A Day in Astronomy: Launch of Ranger 4 Lunar Probe

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Image (Credit): The Ranger 4 problem. (NASA/JPL)

On this day in 1962, the United States launched the Ranger 4 lunar probe from Cape Canaveral. Its mission was to photograph the lunar surface, place scientific equipment on the Moon, and perform other tests before crashing into the surface of the Moon. A computer glitch caused the probe to crash on the far side of the Moon before it could send back any useful data. Nonetheless, it was the first US spacecraft to reach another moon or planet (the Soviets had reached the Moon in 1959) as well as the first spacecraft to reach the far side of the Moon.

NASA launched a total of nine probes to the Moon under the Ranger program, with the last missions – Rangers 7,8, and 9 – being successful. Rangers 1 and 2 never left Earth orbit, while Rangers 3 and 5 missed the moon altogether. As noted above, Ranger 4 made it to the Moon, but not where is was supposed to land. And Ranger 6 made it to the Moon, but experienced a camera failure.

The Ranger missions set the stage for the later Apollo missions, which allowed the US to put the first man on the Moon.

Note: This NASA paper, Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger, provides greater detail on the earlier missions.

A Day in Astronomy: Birth of Wernher von Braun

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Image (Credit): Wernher von Braun (center) with President John F. Kennedy discussing the Saturn Launch System. (NASA)

On this day in 1912, Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was born in Wyrzysk (once German, now Polish). He became an aerospace engineer for both the Germans during World War II as well as the Americans following the war.

Wernher von Braun designed the V-2 rocket that terrorized Great Britain during the war. He used that knowledge to assist NASA with the Saturn V rocket that became the backbone of the Apollo Moon missions.

In a speech on the eve of the Apollo 11 launch, he stated:

If our intention had been merely to bring back a handful of soil and rocks from the lunar gravel pit and then forget the whole thing, we would certainly be history’s biggest fools. But that is not our intention now—it never will be. What we are seeking in tomorrow’s [Apollo 11] trip is indeed that key to our future on earth. We are expanding the mind of man. We are extending this God-given brain and these God-given hands to their outermost limits and in so doing all mankind will benefit. All mankind will reap the harvest…. What we will have attained when Neil Armstrong steps down upon the moon is a completely new step in the evolution of man.

This was only 24 years after the end of World War II. He came a long way from his days of bombing his fellow citizens in Europe.

More than 50 after the last Apollo launch we are still trying to “reap the harvest” started by those earlier missions.

A Day in Astronomy: Galileo Warned Away from Heliocentrism

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Image (Credit): Portrait of Galileo by Robusti. (Royal Museum Greenwich)

On this day in 1616, on behalf of Pope Paul V, Cardinal Bellarmine ordered Galileo Galilei to abandon his position on the Earth moving around the Sun. The same year saw the banning of Nicholas Copernicus’ book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, which also theorized a heliocentric system. All of this was still 17 years before the formal sentencing of Galileo leading to his house arrest for the rest of his life.

It wasn’t until 1992, following an investigation initiated by Pope John Paul II, that the Catholic Church acknowledged its unfair persecution of Galileo. As The New York Times noted on October 31, 1992:

With a formal statement at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Saturday, Vatican officials said the Pope will formally close a 13-year investigation into the Church’s condemnation of Galileo in 1633. The condemnation, which forced the astronomer and physicist to recant his discoveries, led to Galileo’s house arrest for eight years before his death in 1642 at the age of 77.

And to think we complain about the slow pace of government decisions in modern times.

A Day in Astronomy: Birth of Edgar Allan Poe

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Image (Credit): Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” in Jules Verne’s “Edgar Poe et Ses Oeuvres.” (Musée des Familles magazine from Pari in 1864, courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France)

On this day in 1809, Edgar Poe was born in Boston, MA. “Allan” was added later as his middle name after he lost both parents and was taken in by the Allan family. He would only live for 40 years, but in that short time he created a wealth of stories that are still fresh in the minds of all of us, be it The Raven or The Fall of the House of Usher.

While many may think only of Gothic fiction when hearing the name Edgar Allan Poe, you should add astronomy to that list given Mr. Poe 1835 short story titled The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall. In this tale, his main character spends 19 days traveling to the Moon in a balloon and sends back a letter detailing his exploits.

This simple story may have inspired the Great Moon Hoax in 1935 about a massive telescope sighting strange beasts on the lunar surface, including zebras and unicorns. More importantly, it may have inspired Jules Verne to write From the Earth to the Moon, which was published in 1865.

The short story itself is somewhat dry and filled with calculations, as is the case with From the Earth to the Moon. As far as Mr. Pfaall’s findings once arriving on the Moon, you will learn little about the lunar inhabitants he discovered nor the Moon itself (you can read the entire story here).

This is just an example of how he defines the Moon’s inhabitants:

I had barely time to observe that the whole country, as far as the eye could reach, was thickly interspersed with diminutive habitations, ere I tumbled headlong into the very heart of a fantastical-looking city, and into the middle of a vast crowd of ugly little people, who none of them uttered a single syllable, or gave themselves the least trouble to render me assistance, but stood, like a parcel of idiots, grinning in a ludicrous manner, and eyeing me and my balloon askant, with their arms set a-kimbo.

While it’s not The Martian Chronicles, it still represents Poe’s curiosity about lunar travel distilled into a single tale. It also became the starting point for all of the fantastic science fiction that followed to this day.

A Day in Astronomy: The Birth of Philip K. Dick

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Credit: Gollancz

On this day in 1928, American science fiction writer Philip Kindred Dick was born in Chicago, IL. He would go on to write some of the best known books on science fiction, including:

  • The Man in the High Castle (1963), which won the Hugo Award;
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), later made into the film Blade Runner; and
  • Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974), which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and was nominated for both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award.

Mr. Dick had a troubled life with multiple wives, yet he created some of the most memorable characters and fiction. You may recall some of his other books and stories that became films in recent years, including Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Minority Report with Tom Cruise, and A Scanner Darkly with Keanu Reeves.

In his last interview of his life, Mr. Dick discussed how he left behind his writing in the late 1950s:

Many writers had left the field. We could not make a living. I had gone to work making jewelry with my wife. I wasn’t happy. I didn’t enjoy making jewelry. I had no talent whatsoever. She had the talent. She is still a jeweler and a very fine one, making gorgeous stuff which she sells to places like Neiman-Marcus. It’s great art. But I couldn’t do anything except polish what she made.

Fortunately, he returned to writing, thereby provided all of us with amazing stories that live on today.