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126-396: STS-41-C (formerly STS-13) was NASA 's eleventh Space Shuttle mission, and the fifth mission of Space Shuttle Challenger . The launch, which took place on April 6, 1984, marked the first direct ascent trajectory for a Space Shuttle mission. During the mission, Challenger ' s crew captured and repaired the malfunctioning Solar Maximum Mission ("Solar Max") satellite, and deployed
252-689: A pest in some regions. However, these strains do not overwinter well, so they are not often found in the colder, more northern parts of North America. The original breeding experiment for which the East African lowland honey bees were brought to Brazil in the first place has continued (though not as originally intended). Novel hybrid strains of domestic and re-domesticated Africanized honey bees combine high resilience to tropical conditions and good yields. They are popular among beekeepers in Brazil. Tribe Apini Latreille Genus Apis Linnaeus ( sensu lato ) As in
378-607: A decade of reliance on the Russians. In 2019, NASA announced the Artemis program , intending to return to the Moon and establish a permanent human presence. This was paired with the Artemis Accords with partner nations to establish rules of behavior and norms of space commercialization on the Moon. In 2023, NASA established the Moon to Mars Program office. The office is designed to oversee
504-923: A diverse combination of pollen and nectar. Pollen is the only natural protein source for honey bees. Adult worker honey bees consume 3.4–4.3 mg of pollen per day to meet a dry matter requirement of 66–74% protein. The rearing of one larva requires 125-187.5 mg pollen or 25–37.5 mg protein for proper development. Dietary proteins are broken down into amino acids, ten of which are considered essential to honey bees: methionine, tryptophan, arginine, lysine, histidine, phenylalanine, isoleucine, threonine, leucine, and valine. Of these amino acids, honey bees require highest concentrations of leucine, isoleucine, and valine, however elevated concentrations of arginine and lysine are required for brood rearing. In addition to these amino acids, some B vitamins including biotin, folic acid, nicotinamide, riboflavin, thiamine, pantothenate, and most importantly, pyridoxine are required to rear larvae. Pyridoxine
630-402: A few other types of eusocial bees, a colony generally contains one queen bee , a female; seasonally up to a few thousand drone bees , or males; and tens of thousands of female worker bees . Details vary among the different species of honey bees, but common features include: In cold climates, honey bees stop flying when the temperature drops below about 10 °C (50 °F) and crowd into
756-502: A flight crew during Apollo 15 . Each track is specially chosen, often by the astronauts' families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities. NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA / ˈ n æ s ə / ) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program , aeronautics research, and space research. Established in 1958 , it succeeded
882-689: A given area means that the pollen they carry for any one species is often very diluted. As such, they can provide some pollination to many plants, but most plants have some native pollinator that is more effective at pollinating that species. When honey bees are present as an invasive species in an area, they compete for flowers with native pollinators, which can actually push out the native species. Western honey bees have been described as essential to human food production, leading to claims that without their pollination humanity would starve or die out. Apples, blueberries, and cherries, for example, are 90 percent dependent on honeybee pollination. Albert Einstein
1008-407: A human being to death if provoked. Eastern Apis species include three or four species, including A. koschevnikovi , A. nigrocincta , and A. cerana . The genetics of the western honey bee ( A. mellifera ) are unclear. Koschevnikov's honey bee ( Apis koschevnikovi ) is often referred to in the literature as the "red bee of Sabah"; however, A. koschevnikovi
1134-466: A human in space, develop tracking and control systems, and identify other issues associated with human spaceflight. While much of NASA's attention turned to space, it did not put aside its aeronautics mission. Early aeronautics research attempted to build upon the X-1's supersonic flight to build an aircraft capable of hypersonic flight . The North American X-15 was a joint NASA–U.S. Air Force program, with
1260-570: A permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. In 1985, NASA proposed the Space Station Freedom , which both the agency and President Reagan intended to be an international program. While this would add legitimacy to the program, there were concerns within NASA that the international component would dilute its authority within the project, having never been willing to work with domestic or international partners as true equals. There
1386-628: A possible source of antimatter at the center of the Milky Way and observing that the majority of gamma-ray bursts occur outside of the Milky Way galaxy. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched from the Columbia on STS-93 in 1999, observing black holes, quasars , supernova , and dark matter . It provided critical observations on the Sagittarius A* black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy and
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#17328444986151512-589: A single 14 million-year-old specimen from Nevada. The close relatives of modern honey bees – e.g., bumblebees and stingless bees – are also social to some degree, and social behavior is considered to be a trait that predates the origin of the genus. Among the extant members of Apis , the more basal species make single, exposed combs, while the more recently evolved species nest in cavities and have multiple combs, which has greatly facilitated their domestication. While about 20,000 species of bees exist, only eight species of honey bee are recognized, with
1638-532: A space station since the agency was created. In 1973, following the end of the Apollo lunar missions, NASA launched its first space station, Skylab , on the final launch of the Saturn V. Skylab reused a significant amount of Apollo and Saturn hardware, with a repurposed Saturn V third stage serving as the primary module for the space station. Damage to Skylab during its launch required spacewalks to be performed by
1764-539: A special capture tool, called the Trunnion Pin Acquisition Device (TPAD). Three attempts to clamp the TPAD onto the satellite failed. Solar Max began tumbling on multiple axes when Nelson attempted to grab one of the satellite's solar arrays by hand, and the effort was called off. Crippen had to perform multiple maneuvers of the orbiter to keep up with Nelson and Solar Max, and nearly ran out of RCS fuel. During
