National Space Society
On Saturday morning, April 11th, from 7:00-9:00 AM PDT (2:00-4:00 PM UTC), the National Space Society (NSS) Chapters’ Assembly and the Sacramento L5 Society NSS chapter hosted the latest in their ongoing series celebrating the various 50th anniversaries of the manned Apollo missions to the Moon. We call these celebrations “Breakfast on the Moon,” since we begin these virtual meetings very early in the morning on the West Coast in order to reach folks east of us, clear around to the other side of the world - while everyone’s still awake! Joseph Bland served as moderator.
For the Apollo 13 event, we were tremendously excited to welcome Apollo 13 Mission Commander James Lovell, who taped an interview especially for NSS. And to make this event even more special, Captain Lovell spoke about both Apollo 13 and his earlier trip to the Moon aboard Apollo 8, giving us a “two for one” Apollo manned mission celebration!
Breakfast #3 mainly honored Apollo 13’s 50th anniversary, but also honored three other pivotal space events that took place in April: The 59th anniversary of the first human flight into space by Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1; the 39th anniversary of the first operational flight of the Space Shuttle aka STS-1; and the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. Speakers at Breakfast #3:
• Part 1: Captain James Lovell, on Apollo 13 (4/11/1970) and Apollo 8 (12/21/1968)
• Part 2: Christopher Carson, on Apollo missions and the Moon's future
• Part 3: Janet Ivey, NSS governor/Janet’s Planet, on Space Exploration Day
• Part 4: Mark and Karen Lucas, on Vostok 1 and Yuri’s Night (4/12/1961)
• Part 5: Fred Becker, on Space Shuttle STS-1 (39th anniversary, April 4/12/1981)
• Part 6: Anita Gale, NSS Board of Directors, on Shuttle mission history
• Part 7: William Johnston, on Hubble Space Telescope (30th anniversary, April 24)
