Monthly Archive for August, 2010

Phase Two—The New Wing

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on August 27, 2010 in Archives, Aviation, Behind The Scenes, News & Events, restoration and space.
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Looking at the seemingly endless aisles of crates at the Paul E. Garber Restoration and Storage Facility, it is not a great stretch of the imagination to picture Indiana Jones scouring these narrow labyrinths for that anonymous wooden crate housing the notorious Ark. Images of Garber bring to mind the sheer size of the Museum’s collection of aircraft, spacecraft, related artifacts, and archival materials–a collection that, with some 60,000 artifacts, is the largest of its kind. It is hard for me to keep my jaw from dropping to the ground when I think of its enormity, value, and historic significance.

Garber

It's easy to imagine Indiana Jones searching for the Ark among this labyrinth of wooden crates.

Garber’s staff works tirelessly to preserve and restore this immense collection of historic and iconic artifacts. However, working conditions are less than ideal as limited space and equipment hinder the progress of various projects.

This will all change with the completion of the new wing of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center—“Phase Two”—which will be dedicated to the behind-the-scenes care of the collection.  The new wing, which will be furnished with state-of-the-art equipment and provide roughly three and a half times more space than Garber, will greatly aid staff in their work to restore, process, store, and conserve the collection. Located south of the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the Udvar-Hazy Center, Phase Two will include five facilities: the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar, Collections Storage, Archives, the Emil Buehler Conservation Laboratory, and the Collections Processing Unit.

Phase Two

Providing about three and a half times more space and furnished with state-of-the-art equipment, Phase Two will make the work of preserving and restoring the Museum’s collection much easier.

The Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar will be able to house several aircraft at one time, giving specialists the space and resources to restore and maintain artifacts. The additional room and equipment will allow the Museum to resume various restoration projects, such as that of the Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver—the same type of aircraft that former director of the National Air and Space Museum, Donald Engen, flew in World War II.

And perhaps the most exciting part of this new hangar is the glassed-in mezzanine that will allow the public to catch a glimpse of Museum specialists in action. So keep your eyes peeled for that Helldiver when Phase Two is complete.

Observation Deck

An observation deck overlooking the restoration hangar will give the public a rare opportunity to observe firsthand the process of restoring aircraft and spacecraft.

The new collections storage space will eventually allow for all artifacts to be moved from Garber to the more modern facility, enabling staff to preserve and store artifacts more efficiently. The two-level facility will include environmental controls, compact shelving, and special storage units. This will allow the Museum to maximize storage space while effectively storing a diverse collection of objects ranging from commemorative medals to large power plants, and even wolf fur used in the Arctic, to mention a few.

Not to forget about the valuable and rare records in the Museum’s hands, the archives will house more than 12,000 cubic feet of documentation in addition to more than 1.75 million photographs and 14,000 film and video titles.

The Emil Buehler Conservation Laboratory will further aid staff by providing guidance on storage and exhibition conditions as well as innovative treatment plans for preservation. The new collections processing area will consist of a special loading dock and secure area where artifacts can be inspected; cleaned; assembled and disassembled; and wrapped and protected for optimum preservation.

The completion of the new wing will provide the Museum with a modern facility that will help behind-the-scenes staff with their important work. It will ultimately bring the Museum one step closer to accomplishing its mission to collect and preserve the nation’s aviation and space history.

Ciara Richards is an intern in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Quietly Soaring into History: First African American in Space

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on August 24, 2010 in History and space.
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As August 30 approaches, a significant anniversary in American history may come along virtually unnoticed, just as it almost did twenty-seven years ago. Two months after Sally K. Ride rode into history as the first American woman in space, a shy Philadelphia-born African American also flew into history on the next space shuttle mission. The media, even magazine covers, celebrated the milestone of the first American woman in space with fanfare, but in comparison, the next space milestone received little attention. Considering his quiet and humble demeanor, this may have suited him just fine. Who is this, you ask? Colonel Guion (Guy) S. Bluford Jr., the first African American in space.

