Apollo Drop Testing
Drop testing for the Apollo capsule’s return to earth. Cool guys do look at explosions, apparently. (vía 14 | From NASA’s Archives, 50 Amazing Photos Of The Apollo Moon Missions | Co.Design: business innovation design)
Inside Project LOLA
Test subject sitting at the controls: Project LOLA or Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach was a simulator built at Langley to study problems related to landing on the lunar surface. It was a complex project that cost nearly $2 million dollars. (vía 13 | From NASA’s Archives, 50 Amazing Photos Of The Apollo Moon Missions | Co.Design: business innovation design)
Hand-Painted Simulation
Artists used paintbrushes and airbrushes to recreate the lunar surface on each of the four models comprising the LOLA simulator. (vía 12 | From NASA’s Archives, 50 Amazing Photos Of The Apollo Moon Missions | Co.Design: business innovation design)
LOLA Simulator
This was a 20-foot sphere which simulated for the astronauts what the surface of the moon would look like from 200 miles up. Project LOLA or Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach was a simulator built at Langley to study problems related to landing on the lunar surface. (vía 11 | From NASA’s Archives, 50 Amazing Photos Of The Apollo Moon Missions | Co.Design: business innovation design)
Tunnel Vision
The MORL-Saturn IB launch combination undergoes aerodynamic testing in the 8-Foot Transonic Tunnel in October 1965.” Published in James R. Hansen, Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center From Sputnik to Apollo, (Washington: NASA, 1995), p. 302. (vía 10 | From NASA’s Archives, 50 Amazing Photos Of The Apollo Moon Missions | Co.Design: business innovation design)
Night Practice
Lunar landing at night at Lunar Landing Research Facility (LLRF). (vía 9 | From NASA’s Archives, 50 Amazing Photos Of The Apollo Moon Missions | Co.Design: business innovation design)
Test subject wearing the pressurized “space” suit for the Reduced Gravity Walking Simulator located at the Lunar Landing Facility. The purpose of this simulator was to study the subject while walking, jumping or running. (vía 4 | From NASA’s Archives, 50 Amazing Photos Of The Apollo Moon Missions | Co.Design: business innovation design)
Lunar Rover, Driving School
Two members of the prime crew of the Apollo 15 lunar landing mission collect soil samples during a simulation of lunar surface extravehicular activity in the Taos, New Mexico, area. Astronaut James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot, is using a scoop. Astronaut David R. Scott (right), commander, is holding a sample bag. On the left is a Lunar Roving Vehicle trainer. (vía 44 | From NASA’s Archives, 50 Amazing Photos Of The Apollo Moon Missions | Co.Design: business innovation design)
Prime crew for the Apollo VII mission practice water egress procedures with full-scale boilerplate model of their spacecraft. In the water at right is Astronaut Edward H. White foreground and Astronaut Roger B. Chaffee. In raft near the spacecraft is Astronaut Virgil I. Grissom. NASA swimmers are in the water to assist in the practice session that took place at Ellington AFB, near the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston. (vía 16 | From NASA’s Archives, 50 Amazing Photos Of The Apollo Moon Missions | Co.Design: business innovation design)
NASA image acquired April 18 - October 23, 2012
This new image of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012. The new data was mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide a realistic view of the planet.
The nighttime view was made possible by the new satellite’s “day-night band” of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as gas flares, auroras, wildfires, city lights, and reflected moonlight. In this case, auroras, fires, and other stray light have been removed to emphasize the city lights.
“Night time imagery provides an intuitively graspable view of our planet,” says William Stefanov, senior remote sensing scientist for the International Space Station program office. “They provide a fairly straightforward means to map urban versus rural areas, and to show where the major population centers are and where they are not.”
Named for satellite meteorology pioneer Verner Suomi, NPP flies over any given point on Earth’s surface twice each day at roughly 1:30 a.m. and p.m. The polar-orbiting satellite flies 824 kilometers (512 miles) above the surface, sending its data once per orbit to a ground station in Svalbard, Norway, and continuously to local direct broadcast users distributed around the world. The mission is managed by NASA with operational support from NOAA and its Joint Polar Satellite System, which manages the satellite’s ground system.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data provided courtesy of Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center). Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, and the Department of Defense. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.
Instrument: Suomi NPP - VIIRS
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
Black Marble - Africa, Europe, and the Middle East (por NASA Goddard Photo and Video)