1890-585: A total of 43 subspecies , although historically seven to 11 species are recognized: Apis andreniformis (the black dwarf honey bee); Apis cerana (the eastern honey bee); Apis dorsata (the giant honey bee); Apis florea (the red dwarf honey bee); Apis koschevnikovi (Koschevnikov's honey bee); Apis laboriosa (the Himalayan giant honey bee); Apis mellifera (the western honey bee); and Apis nigrocincta (the Philippine honey bee). Honey bees are
2016-724: Is a kind or type of bee. It is incorrect to run the two words together, as in dragonfly or butterfly , which are appropriate because dragonflies and butterflies are not flies. Honey bee, not honeybee, is the listed common name in the Integrated Taxonomic Information System , the Entomological Society of America Common Names of Insects Database, and the Tree of Life Web Project . Honey bees appear to have their center of origin in South and Southeast Asia (including
2142-618: Is commonly measured in the billions of dollars, credited with adding about 9% to the value of crops across the world. However, despite contributing substantially to crop pollination, there is debate about the potential spillover to natural landscapes and competition between managed honey bees and many of the ~20,000 species of wild pollinators. Species of Apis are generalist floral visitors, and pollinate many species of flowering plants, but because of their "generalized" nature, they often do so inefficiently. Without specialized adaptations for specific flowers, their ability to reach pollen and nectar
2268-522: Is limited, foragers will collect water from streams or ponds to meet the needs of the hive. The only domesticated species of honey bee are A. mellifera and A. cerana , and they are often maintained, fed, and transported by beekeepers. In Japan, where A. mellifera is vulnerable to local hornets and disease, the Japanese honey bee A. cerana japonica is used in its place. Modern hives also enable beekeepers to transport bees, moving from field to field as
2394-403: Is often limited. This combined with their behavioural flexibility may be why they are the most commonly documented pollen thieves . Indeed, for plant species with more specialized pollinators, experiments show that increased honeybee visitation can actually reduce pollination, both where honey bees are non-native and even where they are native. What's more, their tendency to visit all species in
2520-640: Is pale reddish in Sabah State , Borneo , Malaysia , but a dark, coppery colour in the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra , Indonesia . Its habitat is limited to the tropical evergreen forests of the Malay Peninsula , Borneo and Sumatra and they do not live in tropical evergreen rain forests which extend into Thailand , Myanmar , Cambodia and Vietnam . Apis nigrocincta is a cavity-nesting species. The species has rust-coloured scapes , legs, and clypeuses , with reddish-tan hair colour that covers most of
2646-465: Is probably the product of a largely Early Pleistocene radiation aided by climate and habitat changes during the last ice age . That the western honey bee has been intensively managed by humans for many millennia – including hybridization and introductions – has apparently increased the speed of its evolution and confounded the DNA sequence data to a point where little of substance can be said about
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#17328444986152772-675: Is sometimes misquoted as saying "If bees disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live" . Einstein did not say this and there is no science to support this prediction. Many important crops need no insect pollination at all. The ten most important crops, comprising 60% of all human food energy, fall into this category: plantains are sterile and propagated by cuttings, as are cassava ; potatoes , yams , and sweet potatoes are root vegetables propagated by tubers ; soybeans are self-pollinated ; and rice , wheat , sorghum , and maize , are wind-pollinated , as are most other grasses. No crops originating in
2898-635: Is the most prevalent B vitamin found in royal jelly and concentrations vary throughout the foraging season with lowest concentrations found in May and highest concentrations found in July and August. Honey bees lacking dietary pyridoxine were unable to rear brood. Pollen is also a lipid source for honey bees ranging from 0.8% to 18.9%. Lipids are metabolized during the brood stage for precursors required for future biosynthesis. Fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K are not considered essential but have shown to significantly improve
3024-658: The Big Bang . The James Webb Space Telescope , named after the NASA administrator who lead the Apollo program, is an infrared observatory launched in 2021. The James Webb Space Telescope is a direct successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, intended to observe the formation of the first galaxies. Other space telescopes include the Kepler space telescope , launched in 2009 to identify planets orbiting extrasolar stars that may be Terran and possibly harbor life. The first exoplanet that
3150-753: The Environmental Science Services Administration on a series of weather satellites and the agency launched its experimental Applications Technology Satellites into geosynchronous orbit. NASA's first dedicated Earth observation satellite, Landsat , was launched in 1972. This led to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration jointly developing the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite and discovering Ozone depletion . NASA had been pursuing spaceplane development since
3276-676: The Europa and observed that the moon may hold ice or liquid water. A joint NASA- European Space Agency - Italian Space Agency mission, Cassini–Huygens , was sent to Saturn 's moon Titan , which, along with Mars and Europa, are the only celestial bodies in the Solar System suspected of being capable of harboring life. Cassini discovered three new moons of Saturn and the Huygens probe entered Titan's atmosphere. The mission discovered evidence of liquid hydrocarbon lakes on Titan and subsurface water oceans on
3402-822: The International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program , and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the lunar Artemis program . NASA's science division is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System ; advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate 's Heliophysics Research Program; exploring bodies throughout
3528-742: The Johnson Space Center as the lead center for the design, development, and manufacturing of the Space Shuttle orbiter , while the Marshall Space Flight Center would lead the development of the launch system. NASA's series of lifting body aircraft, culminating in the joint NASA-U.S. Air Force Martin Marietta X-24 , directly informed the development of the Space Shuttle and future hypersonic flight aircraft. Official development of
3654-541: The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) experimental apparatus. STS-41-C was extended one day due to problems capturing the Solar Max satellite, and the landing on April 13, 1984, took place at Edwards Air Force Base , instead of at Kennedy Space Center as had been planned. The flight was originally numbered STS-13 . STS-41-C launched successfully at 8:58 a.m. EST on April 6, 1984. The mission marked
