A Titan-Centaur rocket carrying the Viking 1 spacecraft launches from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Aug. 20, 1975. Viking 1 touched down on the red planet on July 20, 1976, becoming the first truly successful landing on Mars. Viking 1 was the first of a pair of complex deep space probes that were designed to reach Mars and to collect evidence on the possibility on life on Mars.
Voyager 2 launched on Aug. 20, 1977, about two weeks before the Sept. 5 launch of Voyager 1. Why the reversal of order? The two were sent on different trajectories, and Voyager 1 was put on a path to reach its planetary targets, Jupiter and Saturn, ahead of Voyager 2.
Both lovely missions, although I've always been more enamored of the latter because it visited my favorite planet, Jupiter. I guess I was also more aware of the Voyager spacecraft since they launched and started sending photos and data when I was a bit older.
I took a summer astronomy class at the University of Toledo when I was a lad, which was held in the school's planetarium. Really fun all around (got to see sunspots through a telescope and filter!), but I was most captivated when we watched the Great Red Spot spinning on a huge projector screen, thanks to Voyagers 1 & 2. That was even before Cosmos.
We live in a pretty cool universe, and at a pretty cool time when we've gotten a chance to know it a little bit better. Hope we continue to survive as a species so we can learn more...
No comments:
Post a Comment