Editors' Picks
What the astronauts really said
Apollo "onboard voice" recordings captured the moon astronauts' conversations -- cussing and all -- when no one else was listening.
Drones for Hire
The newest eyes in the sky are drawing the attention of power companies, conservation groups, and the ACLU.
Five Reasons to Like NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission
So it's not the Moon or Mars. Get over it.
The Invention of Flight
Inventors, dreamers, daredevils, charlatans: Aviation's early years had them all.
Disaster at Xichang
An eyewitness speaks publicly for the first time about history’s worst launch accident.
Page 20 of 51
The Daily Planet Blog
Live 3-D From Space
Got 3-D glasses? Then watch this. According to the European Space Agency, it’s the first live 3-D video ever streamed from space. NASA astronaut Ron Garan is both star and director, and he’s using ESA’s new Erasmus Recording Binocular (ERB-2) camera inside the European Columbus module. ESA plans to start up a 3-D channel on [...]
August 24, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Storm Coming
These days, with so many satellite sensors looking down constantly from orbit, and so many ways to slice their data, it’s hard to remember that hurricanes used to arrive without much warning. Hurricane Irene is currently bearing down on the Turks and Caicos Islands, and may hit the east coast of the United States by [...]
August 23, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
It’s Alive!
Robonaut 2—the humanoid robot soon to be tested as an astronaut’s helper on the International Space Station—is being powered up for the first time this morning (screen shot at left). Since arriving on the space shuttle last February, the robot has been sitting on its pedestal, lifeless. It won’t be commanded to move for a [...]
August 22, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Orville Mugs For His Birthday
You may have noticed the U.S. flag flying on a federal building today, but chances are it was on the pole yesterday, too. Or perhaps you woke feeling the need for “appropriate exercises to further stimulate interest in aviation,” which many of us consider part of our routine. At least today, though, you’ve got President [...]
August 19, 2011
| By Roger Mola
The Once and Future Moon Blog
Splat! Two Moons over Miami?
A recent paper suggests that early in the history of the Solar System, two sub-moons collided to create Earth’s present-day Moon. Several people have asked for my opinion on this new concept, so I will examine how this result was obtained, along with some general remarks on the nature of modern scientific research. Over 25 [...]
August 18, 2011
| By Paul D. Spudis
The Daily Planet Blog
Apollo in Afghanistan
Three legendary astronauts—Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and Gene Cernan—were in Kabul, Afghanistan, yesterday, meeting with American service men and women as well as young Afghan Air Force trainees. From the NATO press release: “This is the best day of my life!” said Lt. Fatama Abteen, one of a small handful of female Afghan Air Force [...]
August 17, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Conan Knows Best
Who can forget the immortal question posed by the Mongol General in the 1982 classic Conan the Barbarian? Wait…don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? When the Mongol General bellows “What is best in life?” some (sissy) barbarian offers the following: “The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.” (“The [...]
August 12, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
The Daily Planet Blog
Wait…What?
The impending retirement of the Lockheed U-2, which began flying for the Central Intelligence Agency in 1956, has been in the news for a while now. Yesterday, AirForceTimes.com reported that the Air Force, which incrementally took over U-2 ops starting in the mid-1960s, will phase out the beloved Dragon Lady by 2015, when the Northrop [...]
August 11, 2011
| By Pat Trenner
The Daily Planet Blog
Coming Extractions
The Army’s CH-47 Chinook helicopter has flown a stunning but standard maneuver—the aft-wheel pinnacle landing—since 1962. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the move has reached its peak. This month as many as 5,000 pairs of boots will leave the ground, with a goal to extract 33,000 by next September. Many will exit the same way they [...]
August 10, 2011
| By Roger Mola
The Daily Planet Blog
F-16s Don’t Think You’re Cute
As reported on AOL: “Myrtle Rose, a 75-year-old grandmother of nine and pilot, was intercepted by two F-16 fighter jets over suburban Illinois on Thursday when her small airplane crossed into airspace that had been restricted because of President Obama’s arrival in the Windy City.” A few days later, AvWeb reported that Rose’ first thought upon [...]
