Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly

01/14/2021

NASA Remembers Astronaut William Thornton

We join NASA in mourning the passing of Bill Thornton.

Thornton became an astronaut in 1967 and flew on two space shuttle missions.

12/31/2020

National Society of Black Physicists announces death of Dr. George R. Carruthers - US Black Engineer

Quest mourns the passing of pioneering Black astrophysicist Dr. George R. Carruthers. His ultraviolet spectrograph flew to the Moon on Apollo 16.

"He will be remembered as an amazing scientist, engineer, professor, and mentor," the National Society of Black Physicists said in a statement.

12/25/2020

Happy Holidays everyone from Quest! Our contributor Joel Powell found this 1961 era photo from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with an early Ranger spacecraft.

12/10/2020

Do you know a person or project that deserves a grant?

SPACE 3.0, a 501c3 charitable foundation (spacecommerce.org) has a mission to support space history preservation. We are trying to identify worthy recipients that could use a $250-$1,000 grant.

These are some project examples we’ve already received:
- Digitize/transcribe old cassette tape interviews with early astronauts and space personnel
- Gather data for the Space Business & Commerce Archives--such as annual reports of public companies, a folder with digital materials (such as reports, releases, presentations related to PanAmSat), etc.
- Gather data on space history archives and special collections
- Catalog and preserve documents and historical space artifacts
- Creation of educational units using space history for teachers/students

To be considered for a grant, please send us a brief proposal that contains the following information:

-Your name and contact info (so we can ask for more information),
-A short description of the project seeking funds,
-A point of contact for the grant,
-How much total you are seeking to raise,
-How will our grant money be used, and
-What is the result/outcome of the grant (ie, materials deposited into the SPACE 3.0 Archives, etc.)

As an FYI, we do not provide scholarships or money to attend conferences/events.

SPACE 3.0 currently supports funds the journal, “Quest: The History of Spaceflight,” and has begun the process to catalogue and digitize hundreds of thousands of pages of space documents so that they can be easily downloaded by researchers.

SPACE 3.0 plans to award grants throughout the year, as funds are available. If you are interested in making a tax-deductible contribution to our endowment and becoming a founding donor, please send us an email.

Cheers,
[email protected]
www.spacecommerce.org

12/09/2020

Quest is the only peer reviewed history journal exclusively focused on space

The perfect gift or stocking stuffer for space enthusiasts...get copies of Quest for just $3 each (+s/h) so you can share your love of space history with family, friends, and colleagues.

Order as many as you like. Quest's publisher will choose an issue(s) based on what we have in stock and ship them to you. Depending on the quantity you want,, we will do our best to provide different issues in case you plan to provide more than one to a person.

https://www.spacehistory101.com/product_p/sh1.htm

Quest: The History of Spaceflight: the only peer-reviewed history journal focused on space... human spaceflight, NASA, military, international, technology. The #1 space history magazine--designed for enthusiasts, written by historians.

12/09/2020

Support Space 3.0 Foundation by shopping at AmazonSmile.

Do you shop on Amazon? Using Smile, you can support space history preservation simply by doing your usual shopping. It’s a total win-win. Simply designate the SPACE 3.0 Foundation at: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/82-3964553, sign onto smile.amazon.com, and shop. That’s all there is to do.

SPACE 3.0, a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation, is the publisher and a proud sponsor of "Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly"

When you shop at AmazonSmile, Amazon will donate to Space 3.0 Foundation. Support us every time you shop.

12/06/2020

Shuttle astronaut Tom Jones talks to fellow astronaut Kathy Sullivan about her adventures in Quest 27:4.

12/05/2020

Our three-part history of U.S. test ranges continues in Quest 27:4 with the early history of the Pacific Missile Range

12/04/2020

General Samuel Phillips, Director of the Apollo Program, is featured in Quest 27:4's oral history interview.

12/03/2020

Neil Armstrong and other pilots worked in aircraft and in simulators like this one to develop reaction control systems for spacecraft. Read about it in Quest 27:4

12/02/2020

2020 is the 60th anniversary of America's first two intelligence gathering satellites, GRAB (seen here) and CORONA. Read about this anniversary in Quest 27:4.

12/01/2020

Quest 27:4 features Edward Guimont's critical look at Project Orion.

11/20/2020

Attention students of spaceflight history. It's Sacknoff Prize time!

11/06/2020

Here's the cover Quest 27:4, now in production!

11/02/2020

Today the International Space Station marks 20 years of continuous human occupation. Quest featured the ISS in issue 25:2 back in 2018.

Coming soon...