STS-8

Guy Bluford with STS-8 Mission Crew, Challenger (1983)

Reluctant to be in the spotlight, Bluford was a 40-year-old Air Force officer with a doctorate in Aerospace Engineering. His goal was not to become the first African American in space, but simply to fly into space, do his job there, and return safely. Growing up in a middle-class household with educated parents in the 1950s and 1960s, he was raised to believe that he could do anything he wanted despite his race. His mother was a teacher and his father, a mechanical engineer. While enjoying math and science, he still had to work hard in school. Ignoring the advice of his high school advisor to learn a trade or skill, Bluford went on to college to earn his undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State University in 1964.

The 1960s was a hotbed of unrest in the midst of the Vietnam War as well as the Civil Rights movement, but Guy Bluford did not see the color of his skin as a barrier to achieving his goals in life. Always having a love for all things aviation, he achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot and earned his wings from the Air Force in 1966. Bluford went to Vietnam and flew 144 combat missions. He logged over 5,200 hours piloting an assortment of aircraft including the F-4C jet fighter (very similar to the F-4S on view at the Udvar-Hazy Center), F-15, U-2/TR-1 (similar to the U-2C on view at the National Mall Building) and F-5A/B, as well as the T-33, T-37, and T-38 trainers. As a member of the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron, he came home decorated with medals. After returning to the United States, he went back to school, earning his masters and doctorate in Aerospace Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

In 1977, Bluford applied for the astronaut corps, and he was one of 35 candidates selected from almost 8,000 applicants in 1978. Among the new astronauts were two other African-Americans, Dr. Ronald E. McNair and Lt. Colonel Fredrick D. Gregory, and six women, including Sally Ride. Of the three African Americans, Bluford knew there was a chance that he would be the first one in space but never made that his goal. He said, “All of us knew that one of us would eventually step into that role. . .I probably told people that I would probably prefer not being in that role. . .because I figured being the No. 2 guy would probably be a lot more fun.”

Guy Bluford

Guy Bluford as a new astronaut

Historically, astronauts were selected from a pool of white male test pilots. NASA’s inclusion of scientists, engineers and medical doctors in the selection criteria for shuttle missions opened the way to a more diverse astronaut corps, attracting qualified women and minorities. Bluford joined the crew of STS-8 as mission specialist (scientist astronaut), further changing the public face of NASA. He occupied the same seat behind the pilot as Sally Ride. His job was to deploy a communications-weather satellite, perform biomedical experiments, and test the shuttle’s 50-foot robotic arm.

Despite his modesty, Bluford accepted the importance of his role as a pioneer. On August 30, 1983, Guy Bluford joined the ranks of other prominent African American aviators: Bessie Coleman, Eugene Bullard, Chauncey Spencer, and Alfred Anderson. He flew on three more shuttle missions in 1985, 1991, and 1992, spending almost 800 hours in space. After retiring from the Air Force and leaving NASA, Bluford has served in the corporate sector as a senior manager in aerospace and engineering firms. Since his first flight, thirteen other African Americans have become astronauts, including the first African American woman in space, Mae C. Jemison.

Truly and Bluford asleep on middeck

Commander Richard Truly and Mission Specialist Guy Bluford asleep on Challenger middeck, STS-8 mission.

Despite the muted press coverage of Bluford’s historic mission in 1983, NASA and the media had well noted the passing of gender and race barriers in 1978 when the new class of astronauts was introduced. To commemorate this achievement, mannequins of Sally Ride and Guy Bluford in their own flight suits stand side-by-side in the Moving Beyond Earth gallery of the National Air and Space Museum.

Vickie Lindsey is a summer intern in the Space History Division.

The Legend of Amelia Earhart’s Disappearance

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on August 19, 2010 in Aviation and History.
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The mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance somewhere over the Pacific Ocean in July 1937 during her around-the-world flight attempt persists to the present day, and is especially alive and well on the Internet. If you were to Google the term “Amelia Earhart Disappearance,” for example, the list of hits would be about 1,950,000 items! Some websites, too numerous to mention, are filled with crank conspiratorial ideas. One, for example, militarycorruption.com, claims that U.S. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal was involved in the cover-up of the destruction of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E at Aslito Field on Saipan in 1944. The site doesn’t exactly say why Forrestal would have done such a thing, but the implication is that he was attempting to efface any evidence that might have implicated Earhart in a secret spy mission for the U.S. government.

