The Hasselblad

By the end of Project Mercury, Hasselblad cameras such as this one, used in the Apollo 11 command module, became the standard for still photography on American space missions.  Known for their high quality construction and ease of use, the electric Swedish-made cameras featured a motor-driven mechanism that prepared the film and shutter when the camera was activated. Hasselblad cameras could be modified for use inside the spacecraft or on the lunar surface, with easily detachable black and white or color film magazines.

HT: Gerald at KA-CHING!

Ambassador of Exploration Award award goes to Alan Shepard

Admiral Alan Shepard (1923-1998), the former Naval Aviator commands Apollo 14, his second spaceflight since becoming the first American in space during a 15 minute flight in 1961 [NASA/Apollo 14 Surface Journal].

Daniel Baxter
AvStop.com

NASA will posthumously honor Alan B. Shepard Jr., the first American astronaut in space and who later walked on the moon, with an Ambassador of Exploration Award for his contributions to the U.S. space program.

Shepard's family members will accept the award on his behalf during a ceremony at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 28, at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum, located at 74 Greenbury Point Road in Annapolis, Md.

His family will present the award to the museum for permanent display. NASA's Chief Historian Bill Barry will represent NASA at the event, which will include a video message from agency administrator Charles Bolden.

Shepard, a 1945 graduate of the Naval Academy, was one of NASA's original seven Mercury astronauts selected in April 1959. On May 5, 1961, he was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft on a suborbital flight that carried him to an altitude of 116 miles.

Shepard made his second spaceflight as the commander of Apollo 14 from Jan. 31 to Feb. 9, 1971. He was accompanied on the third lunar landing by astronauts Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell.

Read the full story HERE.

Thomas J. O'Malley

Patrick Peterson
Florida Today

Cocoa Beach — Legendary space industry engineer Thomas J. O’Malley, 94, died Friday evening shortly after a phone call from Mercury astronaut and former U.S. Sen. John Glenn, who O’Malley launched into space by pushing a button.

O’Malley displayed the button in the den of his Cocoa Beach home.

Daughter Kathleen O’Malley said the conversation between Glenn and her dad on Friday was brief, but she related hearing O’Malley say “Hello, John Glenn” to the space pioneer.

O’Malley was called to the human spaceflight program in 1961, while working for the Convair division of General Dynamics, where he was a test engineer for the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile, according to family historian Cornelia Dean, O’Malley’s niece. The Atlas had experienced a series of launch pad explosions.

He was “Convair’s toughest test conductor,” Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton wrote in “Moon Shot” in 1994.

Read the story, HERE.

Astronauts pay respects to 'Space Chimps'

From Left to Right, Space Chimp Dana, used for U.S. Air Force research
in the 1960's; STS-1 co-pilot Bob Crippen and 'Aurora 7'
Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter
on visit to Fort Pierce (FL) animal rescue facility

John Zarrella CNN - The chimpanzees could sense something was different.

Most days, the only people they see on their island habitats are their caretakers. But on Thursday afternoon, the chimps got a special visit from reporters and camera crews, along with two men who share a unique bond with the animals.

The place was a sanctuary run by Save the Chimps, a nonprofit dedicated to providing a permanent home for chimpanzees rescued from research laboratories, NASA facilities and other sources.

The men were astronauts Scott Carpenter and Bob Crippen, two heroes of the U.S. space program. And the chimpanzees -- some of them, anyway -- were veterans of early test flights by NASA and the U.S. military.

"We're paying them back for their service," said Carpenter, one of NASA's original Mercury Seven astronauts and the second American to orbit the Earth. He toured the sanctuary with Crippen, who piloted Columbia on the first space shuttle flight in 1981.

See the Story HERE.