December 24 Science History

The European Space Agency launched their Ariane 1 rocket. The Ariane rocket was the first to be designed by the ESA to replace their unsuccessful Europa missile technology. The Ariane 1 is the first of a family of rockets are the primary launch vehicles for the ESA and commercial satellite programs.

Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders became the first to orbit the Moon aboard Apollo 8. The mission was televised and viewers saw their first close up of the surface of the Moon. It was also the first time the dark side of the Moon was directly viewed.

Muir was a Scottish-American naturalist who is considered the founder of the environmental movement. He actively sought to preserve the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park and formed the Sierra Club, the largest environmental organization in the United States. Minor Trivia: He appears on the the California state quarter released in 2005.

Rankine was a Scottish engineer and physicist who was a pioneer of thermodynamics. He developed a theory relating the pressure of steam to its temperature in a steam engine. He determined the specific heat of steam had a negative value and described the dynamics involved in a steam engine in terms of energy instead of forces and motion. The Rankine absolute temperature scale based on the Fahrenheit temperature scale is named in his honor.

Joule was an English physicist who related heat energy to mechanical work leading to the conservation of energy law. He is also known for Joule's law relating the heat generated by an electrical resistor and the current passing though it. The SI unit for energy is named in his honor.