Nevertheless, the idea that people are still fascinated by Earhart’s disappearance after seventy-three years, whether it is tied up in conspiratorial theories or not, is worthy of note. The government put forth an extraordinary attempt to find Earhart that went on for sixteen days, involved nine vessels, four thousand crewmen, and sixty-six aircraft at a cost of more than $4 million. All of this was to no avail. As Tom Crouch puts it, the contingent of ships and aircraft “searched an area of the Pacific roughly the size of Texas without turning up a clue. Radio operators in the United States and across the Pacific reported receiving everything from surefire messages from Earhart to strange sounds that could have been from her. Authorities dismissed the flurry of reports as either wishful thinking or cruel hoaxes.”

Sheet Music Cover

This sheet music cover from the National Air and Space Museum's Library Collection is typical of the expressions of popular interest in Earhart's disappearance.

Those wishful thoughts and cruel hoaxes seemed to be a harbinger of things to come. Almost immediately after Earhart’s disappearance, stories about Earhart’s whereabouts began to pop up. Perhaps more important, a few years after Earhart was declared legally dead on January 5, 1939, her husband George Palmer Putnam approved a treatment for a film to be titled Stand By to Die, to be produced by RKO, which contained some resemblances to the facts about Earhart’s life and disappearance, for which the Amelia Earhart estate would receive $7500. (Putnam had hoped that his own idea for a film about his wife, which would be called Lady with Wings: The Story of My Wife, Amelia Earhart, would be produced, but there had been no takers, and the Earhart estate was in poor financial condition.) Putnam reluctantly agreed to sign the agreement so long as there would be no obvious similarities between the film and Earhart’s life.

The film was eventually produced by RKO, and it was renamed Flight for Freedom.

It starred Rosalind Russell as a woman aviator, Tonie Carter, whose ambition was to fly around the world, and Fred MacMurray, as Randy Britton, a hotshot pilot who accompanies Tonie on the flight as navigator. Flight for Freedom appears to have laid the groundwork for a whole series of speculations about what happened to Earhart and Noonan. These scenarios range from the idea that the flight had been a secret spying mission for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to the notion that Earhart and Noonan had landed on Saipan, and were captured and killed by the Japanese, to the idea that Earhart was captured by the Japanese and had reappeared as “Tokyo Rose,” a name for women whom the Japanese forced to broadcast propaganda to American troops in the Pacific during World War II, or that Earhart had assumed another identity and was discovered to be living in New Jersey.

What probably did happen to Earhart and Noonan? Richard Gillespie, head of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), is an Earhart disappearance researcher who has gained some credibility. TIGHAR has made numerous trips to Nikumaroro (formerly Gardner Island), a remote coral atoll in the Western Pacific Ocean, the place where the organization believes Earhart and Noonan ended up. They have turned up some interesting finds: an aluminum panel that might possibly have come from an Electra; a piece of curved glass that might be a window from an Electra; a heel from a woman’s shoe like the kind of footware, Earhart wore, among other items. None of these, however, can conclusively be connected to Earhart and Noonan. Gillespie has written a book titled Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance, which puts forth his ideas about the disappearance.

Elgin Long, an experienced pilot and another longtime Earhart disappearance theorist, offers perhaps the most plausible explanation for the disappearance. Having experienced bad weather during the long 4,113 km (2,556 miles) flight from Lea to Howland Island, Earhart and Noonan used up their supply of fuel, and crash landed in the ocean. Long notes the urgency in Earhart’s voice on the radio on the way to Howland Island, when she was trying to locate the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Itasca, the ship that was assigned the task of providing navigational and radio links to Earhart and Noonan. Long has written a book (with Marie K. Long) titled Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved, in which he puts forth a well-constructed argument that the aircraft came to rest at the bottom of the ocean near Howland Island.

On the significance of the disappearance, Doris Rich, one of Earhart’s biographers, believes that “nothing she might have said or done, no scheme George Palmer Putnam might have designed, could so enhance Earhart’s renown as the mystery of her disappearance. She had been famous. By vanishing she became legendary.” By the same token, her disappearance ironically seems to have overtaken her life’s accomplishments as an aviator and advocate for women’s rights. Susan Ware, author of Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism, points out that “with all the mythology surrounding Amelia Earhart’s last flight in 1937, it is hard to assess her career separately from the ongoing mystery of her disappearance.” Ware suggests that it is Earhart’s life, not the disappearance and presumed death that matters.