August 09, 2011
| By Pat Trenner
The Daily Planet Blog
Captain America and the Horten Brothers
Oh, those Horten brothers. Looks like they’re at it again. The aircraft in Captain America: The First Avenger looks suspiciously like a Horten flying wing; did Reimar and Walter team up with the evil Johann Schmidt (aka Red Skull), the head of Nazi Germany’s HYDRA research department? Here’s what we know: The diabolical Schmidt expects [...]
August 09, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
The Daily Planet Blog
Rural Airport Subsidies: How Far Is Too Far?
As the crow flies, the Hagerstown Regional Airport (HGR) in Maryland is 64 miles from the much busier runways of Baltimore Washington International (BWI), to its east. How far a drive is it, though? And more importantly, how far is it in political terms? Under the Essential Air Service program enacted in 1978, federal subsidies [...]
August 08, 2011
| By Roger Mola
The Daily Planet Blog
The First Photographer in Space
Yuri Gagarin, incredibly, didn’t carry a camera on the world’s first spaceflight. Neither did Alan Shepard nor Gus Grissom, whose 15-minute suborbital shots followed Gagarin’s April 1961 launch by three weeks and three months, respectively. The American astronauts were photographed during their missions, but only by automated cameras mounted in the Mercury capsule. So it [...]
August 05, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Water (Really!) on Mars
Over the years, spacecraft have seen plenty of dried-up riverbeds on Mars, along with rocks that formed in watery environments eons ago. No question about it, the Red Planet used to be wet. NASA can stop sending press announcements about water in the Martian past. We got it. Now scientists are reporting something much more [...]
August 04, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Once and Future Moon Blog
Exotic volcanoes on the Moon
The flood of new data from the Moon continues to enlighten and puzzle lunar scientists. Members of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team have noticed an unusual landform on the far side of the Moon that was as unexpected as it might be significant. We’ve known for many years that early in its history, the [...]
August 03, 2011
| By Paul D. Spudis
The Daily Planet Blog
D.B. Cooper (Still) Missing
After investigating a thousand suspects since a person who called himself (or herself) D.B. Cooper skyjacked a Boeing 727 on November 24, 1971, the FBI thought it finally had a “credible” tip. Until last night, that is, when CBS News reported that the Cooper lead had fizzled and the FBI was expected to formally rule [...]
August 02, 2011
| By Roger Mola
The Daily Planet Blog
As the Asteroid Turns
Scientists unveiled the first full closeup of the asteroid Vesta today. The picture, stitched together from frames taken by the Dawn spacecraft from a distance of 3,200 miles on July 24, shows mysterious parallel grooves around the asteroid’s middle, which may have formed when Vesta contracted, then expanded after a giant impact early in its [...]
August 01, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Once and Future Moon Blog
Visions Don’t Pass Away – A Tribute to John Marburger
Recently deceased John H. Marburger, former Science Advisor to President George W. Bush and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, had a long and distinguished career as a scientist, an administrator and public servant. I knew him through his advocacy and involvement in the development of the Vision for Space [...]
July 30, 2011
| By Paul D. Spudis
The Daily Planet Blog
Print Your Own Airplane
According to some tech-watchers, 3-D printing will be the Next Big Thing. Load a bunch of raw material into your home mini-factory, download a 3-D CAD file, fire up the machine, and voilà, out comes a replacement part for your refrigerator or a copy of your door key (running to the hardware store is so [...]
July 29, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
F-35 Catapult Test
While the Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter continues its struggle with budget politics, the test program marches along. On Wednesday the F-35C—the version designed for aircraft carriers—made its first catapult launch during a ground test at Naval Air Systems Command in Lakehurst, New Jersey, with Navy test pilot Lt. Chris Tabert at the controls. Ship [...]
July 29, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
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