St. Louis and the Moon

St. Louis & The Moon

McDonnell Douglas’ key role in our national success

(updated Sat. Sep. 17, 2016)

This page:

1)Starts with some links about McDonnell Douglas’ key role in the space race, and American success - building all the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft and helping the Apollo program complete its goals
2)Goes back in time, to Lambert, Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis sparking amazing aviation growth
3)St. Louis Aviation’s present - Solar - and the future
4)Many space links

1) How the people of McDonnell-Douglas/St. Louis got the U.S.A., and mankind, to the moon:

All of the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft were built right here in St. Louis, in a hanger that still stands... across the runways from the Main Terminal, a little to the left, next to the building that used to have the Boeing (blue), and previously the McDonnell Douglas (red) signs.

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KETC | Living St. Louis | Mercury Reunion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8DGExRtaSs

“... and the last people the astronauts saw before blastoff were McDonnell employees who bolted on the hatch.”

A great article about how McDonnell Douglas fixed the Apollo program

https://www.stlmag.com/Losing-The-Moon/

2) Lambert + Listerine + Lindbergh & the Spirit of St. Louis = aviation history!

On a pre-space related note, this is some background on about some relationships that started American aviation, which, with many other factors, led to the space race...

Lambert Pharmaceutical made Listerine and other products. With the profits it made fighting halitosis, Albert Bond Lambert was able to lead the effort to finance Charles Lindbergh’s New York-to-Paris flicght.

The rest is history.

Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (STL) is named for Albert Bond Lambert.

For more, see:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/12/opinion/from-listerine-on-letters-to-the-editor.html

http://www.missourilegends.com/business-and-technology/albert-bond-lambert/

http://flystl.com/AboutLambert/History.aspx

(source of both images - Lambert above; write-up here)

source: charleslindbergh.com (link below)

Before the moon... flight...

spurred on by Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis:

sources of the images below:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ctL2WKjLGz4/TfiR0M6wGBI/AAAAAAAAFvM/7x59fMXK7OQ/s1600/CharlesLindbergh_Spirit-of-St.Louis.jpg

http://charleslindbergh.com/plane/index.asp

http://charleslindbergh.com/history/timeline.asp

http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/Spirit_of_St_Louis_diagram_0001.jpg

Two other St. Louis Aviation firsts....

1) President Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to fly, taking off and landing in St. Louis - http://www.airspacemag.com/videos/category/history-of-flight/teddy-roosevelt-goes-flying/?no-ist

2) The first experimental parachute jump from an airplane also took place in St. Louis, at Jefferson Barracks, in 1912 - http://explorestlouis.com/press-release/st-louis-trivia/ & http://www.lemaynow.com/03-01-12-first-parachute-jump-in-jefferson-barracks-100-years-ago.html

“Army Captain Albert Berry, the son of a balloonist, did what was thought to be impossible or crazy back then. He jumped from a "pusher" biplane designed Thomas Benoist”

Papal blessings

The first papal blessing sent to the Moon

“Pope Paul VI sent one of 73 Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages to NASA for the historic first lunar landing. The message still rests on the lunar surface today. It has the Psalm 8 and the pope wrote, "To the Glory of the name of God who gives such power to men, we ardently pray for this wonderful beginning.”

source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_VI

See also:

Space.com’s “The Untold Story- How One Small Disc Carried One Giant Message for Mankind”

“After deciding to plant an American flag on the Moon and before the wording was finalized for the plaque declaring that "we came in peace for all mankind," the U.S. State Department authorized NASA to solicit messages of good will from the leaders of the world's nations to be flown and left on the Moon.

There were only two minor challenges: NASA didn't know yet how they would archive those messages for flight and as it was June 1969, there was only one month remaining before Apollo 11 would launch for the lunar surface.

"I was amazed at how NASA and the State Department rushed to get these messages before launch," Rahman said. In his book, he describes how 116 countries were contacted but only 73 responded in time. Some, confused by the request, replied asking for more details without realizing that the window for their inclusion was closing fast.

...

Nor were these messages simple texts. Some included intricate artwork, such as the Vatican's message by Pope Paul VI. Though not visible to the naked eye, a low-power magnification was all that was needed to reveal the mini masterpieces.

