Archive for the 'On View at the Museum' Category

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Ten Events of Great Significance in Space Exploration during the Twenty-first Century’s First Decade

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on December 30, 2010 in Astronomy, History, On View at the Museum and space.
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As the first decade of the twenty-first century comes to a close—I know that one could make the case that the first decade ended in 2009 but we had this argument during Y2K and I’m not going to rehash it here—what might we consider the ten most important events in space exploration and discovery? Everyone is free to come up with their own lists, but here is mine. These are in no particular order, at least it is not a countdown, and it is weighted toward recent acquisitions at the National Air and Space Museum. What would your list look like?

•   SpaceShipOne, June 21, 2004, September 29, 2004, and October 4, 2004: Launched from its White Knight mothership, the rocket-powered SpaceShipOne and its pilot ascended just beyond the atmosphere, arced through space (but not into orbit), then glided safely back to Earth. The three flights of SpaceShipOne represented the first times in which a privately-developed spacecraft reached space. The flights were part of the Ansari X-Prize competition to develop a robust and reliable piloted space vehicle that could offer space tourism to a broad set of participants. Based on this success, prospects for suborbital space tourism are expanding as successor vehicles are being built. SpaceShipOne is on display in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Milestones of Flight” exhibition.

SpaceShipOne

•    Mars Exploration Rovers, 2004-Present: On January 3, 2004, the “Spirit” rover landed on Mars in Gusev crater, followed on January 25 by “Opportunity” reaching the Sinus Meridiani region, halfway around the planet from its twin. Since that time, both rovers have been operating on the Martian surface and returning stunning scientific findings that are restructuring our knowledge of the red planet. For one, we now know that Mars was once a watery world, and that water may yet be under its surface. This discovery has profound consequences for the possibilities of life having once been there. A mockup of the Mars Exploration Rover is on display in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Exploring the Planets” exhibition.

Mars Exploration Rover (Image courtesy NASA/JPL)

•    Stardust Comet Sample Return Mission, 1999-2006, extended mission, on-going: Stardust was the first U.S. space mission dedicated solely to returning extraterrestrial material from beyond the Moon. It collected samples from Comet Wild 2 and interstellar dust. Launched in 1999, it returned to Earth seven years later, parachuting to a landing in the Utah desert in 2006. The Stardust canister containing samples was sealed in an exterior shell that protected them from the heat of reentry. The material Stardust returned may date from the formation of the solar system. Scientific studies of the samples are altering our understanding of the universe. One major discovery is that ice-rich comets, the coldest and most distant bodies in the solar system, also contain fragments of materials. This return capsule is on display in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Milestones of Flight” exhibition.

Stardust Return Capsule on display in "Milestones of Flight"

•    Columbia Accident, 2003, and return to flight, 2005: The tragedy of STS-107 on February 1, 2003, cannot be overemphasized. It led to a stand down of the Space Shuttle program for more than two years, a hiatus on most construction for the International Space Station, and the decision to retire the shuttle by the end of the decade. The loss of the crew of seven, including international astronauts, was traumatic. The return to flight with STS-114 on July 26, 2005, brought a return to activity for the U.S. human spaceflight program, but the imminent retirement of the Space Shuttle opens questions about how the U.S. will undertake human activities in space. The Space Shuttle program is a major focus of the “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum.

Space Shuttle Discovery Launches on Return to Flight mission STS-114, July 26, 2005. (Image courtesy NASA/KSC)

•    Building of International Space Station (ISS), 1998-2009: With the first elements launched and joined in orbit in 1998, the building of ISS has consumed most of the human space missions of both the United States and Russia for the last decade. Since the occupation of the Expedition One crew to ISS—William M. (Bill) Shepherd, Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko, and Sergei K. Krikalev—in 2001 there has been a crew of between two and six aboard the station throughout the decade. The ISS is a major focus of the “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum.

International Space Station (ISS) in August of 2001. Photographed from the Shuttle Orbiter Discovery (STS-105) after separating from the ISS. (Image courtesy NASA/MSFC)

•    Discovery of Extrasolar Planets, 1995-present: The first planet discovered around another star was announced on October 6, 1995, and since that time 358 extrasolar planets have been discovered. Although no Earth-like planets have been discovered yet, the prospects seem good for discovery in the next few years. Imagine the excitement of such a discovery? Information about cosmology, astronomy, and astrophysics is available in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Explore the Universe” exhibition.

