Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 4
23-26 April 1962:
Ranger 4 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket; for the first time in the Ranger program, both the Atlas & the Agena worked flawlessly; a computer failure prevented deployment of the solar arrays & high-gain antenna;
Ranger 4 returned no useful data before exhausting its batteries & crashing, as planned, into the Far Side of the Moon.
Commentary: The varied failures of Ranger 1
, Ranger 2
, Ranger 3
, & Ranger 4
highlight why we here at The Secret Base
label all outer space-related posts with the Latin phrase, Ad astra per aspera
(also rendered as Per aspera ad astra
, translated "through hardships to the stars," or, on the Apollo 1 memorial, "A rough road leads to the stars"). Space flight is exceedingly difficult & dangerous.
Semper exploro.
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