Amelia Earhart

Already a celebrity, Amelia Earhart became legendary when she disappeared in July 1937.

Nevertheless, it is Earhart’s disappearance that has captured the imagination of Americans in the nearly three quarters of a century since she vanished. What does this say about us as a society? The implication, perhaps, is that Americans are prone to believe things that are unproven and unable to think analytically enough to question ideas founded on baseless evidence. Another is that we have an obsessive need to explain mysteries that have no obvious solutions. Whatever the reasons, the ideas about Earhart’s disappearance, like the widespread belief in UFOs, or in the various conspiracy theories that have arisen around such events as the JFK assassination, Watergate, and 9/11, persist and have become part and parcel of the American psyche.

Dominick A. Pisano is a curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum

The Long, Lonely Leap

Published by Tom Crouch on August 16, 2010 in Aviation and History.
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August 16, 2010 will mark the 50th anniversary of one of the most memorable aeronautical moments of my adolescence. I can still remember seeing the cover of Life magazine for August 29, 1960 on the newsstand in Medway, Ohio. There was this small figure, clad in a green pressure suit and white helmet, falling toward the sold cloud deck, almost 32 km (20 miles) below. It was one of those images that takes your breath away.

Capt. Joseph W. Kittinger began his “long, lonely leap” by taking a single step out of the open gondola of his Excelsior III balloon drifting 31,333 meters (102, 800 feet) over New Mexico. Trailing a stabilizing drogue chute, he fell from the top of the atmosphere for 4 minutes, 37 seconds, until his main parachute opened at 5,334 meters (17,500 feet). In the thin upper atmosphere near the beginning of his free-fall, he was traveling at over 965 km (600 miles) per hour. As he dropped into the denser atmosphere near 15,240 meters (50,000 feet), his speed slowed to a mere 420 km (250 miles) per hour.

Kittinger

On Aug. 16, 1960, Kittinger stepped from a balloon-supported gondola at the altitude of 31,333 meters (102,800 feet). In freefall for 4.5 minutes at speeds up to 614 mph and temperatures as low as -94 degrees Fahrenheit, he opened his parachute at 5,334 meters (17,500 feet). (U.S. Air Force photo)

“There is a hostile sky above me,” he told ground controllers before the jump. “Man will never conquer space. He may live in it, but he will never conquer it. The sky above is void and very black, and very hostile.” If his pressure suit failed at this altitude, he would lose consciousness within 12 seconds and be dead in two minutes. As it was, he suffered a painfully swollen hand when one of his gloves failed during the jump. Eight minutes after his main parachute opened, he was back on solid ground in the White Sands Missile Range, having set three world records: the highest ascent in an open gondola, the longest free fall, and the longest parachute descent. Fifty years later, no one has ever jumped from a higher altitude.

That moment, while memorable, was only one episode in a long and heroic career. Born on July 27, 1928, Joe Kittinger grew up near Orlando, Florida. He came to aviation via a familiar path that began with a flight aboard a Ford Trimotor with his father, followed by a few years of intensive model aircraft building, culminating in hours spent learning to fly a Piper Cub owned by a returning veteran. After two years at the University of Florida, he enlisted in the USAF and received his wings and second lieutenant’s bars at Las Vegas, Nevada in March 1950.

While on his first flying assignment in Germany, Kittinger was accepted as a test pilot flying F-84G fighters for NATO. That experience led to his next assignment: a team led by Col. John Paul Stapp at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Aero Medical Field Laboratory, Holloman AFB, New Mexico, investigating new techniques and equipment designed for use in high altitude, high speed aircraft. Kittinger tested a variety of partial pressure suits, “flew” to altitudes of over 30,480 meters (100,000 feet) in pressure chambers, and served as a test subject for experiments involving his reaction to everything from claustrophobia to extreme temperatures.

Ironically, the balloon, the oldest type of flying craft, was also the natural choice to carry instruments and test pilots to extreme altitudes. During the first flight of Project Man High, on June 2, 1957, Kittinger reached an altitude of 29,260 meters (96,000 feet) in a 3-by-7 foot sealed gondola dangling beneath an enormous helium-filled balloon made of plastic film only two-thousandths of an inch thick.

