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The final flight of any manned space project is special, and on that score the Apollo 17 mission, which began 40 years ago this month, did not disappoint. The final lunar landing mission was a fitting capstone to what was arguably the greatest technological achievement of human history, a tour de force of scientific discovery and engineering virtuosity that has never been duplicated. In this sense, it could reasonably be concluded that NASA saved the best for last. The flight of Apollo 17 was not planned to be the final lunar landing mission. The original Apollo program schedule included missions...

Apollo 16, the penultimate lunar landing mission, began on April 16, 1972, 40 years ago this month. The second of the “J” missions, Apollo 16, like Apollo 15 before it, carried an uprated lunar module, a SIM bay in the CM/SM, and an electric-powered lunar rover. Gemini and Apollo veteran John Young commanded this historic mission. Lunar geologists were anxious to target an Apollo mission for the lunar highlands. You can easily see them if you look at the moon when it is in a phase from waxing or waning gibbous to full. The brighter surface areas are the “highlands”...

In a letter dated August 9, 1971, Caltech Professor of Geology and Geophysics Dr. Gerald Wasserburg wrote to NASA administrator Robert R. Gilruth extending his congratulations for “one of the most brilliant missions in space science ever flown”. He was referring to the Apollo 15 mission, which began 40 years ago this month. The flight of Apollo 15 marked the true beginning of lunar exploration from a scientific viewpoint. Lunar science was the primary focus of this mission, whereas engineering and geopolitical considerations had dominated the preceding lunar landings. Apollo 15 would make use of uprated equipment to enhance the...

After the near-disaster of Apollo 13 some ten months earlier, NASA and the Apollo program badly needed a successful mission. Apollo 14 delivered this more than adequately, although at times it was a close call. The landing site for this mission was the Fra Mauro Formation at the edge of the Imbrium Basin, re-targeted from the ill-fated Apollo 13 flight. Apollo 14 is significant as the first lunar mission to make landfall in a region other than the flat mare topography of the earlier landings. It features a hilly, hummocky, ridge-like topography, and was thought likely to contain ejecta from...

Unlucky Apollo 13 was launched from KSC on April 11, 1970. Liftoff occurred at 2:13 pm EST, which, auspiciously, was 13:13 CST at MSC in Houston. For the superstitious among us, this in-your-face planning by NASA could only bode ill for the mission. The remarkable journey of Apollo 13 has been documented in print and, most famously, the motion picture starring Tom Hanks. Since most of us know the overall story, we will focus here on the notable aspects and perhaps lesser-known but still interesting details. The third manned lunar landing mission was targeted for the Fra Mauro feature, near...

They say no one remembers No. 2, but the second manned lunar landing was memorable for a number of reasons. First, almost anyone familiar with the Apollo program remembers the launch. Apollo 12 was successfully launched in a rainstorm from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 14th, 1969. As the Saturn V lifted from the launch pad, the familiar voice of Mission Commander Pete Conrad was heard on the air-to-ground loop playfully exclaiming, “That’s a LOVELY liftoff, that’s not bad at all!”, and indeed for a time it wasn’t. While normal at first, all hell broke loose about 30 seconds into...

Support For Bush, Iraq War Waning Local poll finds mood reversal in past 8 months Published: Sunday, May 23, 2004 By Darrel Rowland THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Central Ohio is turning against both the war in Iraq and President Bush. A new poll shows that residents of this crucial presidential battleground have sharply reversed themselves in the 8 1/2 months since the nation marked the second anniversary of the 9/11 attack. The survey and follow-up Dispatch interviews indicate those in the Columbus area are highly disturbed by recent revelations about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and are no longer willing to...

Plain City plant to lay off 220 workers Competition from Chinese blamed for shutdown at Invensys Friday, April 30, 2004 Mark Niquette THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Invensys Climate Controls will close manufacturing operations at its Plain City plant by the fall, putting 220 people — including many older and longtime employees — out of work. The company said 125 salaried workers will remain at the 51-year old operation, which previously was owned by Siebe PLC and Ranco Inc. Invensys, which took over the plant in 1999, said it can no longer match the prices of competitors in China for the valves...

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 3, 2003—Last year was the fourth straight year that nuclear energy was the low-cost leader for baseload production of electricity. Production costs—which encompass fuel plus operations and maintenance at a plant—averaged 1.71 cents/per kilowatt-hour (kwh) at nuclear power plants in 31 states. Nuclear power production costs were lower than coal-fired power plants, 1.85 cents/kwh; natural gas plants, 4.06 cents/kwh; and oil-fired plants, 4.41 cents/kwh. Stable and competitive supplies of low-cost nuclear fuel and efficient power generation at nuclear power plants—a record 780 billion kilowatt-hours—resulted in low production costs in 2002. The average fuel cost for nuclear plants...

Iyman Faris, 34, pleaded guilty to being a scout for al-Qaida. The al-Qaida operatives who recruited Columbus trucker Iyman Faris into their fold prefer to find collaborators who share their ideological beliefs, an expert on terrorism said. Failing that, anyone will do —as long as they can provide the information or materiel the terrorist network needs, said Todd Stewart, director of the Ohio State Program for International and Homeland Security at Ohio State University. But it isn’t known what motivated Faris to research torches that al-Qaida might use to cut through cables on the Brooklyn Bridge, buy sleeping bags for...

I don't often visit the website of my childhood hometown, but in a recent check I was pleased to see these pictures there, even if I'm posting them a little late. Still, there may be some who haven't seen these and would like to have a look. Here is the URL again: Todd Beamer Memorial Dedication May 2002 There were some articles posted on this back in January, but here are the pictures of the ceremony.

A year ago, when President Bush announced that the United States would withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty signed with the Soviet Union, the doomsayers went, well, ballistic. The U.S. move to get out of the treaty's prohibition against building a national missile shield would be disastrous, they shouted. The world would be launched into an escalating arms race that would drive nuclear tensions to a pitch unseen since the Cold War. It was insane, dangerous, reckless, they declared. But it wasn't. On Friday, Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty that will cut each nation's nuclear...

A Better Tribute to Dave Wendy's modest founder had a biggie heart Thursday, January 10, 2002 If this generation needs a symbol of what it means to be American, of the promise that the nation holds for those willing to seize its opportunities, to embrace the bedrock principles of working hard and sharing success, few could fill that role better than Wendy's founder R. David Thomas. His life exemplified and validated all the best that Americans believe about themselves and their country. Thomas, who died Tuesday at 69 after a long bout with liver cancer, was an uncomplicated man ...

Nuclear Energy Surpasses Coal-Fired Plants as Leader in Low-Cost Electricity Production Washington, D.C., January 9, 2001 For the first time in more than a decade, production costs at U.S. nuclear power plants are the lowest of any major reliable electricity source, dropping below coal-fired power plants, according to the latest available full-year figures from the Utility Data Institute. In 1999, production costs (outlays for fuel and operations and maintenance) at nuclear power plants averaged 1.83 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh), lower than coal at 2.07 cents/kwh and still far lower than oil-fired plants at 3.18 cents/kwh and natural gas plants at ...