This is the ninth, and last, in a series of articles looking back over ‘Geek Facts’. Today’s topic is ‘Geek Firsts’. Each day last year, I posted a Geek Fact for that day. A Geek Fact is something geeky that happened on that day in […]
In 1987, Cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko ended his record 326 day mission orbiting the Earth in the Mir space station. Yuri Romanenko’s stay in space broke the previous Soviet record of 237 days and the U.S. space endurance record of 87 days. He held the record
In 1968, Apollo 8 was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders were the first people to ever leave the gravitational influence of the Earth and orbit another celestial body, the Moon. Learn more
In 1987, Larry Wall released the first version of Perl. Perl stands for Practical Extraction And Reporting Language. Working at NASA, Larry Wall designed it to serve as a general purpose Unix scripting language. Learn more at http://www.linuxtopia.org/Perl_Programming/pickingUpPerl_85.html.
In 1965, Gemini 6 was launched and made the first rendezvous in space (with Gemini 7). This also marked the first time that four people were in space at the same time. Learn more at http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1965-104A.
In 1962, Mariner 2 made the first flyby of another planet, Venus. Mariner 2 was a backup for the Mariner 1 mission. Mariner 1 failed shortly after launch to Venus. Learn more at http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1962-041A.
In 1998, the Space Shuttle Endeavour was launched on the first mission to begin assembling the International Space Station (ISS). Two days later, the U.S.-built connecting node, Unity, was coupled with the Russian-built control module, Zarya, which means Sunrise, and the space station was a
In 1993, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Endeavour with an IBM ThinkPad 750 on board. On a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, the crew used a notebook computer in space for the first time. The IBM ThinkPad 750 was used to observe color
In 1998, John Glenn returned to space at the age of 77. John Glenn first made history in 1962 as the first American to orbit the Earth. As a Payload Specialist on the Space Shuttle Discovery, he became the oldest person to fly in space
In 1957, the Space Age began when Russia launched Sputnik I into Earth orbit. Sputnik I was the world’s first artificial satellite. It was about the size of a beach ball and weighed only 183.9 lbs. (83.6 kg.). It took about 98 minutes to orbit
Geek Facts for October 4th – Sputnik, HP and Palm Read More »
In 1982, Sony launched the first consumer compact disc (CD) player in Japan. The CDP-101 was available in the US the following March for $1,000. A review in Stereophile magazine stated …some aspects of the sound I heard are quite unlike what most of us
Geek Facts for October 1st – The First CD Player, IBM, Purdue and NASA Read More »
In 1983, Microsoft released a word processor called Word for MS-DOS 1.00. Microsoft provided a free demonstration copy with every copy of PC World magazine. It’s the first time that a magazine included a floppy disk. Learn more about Microsoft’s history at http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles/45030.aspx. In 2008,
Geek Facts for September 29th – The First Word and Snow on Mars Read More »
In 1976, NASA unveiled the first Space Shuttle, the Enterprise. The shuttle was originally called Constitution. A write-in campaign by “Star Trek” enthusiasts urged President Gerald Ford to go with Enterprise and, as a result, the name was changed. The Enterprise was a test vehicle
Geek Facts for September 17th – The Space Shuttle and a Couple of Handheld Computers Read More »
In 1983, NASA Astronaut Guion S. Bluford Jr. became the first African American to go into space. Bluford’s first mission was as a Mission Specialist on STS-8. This was the first mission with a night launch and night landing. Bluford flew on four Shuttle missions
Geek Facts for August 30th – The 1st African American in Space and 2 Office Versions Read More »