Joe Kittinger

Joseph Kittinger next to the Excelsior gondola on June 2, 1957

His next assignment was as test director for Project Excelsior, which would test the equipment and techniques that would enable a pilot to parachute from extreme altitudes and survive.  He made his first high altitude parachute jump from an Excelsior balloon at an altitude of 23,286 meters (76,400 feet) in November 1959. It nearly became his last when the shroud lines of a small stabilizing parachute wrapped around his neck. He was able to free himself when his emergency parachute opened at 3,657 meters (12,000 feet). Three weeks later he made a jump from 23,286 meters (74,000 feet) without incident. Then came the unforgettable jump from 31,333 meters (102, 800 feet). For his contributions to the Excelsior program, President Eisenhower awarded Kittinger the Harmon International Trophy for ballooning achievements.

Kittinger spent another two years conducting high altitude balloon research with the Stargazer project, which carried astronomers to high altitudes, before embarking on the first of his three combat tours in Vietnam. His first two tours were with the Air Commandos, flying Douglas A-26 attack aircraft. During his final tour as vice-commander of a fighter wing operating the F-4D Phantom II, he scored a victory over a MiG-21. On May 11, 1972, just four days before the end of his third tour, Kittinger was shot down and spent the next 11 months as a prisoner of war.

Retiring as a colonel in 1978, Joe Kittinger most certainly did not retire from flying. Returning to his native Florida, he flew balloons and antique biplanes for his own air show, Rosie O’Grady’s Flying Circus. He began entering, and winning, gas balloon races and events in 1982, and quickly emerged as a major international competitor. He won the re-established U.S. James Gordon Bennett Balloon Race four times — 1982, 1984, 1985, and 1988, retiring the Cup. Kittinger set a world record for the longest distance flown in a 1,000 cubic meter (35,300 cubic foot) balloon, traveling 3,220 km (2,001 miles) from Las Vegas, Nevada to Franklinville, New York in 72 hours. He combined another world record for the longest distance flown with a 3,000 cubic meter (105,944 cubic foot) balloon with the first solo balloon flight across the Atlantic, traveling 5,701 km (3,543 miles) from Caribou, Maine to Montenotte, Italy, in 86 hours.

Joseph Kittinger has enjoyed an extraordinary career. His decorations include the Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster; Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster; the Distinguished Flying Cross with five Oak Leaf Clusters; a Bronze Star with “V” device and two Oak Leaf Clusters; the Harmon International Trophy; and two Montgolfier Diplomas for achievement in the air. He has logged over 11,000 hours of flight time in 62 different aircraft types. I was especially pleased when the National Air and Space Museum honored him with the Museum’s Trophy for lifetime achievement in 2008. Aerospace pioneer, test pilot, combat aviator, and record-holding sport pilot, Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr., is a genuine American hero.

Crouch and Kittinger

Senior Curator in the Aeronautics Division, Tom Crouch (left) and Joseph Kittinger (right) at the National Air and Space Museum's Trophy Award Ceremony.

Tom D. Crouch is the senior curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

A ‘Spectacular’ Hoax Continues to Fool E-mail Readers

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on August 13, 2010 in Astronomy, Education, Planetary Science and space.
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As an astronomy educator here at the National Air and Space Museum, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with thousands of visitors, especially in our Public Observatory. I’ve enjoyed the many chances to discuss the wonders of the Universe and to answer visitors’ astronomy-related questions. However, I tend to dread the month of August because of an internet hoax involving Mars that’s been plaguing e-mail inboxes for seven years.

The e-mail in question is commonly referred to as the “Mars Hoax” or, more accurately, the “Mars Spectacular,” and is titled: “Two moons on 27 August or The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!”

It informs recipients that Mars will have an extremely close encounter with Earth during the month of August, culminating on August 27th when Mars is approximately 34 million miles away. The information in the previous sentence was only true during the month of August in 2003. This was a historic astronomical event. Mars was the closest it had been to Earth in 60,000 years. However, this already happened.

Before I get into the e-mail’s misinformation, let’s talk about what actually happens when Earth and Mars have a close encounter. Imagine two people are running a race around a track. One person is running in the innermost lane while the other is running in the outermost lane. The runner in the inside lane will complete one lap faster than the other person. This is similar to Earth’s and Mars’ orbits around the Sun. Earth takes 365 days to complete a lap around the Sun while Mars completes a lap in 687 days. If the runners continue running, eventually the runner on the inside (Earth) will catch up with the runner on the outside (Mars). When this occurs in the solar system, it is called opposition. It also means that Mars is opposite of the Sun in the Earth’s sky. An opposition for Mars occurs approximately every 2 years. The last three occurred on November 7, 2005, December 24, 2007, and most recently on January 29, 2010.

