Monthly Archives: December 2010

Welcoming our littlest visitors to the Air and Space Museum

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I was recently inspired by a fellow Smithsonian educator’s blog post at the National Museum of American History. Megan’s tips for bringing young children to the museum were so helpful that I wanted to join in the conversation with tips for bringing young children to the National Air and Space Museum.

To reiterate a couple of important things that Megan noted:

Plan Ahead: We know that when children are engaged in age-appropriate activities they are happy, so plan ahead! Check our website for family activities and programs and pick one or even two galleries to focus on.

We’re free, so don’t feel like you need to stay all day – An hour or two, or a single Story Time program or planetarium show, is about the most little ones can handle.

story time

Story time is a popular activitiy for younger children at the National Air and Space Museum.

For the National Air and Space Museum in particular:

You can enter the building from the National Mall or from Independence Avenue- but the closest Metro is L’Enfant Plaza: Although we are a Smithsonian Museum, the Smithsonian metro stop is a bit of a walk – it’s best to take the “Maryland Avenue” exit at L’Enfant plaza. Entrances on both sides of the building are stroller-friendly – but the Independence Avenue is closest to L’Enfant Plaza.

McDonald’s – We have the coolest McDonald’s serving kid-friendly fare, and you can bring your own snacks into the food court when you need to refuel.

Here is a glimpse of what you and your young children can do at the Museum:

Story Time – Story Time is an opportunity for young children to take a closer look at air and space from a child’s perspective. Stories are followed by an activity that adults can do with children. Teachers and their school groups are also welcome to Story Times; just make a reservation.

moonbear

One great story that introduces shadows is “Moonbear’s Shadow” by Frank Asch.

“One World, One Sky” Planetarium Show – If you find yourself at the Museum with young children on a Friday morning, be sure to see our special planetarium show – “One World, One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure.” Showtime is 10:30 am and admission is free! School groups are also encouraged to join us for the show!

“I Spy” at the National Air and Space Museum – For ages 3-5 years old, our “I Spy” activity, available online,  is a great way for young children to focus in on the things that help airplanes fly!

The America by Air exhibition on the first floor and the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight exhibition on the second floor feature various components designed for younger visitors.

These are just some of the many activities young children can be a part of at the Museum. Let us know if this post was helpful to you – do you have other questions about bringing children to the National Air and Space Museum?

Lizzie Cammarata is the Early Childhood Program Assistant

Total Lunar Eclipse

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The Moon is one of the most easily recognized celestial objects and arguably the easiest one to observe. It is simple to view the changing phases from day to day, with your naked eyes. Binoculars or a telescope will reveal countless craters, ancient lava flows, and other intriguing lunar features. Of the handful of thrilling astronomical events a person can witness in their lifetime, such as meteor showers, planetary transits and oppositions and auroras, solar and lunar eclipses are a must-see.

During the waning hours of December 20th and into the early hours of December 21st, people in North America will have the chance to witness a total lunar eclipse. A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are precisely aligned and the Moon passes into the shadow of the Earth. In other words, the Earth is preventing sunlight from reaching the Moon. Although an eclipsed Moon is always full, a lunar eclipse will not occur every time there is a full Moon since the Moon’s orbit is slightly tilted compared to the plane in which Earth orbits the Sun. When the Moon reaches one of the two points in its orbit where it lines up exactly with the Sun and the Earth, either a solar or lunar eclipse will occur.

eclipse diagram

This shows the geometry of a lunar eclipse. When the Sun, Earth, and Moon, are precisely aligned, a lunar eclipse will occur. During an eclipse the Earth blocks sunlight from reaching the Moon. Earth creates two shadows: the outer, pale shadow called the penumbra, and the dark, inner shadow called the umbra. The eclipse is noticeable once the Moon enters the umbra.

A lunar eclipse is much easier to observe than a solar eclipse.  To view a solar eclipse, one has to travel to a very specific location on Earth. For a lunar eclipse, anyone located on the night side of the Earth has the opportunity to observe it. North America will have the best seat in the house for this total lunar eclipse. Provided they have clear skies, viewers should be able to see the entire eclipse from start to finish. Observers in East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand will see the Moon rising during the eclipse while those in Europe, West Africa, and South America will see the Moon set during the eclipse.