Artists concept of an extrasolar planet. (Image courtesy NASA/STScI)

•    Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker Mission, 1996-2001: NEAR Shoemaker was launched on February 17, 1996, journeyed to the Mathilde asteroid for a flyby, and then landed on the Asteroid 433 Eros on February 12, 2001, while transmitting 69 close-up images of the surface during its final descent. It was the first spacecraft mission specifically designed to study an asteroid. We would really like to collect NEAR Shoemaker for the National Air and Space Museum, but that will have to await a return to Asteroid 433 Eros with capability to return cargo. I probably won’t see this in my lifetime. There is more information on asteroids and their exploration in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Exploring the Planets” exhibition.

433 Eros (Image courtesy JHU/APL)

Last image of 433 Eros sent back from NEAR Shoemaker before it landed. (Image courtesy JHU/APL)

•    Chandra X-Ray Observatory, 1999-Present: Since its launch on July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has engaged in X-ray astronomy of the universe, taking its place in the fleet of what NASA calls its “Great Observatories” program. Designed to observe X-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as the remnants of exploded stars and even particles up to the last second before they fall into a black hole, Chandra has greatly enhanced our understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe. There is a Chandra 1/5-scale model in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Explore the Universe” exhibition.

1/5-scale model of Chandra X-ray Observatory hangs in "Explore The Universe"

•    Hubble Servicing Missions, STS-109 (2002), STS-125 (2009): The Hubble Space Telescope is acclaimed as one of the most significant astronomical instruments in history. First deployed in 1990, it has been serviced five times by astronauts visiting it aboard the Space Shuttle. These missions have extended its service life, and the most recent in 2009 appears to have extended its capabilities for the better part of the next decade. The structural dynamics test article for the Hubble Space Telescope is on display in the “Space Race” exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum. During that last servicing mission, NASA removed the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) and it is on display in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibition.

Hubble Test Telescope in "Space Race"

COSTAR

•    Shenzou V, 2003: Until 2003 only two nations had sent humans into space. On October 15-16, 2003, China joined Russia and United States in that exclusive club when taikonaut Yang Liwei completed 14 orbits of the Earth. The trip into space started when the Long March rocket carrying Yang in the Shenzhou V capsule blasted off from the Jiuquan launch center. The National Air and Space Museum looks forward to the prospect of displaying objects associated with the Chinese space program.

I could have offered several other events for this list—the completion of the Milstar constellation, the advance of GPS into everyday life, the launch of Falcon 9 with its Dragon capsule, and the recognition of John Mather and George Smoot with the Nobel Prize for their elucidation of the Big Bang theory with data from the Cosmic Background Explore—all come to mind. I invite others to offer their own lists of significant space events in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

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

Robert Goddard and the Smithsonian

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on December 3, 2010 in History, On View at the Museum and space.
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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.

Eugene J. Bullard

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on October 12, 2010 in Aviation, History, On View at the Museum and Stories.
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October 12, 2010, marks the forty-ninth anniversary of the death of Eugene Jacques Bullard at the age of 67. Bullard is considered to be the first African-American military pilot to fly in combat, and the only African-American pilot in World War I. Ironically, he never flew for the United States.

Born October 9, 1895, in Columbus, Georgia, to William Bullard, a former slave, and Josephine Bullard, Eugene’s early youth was unhappy. He made several unsuccessful attempts to run away from home, one of which resulted in his being returned home and beaten by his father.

In 1906, at the age of 11, Bullard ran away for good, and for the next six years, he wandered the South in search of freedom. In 1912 he stowed away on the Marta Russ, a German freighter bound for Hamburg, and ended up in Aberdeen, Scotland. From there  he made his way to London, where he  worked as a boxer and slapstick performer in Belle Davis’s Freedman Pickaninnies, an African American entertainment troupe. In 1913, Bullard went to France for a boxing match. Settling in Paris, he became so comfortable with French customs that he decided to make a home there. He later wrote, “… it seemed to me that French democracy influenced the minds of both black and white Americans there and helped us all act like brothers.”

After World War I had begun in the summer of 1914, Bullard enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. While serving with the 170th Infantry Regiment, Bullard fought in the  the Battle of Verdun (February to December 1916), where he was wounded seriously. He was taken from the battlefield and sent to Lyon to recuperate. While on leave in Paris, Bullard bet a friend $2,000 that despite his color he could enlist in the French flying service. Bullard’s determination paid off, and in November 1916 he entered the Aéronautique Militaire.

