Space History for January 21

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Race To Space
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1892
Died, John Couch Adams, English mathematician and astronomer (predicted the existence and position of Neptune using only mathematics)
ref: starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov

1893
Auguste Charlois discovered asteroid #356 Liguria.

1901
Died, Elisha Gray, American inventor, invented the telephone about the same time as Alexander Graham Bell, considered the father of the modern music synthesizer, received over 70 patents for inventions
ref: en.wikipedia.org

1908
Born, Bengt Stromgren, astrophysicist, Bruce Medal 1959

Bengt Georg Daniel Stromgren (21 January 1908 - 4 July 1987) was a Danish astronomer and astrophysicist who did important research in stellar structure in the 1930s but is best known for his work on ionized gas clouds - H II regions - around hot stars. He surveyed H II regions and found relations between the gas density, the luminosity of the star, and the size of the Stromgren sphere of ionized hydrogen around it.

See also Wikipedia
ref: phys-astro.sonoma.edu

1925
K. Reinmuth discovered asteroid #1382 Gerti.

1933
The Institute of Aeronautical Sciences (IAS) held its Founders Meeting at Columbia University under Jerome C. Hunsaker, president, and Lester D. Gardner.
ref: www.hq.nasa.gov

1941
Dow Chemical company's plant for extraction of magnesium from seawater came online at Freeport, Texas, the first commercial operation of its kind, and the first time that man had mined the ocean for a metal.
ref: books.google.com

1950
Born, Joseph R. Tanner (at Danville, Illinois, USA), NASA astronaut (STS 66, STS 82, STS 97, STS 115; nearly 43d 13.25h total time in spaceflight)

Astronaut Joseph R. (Joe) Tanner, STS-115 mission specialist
NASA photo (21 December 2001)
Source: Wikipedia (spaceflight.nasa.gov killed 25 Feb 2021)
ref: en.wikipedia.org

1953
Born, Paul G. Allen, entrepreneur (Microsoft, Mojave Aerospace Ventures (SpaceShipOne))
ref: en.wikipedia.org

1960
NASA launched Little Joe 1B carrying the Rhesus monkey "Miss Sam" in a maximum dynamic pressure abort test to evaluate the Mercury launch and abort system. The 8 minute 35 second suborbital test flight to 16 km altitude was successful.

Rhesus monkey "Miss Sam" being prepared for space flight
Source: NSSDCA Master Catalog
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov

1976 11:40:00 GMT
The first Concordes with commercial passengers simultaneously took off from London's Heathrow and the Paris Orly airports.
ref: web.archive.org

2004
NASA's MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceased communication with mission control. (The problem was determined to be with the Flash Memory management and fixed remotely from Earth on 6 February 2004.)
ref: web.archive.org

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