NASA’s “Hidden Figure” Is Not Forgotten

August 26th marked what would have been Katherine Johnson’s 103rd birthday. Born in West Virginia before helping lead humanity to the moon, her accomplishments laid the groundwork for today’s mission as we are on the horizon of a return to the moon. Johnson broke into STEM and made history, paving the way for many to follow her. She did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 mission in May 1961, the US’s first human spaceflight. This was one of many of her brilliant accomplishments. She is famous for checking the computer’s math for John Glenn’s historic first orbital spaceflight by an American in February 1962, continuing on to do the

The Rocket Made It 31 Miles Before Descending Back To Earth

Astra Space launched a rocket in Alaska over the weekend, the company's first since going public. The rocket failed to achieve its goal of making orbit. Astra founder and CEO Chris Kemp says that one engine shut down about one second into the rocket's first flight. “It was obviously not successful at putting anything in orbit, but it was a flight where we learned a tremendous amount,” Kemp said, according to CNBC. “We do have a serial 7 which is right now in production and we’ll take what we learned here and incorporate whatever changes into that rocket and will be flying soon. We have a tremendous amount of data from the flight and are in the process of reviewing