Eugene Bullard

Eugene Bullard

Bullard began flight training at Tours in 1916 and received his wings in May 1917. He was first assigned to Escadrille Spa 93, and then to Escadrille Spa 85 in September 1917, where he remained until he left the Aéronautique Militaire. In November 1917, Bullard claimed two aerial victories, a Fokker Triplane and a Pfalz D.III, but neither could be confirmed. (Some accounts say that one victory was confirmed.) During his flying days, Bullard is said to have had an insignia on his Spad 7 C.1 that portrayed a heart with a dagger running through it and the slogan “All Blood Runs Red.”  Reportedly, Bullard flew with a mascot, a Rhesus Monkey named “Jimmy.”

Eugene Bullard

Eugene Bullard with his Rhesus monkey, Jimmy

After the United States entered the war in 1917, Bullard attempted to join the U.S. Air Service, but he was not accepted, ostensibly because he was an enlisted man, and the Air Service required pilots to be officers and hold at least the rank of First Lieutenant. In actuality, he was rejected because of the racial prejudice that existed in the American military during that time. Bullard returned to the Aéronautique Militaire, but he was summarily removed after an apparent confrontation with a French officer. He returned to the 170th Infantry Regiment until his discharge in October 1919.

After the war Bullard remained in France, where he worked in a nightclub called Zelli’s in the Montmartre district of Paris, owned a nightclub (Le Grand Duc) and an American-style bar (L’Escadrille), operated an athletic club, and married a French woman, Marcelle de Straumann. During this time Bullard rubbed elbows with notables like Langston Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Josephine Baker.

By the late 1930s, however, the clouds of war began to change Bullard’s life dramatically. Even before World War II officially began in 1939, Bullard became involved in espionage activities against French fifth columnists who supported the Nazis. When war came he enlisted as a machine gunner in the 51st Infantry Regiment, and was severely wounded by an exploding artillery shell.  Fearing capture by the Nazis, he made his way to Spain, Portugal, and eventually the United States, settling in the Harlem district of New York City.

After his arrival in New York, Bullard worked as a security guard and longshoreman. In the post-World War II years, Bullard took up the cause of civil rights. In the summer of 1949, he was involved in an altercation with the police and a racist mob at a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York, in which he was beaten by police. Another incident involved a bus driver who ordered Bullard to sit the back of his bus. These events left Bullard deeply disillusioned with the United States, and he returned to France, but was unable to resume his former life there.

During his lifetime, the French showered Bullard with honors, and in 1954, he was one of three men chosen to relight the everlasting flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris. In October 1959 he was made a knight of the Legion of Honor, the highest ranking order and decoration bestowed by France. It was the fifteenth decoration given to him by the French government.

In the epilogue to his well-researched book, Eugene Bullard, Black Expatriate in Jazz-Age Paris (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 2000), Craig Lloyd points out the poignancy of Bullard’s situation in the United States: “The contrast between Eugene Bullard’s unrewarding years of toil and trouble early and late in life in the United States and his quarter-century of much-heralded achievement in France illustrates dramatically … the crippling disabilities imposed on the descendants of Americans of African ancestry … .”

In 1992, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation donated to the National Air and Space Museum a bronze portrait head of Bullard, created by Eddie Dixon, an African American sculptor. This work is displayed in the museum’s Legend, Memory and the Great War in the Air gallery.

Eugene Bullard

Bronze sculpture of Eugene Jacques Bullard, currently on view at the National Mall Building

Postscript:

On September 14, 1994, Bullard was posthumously commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. A display case in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, honors him.

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

Ballistic Missile Guidance on your Cell Phone?

