Editors' Picks
Printed in Space
If your star tracker breaks on the way to the moon, just hit Command P.
Area 51: Origins
America’s once-secret air base had humble beginnings.
Need for Speed
Airplanes with a mission: Fly faster.
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 25 of 45
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
As opponents and advocates square off in Congress this year over the future of NASA's human spaceflight program, expect fireworks. But don't expect anything to happen too quickly. Kind of like this super-slo-mo video, which should bring out the pyro in you: the seven-seconds that the space shuttle ...
April 14, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
A recent talking points memo by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) seeks to clarify some aspects of the new direction in regards to the cancelled Project Constellation. Touted by some as “compromise,” it asserts that NASA will develop and build a new “Orion lite” crew vehicle whose...
April 14, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
"Odyssey, You Have a Problem."If five men in Houston had realized what they were seeing through a telescope on the evening of April 13, 1970, they could have radioed those words to the crew of Apollo 13, who was still trying to grasp what had just happened: an oxygen tank on their spacecraft had ex...
April 12, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
As we survey the wreckage and ruin of yet another NASA “return to the Moon” program, the inevitable “what went wrong?” arguments play out. We’re in a much different place today than we were when Apollo 11 reached the Moon (and each year there are fewer of us alive who witnessed it). To some of us...
April 02, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
“The first decade in the Space Age was a unique moment in human history,” says Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum curator Roger Launius. “For the first time, humanity ventured off its home planet, to explore the moon and elsewhere. And along the way, we experienced both excitement and someti...
April 02, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
The first company with a plan—and a rocket—to send humans to orbit answers the existential question.
May 2009
| By Michael Milstein
Looking to add a little acrimony to your life? Join the debate about the Obama Administration's decision to cancel NASA's Constellation Program. That decision would direct commercial companies, such as SpaceX, which already has 27 unmanned flights on its launch manifest, to take over the job of mov...
March 31, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
Maybe it's the advent of Twitter and Facebook. Maybe it's because there are only a few space shuttle flights left. But 50 years into the space age, NASA astronauts seem to be loosening up in the way they present themselves to the public.Case in point: this photo posted on the Twitter page of Clayto...
March 30, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The report of the Augustine committee analyzes America’s space program through a very narrow prism. Much of their report argues that the existing program of record (more specifically, the Ares I and V launch system) is not affordable, a fact already apparent to most observers. Thus, the committee...
March 24, 2010
| By Paul D. Spudis
Avatar’s creator hopes to direct the first movies shot on Mars.
March 23, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
Forty-five years ago today, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov made the first spacewalk during his Voskhod 2 orbital flight.Leonov recalled in his 2004 book with Dave Scott, Two Sides of the Moon:
When my four-year-old daughter, Vika, saw me take my first steps in space, I later learned, she hid her f...
March 18, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
Scientists studying photos from the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have identified the relic Soviet Lunokhod rovers that touched down on the moon in the 1970s. Read the report here.Planetary scientists at the Vernadsky Institute in Moscow have also been playing with the LRO images. Be sure to cl...
March 18, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
NASA's first Flight Director assesses the state of the space program 40 years after Apollo.
March 2010
| By Michael Klesius
Advertisement
Follow Us
 | ||||||
|
|
 |
 |
| ||
Air & Space Videos
|
Big Green MarbleA year's worth of vegetation change on Earth, as seen by the Suomi NPP satellite. |
|
A Mosquito in FlightRestored from the hull up, a de Havilland Mosquito flies over New Zealand's Hauraki Gulf. |
|
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. |
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