3780-634: The Mars Global Surveyor orbiter and Mars Pathfinder , deploying the first Mars rover, Sojourner . During the early 2000s, the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter reached the planet and in 2004 the Sprit and Opportunity rovers landed on the Red Planet. This was followed in 2005 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2007 Phoenix Mars lander. The 2012 landing of Curiosity discovered that
3906-540: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science . It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury , Project Gemini , the 1968–1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle . Currently, NASA supports
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4032-654: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Despite being the birthplace of aviation, by 1914 the United States recognized that it was far behind Europe in aviation capability. Determined to regain American leadership in aviation, the United States Congress created the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1914 and established NACA in 1915 to foster aeronautical research and development. Over
4158-463: The New World depend on the western honey bee ( Apis mellifera ) at all, as the bee is an invasive species brought over with colonists in the last few centuries. Tomatoes , peppers , squash , and all other New World crops evolved with native pollinators such as squash bees , bumble bees , and other native bees. The stingless bees mentioned by Jefferson are distant relatives of the honey bees, in
4284-589: The Orbiting Geophysical Observatory in the 1960s and 1970s to look down at Earth and observe its interactions with the Sun. The Uhuru satellite was the first dedicated x-ray telescope, mapping 85% of the sky and discovering a large number of black holes . Launched in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Great Observatories program are among NASA's most powerful telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope
4410-612: The Philippines ), as all the extant species except Apis mellifera are native to that region. Notably, living representatives of the earliest lineages to diverge ( Apis florea and Apis andreniformis ) have their center of origin there. The first Apis bees appear in the fossil record at the Eocene – Oligocene boundary (34 mya ), in European deposits. The origin of these prehistoric honey bees does not necessarily indicate Europe as
4536-631: The STS-1 mission, designed to serve as a flight test for the new spaceplane. NASA intended for the Space Shuttle to replace expendable launch systems like the Air Force's Atlas , Delta , and Titan and the European Space Agency 's Ariane . The Space Shuttle's Spacelab payload, developed by the European Space Agency, increased the scientific capabilities of shuttle missions over anything NASA
4662-616: The STS-60 mission in 1994 and the Discovery rendezvoused, but did not dock with, the Russian Mir in the STS-63 mission. This was followed by Atlantis' STS-71 mission where it accomplished the initial intended mission for the Space Shuttle, docking with a space station and transferring supplies and personnel. The Shuttle- Mir program would continue until 1998, when a series of orbital accidents on
4788-524: The Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft such as New Horizons and planetary rovers such as Perseverance ; and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang , through the James Webb Space Telescope , the four Great Observatories , and associated programs. The Launch Services Program oversees launch operations for its uncrewed launches . NASA traces its roots to
4914-523: The Space Race when the Soviet Union gave up its lunar ambitions. As the first human to step on the surface of the Moon, Neil Armstrong uttered the now famous words: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. NASA would conduct six total lunar landings as part of the Apollo program, with Apollo 17 concluding the program in 1972. Wernher von Braun had advocated for NASA to develop
5040-609: The Space Shuttle began in 1972, with Rockwell International contracted to design the orbiter and engines, Martin Marietta for the external fuel tank , and Morton Thiokol for the solid rocket boosters . NASA acquired six orbiters: the Enterprise , Columbia , Challenger , Discovery , Atlantis , and Endeavour The Space Shuttle program also allowed NASA to make major changes to its Astronaut Corps . While almost all previous astronauts were Air Force or Naval test pilots,
5166-500: The Tian Shan range. It is variously called the European, western, or common honey bee in different parts of the world. Many subspecies have adapted to the local geographic and climatic environments; in addition, breeds such as the Buckfast bee have been bred. Behavior, colour, and anatomy can be quite different from one subspecies or even strain to another. A. mellifera phylogeny is
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5292-472: The University of Maryland and Auburn University published in 2023 found the number of United States honeybee colonies "remained relatively stable" although 48% of colonies were lost in the year that ended April 1, 2023, with a 12-year average annual mortality rate of 39.6%. The previous year (2021-2022) the loss was 39% and the 2020-2021 loss was 50.8%. Beekeepers told the surveying scientists that 21% loss over
5418-405: The inner planets . Despite these successes, Congress was unwilling to fund further interplanetary missions and NASA Administrator James Webb suspended all future interplanetary probes to focus resources on the Apollo program. Following the conclusion of the Apollo program, NASA resumed launching interplanetary probes and expanded its space science program. The first planet tagged for exploration
5544-582: The stingless bees belonging to the genus Melipona and the Indian stingless or dammar bee Tetragonula iridipennis . Modern humans also use beeswax in making candles , soap , lip balms and various cosmetics , as a lubricant and in mould-making using the lost wax process . The genus name Apis is Latin for "bee". Although modern dictionaries may refer to Apis as either honey bee or honeybee, entomologist Robert Snodgrass asserts that correct usage requires two words, i.e., honey bee , because it
5670-487: The western honey bee as well as Apis cerana , are known to engage in effective methods of nest thermoregulation during periods of varying temperature in both summer and winter. During the summer, however, this is achieved through fanning and water evaporation from water collected in various fields. Of all the honey bee species, only A. mellifera has been used extensively for commercial pollination of fruit and vegetable crops. The scale of these pollination services
5796-420: The 1950s as a response to Soviet lunar exploration, however most missions ended in failure. The Lunar Orbiter program had greater success, mapping the surface in preparation for Apollo landings and measured Selenography , conducted meteoroid detection, and measured radiation levels. The Surveyor program conducted uncrewed lunar landings and takeoffs, as well as taking surface and regolith observations. Despite
