn Lunney https://www.nasa.gov/content/glynn-lunney
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-remembers-legendary-flight-director-glynn-lunney

Glynn Lunney, flight director who led from 'trench' to the moon, dies


Flight director Glynn Lunney at his console in the Mission Control Center during an Apollo simulation exercise in 1965. (NASA)
Official NASA portrait of Glynn Lunney when he was serving as the U.S. technical director for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. (NASA)

March 19, 2021 — An engineer who was involved from the start in NASA's efforts to launch the first astronauts into space and who later led Mission Control through some of its most challenging and triumphant hours, flight director Glynn S. Lunney has died at the age of 84.

Lunney's death on Friday (March 19) was confirmed by NASA. A family friend said that Lunney died after a long illness.

"Glynn was the right person for the right time in history," Mark Geyer, director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement. "His unique leadership and remarkably quick intellect were critical to the success of some of the most iconic accomplishments in human spaceflight."

"While he was one of the most famous NASA alumni, he was also one of the most humble people I have ever worked with. He was very supportive of the NASA team and was so gracious in the way he shared his wisdom with us," said Geyer.

Lunney was working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as a co-op student in 1958, when he was recruited by the newly-formed NASA at the age of 22. The youngest member of the Space Task Group, he and his colleagues at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, were charged with figuring out how to send the first astronauts into space.

Initially, Lunney was assigned to develop the simulated missions that were used to train other flight controllers. His position for the early Project Mercury flights was at a remote tracking station.

"I was at the Bermuda station," he said in a 1999 NASA oral history interview. "Bermuda is 800 miles [1,300 km] or so out in the ocean away from Florida, where we launched [the missions], and the place where the vehicle went into orbit was about halfway in between."

"Since this was at the very horizon from the Cape [Canaveral, Florida] and going out of sight, there was some question about how well we could know whether the vehicle was in orbit or not. So I started off as a flight dynamics officer at the control center in Bermuda, and I was there for a number of the flights — both unmanned and manned."

After the 1962 launch of John Glenn on the first U.S. crewed mission to orbit Earth, Lunney worked the final three original astronaut missions from the Mercury Control Center in Florida, before becoming chief of the flight dynamics branch.

"We had a wonderful collection of characters," Lunney said. "We called the front row the 'trench.' I don't know who came up with that early on or what it even came from, but we called the front row the 'trench,' and the three console operators that were involved in that saw themselves as a team that was controlling all of the trajectory aspects, orbital mechanics aspects, of the flight."

In 1964, as the Gemini program was getting underway, Lunney was selected to become a flight director. One of the first four people to lead Mission Control, Lunney led the "Black team" (each flight director chose a color: Chris Kraft, John Hodge and Gene Kranz chose red, blue and white, respectively). After overseeing Apollo test flights, Lunney led his first shifts in the Mission Operations Control Room in the Mission Control Center at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (today, Johnson Space Center) for the Gemini 9 mission in 1966.

"So I came back, and several of us ... were the primary players, primary flight director team that operated on the last number of Gemini spacecraft when our senior leadership, represented by [Kraft], went over to start getting ready for Apollo," Lunney said. "The things that we got to do in Gemini really prepared the total operations team — the people in the control center, the astronauts and then the engineering team that supported that — that whole team of people came together doing the Gemini program and we did almost everything you could do in Earth orbit."

As NASA's focus turned to the moon, "Black Flight" led shifts for the first Apollo mission, Apollo 7; the first mission to orbit the moon, Apollo 8 (and, at around the same time, Lunney was named chief of the flight director's office); the dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing, Apollo 10; and then the historic first landing, Apollo 11, during which he oversaw the ascent from the moon and rendezvous with the command module in lunar orbit.

"Great time. I was — how old was I? I was 32, I guess, at the time we landed on the moon. I'd been doing this for eight years or so before that time, but — yes, I was kind of young at the time. We were all fired up, of course, the whole time, but events like that just supercharged that sense of energy and excitement about it. It was really powerful. Great stuff," he said.

It was his next mission as flight director, though, that Lunney called the best of his career.

Lunney and his team were just about to come on console for the evening shift on April 13, 1970, when the Apollo 13 crew radioed, "Houston, we've had a problem."