10/05/2020

The Lockheed Skunk Works was called in to save Mariner IV's flight to Mars. Read about it in Quest 27:3.

10/04/2020

Quest 27:3 contains an account of the early days of missile tests at Cape Canaveral.

10/02/2020

Shuttle and ISS manager Tommy Holloway is interviewed in Quest 27:3

10/01/2020

Quest 27:3 features the Apollo reconnaissance flights that never flew.

09/30/2020

In Quest 27:3, veteran shuttle astronaut Tom Jones interviews STS-3 commander Jack Lousma about the early days of the Space Shuttle.

09/11/2020

This is a special online event honoring Astronaut Al Worden

With COVID continuing to keep us physically distant, more than ever we need opportunities to come together for one worthy purpose. On Saturday, September 19th, 2020 at 10:00 am Houston time, we'd love for you to join us in a streamed celebration of the life of astronaut Al Worden.

Full details can be found on this web page:
www.kallman.com/endeavour/celebration-of-life

We encourage you to RSVP on the page above for updates, but you also have the option to simply go to the page on the day itself where a link will allow you to access the livestream first run of the program.

If you are unable to join us live, the event will also be recorded for later viewing.

The Worden family and his friends are most grateful for joining us and honoring Al Worden's indelible spirit.

08/26/2020

Quest mourns the passing of Skylab Commander Gerald P. Carr, who was featured in Quest 25:1 in 2018.

08/03/2020

Quest 27:3 is in production, and here is the cover design...

07/30/2020

The Doctor From Nazi Germany and the Search for Life on Mars

The work of Quest author and 2013 Sacknoff Prize winner Jordan Bimm is featured in the New York Times.

Astrobiologists have used Mars Jars for decades. Many didn’t know about the controversial Air Force scientist who started them.

07/26/2020

70 Years Ago, Bumper 8 Launched Brevard's Future as Space Coast

Happy anniversary bumper 8!

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2020/07/24/70-years-ago--bumper--8-launched-brevard-s-future-as-space-coast

Originally, California was to host the missile test range.

07/12/2020

Apollo 16 in 60fps: Rover Traverse to Station 4

New footage from NASA featuring the Apollo 16 Rover driving around on the moon. The 16mm footage was interpolated from 12fps to 60fps with DAIN-AI; color corrected and synchronized with audio. The footage is crisp and clear. If you want to see what it’s like to drive on the moon, watch this video

https://youtu.be/bTQ-SmeLTl8

Support content like this and more at my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dutchsteammachine Join the Discord Server and chat with like-minded people: https:/...

07/04/2020

Check out Quest 27:2 for interviews with entrepreneur Grant Anderson and journalist Leonard David, and for reviews of the latest books on space exploration.

07/03/2020

Free Quest - The Space 3.0 Foundation, Inc

A FREE digital issue of Quest!

Read it online or download it at https://www.spacecommerce.org/freequest2020

If you are not a subscriber but follow us, we would love to hear what you think. Email the publisher at [email protected]

Quest Sampler Issue – FREE Interested in space history? Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly has you covered! This FREE sampler issue features self-contained stories from the past 27 years; the people, projects, and policies that made the journey to space possible. Read it online below or f...

07/03/2020

Dr. Charles A. Berry, who gained fame in the 1960s as the doctor to the astronauts and passed away in March, is featured in the oral history interview in Quest 27:2.

07/02/2020

Recent research has overturned some beliefs about why Apollo spacecraft splashed down in what was called a 'stable 2' configuration, and this is discussed in Quest 27:2.

07/01/2020

Quest 27:2 reproduces rare documents from the early history of the U.S. Space Program now stored at the National Archives facility in Atlanta, Georgia.

06/30/2020

Quest 27:2 looks into Arthur C. Clarke's influence on the idea of space elevators.

06/15/2020

Remembering the Space Race with Walter Cronkite: Rockets, Reporters, and the Rise of Television

In 2000, Quest recorded and transcribed a forum featuring Walter Cronkite and media executives from CBS and NBC along with NASA’s media director during Apollo. Originally published in Quest Volume 9 #3, it is now available in book and ebook formats and features additional rare photos. All proceeds received from the sale of this book benefit SPACE 3.0, a 501c3 charitable foundation. https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Space-Race-Walter-Cronkite/dp/1887022937

Remembering the Space Race with Walter Cronkite: Rockets, Reporters, and the Rise of Television

06/10/2020

Quiz #5: Space Medicine: Mercury-Apollo - by SPACE 3.0

SPACE 3.0 has posted a new space history challenge based on the Vol 27 #2 issue of Quest! Check it out and share your score. https://www.spacecommerce.org/chal…/quiz-005-space-medicine/

Space History Challenge™ #5 Download Quiz PDF Take More Quizzes

06/08/2020

MDPI - Publisher of Open Access Journals

Call For Proposals for the journal Religions:

“The Mutual Influence of Religion and Science in the Human Understanding and Exploration of Outer Space” for Religions.