"The first time I looked through a microscope at the disc, I was amazed. There were all these messages in foreign languages in beautiful gold scripts. The message from the Vatican in the center was especially stunning with its gold ornate frame," Rahman described. ”

source http://www.space.com/4655-untold-story-small-disc-carried-giant-message-mankind.html

Papal blessing to the ISS... from Pope Benedict XVI to the International Space Station (2011):

“The Pope often prays to saints in heaven, but for the first time in history a Pope spoke with astronauts orbiting beyond the clouds.”

May 21, 2011

http://www.catholic.org/news/technology/story.php?id=41510

BBC video:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13483829

See also, by Vatican Astronomer Guy Consolmagno,"The Heavens Proclaim: Astronomy and the Vatican":

https://www.amazon.com/Heavens-Proclaim-Astronomy-Vatican/dp/1592766455

The Vatican Observatory

Yes, the Vatican has an observatory, which helped improve man’s understanding of the sun, developed the first system of stellar classification (types of stars), and much more.

http://www.vaticanobservatory.org/

http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/en/who-are-we-/history/origins.html

A sample of accomplishments at the Vatican Observatory, by Angelo Secchi

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13669a.htm
&

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Secchi

“Secchi made contributions to many areas of astronomy.

•He revised Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve's catalog of double stars, compiling data for over 10,000 binaries.
•He discovered three comets, including Comet Secchi.
•He produced an exact map of the lunar crater Copernicus.
•He drew some of the first color illustrations of Mars and was the first to describe "channels" (canali in Italian) on the planetary surface.[3]

“Secchi was especially interested in the Sun, which he observed continually throughout his career.

•He observed and made drawings of solar eruptions and sunspots, and compiled records of sunspot activity.
•In 1860 and 1870, he organized expeditions to observe solar eclipses.
•He proved that the solar corona and coronal prominences observed during a solar eclipse were part of the Sun, and not artifacts of the eclipse.
•He discovered solar spicules.

“However, his main area of interest was astronomical spectroscopy. He invented the heliospectrograph, star spectrograph, and telespectroscope. He showed that certain absorption lines in the spectrum of the Sun were caused by absorption in the Earth's atmosphere.”

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Secchi

Apollo 8 & the Genesis reading on Christmas Eve, 1968

Audio & video:

https://archive.org/details/ReadingOfGenesisByApollo8

Text:

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo8_xmas.html

In-Process improved Apollo 11 video footage:

NASA’s “Apollo 11 Partial Restoration HD Video Streams”

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11_hdpage.html

NASA lost moon footage, but Hollywood restores it -

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-07-16-moon-footage_N.htm

LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mov/369229main_apollo_sites_halfres.mov

Constellation: How we're "going back"...

sadly... our current administration has paused the Constellation program.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ares-1_launch_02-2008.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)

3) St. Louis Aviation Present and Future

In 2013, the first solar-powered airplane visited St. Louis.

They planned to park it in the building where McDonnell Douglas built he Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, but the building was damaged by a strong storm, so the Solar Impulse was housed in a makeshift building when it visited.

https://www.stlmag.com/news/Solar-Impulse-Lands-in-St-Louis-on-Historic-Flight/

Photos we captured when we visited:

Pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg

The not-so-big cockpit...

...notice the duct tape on the arm wrest

Photos from SolarImpulse.com:

As noted in 2009, St. Louis has, and continues to build:

“The ceremony also highlighted production milestones for several Boeing products built in St. Louis, including delivery of more than 1,600 F-15 Eagles; 400 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets; 200 C-17 subassemblies; 220 T-45 Goshawks; 220,000 Joint Direct Attack Munitions; 7,000 Harpoon missiles and 4,000 Small Diameter Bombs.”

source: http://boeing.mediaroom.com/2009-08-28-Boeing-Celebrates-70-Years-in-St-Louis

And Boeing’s Phantom Works (formerly McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works) continues to lead the future of aviation:

http://www.boeing.com/company/about-bds/

http://spacenews.com/spotlight-boeing-phantom-works/

http://boeing.mediaroom.com/Boeing-Phantom-Swift-Selected-for-DARPA-X-Plane-Competition

http://www.boeing.com/defense/phantom-eye/

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/watch-boeings-phantom-swift-x-plane-take-vertical-flight/

4) Just some of many space links

NASA Podcasts, many in HD

(just search for the titles in iTunes)

Apollo/The Moon:

NASA 50th Anniversary Moments: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=282901825