This is video of the Moon, Mars, and Venus setting closely together in the sky on February 20th, 2015. The video is time compressed from about 40 minutes to around 8 minutes. Because there is not much noticeable movement in the first four minutes, I put together a tribute to all the spacefarers who have made the ultimate sacrifice to explore space up to the present. The last four minutes are just the Moon, Mars, and Venus, setting behind some trees in a park in North Central Florida. Skip to about 4:10 if you aren't interested in a sermon about long term public investment in pure science. Sources for still photos are below the fold. Sorry, they are in no particular order.
Transcript of visual slides:
http://earthsky.org/...
Since 1959
between six different countries
123 missions to the Moon
of various types
have been attempted.
Fifty six failed...
The pursuit benefited
humankind in ways
we could scarcely
have imagined.
Between 1960 and 2011
a total of 55 attempts
were made to
probe Mars.
Twenty seven failed.
The Successes have
been spectacular.
Forty two attempts
have been made
to probe Venus.
Eighteen
failed.
Successfully
Probing the hot, harsh,
high pressure, acidic
landscape of Venus is
one of mankinds greatest
achievements
Thirty two spacefarers
have lost their lives
in the exploration
of space
Nineteen died from
malfunctions in flight
to or from space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Soviet Union: Vladimir Komarov - Soyuz 1
United States: Michael J. Adams - X-15 Flight 3-65-97
Soviet Union: Georgi Dobrovolski -Soyuz 11
Soviet Union: Viktor Patsayev -Soyuz 11
Soviet Union: Vladislav Volkov -Soyuz 11
(Among the pallbearers was astronaut Tom Stafford, Commander of Apollo 10. July, 1971.)
STS-51-L Challenger
United States: Greg Jarvis
United States: Christa McAuliffe
United States: Ronald McNair
United States: Ellison Onizuka
United States: Judith Resnik
United States: Michael J. Smith
United States: Dick Scobee
STS-107 Columbia
United States: Rick D. Husband
United States: William McCool
United States: Michael P. Anderson
United States: David M. Brown
United States: Kalpana Chawla
United States: Laurel B. Clark
Israel: Ilan Ramon
Thirteen perished
during
training or testing.
Soviet Union: Valentin Bondarenko
United States: Theodore Freeman
United States: Elliot See - Gemini 9
United States: Charles Bassett - Gemini 9
United States: Virgil "Gus" Grissom - Apollo 1
United States: Edward H. White - Apollo 1
United States: Roger Chaffee -Apollo 1
United States: Clifton C. Williams
United States: Robert Lawrence
Soviet Union: Yuri Gagarin - Soyuz 3
Soviet Union: Vladimir Seryogin - Soyuz 3
Russia: Sergei Vozovikov
United States: Michael Alsbury - (SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise crash during test flight)
As many as 237 (
over and above the thirty two listed above. Figures on a rocket crash in a town in China are hotly contested. If only six actually died the figure is about 143 fatalities. An overall figure is hard to estimate, however, because of incidents involving national security of all of the space faring nations)
technician and civilians
around the world
have died because
of various mishaps
related to
space travel.
Today,
Civilian explorers
are planning to leave Earth
using private funds and
everything we learned
from their sacrifice.
And... Long term public investment in Pure Science!
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
http://historicspacecraft.com/...
The first successful flyby of the Planet Venus was accomplished by Mariner 2 in 1962.
In 1970, the Soviet Venera 7 lander became the first probe to return data from the surface of Venus. Later Venera landers would return images from the surface.
Challenger crew cabin
http://clikhear.palmbeachpost.com/...
Funeral for soiuz 11
http://www.reddit.com/...
Apollo 13 damage
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/...
Appolo 15 car and astonaut
http://www.nycaviation.com/...
Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong Lunar Landing Test Vehicle (LLTV) Crash
Launch failure
http://www.zerognews.com/...
china moon
http://media.newindianexpress.com/...
and
http://www.sbs.com.au/...
Antares failure
https://tribkcpq.files.wordpress.com/...
commercial resupply failure
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/...
Proton failure
http://www.parabolicarc.com/...
vanguard explosion
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/...
Russian escape rockets firing
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/...
Liberty bell 7
http://users.mw.net/...
Mars exploration family portrait
http://utprosim.com/...
picture from mars
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/...
nasa pict from mars
http://www.nasa.gov/...
tire tracks on mars
http://img.thesun.co.uk/...
Mars nasa 1
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/...
Nasa maven
http://www.independent.co.uk/...
mars hubble
http://dic.academic.ru/...
Venus
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/...
gal venus
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/...
lightning on venus
http://www.nasa.gov/...
more lightning on venus
http://www.great-galaxy.ru/...
pict of venus
http://www.spaceanswers.com/...
Russian venus probe
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/...
vega probe (venus-Halley's commet)
http://historicspacecraft.com/...
genesis drop
http://i.space.com/...
Galileo prep
http://www.wired.com/...
Magellan Venus probe
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/...
Number of nasa unmanned missions – more than 1000
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
A total of 538 people from 36 different countries have been launched into space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Virgin Galactic
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/...
SpaceX
http://static3.businessinsider.com/...
ARCA
http://www.arcaspace.com/...
Armadillo aerospace
http://i.space.com/...
http://www.newscientist.com/...
Bigelow Aerospace
http://spacenews.com/...
Nedelin explosion
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/...
MA1 capsule
http://spacemedicineassociation.org/...
Chinese rocket disaster
http://qingyuan.people.com.cn/...
Challenger crew
http://i.space.com/...
Columbia crew
http://www.spacetoday.org/...
Apollo 1 crew
http://thevirtualastronaut.com/...
Vladimir Komarov
http://static.tumblr.com/...
michael j. adams
http://upload.wikimedia.org/...
Valentine B.
Valentin Bondarenko
Solar cells
http://images.wisegeek.com/...
Water purifier
http://watseco.com/...
Improved radial tires
http://forum.pclayer.com/...
Artificial limbs
http://www.g3sky.co.uk/...
scratch resistant lenses
http://spinoff.nasa.gov/...
infrared thermometer
http://img.diytrade.com/...
Ventricular assist
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/...