Glynn Lunney, "Black Flight," seen during the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970. Lunney called Apollo 13 the best of his career. (NASA)

"For me, I felt that the Black Team shift immediately after the explosion and for the next 14 hours was the best piece of operations work I ever did or could hope to do," Lunney said in his oral history. "It posed a continuous demand for the best decisions often without hard data and mostly on the basis of judgment, in the face of the most severe in-flight emergency faced thus far in manned spaceflight."

"We built a quarter-million mile space highway, paved by one decision, one choice, and one innovation at a time — repeated constantly over almost four days to bring the crew safely home. This space highway guided the crippled ship back to planet Earth, where people from all continents were bonded in support of these three explorers-in-peril," he said. "It was an inspiring and emotional feeling, reminding us once again of our common humanity. I have always been so very proud to have been part of this Apollo 13 team, delivering our best when it was really needed."

Lunney led his final shifts as a flight director during the Apollo 14 and Apollo 15 missions, before moving into management, serving as the technical assistant for Apollo to the director of flight operations and then becoming the technical director for the U.S. side of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project that was jointly flown with the Soviet Union in 1975.

Then, after heading up payload integration for the space shuttle, Lunney reported to NASA Headquarters in Washington, to serve as deputy associate administrator for spaceflight and acting associate administrator for space transportation operations. Lunney then returned to Houston to become shuttle program manager before retiring from NASA in 1985.

Glynn Stephen Lunney was born in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 27, 1936. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Detroit in 1958, when he saw his first drawing of what would become the Mercury capsule, igniting his desire to join NASA.

After his 27 years at the space agency, Lunney went to work for Rockwell, overseeing the division of the company building Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. He then worked on the space station before returning to the shuttle, becoming vice president and program manager for United Space Alliance (USA), a company equally owned by Rockwell (later, Boeing) and Lockheed Martin, that supported NASA's spaceflight operations contract.

For his service to the U.S. space program, Lunney was honored with the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, NASA Exceptional Service Medal and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom as a member of the Apollo 13 mission control team. In 2005, Lunney was bestowed the National Space Trophy from the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation.

Lunney is a co-author of the 2011 book, "From the Trench of Mission Control to the Craters of the Moon," which he wrote with his fellow members of the Gemini and Apollo-era flight dynamics branch. He wrote his own book, "Highways Into Space" in 2014.

Lunney was portrayed on screen by actor Marc McClure in the 1995 feature film "Apollo 13" and by actor Jackson Pace in the National Geographic series "The Right Stuff" for Disney+. Lunney appeared as himself in the 2017 feature-length documentary, "Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo."

Lunney is survived by his wife of 61 years, Marilyn Kurtz, and their four children, Jennifer; Glynn, Jr., Shawn and Bryan. The latter, Bryan, is NASA's first second-generation flight director.
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-031921a-flight-director-glynn-lunney-obituary.html

[Orionid]

Rhea Hurrle Allison Woltman (1928-2021)



Rhea Hurrle Allison Woltman 1928 - 2021



St. Augusta - Rhea Hurrle Allison Woltman, 92, of St. Augusta, Minnesota, took her final flight into the arms of her Savior on February 15, 2021. She passed away from natural causes at home surrounded by family.

Rhea, daughter of the late Leo and Ellanora (Ruehle) Hurrle, was born at home in Lynden Township, Minnesota, on November 6, 1928. She was raised on a farm and educated in a one-room schoolhouse. Her responsibilities on the farm nurtured a strong work ethic. From an early age, Rhea admired the skies and vowed to become a pilot. After teaching for two years, Rhea moved to Texas where she fulfilled that vow.

In 1960, Rhea was invited to participate in the secret Mercury project, where she underwent grueling physical examinations and a battery of tests with 12 other female pilots to become the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATS), now known as the Mercury 13. Rhea passed all of the tests and advanced as one of five to meet the requirements. The U.S. government shut down the women's program before they were ever allowed to fly a space mission.

Rhea married William "Jean" Allison in 1962. Rhea and her husband owned an aircraft brokerage business in Texas, and Rhea delivered planes to customers, in addition to transporting passengers and cargo all over North America, including Alaska, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Canada. Jean passed away in 1966. Rhea moved to Colorado Springs where she taught the cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Rhea married Leonard Woltman in 1972. Leonard passed away in 1990.