Published by Paul Ceruzzi on September 21, 2010 in Aviation, Highlights from the Collection, History, On View at the Museum, space and Stories.
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If you don’t already own one, you’ve no doubt seen advertisements for them on television. I am referring to so-called “smartphones,” which can change the orientation of their display, from Portrait to Landscape, depending on how you hold them. They can do that because they contain a fingernail-sized chip inside, which senses the acceleration of gravity, and adjusts the display accordingly. Resourceful programmers have come up with a number of other applications, or “apps,” for these phones, which take advantage of the on-board ability to sense acceleration. If you only use a plain old-fashioned cell phone, you still have a number of these devices around you. Automobiles use them for airbag deployment, stability control, and braking systems. Videogame controllers use them. And digital cameras use them to stabilize an image. Because of their low cost, small size, and low power requirements, these devices have made their way into a myriad of consumer, industrial, and military products. They are called accelerometers, which measure acceleration, defined as a change in velocity. The force of gravity is also an acceleration (9.8 meters (32 feet) per second per second), which is what the smartphones sense when you rotate them.

iPhone

Smart Phones change orientation depending on how you hold them.

I was reminded of this recently when the Museum added to its collection a suite of guidance devices from the AC Spark Plug Division of General Motors. Among them was a “25 PIGA” accelerometer used in the Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Titan IIs were also used to launch ten Gemini space missions between March 1965 and November, 1966. The accelerometer was designed at the Instrumentation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the direction of Charles Stark “Doc” Draper. The Laboratory, since 1970 known as the Charles Stark Draper Labortory, turned over the design to General Motors for construction. Similar devices were also used in the guidance system for the Apollo spacecraft.  Because of the nature of air and space flight, accelerometers are found in nearly every missile guidance system, submarine and aircraft navigation systems, and in many spacecraft as well.

Charles Draper

Charles Stark "Doc" Draper

Titan Missile Guidance System

Accelerometer, 25 PIGA, Titan II

The 25 PIGA measured acceleration by means of a gyroscope, on which was mounted a weight that enabled it to act as a pendulum. As the gyro sensed acceleration, it turned or “precessed” at a rate proportional to the craft’s velocity, which is the mathematical integral of acceleration (try to remember your high school calculus courses). Thus the name: “Pendulous Integrating Gyro Accelerometer.” The “25” referred to the diameter of the case in which the gyro was housed: 2.5 inches. The device was about the size of a .5 kg (one-pound) coffee can, and weighed about 3.4 kg (7.5 pounds).

Accelerometers were hand crafted by highly skilled workers, who were chosen for their manual dexterity and ability to assemble precision mechanical components reliably. Some parts of missile guidance systems were made of Beryllium, a light and rigid metal that has to be handled carefully as its dust is toxic.   The manufacturing process was carefully designed to ensure the safety of all who worked in the plant. Engineers at Delphi, the successor to the AC Spark Plug Division, spoke to me with great pride at the excellent safety record they maintained throughout the program. Needless to say, the accelerometers were not cheap. One published source estimates the initial cost of a complete Titan II guidance system at about $100,000 in early 1960s dollars, or perhaps a half a million dollars today. Although the Titan II ceased production years ago, similar hand-built accelerometers are in use in other ballistic missile systems that are still deployed.

Back to your cell phone: the accelerometers in them probably cost on the order of a few dollars—manufacturers are reluctant to break out the costs, for competitive reasons. And they are not made one at a time by workers highly skilled in mechanical arts, nor do they contain Beryllium. They are rather a wonderful example of a trend in mechanical engineering known as “Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems” (MEMS): the ability to shrink mechanical devices similar to how electronic components have gotten smaller and cheaper over the years. Gyros that stabilize an image in a digital camera, for example, may be contained on a stacked chip about 5 millimeters by 5 millimeters (.2 inches by .2 inches)  square. Some of them operate on a principle similar to the way the PIGA worked: they contain vibrating masses, which move at right angles to an acceleration, just as a spinning gyro precesses at a right angle to a force.

So the next time you play with a Wii, take a photo with a digital camera, or fool around with your iPhone, think of “Doc” Draper and the skilled assembly workers at AC Spark Plug. Can you use your phone to guide a rocket to the Moon? Perhaps– if “there’s an app for that.”

Paul Ceruzzi is a curator specializing in aerospace computing and electronics in the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum.

A Blue Igloo at the Udvar-Hazy Center?

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on July 9, 2010 in On View at the Museum and space.
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If you’ve been to the Udvar-Hazy Center lately, perhaps you’ve seen what looks like a giant blue igloo and wondered what it could be. Believe it or not, it’s a planetarium.

This portable, inflatable planetarium is the latest tool in the arsenal of the Museum’s Education Division, and will help students understand astronomical concepts and make science enjoyable.

Portable Planetarium

The Portable Planetarium is shown in the Udvar-Hazy Center with an overlay of the constellations as they are seen by audience members inside the dome.