5922-516: The 1960s, blending the administration's dual aeronautics and space missions. NASA viewed a spaceplane as part of a larger program, providing routine and economical logistical support to a space station in Earth orbit that would be used as a hub for lunar and Mars missions. A reusable launch vehicle would then have ended the need for expensive and expendable boosters like the Saturn V . In 1969, NASA designated
6048-655: The 44 commercial companies that contracted with NASA to deploy their satellites to return to expendable launch vehicles. When the Space Shuttle returned to flight with the STS-26 mission, it had undergone significant modifications to improve its reliability and safety. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and United States initiated the Shuttle- Mir program . The first Russian cosmonaut flew on
6174-508: The Army's Project Adam, served as the foundation for Project Mercury . NASA established the Space Task Group to manage the program, which would conduct crewed sub-orbital flights with the Army's Redstone rockets and orbital flights with the Air Force's Atlas launch vehicles. While NASA intended for its first astronauts to be civilians, President Eisenhower directed that they be selected from
6300-558: The Keplar space telescope confirmed was Kepler-22b , orbiting within the habitable zone of its star. NASA also launched a number of different satellites to study Earth, such as Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) in 1960, which was the first weather satellite. NASA and the United States Weather Bureau cooperated on future TIROS and the second generation Nimbus program of weather satellites. It also worked with
6426-525: The LDEF during STS-32 . On the third day of the mission, Challenger ' s orbit was raised to about 560 km (350 mi), and it maneuvered to within 61 m (200 ft) of the stricken Solar Max satellite. Astronauts Nelson and van Hoften, wearing space suits , entered the payload bay. Nelson, using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), flew out to the satellite and attempted to grasp it with
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#17328444986156552-548: The Martian interior. The 2021 Perseverance rover carried the first extraplanetary aircraft, a helicopter named Ingenuity . NASA also launched missions to Mercury in 2004, with the MESSENGER probe demonstrating as the first use of a solar sail . NASA also launched probes to the outer Solar System starting in the 1960s. Pioneer 10 was the first probe to the outer planets, flying by Jupiter , while Pioneer 11 provided
6678-402: The Moon and going to Mars. Embracing this approach, NASA's Commercial Crew Program started by contracting cargo delivery to the International Space Station and flew its first operational contracted mission on SpaceX Crew-1 . This marked the first time since the retirement of the Space Shuttle that NASA was able to launch its own astronauts on an American spacecraft from the United States, ending
6804-434: The Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard, the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency under Wernher von Braun . This left NASA firmly as the United States' civil space lead and the Air Force as the military space lead. Plans for human spaceflight began in the U.S. Armed Forces prior to NASA's creation. The Air Force's Man in Space Soonest project formed in 1956, coupled with
6930-545: The Philippines to satisfaction; some researchers argue that these are indeed distinct species, but that A. cerana as defined is still paraphyletic , consisting of several separate species, though other researchers argue cerana is a single monophyletic species. A. mellifera , the most common domesticated species, was first domesticated before 2600 BC and was the third insect to have its genome mapped. It seems to have originated in eastern tropical Africa and spread from there to Europe and eastwards into Asia to
7056-503: The Pilotless Aircraft Research Division. The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1 ushered in the Space Age and kicked off the Space Race . Despite NACA's early rocketry program, the responsibility for launching the first American satellite fell to the Naval Research Laboratory 's Project Vanguard , whose operational issues ensured the Army Ballistic Missile Agency would launch Explorer 1 , America's first satellite, on February 1, 1958. The Eisenhower Administration decided to split
7182-409: The Russians be included. In 1993, the Clinton Administration announced that the Space Station Freedom would become the International Space Station in an agreement with the Russian Federation. This allowed the Russians to maintain their space program through an infusion of American currency to maintain their status as one of the two premier space programs. While the United States built and launched
7308-507: The Russians to fly to the International Space Station for four days, despite the opposition of NASA to the idea. Advocates of this new commercial approach for NASA included former astronaut Buzz Aldrin , who remarked that it would return NASA to its roots as a research and development agency, with commercial entities actually operating the space systems. Having corporations take over orbital operations would also allow NASA to focus all its efforts on deep space exploration and returning humans to
7434-422: The Solar System. Mars has long been a planet of intense fascination for NASA, being suspected of potentially having harbored life. Mariner 5 was the first NASA spacecraft to flyby Mars, followed by Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 . Mariner 9 was the first orbital mission to Mars. Launched in 1975, Viking program consisted of two landings on Mars in 1976. Follow-on missions would not be launched until 1996, with
7560-404: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, NASA was forced to rely on Russian Soyuz launches for its astronauts and the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle accelerated the station's completion. In the 1980s, right after the first flight of the Space Shuttle, NASA started a joint program with the Department of Defense to develop the Rockwell X-30 National Aerospace Plane. NASA realized that
7686-418: The Space Shuttle allowed NASA to begin recruiting more non-military scientific and technical experts. A prime example is Sally Ride , who became the first American woman to fly in space on STS-7 . This new astronaut selection process also allowed NASA to accept exchange astronauts from U.S. allies and partners for the first time. The first Space Shuttle flight occurred in 1981, when the Columbia launched on
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#17328444986157812-443: The Space Shuttle and expand space exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Constellation was intended to use a significant amount of former Space Shuttle equipment and return astronauts to the Moon. This program was canceled by the Obama Administration . Former astronauts Neil Armstrong , Gene Cernan , and Jim Lovell sent a letter to President Barack Obama to warn him that if the United States did not get new human spaceflight ability,
