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[i]Appropriately Apollo 15 is carrying a Cook Memento — a small block of wood — in a compartment of the command module. It is a piece of the sternpost of Cook's ENDEAVOUR, courtesy of the Marine Museum of the Newport Historical Society.[/i] Source: Weaver, Kenneth (Feb 1972), "Apollo 15 Explores the Mountains of the Moon", The National Geographic, pp. 230–265.
[i]Robert Duce, dean of the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography, presented Brandenstein with Endeavour's first "payload," part of the sternpost recovered from the shuttle's namesake, a sailing ship commanded by British explorer Capt. James Cook between 1768 and 1771. The centuries-old remnant will be carried into orbit during Endeavour's first mission next March, a daring satellite repair mission featuring three spacewalks.[/i]
[i]As the British captain sailed across the South Pacific in 1768, he may have wondered about sailing among the stars with which he marked his journey, but he probably never dreamed a spacecraft that would streak through the heavens above would be christened after the ship on which decks he stood. The spirit of Cook will travel with the Space Shuttle Endeavour on its maiden voyage symbolically represented in by a small piece of stern post from Cook's Endeavour, on loan to NASA from the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. On wooden sailing vessels, the stern post was the vertical piece at the aft end of the ship, usually supporting the rudder. The particular piece of wood going with the STS-49 crew was presented to the university in 1976 at the christening ceremony for its research vessel Endeavor. The stern post section will fly as part of the Official Flight Kit in a middeck locker.[/i]
[i]The HMB Endeavour is the official "replica" of the original of Captain Cook's ship, the HMS Endeavour. The HMB Endeavour was built in Fremantle, Western Australia as a bicentennial gift to Australia from the Bond Corporation and is universally regarded as the most authentic replica afloat. The center sternpost in the main cabin contains a wooden "trunnel" surrounded by a brass ring that was originally carried aboard the US Space Shuttle "Endeavour" during its maiden mission into space in 1992 by its commander Daniel C. Brandenstein. When Daniel visited the Endeavour when it was built in Fremantle, he hammered this trunnel into the sternpost to unit the sailing ship's voyage with the space shuttle's mission.[/i]
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