Opposition of Mars

An opposition occurs when the Sun, Earth and Mars line up with the Earth in the middle. This phenomenon, which happens every two years, brings Earth and Mars relatively close together. This diagram shows four recent oppositions and two future ones. The 2003 opposition was significant because Mars was very near its perihelion - the point in its orbit where it is closest to the Sun. At that time, Mars came within 35 million miles of Earth. Mars will be almost that close again during the opposition in July of 2018.

Why was the Mars opposition in 2003 so special? Most oppositions bring Earth and Mars between 34 and 63 million miles from each other. This is mainly due to Mars’ elliptical orbit. All planetary orbits are slightly elliptical meaning that a planet’s distance to the Sun changes as it moves in its orbit. When it’s closest, it’s called “perihelion” and when farthest, “aphelion.” Mars’ orbit is more elliptical than Earth’s. Every 15 to 17 years, Mars is in, or very close to, its perihelion point just as Earth “catches up” with Mars. This brings the two planets especially close together. In 2003, this perihelic opposition occurred on August 27, when Mars was closest to the Sun, and Earth near its most distant point from the Sun. This combination brought the Earth and Mars unusually close together. As a result, Earth and Mars were 34.6 million miles away from each other; the closest they had been in 60,000 years.

If you missed this historic event, you may be wondering what Mars looked like in the sky during August of 2003. According to the most recent versions of the Mars Spectacular e-mail, Mars will appear “as large as the full moon to the naked eye.” That’s huge! No wonder people are still excitedly forwarding this e-mail to everyone they know. The original e-mail, though, stated, “At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full Moon to the naked eye.” This is more or less true, just misleading. It’s referring to how Mars could appear if magnified 75 times by a telescope eyepiece. To see any significant detail on the Martian surface rather than a large, red, fuzzy blob one would have to peer through a telescope with an objective mirror or lens larger than 8 inches; a much larger telescope than what department stores sell.

Mars in the Night Sky

On August 27, 2003, Mars appeared as a bright star in the night sky. Even during this record approach it did not appear as large or as bright as the full Moon. Photo credit: John Nemy & Carol Legate of Whistler, B.C.

To the naked eye, Mars appeared as a bright, reddish, star-like object during the 2003 opposition. It was twice as bright as Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, but not quite as bright as Venus appears this month. Compared to the full Moon, Mars was only 1/75 of its size – certainly not a second Moon in the sky. Those who forward the Mars Spectacular e-mail probably don’t consider the implications of Mars appearing that large. Mars is around twice the size of our Moon. It would be have to be located at twice that distance (480,000 miles) for it to appear the same size – 33 million miles closer than it ever gets to Earth. If Mars does appear as our “second moon,” something has gone terribly wrong with the inner solar system or the laws of physics .

Mars Hoax

Some versions of the e-mail, referred to as the "Mars Spectacular" are in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. This particular (and completely untrue) slide has evolved from a misleading statement claiming that Mars will appear as large as the full Moon through a modest telescope.

The Mars Spectacular e-mail is still circulating. I know three people who received it in the past month from well-meaning relatives. One reason it still has life is because the actual year of the event was dropped from the e-mail text. Therefore, every August people receive this e-mail and believe Mars will be close to Earth that year. Unfortunately, “2010” has mysteriously appeared in recent versions of the e-mail which definitely does not allow the e-mail to go away quietly.

If you have received the Mars Spectacular e-mail, believed it to be true, and passed it along to friends, family, or perhaps even a news outlet, it’s okay. You’re not the first one to fall for its thrilling message and you certainly won’t be the last. A good lesson to come from the Mars Spectacular e-mail is: if it’s too fantastic to be true, it’s probably not. Being internet savvy means you know where to find trustworthy sources and can weed out the misinformation. To check the validity of e-mail content, one of the best online resources is Snopes. You’ll find the “Mars Hoax” in the #12 spot of their Hot 25 list of urban legends. NASA, as well as astronomy magazine sites such as Sky and Telescope and Astronomy are also good online astronomy resources.