7938-478: The Space Shuttle began flying, selling it as an orbital laboratory, repair station, and a jumping off point for lunar and Mars missions. NASA found a strong advocate in President Ronald Reagan , who declared in a 1984 speech: America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight I am directing NASA to develop
8064-444: The Space Shuttle, while a massive technological accomplishment, would not be able to live up to all its promises. Designed to be a single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane, the X-30 had both civil and military applications. With the end of the Cold War , the X-30 was canceled in 1992 before reaching flight status. Following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, President Bush started the Constellation program to smoothly replace
8190-483: The Space Shuttle. Due to technical challenges, the spacecraft was cancelled in 2001. Despite this, it was the first time a commercial space company directly expended a significant amount of its resources into spacecraft development. The advent of space tourism also forced NASA to challenge its assumption that only governments would have people in space. The first space tourist was Dennis Tito , an American investment manager and former aerospace engineer who contracted with
8316-507: The Space Station Freedom was controversial, with much of the debate centering on cost. Several redesigns to reduce cost were conducted in the early 1990s, stripping away much of its functions. Despite calls for Congress to terminate the program, it continued, in large part because by 1992 it had created 75,000 jobs across 39 states. By 1993, President Bill Clinton attempted to significantly reduce NASA's budget and directed costs be significantly reduced, aerospace industry jobs were not lost, and
8442-399: The U.S. risked become a second or third-rate space power. As early as the Reagan Administration, there had been calls for NASA to expand private sector involvement in space exploration rather than do it all in-house. In the 1990s, NASA and Lockheed Martin entered into an agreement to develop the Lockheed Martin X-33 demonstrator of the VentureStar spaceplane, which was intended to replace
8568-491: The United States' military and civil spaceflight programs, which were organized together under the Defense Department 's Advanced Research Projects Agency . NASA was established on July 29, 1958, with the signing of the National Aeronautics and Space Act and it began operations on October 1, 1958. As the US's premier aeronautics agency, NACA formed the core of NASA's new structure by reassigning 8,000 employees and three major research laboratories. NASA also proceeded to absorb
8694-409: The United States, and a number of species of Bombus (bumblebees) for pollination in various regions globally, such as tomatoes , which are not effectively pollinated by honey bees. Primarily in places where western honey bees were imported by humans, periodic collapses in western honey bee populations have occurred at least since the late 19th century. However, as humans continued to manipulate
8820-455: The body. Apis cerana , the eastern honey bee proper, is the traditional honey bee of southern and eastern Asia. One of its subspecies, the Indian honey bee ( A. c. indica ), was domesticated and kept in hives in a fashion similar to A. mellifera , though on a more limited, regional scale. It has not been possible yet to resolve its relationship to the Bornean honey bee A. c. nuluensis and Apis nigrocincta from
8946-431: The bristles (setae) guarding the spiracles are firm enough to prevent the mites' entry into the tracheae. Mite infestations are known as acarine, and have been called "Isle of Wight disease". Larval stages of the moth Galleria mellonella parasitize both wild and cultivated honey bees, in particular Apis mellifera and Apis cerana . Eggs are laid within the hive, and the larvae that hatch tunnel through and destroy
9072-428: The central area of the hive to form a "winter cluster". The worker bees huddle around the queen bee at the center of the cluster, shivering to keep the center between 27 °C (81 °F) at the start of winter (during the broodless period) and 34 °C (93 °F) once the queen resumes laying. The worker bees rotate through the cluster from the outside to the inside so that no bee gets too cold. The outside edges of
9198-404: The cluster stay at about 8–9 °C (46–48 °F). The colder the weather is outside, the more compact the cluster becomes. During winter, they consume their stored honey to produce body heat. The amount of honey consumed during the winter is a function of winter length and severity, but ranges in temperate climates from 15 to 50 kilograms (33 to 110 lb). In addition, certain bees, including
9324-496: The crop needs pollinating and allowing the beekeeper to charge for the pollination services they provide, revising the historical role of the self-employed beekeeper, and favoring large-scale commercial operations. Bees of various types other than honey bees are also domesticated and used for pollination or other means around the world, including Tetragonula iridipennis in India, the blue orchard bee for tree nut and fruit pollination in
9450-571: The crops that depend on western honey bees for pollination have also been imported since colonial times. Escaped swarms (known as "wild" honey bees, but actually feral ) spread rapidly as far as the Great Plains , usually preceding the colonists. Honey bees did not naturally cross the Rocky Mountains ; they were transported by the Mormon pioneers to Utah in the late 1840s, and by ship to California in
9576-489: The early 1850s. Africanized honey bees (known colloquially as "killer bees") are hybrids between European stock and the East African lowland subspecies A. m. scutellata . They are often more aggressive than European honey bees and do not create as much of a honey surplus, but are more resistant to disease and are better foragers. Accidentally released from quarantine in Brazil , they have spread to North America and constitute
9702-564: The end of the 1960s and installed James E. Webb as NASA administrator to achieve this goal. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy openly declared this goal in his "Urgent National Needs" speech to the United States Congress, declaring: I believe this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for
9828-610: The exact relationships of many A. mellifera subspecies. Apis mellifera is not native to the Americas , so it was not present when the European explorers and colonists arrived. However, other native bee species were kept and traded by indigenous peoples. In 1622, European colonists brought the German honey bee ( A. m. mellifera ) to the Americas first, followed later by the Italian honey bee ( A. m. ligustica ) and others. Many of
