October 29, 1998: John Glenn Returns to Space at Age 77

October 29, 1998: The Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on mission STS-95. Among its crew is John Glenn. He had been the 1st American to orbit the Earth in 1962, was wrapping up his 4th term as a U.S. Senator from Ohio, and was now, at 77, the oldest person ever to travel in space. Also among the crew is Pedro Duque, the 1st native of Spain to fly in space.

Glenn had been a fighter pilot in the Korean War, a squadron-mate of baseball legend Ted Williams. After the war, he set a speed record flying from coast to coast. Of the "Mercury 7" -- who called him "Mr. Clean the Marine" -- he was the oldest, and the one with the most flying experience.

Because Glenn was the 1st American in orbit, he ended up being celebrated far more than Alan Shepard, whose Mercury-Redstone 3 launch in 1961 made him the 1st American in space, because his capsule, Freedom 7, never got into orbit.

Following his return to Earth, Glenn received a ticker-tape parade in New York, and a welcome to the White House from President John F. Kennedy. He became so useful as an example of American excellence that they didn't let him fly in space again. This might not have been fair, but it became more logical in 1968, when Soviet astronaut (they used the term "cosmonaut") Yuri Gagarin, the 1st person in space and the 1st person to orbit the Earth, was killed in a test flight.

In 1964, he ran for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from Ohio, but dropped out when an injury interfered with his ability to campaign. He tried again in 1970, narrowly losing the primary. He tried again in 1974, and won, the 1st of 4 terms he would win. His opponents liked to say, "John, what on Earth have you done for us?" The voters of Ohio seemed to think he was doing enough. He ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 1984, but didn't get far.

On October 25, 1998, as he was retiring from the Senate, he finally returned to space, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, on mission STS-95. His fellow crewmembers: Air Force Colonels Curtis Brown and Steve Lindsey, mechanical engineer Stephen Robinson, physicians Scott Parazynski and Chiaki Mukai (the only woman on the crew), and the 1st astronaut from Spain, aeronautics engineer Pedro Duque. The mission lasted 10 days, and reported no problems.

Glenn was 77, at the time the oldest person ever to travel in space. This record would later be broken by several "space tourists," including William Shatner, the actor who played Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk, who was 90 years old when he finally reached "space, the final frontier" in real life, aboard Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin on October 13, 2021.

Glenn died in 2016, the last survivor of the Mercury 7.

*

October 29, 1998 was a Thursday. Baseball season had ended 8 days earlier, when the New York Yankees completed a 4-game World Series sweep of the San Diego Padres. There was one college football game: Brigham Young University (BYU) beat San Diego State, 13-0 at Cougar Stadium (now LaVell Edwards Stadium) in Provo, Utah.

The NBA team owners had locked the players out, and the season didn't start until February 5, 1999. There were 5 games played in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils beat the New York Islanders, 2-1 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins played to a tie, 1-1 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.

* The Ottawa Senators beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-1 at the Corel Centre in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata, Ontario. (It's now the Canadian Tire Centre. The town was absorbed into Ottawa proper in 2001.)

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-1 at the Kiel Center (now the Enterprise Center) in St. Louis.

* And the Colorado Avalanche beat the San Jose Sharks, 4-2 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

July 21, 2011: The Last Space Shuttle Mission

July 21, 2011: The Space Shuttle Atlantis touches down at the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, ending STS-135, the last shuttle mission, ending the program after 30 years.

It launched from the Cape Canaveral on July 8, with a crew of 4: Captain Christopher Ferguson, U.S. Navy; Colonel Douglas Hurley, U.S. Marine Corps; Colonel Rex Walheim, U.S. Air Force; and a civilian, Dr. Sandra Magnus, a thermochemical engineer. They docked at the International Space Station on July 10, and made a delivery, staying over until July 19. Aside from its planned status as the last shuttle mission, there was little to distinguish this mission from any other.

Here are the Shuttles, and their fates:

* Enterprise, OV-101, first flew on August 12, 1977, within Earth's atmosphere, but never actually flew into space. It was taken on an international tour. It was considered as Challenger's replacement, but this idea was discarded.

In 2003, it was put on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Házy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian Institution, at Dulles International Airport in the Washington suburb of Chantilly, Virginia, a facility to display aircraft too big to display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington. (Udvar-Házy, a Hungarian immigrant, is a billionaire who made his money in leasing aircraft, and donated the $66 million necessary to build the annex.) 

In 2012, Enterprise was moved to the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, as part of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City.

* Columbia, OV-102, first launched on April 12, 1981. It broke apart upon re-entry from a mission on February 1, 2003, killing all 7 astronauts. It was never officially replaced.