To watch a lunar eclipse you don’t need to use a telescope or any special equipment; simply go outside and enjoy the view. The duration of this total lunar eclipse is approximately four and half hours. If you don’t want to be extremely tired at work or school on Tuesday by staying up for the entire event, you can still see different stages of the eclipse in just over an hours’ time. On the east coast of the United States, the lunar eclipse officially begins around 1 am on the morning of December 21st. However, the exciting part of the eclipse won’t begin until a half hour later.

eclipse sequence

This is a sequence of images taken and arranged by amateur astronomer, Fred Espenak. During a total lunar eclipse, viewers will see the shadow of the Earth slowly move across the surface of the Moon, covering it. Totality occurs when the Moon is fully covered. After totality, the Moon slowly moves out of Earth's shadow. Courtesy of Fred Espenak.

A total lunar eclipse begins when the Moon enters the pale, outer portion of the Earth’s shadow, known as the penumbra. This causes a very subtle darkening of the Moon which is almost undetectable. The umbra is Earth’s dark, inner shadow where no direct sunlight reaches. When the Moon moves into the umbra, the partial eclipse begins, and you will begin to see a dark, curved shadow creep across the lunar surface. Partial eclipse begins at 1:33 a.m. on December 21st for east coast viewers. Totality begins at 2:41 a.m. EST when the umbra has completely engulfed the Moon.

totality

During totality, the Moon is still visible. Sunlight passing through Earth's atmosphere projects itself onto the lunar surface and casts it in an orange or reddish glow. Courtesy of Fred Espenak.

Despite not receiving any direct sunlight, the Moon will still be visible during totality, cast in an orange or reddish glow. This is due to scattered sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere and projecting onto the Moon. You have most likely seen this type of scattering of sunlight during brilliantly colored sunrises and sunsets. The color of the Moon during totality will depend on the clarity of the atmosphere during the time of the eclipse. If it’s clear, the Moon will have an orange tint. However, if there’s enough dust in the atmosphere (like from a volcanic eruption), the Moon might appear dark red, grey, or a reddish black.

lunar eclipse diagram

This diagram shows the progression of the total lunar eclipse on December 20th and December 21st, 2010. Each number corresponds with the beginning of a specific stage in the eclipse. 1) Partial eclipse begins 2) Total eclipse begins 3) Mid-eclipse 4) Total eclipse ends 5) Partial eclipse ends. Moon images courtesy of Nathan S. Barrow. (Diagram created by Shelley Witte)

Totality will last 72 minutes and then the Moon will start to reemerge from the umbra — replaying the eclipse events in reverse. If you don’t have enough time or energy to watch the eclipse in its entirety, I recommend watching from partial eclipse until totality or vice versa. Check the chart below/above to find the times the lunar eclipse is visible from your neck of the woods.

time chart

North America will have a great view of the total lunar eclipse on December 20-21, 2010. Listed here are the times when viewers in the contiguous United States can observe the different stages of the eclipse.

If the skies are favorable during the night of the total lunar eclipse, take the opportunity to witness a fascinating celestial phenomenon; if you live in North America you won’t get to watch another one like this until April of 2014!

Planning on photographing the total lunar eclipse? We’d love to see the results! Upload your images to the Public Observatory Project’s group page on Flickr.

To see more eclipse imagery from Fred Espenak, please visit MrEclipse.com.

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

Under the Lime-Green Leisure Suit

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Getting ready to move gives you a chance to pull all those old boxes out from the back corners of your closets.  You know what’s in them – like that box with Uncle Bob’s 1970s lime-green polyester leisure suit – but it’s always good to double check these things.  It’s no different when you’re preparing to move an archival collection.  But first, an historical digression:

At the end of World War II, intelligence teams from the Allies went through Europe and Japan looking for scientific and technical developments that might be of interest.  Besides retrieving equipment (Operation Lusty) and scientists and engineers (Operation Paperclip), Allied teams gathered and microfilmed documents – hundreds of thousands of documents.  Eventually the Air Documents Research Center (ADRC) at Wright Field, Ohio (now part of Wright-Patterson AFB) assembled and indexed 50,000 or so aerospace-related documents as the Captured Air Technical Documents Collection (or CATD) and distributed microfilm copies to a number of research institutions.

Flash forward 20 years, when the technology represented by those documents had become less than state-of-the-art.  The Defense Documentation Center (DDC), which held a copy of the CATD film, realized that not only was there not a lot of call for the material anymore, but a quarter of all the requests they did receive came from the National Air Museum.  After some phone calls, memos, and the like, DDC agreed to transfer their CATD microfilm – lock, stock, and card index – to the Museum.  Museum staff sorted the film into two groups – 5,000 or so rolls covered by the card index (and associated “book-style” indexes) and another 3,000 or so rolls of other stuff, mainly duplicates of the first group.  By the time I started here 20+ years ago, this second group was still in boxes (about 40 cubic feet or 1.3 cubic meters worth) marked as “Duplicate German-Japanese Film.”