Ever since human beings first began to stand upright (and possibly even earlier), they have exhibited a strong curiosity about the sky, particularly the night sky with its spread of Milky Way stars, ever-changing moon, wandering planets, predictable constellations, and surprise appearances by comets and meteorites. Because the sky was unreachable, outer space was often synonymous with mysterious supernatural entities thought to influence human life, whether gods, spirits, or ancestors.

By the twentieth century, not only did humans understand more about the sky and space, they had reached the once-impossible goal of going beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and actually beginning to venture, slowly and hesitantly, into space itself. Space lost some of its mystery and became a sphere better explained by science. Religious belief did not disappear, however, and new human understandings of and experiences in outer space had an impact on religious practice. In the United States, the longing for a lost time of westward movement and trail-blazing may have stoked an interest in space as a “new frontier” or “new Jerusalem” (Newell 2019), with the “race for the moon” against the Soviet Union further encouraging Americans to think about space in religious terms while also, perhaps, appearing to contribute to the secularization of a nation (Oliver 2013). The experience of venturing into space may have led to epiphanies among astronauts (White 1987, Mitchell 1996) or have parallels with pilgrimage (Weibel 2015a, 2015b). Russian cosmonauts in recent years have placed icons of Russian Orthodox saints on the walls of the International Space Station (Gorman and Walsh 2018). Even the dedication of thousands of space workers and supporters of space exploration can be understood in religious terms (Launius 2013, Harrison 2014). Finally, a few have made an attempt to predict the characteristics of religious life in human settlements beyond the Earth (Waltemathe 2018, Oviedo 2019, Smith 2019).

At the same time, supernatural and religious understandings of space among lay people remain strong. Astrology influences many (Campion 2012), various societies interpret space through a religious lens (Govender 2009, Tomaquin 2013), certain religious groups are more likely than others to see a future in space (Ambrosius 2015), and science fiction movies and television frequently consider what religion in space settlements might look like some day (Neumann 2011). The exploration of the relationship between ideas about religion and ideas about space can focus, then, on humans currently living in space, but also on humans on Earth.

While good preliminary research has been carried out on the relationship between scientific and religious notions about outer space, this topic is fairly new, relatively under-studied, and important to investigate. Religious and scientific thought are two major arenas where humans speculate and seek answers, and both are often aimed at understanding the place of Earth, and human society, in the greater cosmos. We know little about how these two realms of conjecture interact to inform each other, but the point where they overlap in our ideas about the unearthly, the celestial, and the ethereal is a good place to concentrate our efforts.

The articles in this Special Issue of Religions will contribute to this project by examining how religious and scientific notions held about outer space work together in human societies and in the minds of individual human beings. Some of the questions considered in this endeavour include:

• What does the practice of religion in space look like, and how will it change if and when humans permanently reside in space?
• How do we use religion to help us understand space, and in what contexts do we do so?
• How might religious ideas help us conceptualize and plan for the human exploration and settlement of space?
• In what ways is the human effort to explore space religious in nature?
• Will the activity of space tourism ever transform into (or be accompanied by) space pilgrimage?
• To what extent do ideas about outer space, the stars, and space travel exist within contemporary and past religious communities?
• What is the relationship between symbolic and factual representations of outer space?
• How do religious and scientific notions about space inter-relate in non-Western societies?
• How would finding evidence of past or current life beyond our own planet affect religious views or teachings?
• How does the pro-space movement’s utopian vision of building a better society in space relate to religious or secular visions of utopia? Are they unique or do they borrow from others?

Our goal in this project is to assemble a collection of multidisciplinary papers (drawing from the social sciences, physical sciences, religious studies, humanities, etc.) that will serve as a strong foundation for future research into the relationship between religious and scientific ideas about outer space. By incorporating a wide variety of fields and approaches, this Special Issue will help us to reveal the diverse ways scientific ideas about outer space inform religion and the varied means by which religious ideas influence scientific conceptions of outer space.

Prof. Dr. Deana L. Weibel

Mr. Glen E. Swanson

Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the October 15, 2020 deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Those invited to submit an article will have the Article Processing Charge waived. If you would like to be considered for an invitation, please contact us directly.