Disappointed that you won’t be able to see a “spectacular” Mars? Don’t fret! Mars is viewable in the evenings throughout the month of August, 2010. It is currently low in the southwestern horizon after sunset, hanging out with Saturn and a very bright Venus. Check Sky & Telescope’s weekly “sky at a glance” page for observing tips and information on other astronomical events.

Shelley Witte is an astronomy educator at the National Air and Space Museum.

What are Your Favorite Aerospace History Conspiracy Theories?

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on August 10, 2010 in Astronomy, Aviation, Education, History, News & Events, Planetary Science, Research, space and Stories.
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We have been discussing at the National Air and Space Museum the possibility of pursuing an educational workshop on the place of conspiracy theories in modern America, especially as it relates to aerospace history but also in the broader context of our national history. Does it hold any interest for you? If we go forward with this idea it will be focused on teaching critical thinking and analysis of evidence. What do you think of this possibility?

Of course, as a society we embrace ideas of conspiracy as an explanation of how and why many events have happened all the time. Conspiracies play to our innermost fears and hostilities that there is a well-organized, well-financed, and Machiavellian design being executed by some malevolent group, the dehumanized “them,” which seek to rob “us” of something we hold dear.

Conspiracy theories abound in American history. Oliver Stone’s film, J.F.K., shows how receptive Americans are to believing that Kennedy was killed as a result of a massive conspiracy variously involving Fidel Castro; American senior intelligence and law enforcement officers; high communist leaders in the Soviet Union; union organizers; organized crime; and perhaps even the Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson. Stone’s film only brought the assassination conspiracy to a broad American public. For years amateur and not-so-amateur researchers have been churning out books and articles about the Kennedy assassination conspiracy. It has been one of the really significant growth industries in American history during the last 45 years.

Numerous other instances of significant movements in American history have also been motivated at least in part by the possibility of conspiracy. The anti-Masonic crusade in the early nineteenth century was prompted by a fear that Masons were conspiring to overthrow the government and establish a totalitarian state in which they were supreme. Near the same time an anti-Catholic effort arose to fight a perceived “papal conspiracy” to take over the U.S. The Populist movement of the 1890s was predicated in part on a belief that there was a grand conspiracy of business interests in the East who sought to subjugate farmers by setting prices and making them dependent on “moneyed interests.” Some have argued that in 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt manipulated events in the Pacific to provoke the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor so he could join the Allies in a war against Nazi Germany. More recently, some argue that there is a conspiracy of scientists, politicians, and others to convince the world of global warming and thereby force changes in the economy and lifestyle. There is a counter-conspiracy that a well-organized conspiracy exists to defeat belief in global warming and thereby ensure that nothing of significance changes.

If we were to go forward with an educational program relating to aerospace conspiracies and their place in our history, I would ask for your list of major conspiracy theories in air and space. I will start with my list. Please understand that I do not specifically subscribe to any of these theories. What do you think of them? What else would you add? What do you think does not need to be discussed? I welcome your thoughts.

Here is my list of major aerospace conspiracies:

  • The Wright brothers were not the first to fly—small numbers of advocates argue that Alberto Santos-Dumont, John Joseph Montgomery, or some other experimenter was actually first and that a conspiracy—who is involved in the conspiracy is idiosyncratic—exists to keep the truth from the public.
  • Amelia Earhart did not die in a Pacific plane crash in 1937—she was really an American spy captured by the Japanese or she suffered some other such nefarious end.
  • Denials of the Moon landings—a small but vocal group insists that humans have never landed on the Moon and that the U.S. government is lying to us about it.
    • Saturn V

    The Launch of a Saturn V during the Apollo program. Some believe humans never landed on the Moon.

  • Extraterrestrials are visiting Earth, and have been since at least 1947 at the time of the “Roswell Incident”—advocates claim that the government knows the truth of this but denies the allegations. This is a broad area that includes Area 51, alien spacecraft, extraterrestrial bodies, and perhaps even live aliens residing in the U.S. while the government is withholding this truth.
    • Face On Mars

    This image was taken at Mars by NASA's Viking 1 orbiter in 1976. It caused a sensational speculation that it was an artificial construct built by an intelligent civilization on Mars.

