Editors' Picks
Area 51: Origins
America’s once-secret air base had humble beginnings.
Need for Speed
Airplanes with a mission: Fly faster.
Beyond the Moon
It’s not a place, exactly. But it could be NASA’s next destination.
The Invention of Flight
Inventors, dreamers, daredevils, charlatans: Aviation's early years had them all.
Vietnam Memoir
Stories from the war that shaped a generation.
Page 30 of 51
The Once and Future Moon Blog
The Authorized Version
NASA’s new authorization bill (S.3729) was passed by Congress before they cleared out of town and will soon be signed by the President, codifying into law the federal government’s formal abandonment of the Vision for Space Exploration. In its place is a mish-mosh of platitudes, entitlement program...
October 07, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
The Daily Planet Blog
Bon Voyage, Soyuz TMA-01M
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka are due to launch to the space station at 7:10 P.M., U.S. Eastern time today, from the Baikonur launch center in Kazakhstan. Fellow astronaut Ron Garan is at Baikonur with Kelly, providing live commentary via his...
October 07, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Looking for the High Life
In the wake of several misleading news headlines, researchers at Cranfield University in the U.K. have had to set the record straight: No, they're not looking for aliens in Earth's atmosphere.But they are looking for microbes floating around in the stratosphere, at altitudes up to 22 miles. The...
October 06, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Pushing His Buttons
Alex Spencer, curator of British aircraft and military flight materiél at the National Air and Space Museum, started his career some 20 years ago as a lowly intern. One morning, as he was riding the shuttle out to the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryl...
October 04, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
The Daily Planet Blog
200 Pounds of Silk
It wasn't the most dramatic flight of 1910, but it left an important legacy. Phil Parmelee, a pilot with the Wright exhibition team, took off from Dayton, Ohio, with 200 pounds of silk loaded into his Wright B Flyer, to be delivered to a merchant in Columbus. Dry goods salesman Max Morehouse paid t...
October 01, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
China Returns to the Moon
China's ambitions in space are often exaggerated and held up as a threat to U.S. preeminence in the field, mostly as a scare tactic to shake more money for NASA out of Congress. A lot of the huffing and puffing you can safely ignore. But the Chinese have made solid progress over the last decade in ...
September 30, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Landing Like an Owl
This MIT researcher's work is cool enough—he's trying to develop a small UAV that can land on a perch like a bird.But this slow-mo video of an owl coming in for a landing is what really wowed me:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA6XSrM0V_0
September 30, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Once and Future Moon Blog
Look Ma! No Glasses!
A geologist uses topographic maps to measure slopes, depths, heights and the general shape of landforms. To aid in reconstructing the depositional and erosional history of a chosen landscape, the geologist needs to study the shape of features in the given area in quantitative detail in order to un...
September 29, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
The Daily Planet Blog
An Artistic Sendoff for the Shuttle's Last Tank
Space shuttle historian Dennis Jenkins took a poignant ride alongside the vehicle's last external tank on Monday as it completed its long journey to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. A NASA contract engineer with 30 years in the shuttle program, Jenkins also is the author of Space Shuttle...
September 29, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
The Daily Planet Blog
Russian Animals in Space
Even if you don't understand Russian (and I don't) this TV Roskosmos mini-documentary on animals in space is worth watching. You'll see footage of the usual celebrities, including astro dogs Laika and Belka and Strelka. Laika's trainer Oleg Gazenko, a key figure in early space animal experiments wh...
September 28, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
UAVs for Congress
The bumper stickers available at the door read, "My other vehicle is unmanned."More and more, that's becoming true for a variety of government agencies—and not just the defense department—as was evident at the UAV Technology Fair held yesterday at the Rayburn House office building in Washington, D....
September 23, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
The Daily Planet Blog
"Ah, Dr. Mach!"
On this day in 1953, 21-year-old North Korean pilot No Kum-Sok astonished the American flyers at Kimpo Air Base in South Korea by landing in the middle of their runway and surrendering—thus becoming the first MiG pilot to defect to the West.
In his fascinating 1996 book, A MiG-15 to Freedom, No (w...
September 21, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Swarming Over Switzerland
This looks like fun work.And the people on the SMAVNET Project think they set a record for the largest number of flying robots (10) deployed at a single time outdoors.
September 20, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
A New Record for Mars 500
When I saw this new image of the six guys locked inside the Mars 500 mission simulation chamber in Moscow, I feared for their mental health.But they seem to be doing fine. In fact, they just broke the previous Mars chamber endurance record:
September 17, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
"Totally Way Illegal Anywhere Else"
Where do old astronauts go? Some of them simply can't shake that need for speed, so they strap on exotic aircraft and sign up for the Reno National Championship Air Races. Of the three astronauts who have taken up air racing -- Hoot Gibson, Bill Anders, and Curt Brown -- Brown, a two-time Reno cham...
September 16, 2010
| By Pat Trenner
The Daily Planet Blog
Inspiration
Former space shuttle commander Frank Culbertson stepped up to the podium inside a hearing room in the Rayburn House office building yesterday morning, and talked about inspiration. He turned to his left and thanked moon walker Buzz Aldrin for a kind gesture last year during a visit to the Johnson S...
September 15, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
The Daily Planet Blog
SETI @ 50: Are We Getting Anywhere?
Most people date the modern Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) to Frank Drake's Project Ozma, conducted in 1960 using the giant dish at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia.Today through Wednesday, at an NRAO workshop, SETI-ologists will review where th...
September 13, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Once and Future Moon Blog
Building bridges
The camera aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, currently about to begin its second year of mapping the Moon, continues to reveal new and fascinating details of the geology of the Moon. A recent featured image at the LROC web site shows what appears to be a “natural bridge” on th...
September 11, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
The Daily Planet Blog
The Day(s) Nobody Flew
You hear it all the time, even from people who should know better: September 11, 2001 was the only time in history that all air traffic in the United States was halted.Wrong. Sigh.Air & Space researcher Roger Mola was the first to point out that it wasn't the first time. That distinction goes t...
September 10, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The Daily Planet Blog
Duck!
Today, two asteroids pass the Earth at a fairly snug distance. One, 2010 RX30, went by just before 6:00 a.m. EDT about 154,000 miles above the northern Pacific Ocean. That's equivalent to three-fifths the distance to the moon. The other one, 2010 RF12, goes by just after 5:00 p.m. EDT, above Antarc...
September 08, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
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