Regor

Authors: Eric Mamajek, Susanne M Hoffmann, Youla Azkarrula

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Regor was a name from the space age attached to the bright star Gamma Velorum (gam02 Vel).

Etymology and History

Regor was one of three mysterious new names that started appearing around 1967 on American navigational star charts early in the history of the NASA Apollo crewed lunar missions.

Extensive notes exploring the origins of the names and the parties involved are documented in the Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Journal: Post-Landing Activities site (Eric M. Jones, 1996, last revised 2026) and a 2016 memo written by Apollo 15 Commander David R. Scott to Eric M. Jones for the Lunar Surface Journals. Astronaut David R. Scott states:

"Unfortunately, as a result of these incorrect entries in the Journal, the origin of Navi, Dnoces, and Regor as a joke has been widely distributed in all forms of information on Apollo. The origin of these names was not a joke; the origin was intended to honor and memorialize three wonderful men who worked so hard to make Apollo a success and eventually gave all they had. Dr. Cleminshaw himself recognized this as an honor in his 1977 book, The Beginners Guide to the Skies:

“Navi (Gamma Cassiopeiae) is “Ivan” spelled backwards and was named in honor of Virgil Ivan Grissom, one of the three astronauts killed in the Apollo fire.” (Note: “in honor of…Grissom”, not “by…..Grissom”). (Similar entries are included for Ed White and Roger Chaffee.)"

Source have mistakenly attributed the naming to either the three Apollo 1 astronauts themselves,

"Among many other factors, I was Gus’s [Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom] backup navigator for the first seven months during this period [March-October 1966]; I worked with him almost daily; I flew with him many times, including at night discussing the brilliant stars overhead; and he never said a word about these names. Neither did any of our other four crewmates (Ed [Edward H. White II], Roger [Chaffee], Jim [McDivitt] and Rusty [Schweickart]) ever even hint at new star names."

Astronaut David Scott constrains the likely timing of the naming to March-April 1967, shortly after the January 1967 Apollo 1 fire. David Scott's notebook from mission training in October 1966 listed three bright navigational stars (gamma Cassiopeiae, iota Ursa Majoris, gamma Velorum) that were the only ones of the 37 lacking common names.

In The Griffith Observer edition of September 1967, Griffith Planetarium director Clarence Cleminshaw mentioned the names Navi, Dnoces, and Regor for those three stars in a story on navigational stars.

The Apollo 1 fire was a great national tragedy in the United States, and commemorations of the astronauts came shortly afterwards for landmarks like schools, parks, streets, etc. Near the city of Downey, California, home of the North American Aviation plant that designed and built the Apollo Command and Service Modules (CSM), the neighboring city of Long Beach named four new artificial islands in 1967 for four astronauts that had recently died ("Chaffee", "Grissom", "White", and another - "Freeman" for astronaut Ted Freeman, who perished in a flight accident in 1967).

Weblinks

• Website of the IAU WGSN: https://exopla.net/
• Apollo 11 Flown Star Charts (scans courtesy of Larry McGlyn
• The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal and Apollo Flight Journal (NASA), links to Eric M. Jones' Apollo documentation, Apollo Flight Journals (Apollo 7-17), Apollo Lunar Surface Journals (Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17), Navigation Stars used in the AOT (Alignment Optical Telescope)
• REGOR (Gamma-2 Velorum), STARS, Jim Kaler
• SIMBAD page on Regor / gam02 Vel , CDS
• Regor (Gamma Velorum) - entry in "The Beginner's Guide to the Skies: A Month-by-month Handbook for Stargazers and Planet Watchers" by Clarence Higbee Cleminshaw, 1977, Crowell

Reference

• References (general)