Flying Machines
Vehicles designed for air and space flightExplore Air & Space articles about types of air and spacecraft.
Pilot Cam
A remote-controlled airplane, a camera, and a pair of goggles can put you in the (virtual) pilot's seat for as little as $500.
July 2011 |
By Mark Betancourt
Destination: Asteroid
After four years of spiraling out from Earth, the Dawn spacecraft closes in on its first target.
July 2011 |
By Tom Jones
That Old Crate
From Minnesota cratemakers, a new CG-4 glider like the ones they built in World War II.
July 2011 |
By Lynn Keillor
The Bombing of Waziristan
In this rugged hiding place, outlaws like Osama bin Laden are rarely run to ground. The British learned that lesson in 1939.
July 2011 |
By Graham Chandler
In the Museum: Wanted: TLC for Misunderstood Warbird
Challenging the Helldiver’s bad reputation.
July 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Above and Beyond: Warner and the Whale
How we turned the A3D into a tanker.
July 2011 |
By Hadley Dixon
From Zero to 250
Sikorsky’s X2 is more hot rod than helicopter.
July 2011 |
By George C. Larson, Member, NAA
A & S Interview: Charles Bolden
NASA's 12th Administrator talks about commercial space, flying fast, and the shuttle's legacy.
July 2011 |
By Linda Shiner
NASA Shifts Into Neutral
By moving forward on their mission to convert the U.S. fleet of Space Shuttles into museum pieces, the administration has shifted NASA into neutral. America’s multi-billion dollar investment in the International Space Station (ISS) and our access to space is in jeopardy. As a result of the termination of the Shuttle program, we have no [...]
June 25, 2011 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Wrapping Up a Mars Rover
How do you pack a $2.5 billion Mars rover for shipment? Here’s how. This time-lapse video, covering a period of five days, shows the Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory being prepared for shipment from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to its launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The journey, scheduled for later this month, will be partly [...]
June 22, 2011 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Midwinter
“Now is the winter of our discontent” – Richard III, Act 1, scene 1 There is a good piece in today’s Telegraph UK by David Robson of a fateful one-hundredth anniversary – the Midwinter Dinner — June 22, 1911 held in Robert Falcon Scott’s Ross Island hut. A year earlier, Scott and the crew of [...]
June 21, 2011 |
By Paul D. Spudis
The Akron and Macon’s Hail Mary Pass
“One of the interesting things about airships,” says Tom Crouch, a senior curator at the National Air and Space Museum, who gave a lecture on the subject this week as part of the Museum’s Ask an Expert series, is that they were “transitional technology. They were capable of doing a great many things before airplanes [...]
June 17, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
From “One Small Step” to Settlement
At the recent International Space Development Conference in Huntsville, Augustine committee member and CEO of XCOR Aerospace Jeff Greason gave a talk on the goals of human spaceflight. While he discussed many things that I agree with (in particular, making the use of off-planet resources a high priority), one idea in particular stood out. Greason [...]
June 03, 2011 |
By Paul D. Spudis
Helicopter Missions: Vietnam Firefight
In 1966, Second Lieutenant Larry Liss was on the Czech-German border during a snowstorm, freezing his varlata off, when he saw something beautiful. It was a Bell UH-1 helicopter, still on the ground. The pilot—who was wearing short sleeves and drinking a cup of coffee—took one look at Liss and shook his head. “He said, [...]
May 31, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Ground Effect
Landing a shuttle while re-adapting to gravity can be disorienting. Now there's a way to simulate it on the ground.
May 31, 2011 |
By Mark Betancourt
NASA Art Returns to Washington
Since 1963, hundreds of artists (and musicians, poets—even one fashion designer) have interpreted NASA’s aeronautic and space projects. The artists were given carte blanche to create what they wanted, in any medium, on any subject. In celebration of NASA’s 50th anniversary in 2008, more than 70 diverse artworks from the program began touring the country [...]
May 27, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