* Challenger, OV-099, first launched on April 4, 1983. It exploded shortly after launch for a mission on January 28, 1986, killing all 7 astronauts.

* Discovery, OV-103, first launched on August 30, 1984. In 2012, it took Enterprise's place on display at the Udvar-Házy Center.

* Atlantis, OV-104, first launched on October 3, 1985. In 2012, it was put on display at the John F. Kennedy Space Center, at Cape Canaveral, in Merritt Island, Florida.

* Endeavour, OV-105, first launched on May 7, 1992. Already under construction when Challenger exploded, it became that Shuttle's replacement. In 2012, it was put on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, in Exposition Park, adjacent to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Total flights: Discovery 39, Atlantis 33, Columbia 28, Endeavour 25, Challenger 10, Enterprise 5 flights, none into space itself.

The first replacement for the Shuttle program, the unmanned Artemis I, is planned for late Summer 2022. If all goes well, a manned Artemis II will launch in May 2024, and will loop around the Moon. If that succeeds, Artemis III will launch in 2025, and land human beings on the Moon for the 1st time since 1972.

UPDATE: Artemis I launched on November 16, 2022. Delays have pushed Artemis II back to February 2026. It will have a crew of 4, already selected, including the 1st woman to go to, if not set foot on, the Moon. Artemis III will launch no sooner than mid-2027.

*

July 21, 2011 was a Thursday. Only 8 of a possible 15 Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Tampa Bay Rays, 2-1 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. Evan Longoria's home run and Sam Fuld's triple enabled James Shields to outpitch CC Sabathia. Derek Jeter went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Mets lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2 at Citi Field.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Florida Marlins, 5-3 at what's now named Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Seattle Mariners, 7-5 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-2 at Target Field in Minneapolis.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Colorado Rockies, 9-6 at Coors Field in Denver.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-0 at Chase Field in Phoenix. Ian Kennedy pitched 7 innings of shutout ball, outpitching Zack Greinke.

* And the Los Angeles Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 1-0 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Jered Weaver pitched 7 innings of 7-hit shutout ball.

February 1, 2003: The Space Shuttle Columbia Is Destroyed

The crew of STS-107. Back row, left to right:

David Brown, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson and Ilan Ramon.

Front row, left to right: Rick Husband, Kalpana Chawla and William McCool.

February 1, 2003: The Space Shuttle Columbia is destroyed, breaking up upon re-entry at the conclusion of a mission.

It was the 28th spaceflight for the Columbia, the 1st Shuttle to fly in space, although not the 1st to be built.

The mission, labeled STS-107, was launched on January 16, 2003, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The crew were:

* Colonel Richard D. Husband, U.S. Air Force, mission commander, 46, from Amarillo, Texas.

* Captain David M. Brown, M.D., U.S. Navy, 46, a pilot and a surgeon, from Arlington, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.

* Captain Laurel Clark, U.S. Navy, 41, from Racine, Wisconsin.

* Colonel Ilan Ramon, Israeli Air Force, 48, from Beersheba, Israel.

* Commander William C. McCool, U.S. Navy, 41, from San Diego, California.

* Lieutenant Colonel Michael P. Anderson, U.S. Air Force, 43, born in Plattsburgh, New York, moved around a lot as the son of an Air Force officer, spent his high school years in Cheney, Washington, outside Spokane.

* Doctor Kalpana Chawla, Ph.D., 40, from Karnal, India, lived in Boulder, Colorado as a naturalized American citizen. The only civilian on board.

For Rick Husband, Kalpana Chawla and Michael Anderson, it was their 2nd spaceflight. For Willie McCool, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon, it was their 1st. Ramon and Chawla were each the 1st person from their countries of birth to fly in space.

At 1 minute, 21.7 seconds into the launch, a piece of foam broke off from the external fuel tank, and struck the reinforced carbon panels on the Shuttle's left wing. This damaged the Shuttle's thermal protection, needed to keep it from burning up upon re-entry.

They docked with the International Space Station, conducted experiments, and began their return to Earth on February 1. But the foam damage from the launch compromised the Shuttle's heat shield. The intense heat of re-entry caused the orbiter to break up, spreading debris over the States of Texas and Louisiana as it was heading for its intended landing at Cape Canaveral.

There would not be another Space Shuttle mission until July 26, 2005, when Discovery was launched on STS-114. (The numbers of the missions were often out of sequence.) The gap of 2 years, 5 months, 25 days wasn't quite as long as the gap between the destruction of the Challenger in 1986 and the next mission: 2 years, 8 months, 1 day.

