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Apollo 11 50th anniversary: Events near Tulsa
In addition to watching commemorations on television and online, Tulsans have several options nearby and within a day's drive for remembering the 50th anniversary of mankind's first steps on the moon. The 2019 Oklahoma Aviation and Space Trail links the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, the Oklahoma History Center in...
Apollo 11 50th anniversary: Video, audio, and documents from 1969 and today
For folks of my age and older, watching men walk on the moon for the first time was an unforgettable thrill. Happily, through the wonders of the internet, there are many ways you can relive that experience and share it with the Gen Xers and later generations that missed...
Apollo 8: From the Moon at Christmas, 50 years ago
A half-century ago, three American astronauts became the first humans to orbit the moon. On Christmas eve, during a global broadcast estimated to have been heard by a quarter of the Earth's population, the crew of Apollo 8 -- Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders -- read from the...
Apollo 13: 45th anniversary
We often speak of scientific 'miracles' - forgetting that these are not miraculous happenings at all, but rather the product of hard work, long hours and disciplined intelligence. The men and Women of the Apollo XIII mission operations team performed such a miracle, transforming potential tragedy into one of the...
What's on your family travel "bucket list"?
You've heard of a "bucket list" -- the list of places you want to visit, experiences you want to have, tasks you want to accomplish before you "kick the bucket." But there are deadlines other than death that deserve a list. On my recent extended business trips, I've made a...
Gene Kranz: Obama "wrote the epitaph for manned space flight"
I saw an article today that made me aware of a missed opportunity. Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the safe return to Earth of Apollo 13, and the Cosmosphere -- just a short four hours from Tulsa in Hutchinson, Kansas, and home to the mission's command module, Odyssey, hosted...
Apollo 11 -- forty years ago
I was five years old, but I got to stay up late to watch the moon walk. We were at my grandparents' house in Nowata. My grandpa sold and repaired TVs, radios, and appliances (Johnny's Electronics), so he had a color TV. (We wouldn't have one for a few years...
Oklahoma roundup 2009/07/16
Local links of interest: A bunch of new posts up on Choice Remarks, the blog of the Oklahoma school choice movement, including a story about a left-leaning civil rights organization labeling teachers' unions "implacable foes of reform" and a survey of 1200 likely Oklahoma voters, 83% of whom say they'd...
50th anniversary first successful American space launch
On January 31, 1958, the U. S. launched Explorer 1 into orbit, America's first successful satellite launch. The Soviets had already launched two Sputniks, including one with the dog Laika. Vanguard, our first attempt at matching the USSR, crashed and burned in December 1957. We could have beaten Sputnik into...
On the fifth anniversary of the Islamofascist attacks on America
It's been on my mind all day, but I'm only just now getting the chance to sit down and collect my thoughts about the events of September 11, 2001. Hot Air has clips of CNN's coverage from the morning of 9/11. There's something about seeing a repeat of the live...
Failure is not an option
We've been enjoying this evening's programming on the History Channel: "Failure Is Not an Option", two two-hour documentaries on the U. S. manned spaceflight program, as told by the men and women in Mission Control. The first program covers the beginnings through the end of Project Apollo; the second covers...
<i>Angle of Attack</i>: The engineering side of the space race
Just finished reading a fascinating book on Project Apollo, one of a collection of books on the U. S. manned space program that my wife gave me. Angle of Attack by Mike Gray, published by Penguin in 1992, tells the story of the effort to reach the moon as it...
Fall break
The beginning of this week was fall break at Joe's school. We had considered a trip to Silver Dollar City, but we learned it wasn't open on Monday and Tuesday this time of year, so we decided to make day trips and visit places around Oklahoma. The failure of our...
Most important considerations in planning Tulsa's future
About a year ago, I responded to a questionnaire about the Mayor's Vision Summit, for which I served as a facilitator. I came across my reply today, and much of it still seems relevant. (My entire response, along with the responses of others, is in the archive of the old...
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