Nasa where is santa

The three astronauts, who orbited the moon 10 times over the course of 20 hours, returned to a hero's welcome and were honored as Time Magazine's "Men of the Year" for That year of turmoil — in Vietnam, eastern Europe, and the streets of the United States — ended with a journey where no one had gone before. The dicey mission was picture perfect. Showing only a portion of the Earth as it rose above the arc of a colorless moon, the image became the signature picture of both the Apollo program and the burgeoning environmental movement.

Everyone wanted to meet them, touch them, hear them. When conceived, Apollo 8 was to be a thorough test of the lunar module. However, problems with the fragile and finicky lander were turning into an engineering nightmare.

A final version of the machine that would lower two astronauts to the surface would not be ready until Rather than use the launch for something that had mostly been done, why not leapfrog the planned sequence of flights and send the astronauts to the moon? NASA needed confirmation that its overall concept had no unseen flaws and that the ground personnel were ready.

Although every mission up to the moon landing was to some degree a test flight, the revised Apollo 8 was an order of magnitude greater than any that had been done to date. Although all the hardware had been tested successfully except for the Lunar Module its weight was replaced by a dummy stand-in , this would be the real deal. When Borman told his wife Susan about the redesigned mission, she was frightened.

The rushed training period was not normal for NASA. As a longtime veteran of the spaceflight family, she knew immediately this was not just another test mission. Kraft asked a question of his own: Did she want a straight answer or simply words of encouragement?

The truth, she replied. The fear was not unfounded, even for those who long ago accepted the risk involved. No human had ever left Earth orbit. The early morning launch on Dec. All the modifications to the three rocket stages and the weeks of intensive testing had done the job. Moments later the S-IVB third stage fired up. The speed of the spacecraft increased fourfold during the five-minute burn. It passed through the Van Allen radiation belts and was on its way to the moon.

With the second hurdle cleared, the crew settled in for an uneventful trip of two and a half days. In their down time, of which there was plenty, they hosted two TV broadcasts that made up in novelty what they lacked in drama. Of course, nobody wanted drama anyway. The third hurdle came when the CSM engine had to fire up and place it in orbit around the moon. The crew would be out of radio contact with Mission Control when the burn took place, so no one back in Houston would know whether the little spacecraft was in some crazy orbit or smashed into the surface, the likely results of an engine burn too short or long.

Borman, Lovell and Anders, each an experienced military pilot before becoming an astronaut, went over their checklist before igniting the engine at 69 hours, 8 minutes and 16 seconds after liftoff. The astronauts later said it was the longest four minutes of their lives.

But at the precise moment, with their fate on the line, the engine shut off. The CSM was now in an elliptical orbit around the moon.

For them, the wait was an agonizing 33 minutes before the crackling radio came to life. Somehow it worked just as drawn up. For the next 20 hours, the little spaceship ovaled around the moon, allowing those on board to take thousands of photographs and do another TV broadcast, this one on Christmas Eve. They described their up-close view of the lifeless lunar landscape, the void surrounding it, and the blue planet in the distance.

The crew closed by taking turns reading the first 10 verses of Genesis. For those watching back home, it was an emotional moment. But when it was done, the crew had one final, crucial bit of business.

The SPS engine of the service module had to fire for about three and a half minutes — the Trans Earth Injection — to pull the craft out of lunar orbit for the return cruise.

Soon the crew was once more out of radio contact. Mission Control again waited anxiously. They should hear something in about a quarter of an hour. It seemed like 10 times that. Around the minute mark, Mission Control tried raising them. Still, it's great to see Santa wearing a spacesuit helmet in his open sleigh, though that appears to be just an extra precaution. An AGI spokesperson assured Space. Christmas fun aside, it is a landmark year for the International Space Station.

Not only is the the 20th anniversary of crewed operations the first crew took up residence in , but also marked the first year that astronauts flew to the space station on a private spacecraft.

That mission was followed by the Crew-1 launch on November , which sent four astronauts to the station as part of the Expedition 64 mission. The International Space Station is the largest human-made structure in space and has been in orbit since construction began in The first crew, Expedition 1, arrived at the station in November Since then, rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts have kept the station continuously crewed for two decades.

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Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.