Browsing: Vehicles

A Brief History On March 8, 1889, the anniversary date of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the clash of ironclad warships USS Monitor and CSS Virginia, the inventor of the Monitor died.  John Ericsson, born in Sweden as Johan Ericsson, showed early brilliance in surveying and engineering, and moved to England in 1826 where he invented ways to improve steam engines. Digging Deeper Ericsson is best known for inventing America’s first screw propeller driven ship system, and of course, the USS Monitor, a revolutionary ironclad that boasted the first rotating gun turret, a design that has lasted through the years…

A Brief History On March 2, 1978, space exploration history was made when Vladimír Remek, a pilot, politician, and diplomat from Czechoslovakia became the first person in space that was not Russian or American. Digging Deeper Remek lifted off aboard Soviet space craft Soyuz 28 for an 8-day trip to outer space, heading to the Soviet space station, Salyut 6.  A former pilot in the Czechoslovakian Air Force, Remek was hailed a national hero and even was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal by the USSR.  He parlayed his renown into a career in politics, serving as a…

A Brief History On February 15, 1996, the Chinese space program took a tragic turn when a Long March 3B rocket malfunctioned and crashed into a Chinese village, killing between 6 and 100 people on the ground. Digging Deeper The rocket was carrying an Intelsat 708 communications satellite into space, but veered off course shortly after lift off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center.  While the highly publicized American Space Shuttle disasters come to mind when discussing fatal space incidents, there have been many failures of space launches that have resulted in the expensive loss of equipment and in some…

A Brief History On February 14, 2000, the American spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker orbited asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft from Earth to orbit an asteroid. Digging Deeper NEAR Shoemaker had been designed for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and was launched in 1996.  Not only did the spacecraft make history with its orbit, a year later it made space history again by being the first spacecraft to touch down on an asteroid, the same 433 Eros. The spacecraft was named after Eugene Shoemaker, an American geologist that studied impact craters on the Earth, but also studied…

A Brief History On February 10, 1862, during the American Civil War, the Union fleet won the battle of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, by sinking the Confederate “Mosquito Fleet.”  So, what is a “mosquito fleet?” Digging Deeper Generally speaking, a mosquito fleet is an unofficial nickname for a fleet of small warships or gunboats, in the case of the Confederate mosquito fleet mentioned here, 5 gunboats and a single schooner. Other nations and navies have employed mosquito fleets, ranging from commandeered private yachts used for anti-submarine patrol during the World Wars to converted fishing or utility vessels pressed into military…