9954-420: The first close up view of the planet. Both probes became the first objects to leave the Solar System. The Voyager program launched in 1977, conducting flybys of Jupiter and Saturn , Neptune , and Uranus on a trajectory to leave the Solar System. The Galileo spacecraft, deployed from the Space Shuttle flight STS-34 , was the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, discovering evidence of subsurface oceans on
10080-510: The first crew to make it habitable and operational. Skylab hosted nine missions and was decommissioned in 1974 and deorbited in 1979, two years prior to the first launch of the Space Shuttle and any possibility of boosting its orbit. In 1975, the Apollo–Soyuz mission was the first ever international spaceflight and a major diplomatic accomplishment between the Cold War rivals, which also marked
10206-476: The first decade of the 21st century, abnormally high die-offs (30–70% of hives) of western honey bee colonies have occurred in North America. This has been dubbed "colony collapse disorder" (CCD) and was at first unexplained. It seems to be caused by a combination of factors rather than a single pathogen or poison , possibly including neonicotinoid pesticides or Israeli acute paralysis virus . A survey by
10332-485: The first direct ascent trajectory for the Space Shuttle; Challenger reached its 533 km (331 mi) - high orbit using its Orbiter Maneuvering System (OMS) engines only once, to circularize its orbit. During the ascent phase, the main computer in Mission control center (MCC) failed, as did the backup computer. For about an hour, the controllers had no data on the orbiter. The flight had two primary objectives. The first
10458-402: The first humans to see the Earth as a globe in space, the first to witness an Earthrise , and the first to see and manually photograph the far side of the Moon. The first lunar landing was conducted by Apollo 11. Commanded by Neil Armstrong with astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins , Apollo 11 was one of the most significant missions in NASA's history, marking the end of
10584-533: The genus Melipona . Still, honey bees are considered "crucial to the food supply, pollinating more than 100 of the crops we eat, including nuts, vegetables, berries, citrus and melons." The USDA reports "Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce" and honey bees "pollinate 80 percent of all flowering plants, including more than 130 types of fruits and vegetables." Honey bees obtain all of their nutritional requirements from
10710-465: The honeycombs that contain bee larva and their honey stores. The tunnels they create are lined with silk, which entangles and starves emerging bees. Destruction of honeycombs also result in honey leaking and being wasted. Both G. mellonella adults and larvae are possible vectors for pathogens that can infect bees, including the Israeli acute paralysis virus and the black queen cell virus . To manage
10836-483: The hypersonic test aircraft becoming the first non-dedicated spacecraft to cross from the atmosphere to outer space. The X-15 also served as a testbed for Apollo program technologies, as well as ramjet and scramjet propulsion. Escalations in the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union prompted President John F. Kennedy to charge NASA with landing an American on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by
10962-406: The large size of their colonies, and surplus production and storage of honey , distinguishing their hives as a prized foraging target of many animals, including honey badgers , bears and human hunter-gatherers . Only 8 surviving species of honey bee are recognized, with a total of 43 subspecies , though historically 7 to 11 species are recognized. Honey bees represent only a small fraction of
11088-451: The last flight of the Apollo capsule. Flown in 1975, a U.S. Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule. During the 1960s, NASA started its space science and interplanetary probe program. The Mariner program was its flagship program, launching probes to Venus , Mars , and Mercury in the 1960s. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was the lead NASA center for robotic interplanetary exploration, making significant discoveries about
11214-484: The long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. Kennedy gave his " We choose to go to the Moon " speech the next year, on September 12, 1962 at Rice University , where he addressed the nation hoping to reinforce public support for the Apollo program. Despite attacks on the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon from the former president Dwight Eisenhower and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater , President Kennedy
11340-504: The majority of the International Space Station, Russia, Canada, Japan, and the European Space Agency all contributed components. Despite NASA's insistence that costs would be kept at a budget of $ 17.4, they kept rising and NASA had to transfer funds from other programs to keep the International Space Station solvent. Ultimately, the total cost of the station was $ 150 billion, with the United States paying for two-thirds.Following
11466-542: The military. The Mercury 7 astronauts included three Air Force pilots, three Navy aviators, and one Marine Corps pilot. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to enter space, performing a suborbital spaceflight in the Freedom 7 . This flight occurred less than a month after the Soviet Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, executing a full orbital spaceflight. NASA's first orbital spaceflight
11592-425: The mite, temperature treatments are possible, but also distorts wax of the honeycombs. Chemical fumigants, particularly CO 2 , are also used. Varroa mites are arguably the biggest threat to honey bees in the United States. These mites invade hives and reproduce by laying eggs on pupa. The hatching mites eat away at the pupa, causing deformities as well as spreading disease. If not detected and treated early on,
11718-609: The moon of Enceladus , which could harbor life. Finally launched in 2006, the New Horizons mission was the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and the Kuiper Belt . Beyond interplanetary probes, NASA has launched many space telescopes . Launched in the 1960s, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory were NASA's first orbital telescopes, providing ultraviolet, gamma-ray, x-ray, and infrared observations. NASA launched
11844-534: The most common circulating sugar in hemolymph is trehalose which is a disaccharide consisting of two glucose molecules. Adult worker honey bees require 4 mg of utilizable sugars per day and larvae require about 59.4 mg of carbohydrates for proper development. Honey bees require water to maintain osmotic homeostasis, prepare liquid brood food, and to cool the hive through evaporation. A colony's water needs can generally be met by nectar foraging as it has high water content. Occasionally on hot days or when nectar
