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 24 of 45
How 30 years changed the world's most complex flying machine.
July 2010
| By Michael Klesius
Endeavour lights up the sky—and water—in Florida.
July 2010
| By The Editors
In the age of orbiting telescopes such as the Hubble and the not-yet-launched James Webb Space Telescope, it's worth giving a nod to the dramatic advances made in building ground-based telescopes.The board of trustees of the Carnegie Institution for Science just authorized the release of $59.2 mill...
May 18, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
Last week, the Science Team of the Mini-RF imaging radar experiment aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, met in Flagstaff, Arizona. We were there to conduct field studies of some interesting lunar analogs that occur in this area. Scientists study the planets through a variety of ...
May 15, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
While the U.S. space program is mired in political arguments over how to reach Earth orbit (something we've known how to do for 50 years), Japan's space agency JAXA, with far less money, is about to take a small but noteworthy step into the future.An HII-A launcher is scheduled to lift off from the...
May 14, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
NASA has released better video of the recent launch abort system test in New Mexico. Some spectacular views here.
May 12, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
A new exhibition of awe-inspiring photos from the first 50 years of planetary exploration.
May 18, 2010
| By The Editors
Flight directors at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California are troubleshooting a glitch with the distant Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is still sending back signals from the outer solar system 33 years after it was launched. According to a JPL release, ground controllers haven't received inte...
May 10, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
Among the more intriguing commercial space vehicles on the drawing board is Excalibur Almaz, whose backers propose to use leftover vehicles built for a Soviet military space station program that died aborning in the 1970s. The principals in the company include Art Dula, an old hand in the field of ...
May 06, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
NASA’s new launch abort system just passed a major test. But what booster and capsule will use it?
May 06, 2010
| By Michael Klesius
The Moon is constantly bombarded by the solid debris of the Solar System. Comets, asteroids and interplanetary dust, all containing varying amounts of water, have pounded the lunar surface for billions of years. Yet until recently, the Moon was considered to be barren and bone-dry. Rock and soil...
May 02, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
The James Webb Space Telescope just cleared its most significant milestone, the Mission Critical Design Review. This means that the orbiting infrared observatory, scheduled to launch on an Ariane 5 rocket no earlier than June 2014 into orbit around the sun, about a million miles from Earth, is expe...
April 29, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
Still picking yourself up off the floor after reading our recent post about the $152,000 that was paid at auction for Neil Armstrong's autograph, along with his famous "one small step" quote, written on a sheet of the Apollo 11 flight plan?Here's what Armstrong had to say in his 2005 biography by J...
April 26, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
Six weeks before Sputnik 1 ushered in the Space Age, and four years before Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1 flight, an adventurous young biomedical researcher named David Simons climbed to the edge of space inside a pressurized capsule, as part of a project called Manhigh. As we wrote in an article publishe...
April 23, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
New hi-definition movies of the Sun, from NASA's recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory. Mesmerizing.
April 23, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
On Thursday, April 22, the U.S. Air Force will finally launch its little, unmanned X-37 orbital spaceplane on top of an Atlas V rocket. The liftoff, which will take place in a window between 7:52 p.m. and 8:01 p.m., will mark the culmination of years of development for the newest U.S. spacecraft—an...
April 21, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
"Dear Mr. Taxman: I'm sorry I missed the deadline. I was, uh, hmm, in a spaceship flying to the moon?"On the evening of April 15, 2010, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's John H. Glenn lecture series honored four legendary men of Apollo 13 on the 40th anniversary of their hair-raising ...
April 16, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
During a carefully staged appearance at Kennedy Space Center yesterday, President Barack Obama rolled out his plans for the U. S. space program. Although there weren’t many surprises (the White House Office of Science and Technology, under the direction of John P. Holdren, had released a fact shee...
April 16, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
“Well I can’t say that this thing hasn’t been filled with excitement,” said astronaut Jim Lovell as Apollo 13's crew crowded into the Command Module Odyssey—following the explosion of an onboard tank in the Service Module—and headed back to Earth. CapCom immediately joked, "Well, James, if you can'...
April 15, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
Advertisement
Follow Us
 | ||||||
|
|
 |
 |
| ||
Air & Space Videos
|
Flightseeing on Mount McKinleyA very close look at the mountaintops around North America’s highest peak. |
|
A New Way to NavigateGPS systems help pilots fly through rugged Alaskan terrain. |
|
X-47B Carrier LaunchAn unpiloted combat aircraft takes off from an aircraft carrier for the first time. |
|
SpaceShipTwo Fires UpVirgin Galactic sends its edge-of-space ship past Mach 1. |
|
How to Bag an AsteroidNASA's plan to retrieve an asteroid and bring it (close to) home. |
View All Videos » |
|
Need to Know
|
Why do NASA launch times depend on lighting conditions?It's all about the solar beta angle. |
Air & Space Interview
|
Bobby BraunNASA's outgoing Chief Technologist talks about what's in the R&D pipeline |
In the Magazine