The portable dome is made of opaque fabric, navy blue on the outside and dark gray inside. It folds up and operates much like an inflatable mattress, only inflation is done with a fan and the fan stays on low during the show.

Once inflated, which takes only five minutes, entry is through a six-foot tall zippered door, like a tent. There is no bottom or seats–the audience sits on the floor. The dome holds 35 to 40 people at a time.

The planetarium’s projector is a state-of-the-art digital system that displays the night sky, outlines the constellations, simulates celestial phenomena such as eclipses, shows the orbits of the planets, and performs other planetarium demonstrations. It even allows Museum educators to project their own images and videos, thus creating their own shows.

The planetarium was purchased in part thanks to a grant from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee. Soon, when the Museum has a team of presenters trained to use the new system, we will offer astronomy programs to the public, school groups, and guests at special events.

Kathleen Hanser is a writer-editor in the National Air and Space Museum’s Office of Communications.

10 Cool Things You May Not Know About The Museum's Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on June 11, 2010 in Aviation, On View at the Museum and Stories.
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1.  Continuous, Supersonic Afterburner. Ever wonder what causes the diamond pattern in the SR-71 jet engine exhaust?  It’s due to the extra thrust provided by the afterburner which is actually supersonic, creating successive shock waves that show up as the diamond pattern.  The SR-71 engines fly continuously in afterburner, except when refueling. 

  

2. It Can Stand the Heat. Flying more than three times the speed of sound generates 316° C (600° F) temperatures on external aircraft surfaces, which are enough to melt conventional aluminum airframes. That’s why the SR-71′s external skin is made of titanium alloy, to shield the internal aluminum airframe.  But the tires, which retracted into the wings during flight, also had to keep from melting!  Aluminum was mixed in with latex when the tires were created and they are filled with nitrogen.  The tire pressure on the SR-71 was 415 psi (compared to the 32-35 psi in your automobile tires!). 

 

3. Pilots Must Suit Up.  SR-71 pilots have more in common with astronauts that you might think.  They flew so high (80,000-85,000 ft), pilots had to wear special pressure suits that were actually modified spacesuits. 

 

4. The Secret’s in the Inlets: The speed and agility of the SR-71 is largely due to the unique design of the engine inlets.  To handle the dramatic changes in air speed and pressure, air literally had to be slowed down to subsonic speeds before entering the jet engines. 

 

5. It’s Fast.  Really fast. How fast is a typical 747 aircraft moving when it lifts off the runway?  155 knots (185 miles per hour)   How fast is the average  SR-71 traveling when it lifts off the runway? 210 knots (242 miles per hour)  The SR-71 cruised at over Mach 3.  It could operate safely at a maximum speed of Mach 3.3 at an altitude more than 16 miles, or 25,908 m (85,000 ft), above the Earth.  Other aircraft can approach this speed, but only for short duration.  The only other aircraft to fly supersonic for hours at a time was the Concorde, and that couldn’t fly Mach 3.3.  The Museum’s SR-71 holds the world speed record for manned air-breathing jet aircraft. 

6. Best of the Fleet.  The Museum’s SR-71 holds six world records.  The most dramatic was its final flight to the Museum when it set a speed record on March 6, 1990. Lt. Col. Ed Yeilding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging 3,418 kilometers (2,124 miles) per hour.  After landing at Washington-Dulles International Airport, the airplane was turned over to the Smithsonian. 

 

7. Flown by Museum Staff.  That’s right.  The Museum’s SR-71 was flown by Tom Alison, a former National Air and Space Museum’s Chief of Collections Management. Flying with Detachment 1 at Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, Alison logged more than a dozen ’972 operational sorties. 

Museum Docent Buz Carpenter was also an SR-71 pilot and instructor, though he did not fly the Museum’s aircraft.   Here Buz talks about his longest SR-71 flight on a recently declassified mission. 

 

8. It’s A Movie Star. Yes, but no autographs, sorry.  Our SR-71 was featured in the major motion picture “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen,” as Jetfire.  The cast and crew filmed on-site at the Udvar-Hazy Center for 8 days.  No, the Decepticon emblem is not actually attached to the nose gear door of the aircraft.  We don’t think… but it can be seen in the display case located in the nearby Cold War exhibit station. 