11970-633: The most enigmatic of all honey bee species. It seems to have diverged from its eastern relatives only during the Late Miocene . This would fit the hypothesis that the ancestral stock of cave-nesting honey bees was separated into the western group of East Africa and the eastern group of tropical Asia by desertification in the Middle East and adjacent regions, which caused declines of food plants and trees that provided nest sites, eventually causing gene flow to cease. The diversity of A. mellifera subspecies
12096-476: The next day. After a 30-day checkout by the Goddard POCC, the satellite resumed full operation. Other STS-41-C mission activities included a student experiment located in a middeck locker which found that honeybees can successfully make honeycomb cells in a microgravity environment . Highlights of the mission, including the LDEF deployment and the Solar Max repair, were filmed using an IMAX movie camera, and
12222-471: The next forty years, NACA would conduct aeronautical research in support of the U.S. Air Force , U.S. Army , U.S. Navy , and the civil aviation sector. After the end of World War II , NACA became interested in the possibilities of guided missiles and supersonic aircraft, developing and testing the Bell X-1 in a joint program with the U.S. Air Force . NACA's interest in space grew out of its rocketry program at
12348-519: The night of the third day, the Solar Max Payload Operations Control Center (POCC), located at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, Maryland , was able to establish control over the satellite by sending commands ordering the satellite's magnetorquers to stabilize its tumbling. This was successful, and Solar Max went into a slow, regular spin. The next day, Crippen maneuvered Challenger back to Solar Max, and Hart
12474-467: The number of brood reared. Honey bees ingest phytosterols from pollen to produce 24-methylenecholesterol and other sterols as they cannot directly synthesize cholesterol from phytosterols. Nurse bees have the ability to selectively transfer sterols to larvae through brood food. Nectar is collected by foraging worker bees as a source of water and carbohydrates in the form of sucrose. The dominant monosaccharides in honey bee diets are fructose and glucose but
12600-503: The only extant members of the tribe Apini. Today's honey bees constitute three clades : Micrapis (the dwarf honey bees), Megapis (the giant honey bee), and Apis (the western honey bee and its close relatives). Most species have historically been cultured or at least exploited for honey and beeswax by humans indigenous to their native ranges. Only two species have been truly domesticated : Apis mellifera and Apis cerana . A. mellifera has been cultivated at least since
12726-615: The other lineages, but do not seem to have diverged from each other a long time before the Neogene . Apis florea have smaller wing spans than its sister species. Apis florea are also completely yellow with the exception of the scutellum of workers, which is black. Two species are recognized in the subgenus Megapis . They usually build single or a few exposed combs on high tree limbs, on cliffs, and sometimes on buildings. They can be very fierce. Periodically robbed of their honey by human "honey hunters", colonies are easily capable of stinging
12852-539: The place of origin of the genus, only that the bees were present in Europe by that time. Few fossil deposits are known from South Asia, the suspected region of honey bee origin, and fewer still have been thoroughly studied. No Apis species existed in the New World during human times before the introduction of A. mellifera by Europeans. Only one fossil species is documented from the New World, Apis nearctica , known from
12978-558: The radiation levels on Mars were equal to those on the International Space Station , greatly increasing the possibility of Human exploration, and observed the key chemical ingredients for life to occur. In 2013, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution ( MAVEN ) mission observed the Martian upper atmosphere and space environment and in 2018, the Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy, and Heat Transport ( InSight ) studied
13104-452: The result of allopatric speciation , their distribution later converging. Given that A. florea is more widely distributed and A. andreniformis is considerably more aggressive, honey is, if at all, usually harvested from the former only. They are the most ancient extant lineage of honey bees, maybe diverging in the Bartonian (some 40 million years ago or slightly later) from
13230-497: The results appeared in the 1985 IMAX movie The Dream is Alive . The 6 days, 23 hours, 40 minutes, and 7 seconds mission ended on April 13, 1984, at 5:38 a.m. PST , when Challenger landed safely on Runway 17, at Edwards Air Force Base, having completed 108 orbits. Challenger was returned to KSC on April 18, 1984. NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the Project Gemini , and first used music to wake up
13356-480: The roughly 20,000 known species of bees. The best known honey bee is the western honey bee , ( Apis mellifera ), which was domesticated for honey production and crop pollination . The only other domesticated bee is the eastern honey bee ( Apis cerana ), which occurs in South , Southeast , and East Asia . Only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees, but some other types of bees produce and store honey and have been kept by humans for that purpose, including
13482-502: The satellites were repaired and relaunched. Despite ushering in a new era of spaceflight, where NASA was contracting launch services to commercial companies, the Space Shuttle was criticized for not being as reusable and cost-effective as advertised. In 1986, Challenger disaster on the STS-51L mission resulted in the loss of the spacecraft and all seven astronauts on launch, grounding the entire space shuttle fleet for 36 months and forced
13608-564: The second day of the flight, the LDEF was grappled by the Remote Manipulator System ( Canadarm ) and successfully released into orbit. Its 57 experiments, mounted in 86 removable trays, were contributed by 200 researchers from eight countries. Retrieval of the passive LDEF was initially scheduled for 1985, but schedule delays and the Challenger disaster of 1986 postponed the retrieval until January 12, 1990, when Columbia retrieved
13734-641: The separation of dark and regular matter during galactic collisions. Finally, the Spitzer Space Telescope is an infrared telescope launched in 2003 from a Delta II rocket. It is in a trailing orbit around the Sun, following the Earth and discovered the existence of brown dwarf stars . Other telescopes, such as the Cosmic Background Explorer and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe , provided evidence to support
13860-552: The setback caused by the Apollo 1 fire, which killed three astronauts, the program proceeded. Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon . The crew orbited the Moon ten times on December 24 and 25, 1968, and then traveled safely back to Earth . The three Apollo 8 astronauts— Frank Borman , James Lovell , and William Anders —were
