Stargazing Guy

Follow for a weekly list of forthcoming astronaut* birthdays.

Maybe you share a birthday?!

If not, perhaps it will be you who adds your name to the list?!

If you do share a birthday, what does it mean to you?

Do you feel a connection, pride? They take to the skies (on controlled explosions) to improve the world, to explore (to travel to strange new worlds).

__________________________________________________________________

25 December 1959 Michael Phillip Anderson (NASA) US. Anderson and his six fellow crew members were killed in the Space Shuttle STS-107 (Columbia) disaster when the craft disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. On 1 February 2003 Columbia broke apart 63 km over north-central Texas just 16 minutes before landing.

“… not because they are easy, but because they are hard …”

12 September 1962, speech by United States President John F. Kennedy during the Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort

Space is hard and dangerous – and people still go.

Per aspera ad astra

27 December 1970 Naoko Yamazaki (JAXA) Japan.

28 December 1968 Akihiko Hoshide (JAXA) Japan.

28 December 1968 Mike Hopkins (NASA) USA.

28 December 1970 Oleg Artmeyev (RKA) Latvia.

29 December 1958 Nancy Currie (NASA) US.

29 December 1962 Barry Wilmore (NASA) US.

29 December 1974 Evgeny Tarelkin (RKA) Russia.

30 December 1953 Daniel Barry (NASA) US.

30 December 1958 Steven L. Smith (NASA) US.

31 December 1948 Viktor Afanasyev (RKA) Russia.

31 December 1956 Martin Fettman (NASA) US.

__________________________________________________________________

Thanks to www.supercluster.com for the bios and links.

Also, thanks to www.pillownaut.com for the initial list of birthdays, and the many, many resources on the internet, especially Wikipedia and NASA.      

* = includes cosmonaut, taikonaut, parastronaut, spaceflight participant, space tourist, etc

___________________________________________________________________

PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with a date and time and we can share it, remotely, at the same time, and think about the Cosmos.

In the meantime, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else, too, because as Adam Smith said, “we naturally desire not only to be loved but to be lovely”.

Remember, hope lives here.

Contact Stargazing Guy for any copyright-related requests or queries @ stargazer1@stargazingguy.co.uk