2005 – NASA grounds the Space Shuttle, pending an investigation into the continuing problem with the shedding of the external tank foam insulation. On July 26,during ascent, the external tank of STS-114 shed a piece of foam slightly smaller than the piece that caused the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster; the foam did not strike the spacecraft. The shuttle would not fly again until July 4, 2006.
Birthdays
1962 – Daniel Christopher Burbank born in Manchester, Connecticut, USA. Selecction: 16th Group. Engineer mission specialist. 3 spaceflights, 188.9 days in space. Flew to orbit on STS-106 (2000), STS-115, Soyuz TMA-22.
1801 – George Biddell Airy Born in Alnwick, Northumberland, England. Astronomer Royal from 1835 – 1881.
“In the hands of Science and indomitable energy, results the most gigantic and absorbing, may be wrought out by skillful combinations of acknowledged data and the simplest means.”
Lecture on the pendulum-experiments at Harton Pit, South Shields, 1854.