Now you may be asking (having done some quick math) why was this duplicate stuff sitting on a shelf for 40 years?  The answer is a combination of lots of other material needing work, limited staff, and priorities.  The CATD microfilm has been research-accessible this whole time.  Although dealing with (and disposing of) the duplicate film would free up 40 cubic feet of space, the consistent decision has been to direct our staff efforts to making other parts of the Museum’s document collections available.

Until now.  Since we are preparing to move to the new wing of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, we have to deal with it.  Remember that leisure suit?  What if that’s not the only thing Uncle Bob stuck in that box?  Suppose you look underneath and find great-grandpa’s World War I aviator helmet and Great-Aunt Maude’s entry form and time sheet from the first “Powder-Puff” Derby?

microfilm

If you’ve ever wondered what 1,500 rolls of microfilm look like...

So, when we pulled those 3,000 rolls of “duplicate” film what did we find?  Sure enough, there are those poor-quality diazo duplicates of the ADRC film (read “leisure suit”), but that was only about half of the film.  And about half of the rest was good-quality silver duplicates.

And the rest?  If you’re still doing the math, that leaves about 750 rolls.  750 rolls that are not duplicates of anything else in the collection.  That’s on the order of 750,000 pages.  We have a general idea of what’s there: documents filmed by Field Information Agency, Technical (FIAT) teams at various German industrial, administrative, and academic sites (although not a complete set of FIAT film); documents microfilmed by the Technical Liaison at Osigo, Italy; Russian technical journals from 1946-1947; additional rolls of Peenemünde records; even some rolls from the main ADRC series that were thought to be missing or lost.

But there are no listings, no indexes, no way for us to know specifically what is on any of this film.  Yet.  But we know it’s there now, and that’s the first step in making it available.

Aren’t you glad Uncle Bob saved that box?

Paul Silbermann is a Museum Specialist in the Archives Division of the National Air and Space Museum

The Curtiss-Wright Corporation Collection – Patent Files

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In 1929, the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company merged with the Wright Aeronautical Corporation to form the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. The merger of these two companies created one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in the country, which held numerous patents for aircraft. The National Air and Space Museum Archives Division holds two collections that include patent documents from Curtiss-Wright. I just finished processing and writing a finding aid for the files of the Patent Department and found the material quite intriguing.

patent

U.S. Patent No. 1246011, issued to Glenn H. Curtiss of Hammondsport, New York, November 6, 1917, for "Flying Boats"

The majority of the collection consists of original patent certificates issued by the United States Patent Office and Patent Office of Canada between the years 1911 and 1939. The United States certificates are aesthetically appealing, with a bright blue ribbon holding them together, sealed with a red sticker stamp. Early Canadian patents contain the original drawings submitted by the patent applicant.

For me, the most interesting part of the collection was the patent litigation files. With the consolidation of the patents held by the Wright brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and their associates, the Curtiss-Wright Corporation held patents for many of the early discoveries in the design and construction of aircraft. As such, the Patent Department of Curtiss-Wright was vigilant in protecting its patents, suing the Ford Motor Company, the Waco Aircraft Company, the Nicholas-Beazley Airplane Company, and the Bellanca Aircraft Corporation, among others, for patent infringement. The patent litigation files include materials created by Curtiss-Wright in pursuit of litigation, including copies of the proceedings, correspondence and memoranda, aircraft drawings and blueprints, advertising brochures, and copies of related patents.

The original file titles as written on the original folders were unremarkable, but accurate—proceedings, correspondence, memoranda. Although many of the files contained “legalese”—notice, stipulation, equity, annexed motion, etc.—I could usually browse each folder quickly to determine that the description most often did match the contents.

I finally came to a folder with the nondescript title: “Data Records Re: Evidence.” Inside were notes from a 1932 interview with Orville Wright. Following the interview was a signed letter from Wright, dated June 15, 1931, and a photograph taken on June 24, 1905. Although the letter and photograph have little value among the large catalog of Wright material in the world, it does contain a signature, so I removed the originals and placed them in our Rare Manuscripts Collection, inserting photocopies in the collection.

letter

June 15, 1931 letter from Orville Wright to the Curtiss-Wright Corporation regarding the design of the Wright 1905 Flyer