13986-571: The space agency where he would serve as the director of the Apollo program. Development of the Saturn V rocket was led by Wernher von Braun and his team at the Marshall Space Flight Center , derived from the Army Ballistic Missile Agency's original Saturn I . The Apollo spacecraft was designed and built by North American Aviation , while the Apollo Lunar Module was designed and built by Grumman . To develop
14112-534: The space shuttle be retired. In 2006, the Space Shuttle returned to flight, conducting several mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope , but was retired following the STS-135 resupply mission to the International Space Station in 2011. NASA never gave up on the idea of a space station after Skylab's reentry in 1979. The agency began lobbying politicians to support building a larger space station as soon as
14238-476: The space station spelled an end to the program. In 2003, a second space shuttle was destroyed when the Columbia was destroyed upon reentry during the STS-107 mission, resulting in the loss of the spacecraft and all seven astronauts. This accident marked the beginning of the retiring of the Space Shuttle program, with President George W. Bush directing that upon the completion of the International Space Station,
14364-462: The spaceflight skills and equipment required for a lunar mission, NASA initiated Project Gemini . Using a modified Air Force Titan II launch vehicle, the Gemini capsule could hold two astronauts for flights of over two weeks. Gemini pioneered the use of fuel cells instead of batteries, and conducted the first American spacewalks and rendezvous operations . The Ranger Program was started in
14490-562: The time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids , and only that species has been moved extensively beyond its native range. Apis florea and Apis andreniformis are small honey bees of southern and southeastern Asia. They make very small, exposed nests in trees and shrubs. Their stings are often incapable of penetrating human skin, so the hive and swarms can be handled with minimal protection. They occur largely sympatrically , though they are very distinct evolutionarily and are probably
14616-696: The various projects, mission architectures and associated timelines relevant to lunar and Mars exploration and science. Honey bee A honey bee (also spelled honeybee ) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus Apis of the bee clade , all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia . After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia , humans became responsible for the current cosmopolitan distribution of honey bees, introducing multiple subspecies into South America (early 16th century ), North America (early 17th century), and Australia (early 19th century). Honey bees are known for their construction of perennial colonial nests from wax ,
14742-488: The western honey bee and deliberately transferred them on a global scale, diseases simultaneously spread and harmed managed colonies. Colony losses have occurred periodically throughout history. Fungus, mites, and starvation have all been thought to be the cause of the deaths. Limited occurrences resembling CCD were documented as early as 1869. Colony collapses were called "May Disease" in Colorado in 1891 and 1896. Starting in
14868-412: The winter is acceptable and more than three-fifths of beekeepers surveyed said their losses were higher than that in 2022-2023. Acarapis woodi (or "tracheal mites") are parasitic mites which live and reproduce in adult bees' tracheae, or respiratory tubes, piercing the tube walls with their mouthparts to feed on haemolymph. To infest new hosts, the mites must find newly emerged bees; after three days,
14994-454: Was Venus , sharing many similar characteristics to Earth. First visited by American Mariner 2 spacecraft, Venus was observed to be a hot and inhospitable planet. Follow-on missions included the Pioneer Venus project in the 1970s and Magellan , which performed radar mapping of Venus' surface in the 1980s and 1990s. Future missions were flybys of Venus, on their way to other destinations in
15120-455: Was able to grapple the satellite with the RMS. They placed Solar Max on a special cradle in the payload bay using the RMS. Nelson and van Hoften then began the repair operation, replacing the satellite's attitude control mechanism and the main electronics system of the coronagraph instrument. The ultimately successful repair effort took two separate spacewalks . Solar Max was deployed back into orbit
15246-663: Was able to previously accomplish. NASA launched its first commercial satellites on the STS-5 mission and in 1984, the STS-41-C mission conducted the world's first on-orbit satellite servicing mission when the Challenger captured and repaired the malfunctioning Solar Maximum Mission satellite. It also had the capability to return malfunctioning satellite to Earth, like it did with the Palapa B2 and Westar 6 satellites. Once returned to Earth,
15372-477: Was able to protect NASA's growing budget, of which 50% went directly to human spaceflight and it was later estimated that, at its height, 5% of Americans worked on some aspect of the Apollo program. Mirroring the Department of Defense's program management concept using redundant systems in building the first intercontinental ballistic missiles, NASA requested the Air Force assign Major General Samuel C. Phillips to
15498-531: Was also a concern with sharing sensitive space technologies with the Europeans, which had the potential to dilute America's technical lead. Ultimately, an international agreement to develop the Space Station Freedom program would be signed with thirteen countries in 1985, including the European Space Agency member states, Canada , and Japan . Despite its status as the first international space program,
15624-542: Was conducted by John Glenn on February 20, 1962, in the Friendship 7 , making three full orbits before reentering. Glenn had to fly parts of his final two orbits manually due to an autopilot malfunction. The sixth and final Mercury mission was flown by Gordon Cooper in May 1963, performing 22 orbits over 34 hours in the Faith 7 . The Mercury Program was wildly recognized as a resounding success, achieving its objectives to orbit
15750-492: Was launched in 1990 on STS-31 from the Discovery and could view galaxies 15 billion light years away. A major defect in the telescope's mirror could have crippled the program, had NASA not used computer enhancement to compensate for the imperfection and launched five Space Shuttle servicing flights to replace the damaged components. The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was launched from the Atlantis on STS-37 in 1991, discovering
15876-515: Was to deploy the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), a passive, retrievable, 12-sided experimental cylinder. The 9,700 kg (21,400 lb) LDEF was 4.3 m (14 ft) in diameter and 9.1 m (30 ft) long, and carried 57 scientific experiments. The second objective of STS-41-C was to capture, repair and redeploy the malfunctioning Solar Maximum Mission satellite ("Solar Max"), which had been launched in 1980. On
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