*

February 1, 2003 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Football season was over: Super Bowl XXXVII had been played 6 days earlier, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beating the Oakland Raiders, 48-21. And the NHL was in its All-Star Break: The following day, the West beat the East, 6-5 at the Office Depot Center (now the FLA Live Arena) in the Miami suburb of Sunrise, Florida.

But there were 9 NBA games played that day:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, 107-100 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Detroit Pistons, 106-84 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

* The Washington Wizards beat the New Orleans Hornets, 109-104 at the MCI Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington. In the last few weeks of his career, Michael Jordan scored 45 points.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Miami Heat, 67-65 at the American Airlines Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Boston Celtics, 109-100 at the Conseco Fieldhouse (now the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Denver Nuggets, 122-100 at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Golden State Warriors, 116-107 at the America West Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Utah Jazz, 99-87 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Chicago Bulls, 90-77 at the KeyArena in Seattle.

And Arsenal beat Fulham, 2-1 at Highbury.

January 28, 1986: The Space Shuttle Challenger Is Destroyed

Top row, left to right: Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe,

Greg Jarvis and Judy Resnik.

Bottom row, left to right: Michael J. Smith,

Dick Scobee and Ron McNair.

January 28, 1986, 11:39 AM: The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes, 1 minute and 13 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing all 7 astronauts aboard.

The 10th mission for the orbiter, and the 25th Shuttle mission overall, it was America's 1st in-flight space travel tragedy. Previously, on January 27, 1967, a fire during a ground test of Apollo 1 led to the deaths of 3 astronauts; 6 other astronauts had been killed in plane test flight crashes; and the Soviet space program had lost 5, including 3 in a single spaceflight in 1971.

The flight had already been delayed twice, and the decision was made to launch despite temperatures being lower than ideal. Even Florida has some days that can be classified as Winter, and the ground temperature at launch was just 36 degrees -- still 15 degrees lower than any other Cape Canaveral launch, ever. The low temperature caused a failure in the "O-ring" seals, allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside, and ignite the external fuel tank.

The crew:

* Captain Gregory B. Jarvis, U.S. Air Force, mission commander, 41 years old, from Mohawk, in Central New York.

* Lieutenant Colonel Francis "Dick" Scobee, U.S. Air Force, 46, from Auburn, Washington, outside Seattle.

* Captain Michael J. Smith, U.S. Navy, 40, from Beaufort, North Carolina, on the Outer Banks

* Colonel Ellison S. Onizuka, U.S. Air Force, 39, from Kona, Hawaii.

* Doctor Judith A. Resnik, civilian engineer, 36, from Akron, Ohio.

* Doctor Ronald E. McNair, civilian physicist, 35, from Lake City, South Carolina.

* Christa McAuliffe, 37, from Framingham, Massachusetts, outside Boston. A social studies teacher at Concord High School in Concord, the capital of New Hampshire, she had won a contest to be a "teacher in space." This made her the face of the mission, and, by extension, its greatest tragedy.

It was the 2nd spaceflight each for Onizuka, McNair and Resnik. The others were each on their 1st. Onizuka was the 1st Asian-American to fly in space, and also the 1st person of Japanese ancestry to do so, for any country. McNair was the 2nd African-American in space, after Guion Bluford in 1983; Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, a pilot in the Cuban Air Force, was the 1st black person in space, aboard a Soviet mission in 1980.

Had the mission succeeded, McAuliffe would have been the 10th woman in space. Resnik was the 4th, following Soviets Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Sveltana Savitskaya in 1982, and American Sally Ride in 1983. Resnik was also the 1st Jewish American in space, and the 2nd of her faith to reach space, following the Soviets' Boris Volynov in 1969.

I was a junior at East Brunswick High School at the time. By a weird twist of events, one of our teachers had reached the semifinal round of the "teacher in space" project. I won't mention his name, because he later disgraced himself in a way I won't mention, either.

I had just come back from lunch, and was about to start my English class, when a friend ran up to me and said, "Mike, the Shuttle blew up!"

When the Columbia was the 1st Space Shuttle launched, in 1981, our local newspaper did a feature on myself and 2 other students at my elementary school who were particularly interested in spaceflight. It was the 1st U.S. spaceflight since the Apollo-Soyuz mission, 6 years earlier. It was the long-delayed next step in American spaceflight. It was a big deal.

But by 1986, Shuttle flights had become routine. No one even brought TV sets into classrooms to watch the launches anymore.

So when the friend said, "The Shuttle blew up!" I wasn't sure of what he was talking about. To me, it sounded like a code from a spy movie. He explained. The English teacher confirmed it. When the class ended, I went home, skipping the rest of the day. I sat in front of the TV set, watching it over and over again.

