Tag Archives: moon

THEY may have already taken a step but a group of Ennis students are now hoping that, with some help, they will be able to take a giant leap towards a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Six students from St Flannan’s College in Ennis have taken second place in an international competition, run by US space agency NASA, for their plans for a ‘space elevator’. The fifth-year students now have an opportunity to attend a conference in Los Angeles, featuring some of the biggest names in space exploration, including former astronauts and the founder of Amazon, Jeff Benzos, who is developing technologies to allow for space tourism. However, in order for them to reach for the stars, the students have yet another out-of-this-world task to accomplish, with €12,000 in funding needed in order to take the trip. They are hopeful that a sponsor might come on board and support them in making their dream trip a reality. Students George Harrington, Cyrus Gillan, Micheal …

JUST 24 people have ever flown to the moon and one of the exclusive club was in Shannon last Thursday, where he spoke to children at St Aidan’s and St Caimin’s national schools. Al Worden was command module pilot on Apollo 15 in July 1971, alongside commander Dave Scott and lunar module pilot Jim Irwin. During his time in space, he entered the record books as the most isolated human being ever, at times being 3,600km away from his companions. Addressing children at St Aidan’s National School, he said that one of them could be among the first humans to go to Mars, if they persist with education. “When you get through college, you’re going to be the right age to go to Mars. Some of you may be able to do that and that’s going to be a very cool thing to do. It took me two weeks to go to the moon and come back. Going to Mars …

Despite the generally overcast skies over County Clare this morning, in a number of locations people did witness the solar eclipse phenomenon. The moon almost fully blocked out the sunlight, the first time that has occurred in this part of the work since 1999. Our image was taken by local photographer, Jarek Dudek in the Woodstock area of Ennis, who was delighted to get a break in the cloud to capture the event.  

SPACE enthusiasts countrywide and from the UK are set to descend on Limerick to get a rare audience with one of just 24 people to have flown to the moon. Al Worden, who was one of 19 astronauts selected by NASA in 1966, served as a command module pilot for the historic Apollo 15 (July 26 – August 7, 1971), and is seen very much as one of the icons of space travel. His visit to Ireland for a lecture at LIT next Tuesday  and a dinner at the Pavilion UL the following day, is all down to one self-confessed Limerick space fanatic, Paul Ryan from Ballybricken, reaching for his own stars and, completely off his own bat, managing to connect with Worden and secure him for the two special events. And speaking this week, Ryan explained that he had a double motivation for getting Worden to come to Ireland: his life-long fascination with space, combined with it being the …