Landing gear door cover bearing Decepticon emblem from "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen." In the movie, the Museum's SR-71 plays "Jetfire," a former Decepticon turned good Transformer. One of several items from the movie on display in a case exhibit at the Udvar-Hazy Center.

 

9. Years of Darkness.  In addition to flying secret missions in its previous life, the SR-71 was stored in a custom hangar built solely for its protection in a secured area of the Dulles Airport property after it was turned over to Smithsonian.  It remained there for over 10 years until the Museum had a display facility where it could be viewed by the public – the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. 

SR-71 outside former storage hangar at Dulles International Airport. Photo #SI92-14090 by Mark Avino, National Air and Space Museum.

 

10. The story behind the”Skunk:” The first Lockheed aircraft factory was built adjacent to an industrial plastics plant. When the wind blew just right, a horrible odor enveloped the Lockheed factory.  The story goes that one day a Lockheed engineer, Irving “Irv” Culver, was so distressed by the odor, he began to answer his phone with the phrase, “Skonk Works, inside man Culver here…,” in reference to the then popular comic strip “Li’l Abner” in which a fictitious factory brewed a smelly concoction of ground up skunks and old shoes known to readers as “Skonk Oil”. Over time the phrase caught on and the name was eventually changed to “Skunk Works” at the request of the comic strip copyright holder. The little skunk on the tail of the SR-71 is the official logo of the Lockheed secret projects factory. 

Skunk Works logo on Museum's SR-71. Photo #2005-6014 by Dane Penland, , National Air and Space Museum.

 

Learn more about the Museum’s Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.

Vicki Portway is Chair of Web & New Media and Dik Daso is a curator in the Aeronautics Division of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Take a Look at These Cockpits

Published by Kathy Hanser on June 4, 2010 in Aviation, On View at the Museum and Publications.
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Many visitors express the wish to see the interiors of aircraft and spacecraft on display in the Museum. But to protect these historic treasures, they must be displayed behind barriers, which makes it impossible to see inside. But there are several cockpits you can see in the Museum, a day devoted to getting up close with aircraft, some cool electronic views, and a couple of great books that give those who are curious some excellent interior views.

In the National Mall building visitors can see an authentic reproduction of an Airbus A320 “glass cockpit.” Here, you can experience a take-off and landing at Washington Reagan National Airport as if you were a commercial airline pilot. The simulator is on view in the America by Air gallery.

Airbus A320 Cockpit

In a "glass cockpit," digital electronic displays replace conventional analog instruments. This technology provides flight crews with far better instrumentation and information than ever before.

In the same exhibition are two more cockpits on view. One is the first Boeing 747-151 ever flown by Northwest Airlines. Accessible from a walkway on the second floor, you can enter the forward section and see the cockpit and its over 600 buttons, switches, and knobs. The second is a 1950s-era American Airlines Douglas DC-7 on the main floor, which offers a view of the cabin as well as the cockpit. The contrast between these two aircraft is striking!

747 Nose

This nose section is from a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747-151. First flown in 1970, this 747 was the first built for Northwest and the first 747 to open service across the Pacific. It was retired in 1999. Gift of Northwest Airlines, Inc.

At the Udvar-Hazy Center, there is a view of the nose and cockpit of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb in combat on Hiroshima, Japan during World War II, a Cessna airplane that kids can sit in, and a space shuttle simulator.

Enola Gay

The historic Boeing B-29 Enola Gay is shown here just after being restored and re-assembled in 2003. The airplane, which received the most extensive restoration in the museum's history, is on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

Enola Gay Cockpit

Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II, and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments.

Most space capsules on display allow great up-close views inside. For instance, you can get nose-to-nose with the cockpits of three capsules in the National Mall building’s Milestones of Flight gallery: Apollo 11, Mercury Friendship 7, and Gemini IV. In Apollo to the Moon is a full-size simulator of the Apollo lunar module cockpit where you can experience the minute-by-minute thrill of landing on the Moon.

Lunar Module Cockpit

The control panels and triangular windows inside Lunar Module 2

Another chance to see cockpits is at the annual Become a Pilot Family Day and Aviation Display at the Udvar-Hazy Center, held this year on June 19. Over 50 aircraft fly in for the occasion, and you can walk right up to view, and sometimes sit in, the cockpits.