  • The face on Mars—the Viking orbiter in 1976 took a single photograph of a part of the Martian surface that appeared to look like a human face staring up toward the sky. NASA insists it looks this way because of light and shadow on a hillside but conspiracy theorists belief that this is part of a cover-up to keep the truth of alien life on Mars quiet.
    • Face on Mars

    A later image from Mars Global Surveyor showing the same hill that supposedly had a human face.

  • The 9/11 attacks by airplane into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon were staged by government agents because…the reasons given are broad and often shocking.
  • The Apollo 1 astronauts killed on January 27, 1967, were eliminated by NASA dirty deeds to keep them from revealing…choose the secret of your choice.
  • The Air Force has a super secret spaceplane, the Aurora, which flies military missions into orbit on a regular basis.
  • Contrails from highflying aircraft are actually chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for some nefarious purpose undisclosed to the general public.
  • The Bermuda Triangle—a region in the western part of the Caribbean bounded roughly by Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico—is a place where presumably a mysterious force makes aircraft and surface vessels disappear and the U.S. government is lying about it.

Do you have other conspiracy theories relating to air and space history that we might discuss?

Roger D. Launius is a senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Thirtieth Anniversary – First Public Demonstration Of Solar-Powered Gossamer Penguin

Published by Russ Lee on August 7, 2010 in Aviation, Hidden Treasures and History.
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On August 7, 1980, 30 years ago today, Janice Brown flew the solar-powered Gossamer Penguin in full view of a crowd gathered on the Edwards dry lakebed at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in California. Janice flew the Penguin almost 3.5 km (two miles) that day in 14 minutes, 21 seconds. This was the first sustained flight of a solar-powered aircraft and the longest Penguin flight since development had started on the aircraft two years earlier. However it was not the first flight on solar power alone. Two months earlier, Penguin designer Paul MacCready’s 13-year-old son, Marshall, had made the first solar-powered flight, a short one of about 152 m (500 ft.), on May 18, 1980.

Prior to Marshall’s flight, the Penguin had flown with an on-board battery pack to augment the power provided by the solar cells. This 1979 photo shows Janice flying the Penguin using a combination of solar and battery power:

Gossamer Penguin

Gossamer Penguin in flight on Rogers Dry Lakebed

A team led by Paul MacCready had built the Penguin to back up the MacCready Gossamer Albatross, which became the first human-powered aircraft to fly across the English Channel in 1979. The Albatross is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum’s National Mall building.

Gossamer Albatross

On June 12, 1979, the Gossamer Albatross, with Bryan Allen as pilot, became the first human-powered aircraft to fly across the English Channel.

The Penguin spanned 22 m (71 ft.) and weighed 31 kg (68 lbs.) without a pilot. A 3,920-cell solar panel that could be tilted toward the sun produced 541 watts to drive an electric motor called the Astro Cobalt 40, built by AstroFlight Inc. A good account about developing the Penguin’s power system can be found here.

The Penguin was so fragile and difficult to control, that flight was limited to the calmest conditions found just after dawn. Unfortunately, the low angle of the morning sun limited the amount of energy falling on the flat wing surface. The development team had to mount the solar cells upright on a tilting panel to keep the cells perpendicular to the sun. The Penguin’s airframe was fragile to keep it lightweight; building the airplane stronger would have made it incapable of flight. The single electric motor could propel only so much weight into the air, and only small pilots could fly the Penguin, which weighed 31 kg (68 lbs.). Janice weighed about 45 kg (100 lbs.) and Marshall just 36 kg (80 lbs.).

The Penguin represented a milestone that encouraged others to continue working to increase the structural and aerodynamic efficiency of solar powered aircraft, along with the development of better power systems including lighter weight and more powerful batteries that might one day store the energy from solar cells to enable aircraft to fly even at night. Earlier this year, a workshop on electric propulsion sponsored by the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation showed how far we have come in the 30 years since Janice flew the Penguin.

The future looks very promising. NASA aerospace engineer Mark Moore said last January that “many researchers are proposing a tripling of current battery energy densities in the next five to seven years,” which could lead to small electric-powered airplanes with ranges of 240 to 320 km (150 to 200 miles). Anticipating these improvements, NASA has begun to develop an exciting new concept for an electric aircraft called the Puffin. Please see Scientific American and Alternative Energy News for more information.

Russ Lee is a curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.