May 18, 2009 - So Close, and Yet So Far

Published in cooperation with The Planetary Society

Spend the year in space, one week at a time

Recent Weeks

May 14, 2012 - Monkey Nebula

May 7, 2012 - Getting a Grip on INTELSAT

April 30, 2012 - Dust in the Wind

April 23, 2012 - Celebrate Astronomy Day

April 16, 2012 - Rover Rides Again

April 9, 2012 - Mercury’s Marvelous Morphology

April 2, 2012 - A Matter of Truss

March 26, 2012 - Hubble Bubble

March 19, 2012 - Rocket Pioneer Centennial

March 12, 2012 - Southern Lights on Saturn

March 5, 2012 - A New Star in Town

February 27, 2012 - Hubble Upgrade

February 20, 2012 - Sideways Supernova

February 13, 2012 - Auroras Gone Wild

February 6, 2012 - Hubble Telescope Tune-Up

January 30, 2012 - Lunar Orbiter Liftoff

January 23, 2012 - Magellan Turns up the Stereo

January 16, 2012 - Southern Sibling Sees Stars

January 9, 2012 - Hitching a Ride Home

January 2, 2012 - Transforming the Space Frontier

December 26, 2011 - These Laws Can't Be Broken

December 19, 2011 - Long and Winding Road

December 12, 2011 - Blast from the Past

December 5, 2011 - It’s Just Like Folding a Map

November 28, 2011 - A Warmer, Wetter Mars

November 21, 2011 - Spy in the Sky

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The Week in Space

May 18-24, 2009

So Close, and Yet So Far The Apollo 10 mission, the final practice flight before the first lunar landing, was launched forty years ago this week. Designed as a dress rehearsal for the history-making Apollo 11 flight, Apollo 10 was to demonstrate all the procedures necessary for an actual lunar landing, but the crew was to take the fully-functional Lunar Module, Snoopy, no closer than 50,000 feet from the lunar surface. Astronauts Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan piloted Snoopy closer to the Moon than any human had ever traveled before, while John Young remained in lunar orbit in the Command Module Charlie Brown. This image of Charlie Brown was taken just before the two craft were reunited, a mission-critical event because the astronauts in Snoopy had no other means of returning to Earth.

Image credit: NASA