The letter and interview reveal an interesting aspect of patent litigation—patents that have been assigned (transferred) to second parties have lives much longer than their original owners may have dreamed. Although Orville Wright had long since ended his association with Wright Aeronautical Corporation, Curtiss-Wright contacted Wright in the hopes that he would provide information to establish that early work on the vertical surface on an airplane was covered by Wright patents. Wright had originally responded favorably, not understanding that the patent was under suit, thinking it had expired. Based on the later interview, Curtiss-Wright determined that Wright would most likely not testify on its behalf, since he was opposed to litigation between American companies and was actually quite friendly with Henry Ford, one of the defendants. Ultimately, the suit was settled out of court with the defendant taking a license from Curtiss-Wright under the patent.

wright flyer

July 24, 1905 photograph sent with 1931 Orville Wright letter, demonstrating patent for the vertical surface of a Wright Flyer

Given this new information, when creating a new folder title for this material, I kept the original title “Data Records Re: Evidence” but added “[Orville Wright Interview and Correspondence]” in brackets to let researchers know that this was an archivist-imposed addition.

The rest of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation Collection – Patent Files consists of file wrappers (a complete record of proceedings from the filing of the initial patent application to the issued patent); research reports and documents submitted to the U.S. Navy Department’s Bureau of Aeronautics; and minutes, notes, and reports from the Curtiss-Wright Patent Department and Development Division Technical Committee. A finding aid to the collection can be found on the National Air and Space Museum Archives Division website in both HTML and PDF forms.

Elizabeth C. Borja is a reference services archivist in the National Air and Space Museum’s Archives Division.

Robert Goddard and the Smithsonian

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Former Secretary of the Smithsonian, Charles Greeley Abbot helped get the Space Age under way. In late September 1916, he received a letter from Robert Hutchings Goddard, a professor of physics at Clark University. “For a number of years,” the young academic began, “I have been at work upon a method of raising recording instruments to altitudes exceeding the limit of sounding balloons.” Four long paragraphs later, he finally revealed that he had been investigating rocket propulsion.

Robert Goddard

Robert Goddard was among the few people who independently discovered the rocket as the key to space before World War I, and he was one of three (along with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Hermann Julius Oberth) who worked out all the equations. He went on to create the world’s first flying, liquid-fuel rocket and made many other pioneering contributions to rocket technology.

A native of Worcester, Massachusetts, born in 1882, Goddard earned a B.Sc. from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1908) and an M.Sc. (1911) and a Ph.D. (1912) in physics from Clark University. After some important early work in electronics, the young professor began his work on rocketry and spaceflight. In 1914 he patented the design of both a multistage and a liquid propellant rocket and conducted an experiment demonstrating the ability of a rocket to function in space. The work was becoming ever more expensive, he explained to Abbot, and wondered if the Smithsonian could offer any support.

Abbot was immediately intrigued by Goddard’s work. He had followed in Samuel Langley’s footsteps, traveling to mountaintops and sending instrumental balloons aloft in an attempt to measure the solar constant, the total amount of solar energy reaching the Earth at the top of the atmosphere. Now he was hearing from a scientist who, in seven pages of exquisite detail, could explain precisely why a rocket was the ideal vehicle to loft instruments above the filtering atmosphere!

In less than a year, Abbot had arranged a $5,000 grant to support Goddard’s first practical experiments in rocketry. No one was more pleased than the young scientist’s mother. “I think that’s the most wonderful thing I ever heard of,” she remarked. “Think of it! You send the Government some typewritten sheets and some pictures, and they send you $1,000, and tell you they are going to send four more.”

It was the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship. The Smithsonian published Goddard’s classic treatise on rocketry, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, in 1919. The document was a serious engineering study filled with quadratic equations and tabular data designed to prove that existing solid-propellant rockets could carry instruments into space. The author did his best to understate the more sensational aspects of his study, confining his thoughts on the possibility of more efficient liquid-propellant rockets to a footnote and not even mentioning the possibility that human beings might one day ride on a rocket. The paper concluded, however, with a remark that it might even be possible to send a multistage rocket to the moon…

Hoopskirt Rocket

Robert Goddard with the "hoopskirt" rocket before an attempted launch on September 29, 1928.

… Visitors to the National Air and Space Museum have the opportunity to view a wide range of Goddard technology, from the world’s oldest surviving liquid-propellant rocket to a Rube Goldberg device designed to indicate how much photographic flash powder would have to be exploded on the face of the moon to be visible from Earth.

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

Excerpt from the newly published “Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: An Autobiography,” written and edited by Museum staff. Copies of the book can be purchased online or in Museum and book stores.

Goddard’s “hoopskirt” rocket is now on view in the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery at the National Mall Building.