Aerospace
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The Do-Everything Bomber
With its bid to replace the Convair B-36 bomber, did Douglas promise too much?
January 2010 |
By John Aldaz and Sir George Cox
Thanks For the Memories
Air crews recall their service as roadies for Bob Hope's USO show.
January 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Legends of Vietnam: Super Tweet
Yeah. The A-37 was small. So was Napoleon.
January 2010 |
By Stephen Joiner
The Big Race of 1910
How the first U.S. air race launched an aviation tradition.
January 2010 |
By Don Berliner
Restoration: Kentucky Panther
Grumman's first jet honors a son of the Bluegrass State.
January 2010 |
By Barrett Tillman
Space Shuttle Jr.
After 2010, the only spaceplane in the U.S. inventory will be the Air Force's mysterious X-37.
January 2010 |
By Michael Klesius
2009: A Space Oddity
The other day we posted some of Arthur C. Clarke's philosophical words on the fate of human evolution, with the caveat that his predictions were still far into the future.But here's a neat video of astronaut Timothy Kopra on the International Space Station on August 15, 2009, conducting an experime...
December 31, 2009 |
By Mike Klesius
The Search for a Real "Pandora"
In the three years since film director James Cameron wrote the script for his new blockbuster Avatar, a lot has changed in the field of exoplanet research (the study of planets around other stars). Nobody knows this better than one of its leading practitioners, Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smith...
December 30, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Virtual Flight Over Mont Blanc
More coolness in Google Earth: A virtual helicopter flight over the Chamonix Valley in France, including Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in western Europe. Take the whole tour at this site (you'll need the Google Earth plug-in, which is easy to install) or watch a short YouTube video below:
December 22, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Arguing about Human Space Exploration
Hot rumor has it that, like Christmas, the Obama Administration’s response to the Augustine Committee Report, Seeking a Human Space Program Worthy of a Great Nation, is imminent. Much excitement is discernible in the space blogosphere that a major change is at hand.The Augustine Committee report c...
December 16, 2009 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Googling Mars
Real Mars exploration has been at an impasse lately, what with the Spirit rover stuck in the sand, and the Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft both experiencing service interruptions.But virtual Mars exploration is going gangbusters. Google Mars, if you haven't tried it yet, is...
December 14, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Batstrike!
A loud thud. A shower of purple-white sparks. This can't be good.
December 14, 2009 |
By Randy Gordon
NASA's Bolden on International Cooperation
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden’s talk at a Women in Aerospace luncheon in Washington D.C. this week is worth watching. Four months into his tenure, Bolden seems as committed as ever to using NASA—and his own example—to push education and diversity.He also had interesting things to say about inte...
December 11, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Hubble Goes Even Deeper
Sure it's pretty, and sure it boggles the mind, but maybe the most astonishing thing about the Hubble Deep Field image is that some scientists were initially against it. To quote from an article in our August/September 1996 issue:For Robert Williams, using the Hubble Space Telescope to peer deeply...
December 08, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Another Moon-forming collision?
A recent discovery from the Spitzer Space Telescope may yield new insight into the origin of our own Moon. Although this discovery was in the news some time ago, the advent of the Augustine report and the LCROSS mission results have eclipsed it.The Spitzer Telescope found evidence for a planetary ...
December 07, 2009 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Take (Spaceship)Two
More than five years ago Burt Rutan made history with SpaceShipOne, the first civilian- built vehicle to reach space. That rocketplane hangs in the Milestones of Flight gallery in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., alongside Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, Yeager'...
December 07, 2009 |
By Mike Klesius