For my generation, born after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King -- and after the good news of the 1st Moon landing, and being old enough to watch but not understand the good-and-bad news of the resignation of President Richard Nixon -- it was our first event like that, our first "Where were you when... " moment, our first "Ran home from school and watched the same images on TV over and over again" event. Maybe it wouldn't have been, if Ronald Reagan, still President at this point, hadn't survived his assassination attempt in 1981.

But, for my generation, it would be that moment, until September 11, 2001. And, since that was a crime, as was the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021, the Challenger disaster remains our defining tragedy, even after the Columbia was similarly lost, 17 years to the week later.

I saw the replay of the launch, and I saw the turn, and a little over a minute in, someone at Mission Control said, "Challenger, go with throttle-up." And pilot Smith said, "Roger, go with throttle-up."

Before NATO standardized "phonetic alphabet," with "Romeo" meaning the letter R, "Roger" was used for "received," as in, "I have received and understood your last transmission." It's still used in flying today, both commercial and private. On military flights, "Roger that" is a common use. "Roger Wilco" means, "I have received and understood, and will comply."

But after Smith's acknowledgement, someone on board the orbiter said, "Uh-oh!" And then came the explosion. There was a big cloud of smoke, and only the 2 booster rockets emerged, flying uncontrollably. No orbiter. No external tank. They were in pieces. And Mission Control kept giving orders, because they were looking at their instruments, not their screens -- which, not that I knew it at the time, was exactly what they were supposed to do. They were looking at the "telemetry" coming in.

It was only when they received no response to multiple transmissions that they looked at their screens, and saw the cloud. Finally, somebody, in a calm monotone that seemed awfully cold to those of us who were watching this after the fact, made the most "You think?" statement of all time: "Flight control looking carefully at the situation. Obviously, a major malfunction."

When the crew compartment was found at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, it was intact, but it was determined that its emergency eject system was inoperable from the moment of the explosion. The astronauts probably died on impact with the water, knowing they were doomed. At least they didn't suffocate or drown.

Reagan was scheduled to deliver the State of the Union Address before a Joint Session of Congress that night. (The SOTU is usually delivered in late January or early February, either on a Tuesday night, or a Wednesday night, and this was a Tuesday night in late January.) The Address was postponed a week, to February 4. Instead, Reagan addressed the nation from the Oval Office of the White House. For all his flaws, he made a great "Comforter-in-Chief":

For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, ``Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy.'' They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us...

And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them...

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."

A commission later determined that the cold weather caused a key part of one of the Shuttle's booster rockets to fail. Florida usually doesn't get cold, but it was just 26 degrees Fahrenheit at the intended launch time of 9:38 AM. NASA waited for it to get warmer. It was 36 degrees at the 11:38 launch. Clearly, this was still not warm enough.

No American spaceflight has been launched at so low a temperature again. NASA took the time to get it right with the necessary parts, and did not launch again until September 29, 1988, when Discovery was launched.

*

January 28, 1986 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in the off-season. The NFL had finished its season 2 days earlier, with the Chicago Bears clobbering the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX at the Superdome in New Orleans.

Despite the tragedy, no games were postponed. There were 8 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Chicago Bulls, 118-111 at Madison Square Garden. Patrick Ewing led all scorers with 37 points. Michael Jordan was injured, and did not play.

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Golden State Warriors, 117-113 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Darryl Dawkins scored 26. Purvis Short scored 35 in a losing cause.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Indiana Pacers, 123-92 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 116-109 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.") Hakeem Olajuwon scored 21. Roy Hinson, from Franklin, Somerset County, New Jersey and Rutgers University, led all players on the night with 39, but it wasn't nearly enough.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 136-130 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. Kiki Vandeweghe scored 35 for the Blazers, but Walter Davis' 33 led the Suns to victory.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 125-115 at the Forum in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar led the way with 32 points.

* The Sacramento Kings beat the Denver Nuggets, 125-120 at the original ARCO Arena in Sacramento. Alex English scored 36 for the Nugs, but Terry Tyler scored 26 to lead the Kings to the win.

* And the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 106-99 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There were also 3 NHL games played that night:

* The New York Islanders beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 9-2 at the Nassau Coliseum. Brent Sutter scored 2 goals, his brother Duane Sutter scored 1, and Bryan Trottier scored 2.

* The Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins played to a tie, 2-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Washington Capitals, 7-0 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. Despite 3 big fights, Mark LaForest shut the Caps out.

And Jessica Ennis-Hill, the British athlete who won the Gold Medal in the heptathlon at the 2012 Olympics on home soil in London, was born on this day.