Rhea later became a Registered Parliamentarian, serving organizations and businesses and earning respect in her field throughout the U.S. In 2007, the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh conferred on Rhea and the remaining Mercury 13 astronauts honorary Doctor of Science degrees, recognizing them as pioneers in aviation history. In 2008, Rhea was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame for STEM/Aviation. Rhea also improved the city of Colorado Springs during her 18 years as a Rotary Club member. As a volunteer and philanthropist, she was an inspiration to those she met and all who came to know her.

Her beautiful life will be forever cherished by her family: Nethaline (Hope) Nothnagel, Francis and Marilyn Hurrle, Larry and Carol Hurrle, 35 nephews and nieces, many great-nephews and great-nieces, and even special great-great-nephews and great-great-nieces. She graced and was graced by many caregivers in her final years in Minnesota.

She was preceded in death by her parents Leo and Ellanora Hurrle, sisters Joan and Ora Rose and Rose's husband Jack Healy, brother Elwood and his wife Ellen Hurrle, husbands William "Jean" Allison and Leonard Woltman, and sister Hope's husband Erv Nothnagel.

Rhea was a generous woman to the end, donating her body to science. Therefore, there will be a burial service on the return of her remains at a later date.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/sctimes/name/rhea-woltman-obituary?pid=197858698

https://www.mercury13.com/rhea.htm

wiki

[mss]

Jim Lovell kończy dziś 93 lata. Kawał historii astronautyki.
Warto wspomnieć o nim.

[Orionid]

Jim Lovell kończy dziś 93 lata. Kawał historii astronautyki.
Warto wspomnieć o nim.

I jest obecnie jednym z 4. najstarszych żyjących kosmonautów i astronautów. Cała czwórka jest obecnie w wieku 93. lat.
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg155491#msg155491

[Orionid]

A new kind of right stuff
ESA history


Spacelab-1 Mission/Payload Specialists

In 1974, Europe set about recruiting its first astronauts. When the first Shuttle flight was still set for 1979, Spacelab was slated to be the seventh mission. It was originally assumed that four Europeans would fly with three Americans on this mission.

NASA began looking for a new type of astronaut called ‘payload specialists’. These would not be career astronauts, since they were being invited only to operate the experiments on Spacelab in the payload bay. They would have some generic astronaut training but mostly they would be familiarising themselves with the experiments to be flown on their mission.

In January 1977, NASA set the date for the first Spacelab mission as 15 July 1980, allowing ESA to initiate its first selection of astronauts on 28 March 1977. Each Member State went through its own selection procedure, working from common rules. For example, in France, 401 people applied and their numbers were reduced in stages to finally five (one of these being a certain Mr Jean-Jacques Dordain).

In summer 1977, NASA announced that two scientists would fly on the first Spacelab, which would last for one week, and one of these would be European.

By mid 1978, Member States had proposed 53 candidates, out of which four were retained: Ulf Merbold of Germany, Wubbo Ockels from the Netherlands, Claude Nicollier of Switzerland and Franco Malerba of Italy.

Three candidates were chosen in May 1978 to go on for NASA training, and one of these would be selected to accompany the US payload specialist. Merbold was selected as Payload Specialist 1 along with US astronaut Byron Lichtenberg as Payload Specialist 2. Ockels and US astronaut Michael Lampton would be back-ups.
https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/A_new_kind_of_right_stuff

[mss]

O jego byłej żonie astronautce Annie Fisher jest sporo informacji, ale dziś 75 urodziny obchodzi też były astronauta NASA z roku 1980 dr William Fisher.

HappyBirthday to former NASA astronaut William Fisher, a mission specialist on STS-51-I, acknowledged by many as the most successful Space Shuttle mission flown.

01.04. swoje 48 urodziny obchodzi były kosmonauta Siergiej Wołkow. Syn też byłego kosmonauty Aleksandra Wołkowa.
Pierwszy syn z rodziny kosmicznej, który odbył lot kosmiczny po swoim ojcu.

http://www.roscosmos.ru/30553/

S.A. Wołkow