Celebrating Black History Month - Ralph Bunche, first African-American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize

Ralph Bunche, born August 7, 1904, is the first African-American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  He was awarded the honor for his mediation in Israel during the late 1940s.  John F. Kennedy awarded him the Presidential Medal of Honor  in 1963.

Bunche served as assistant to the UN Special Committee  on Palestine, and then as the principal secretary of the committee.  He was the chief aide to Count Folke Bernadotte (of Sweden) who had been appointed by the UN to mediate the conflict. 

Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem in September 1948.  Following the assassination, Bunche became the UN's chief mediator.  He achieved the Armistice Agreement in 1949 and received the Nobel Prize the following year.

Celebrating Black History Month - Ed Dwight, first black astronaut

Ed Dwight, born September 9, 1933 in Kansas City, is the first African-American to be trained as an astronaut.  The Kennedy Administration hand-picked Dwight for astronaut training, to make the field of astronauts more diverse, and less white-washed.  Although he completed the training, he experienced rampant racism but held on until JFK was assassinated.  Then the environment became unbearable.

He resigned from the Air Force in 1966 and since then, has become a famous scupltor noted for his many works, such as sculptures of Martin Luther King, Jr. all across the country.

Ranger 6 launched 1964

Ranger 6, launched January 30, 1964, was one of a series of lunar probes designed to take close-up images of the moon.  Everything operated as planned and Ranger 6 landed within a mile of its intended target, but due to a failure of the camera system, no images were returned.  Since the cameras were the only equipment on the probe, no other experiments were planned.

The failure of Ranger 6 came on the heels of the assassination of John F. Kennedy just two months before.  In April 1963, Congress had cut funding to the Ranger program by almost 50%, citing "no success had been achieve with any of the missions to date".  Ranger 5 was lost in October 1962.

NASA officials had hoped Ranger 6 would succeed since a week later, they planned to announce their projected budget for $5.3 billion for 1965.  Ranger 7 had already been budgeted and six months later, it became the first successful lunar probe, sending back high definition pictures of the moon.

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month - Raymond Telles, first Mexican-American mayor, El Paso

Raymond Telles became the first Mexican-American mayor of a major U.S. city, when he was elected in 1957 for El Paso.  He ran unopposed for a second term, then President Kennedy appointed him as Ambassador to Costa Rica.  In 1967 President Johnson appointed him as chairman of the U.S.-Mexican Border Commission.  President Nixon then appointed him chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

He passed away in 2013 at 97.

Remembering John Glenn, astronaut, 1921-2016

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, has passed away.  He flew on the Friendship 7 in February 1962 making three orbits of Earth in  just under 5 hours.  President John F. Kennedy presented him with the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.

At 77, he flew  on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998 as a Payload Specialist, making him the oldest man to go into space.

Houston announced as NASA's spaceflight center 1961

Houston's spaceflight center under construction in 1963

Just shy of four months since JFK delivered his speech setting the goal to land humans on the moon and return safely to Earth, NASA announced September 19, 1961, its new spaceflight center would be located in Houston, Texas.  More than twenty sites competed to host the center but Houston was chosen above the others because of its its all-weather commercial jet service, transportation by barge in ice-free water and its "mild climate."  You'll have to follow the link to see for yourself.  Yes, NASA said Houston's climate was MILD! LOL

Of course, the main reason Houston was chosen was because of politics.  Powerful politicians in DC including then Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson campaigned heavily for the Texas site.



http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/about/history/jsc50/

John F. Kennedy delivers his "Landing a Man on the Moon" speech 1961

President John F. Kennedy delivered his speech to Congress urging their support in sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to Earth May 25, 1961.  Unfortunately, JFK would not live to see the fulfillment of his dream, since he was assassinated 6 years before Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon in 1969.




Alan Parsons recorded an instrumental "Apollo" on his "On Air" album, which features the famous quote from Kennedy's speech.