Mercury, Gemini & Apollo, NASA’s Golden Agent: A 50- Year Retrospective (In-Person)
Fall (14 hours or more) | This course has been canceled
Do you recall NASA’s “Golden Era” of the 1960s and early 1970s? This retrospective course takes you back, from the post-WWII establishment of NASA to the early suborbital flights of the one-man Mercury capsule, through the experimental Gemini flights, to the breathtaking lunar landings of the Apollo missions.
In a manner that emphasizes the historical rather than the technical aspects of the program, we will ask, discuss, and answer a number of questions: Why was this a national imperative? What about the sociopolitical climate of the time (e.g., Vietnam, student unrest, program funding)? How were the missions planned and why? What were the specific goals of each flight? What was learned, and what unexpected challenges were faced and overcome? What roles did research universities have in NASA’s success? Who were selected as astronauts and what criteria did they need to meet? Who flew which flights and why? What societal advances resulted (directly or indirectly) from these missions?
This course will combine lecture, Powerpoint, and class discussions.
- NO CLASS - Oct. 30
(Sessions on 9/25, 10/2, 10/9, 10/16, 10/23, 11/6, 11/13, 11/20)
- There are no required books for this course.
Dan DeMars
As a child, Dan was fascinated by space flight, notably the Apollo lunar landings. Over the decades, he has collected documentation on NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs and has met several NASA astronauts (Cernan, Bean, Lovell, and Carpenter). Professionally, he has served as a management consultant to academia, to the biotech industry, and toindependent secondary (preparatory) schools. Dan has lived in Norwich, Vermont since 1996 with his wife and two sons.