Several cockpits that can’t be viewed in person are available on the Museum’s web site in Quick Time Virtual Reality format. These include the Concorde and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Check them out here. And next time you’re at the Udvar-Hazy Center, look for the computer kiosks throughout the Center that offer 360 degree views of many airplane interiors and cockpits.

SR-71

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird in a storage hangar at Dulles International Airport before transport to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

SR-71 Cockpit

The Blackbird's cockpit was a tight fit for the crew, who wore bulky pressure suits during each mission.

Finally, you can look at an incredible array of striking cockpit photos in two books written and photographed by Museum staffers. In the Cockpit: Inside 50 History-Making Aircraft, and In the Cockpit II: Inside History-Making Aircraft of World War II, provide close-up access to the instrument panels and controls of aircraft in the Museum’s impressive collection. Both books are available at the smithsonianstore.com, in person at the Museum Stores, or by calling 202-357-1387 to have one mailed.  Maybe if you buy one for your Dad for Father’s Day he would let you read it!

Kathleen Hanser is a writer-editor in the National Air and Space Museum’s Office of Communications.

Sending a Nobel Prize to Orbit

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on May 26, 2010 in Behind The Scenes, On View at the Museum and space.
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Nobel Prize

Replica of John Mather's Nobel Prize for Physics

The notation in the Museum’s artifact database is simple: “On loan.”  But this artifact is a replica Nobel Prize.  And its loan involves two government agencies, a crushed storage building, and a flight to the International Space Station.

Let’s start at the beginning – literally.  As in the Big Bang.  In 2006, John Mather of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with George F. Smoot of the University of California at Berkeley “for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic background radiation.”  That is, using the COBE (COsmic Background Explorer) satellite, Mather and Smoot discovered “the basic form of the cosmic microwave background radiation as well as its small variations”—work that confirms the theory of the Big Bang.  The National Air and Space Museum displays a replica of the COBE satellite in the “Explore the Universe” exhibit in the National Mall Building.

COBE

Close up of front end of COBE showing entrances for FIRAS (left) and DIRBE (right.)

The Nobel Prize, a series of yearly international awards endowed by Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel, consists of a monetary prize, a diploma, and a gold medal.  But Laureates have the opportunity to have bronze replica medals minted for their private use.  Mather requested three.

And thus, the Museum received into its collection a Nobel Prize medal.  On October 3, 2007, during a reception and invited talk sponsored by NASA at the National Air and Space Museum, Mather presented Museum director General Jack Dailey with a bronze replica of the award’s medal.  Mather gave another copy to NASA.

In 2010, NASA astronaut Piers Sellers contacted Mather about flying a copy of his Nobel Prize aboard STS-132, a mission aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, destined for the International Space Station in May.  Astronauts often collaborate to assemble the significant objects that fly aboard each space mission.  Mather was delighted.  But, he quickly discovered that the medals he had given to NASA had been encased in thick plastic for display.  Removing the coating risked damaging the medals.  Flying the coated medals risked off-gassing (that smell that almost all plastics emit), which could be harmful in a spacecraft’s sealed environment.  Only the Museum’s medal remained in its original state.  So Mather contacted the Museum.

The timing stunk.  Just the week prior was the historic early February snow storm that paralyzed Washington, DC for a full week.  The heavy snow damaged a critical storage and processing building at the Paul E. Garber facility in Suitland, Maryland.  Every object that came in or out of the Museum usually passed through that building.  The entire loan program was shut down, frozen, blocked.  The staff was working overtime in rescue mode.

Fortunately, the Mather Nobel Prize replica was at the National Mall Building.  And, notwithstanding the pressures they were facing, the Museum’s loan staff were willing to do all of the work (and paperwork) necessary to prepare an object for loan in only 24 hours, without cutting corners.  Within days, Museum staff had hand-delivered the replica Nobel Prize to NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.

Surprisingly, tracking the transit of a Nobel Prize is not very different than tracking any other package.  Because time was short, NASA shipped Mather’s Nobel to the Johnson Spaceflight Center in Houston, Texas via FedEx.  Entering the tracking number in the website, one could “watch” the Nobel make its way to the astronaut office.

Atlantis

Space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin the STS-132 mission to the International Space Station.

The completion of the complex loan delivery came with glad tidings and good humor.  When he received the package, Piers Sellers e-mailed the Museum, “Hello everyone.  I have received the Nobel Prize. (I always wanted to say that.) I will hand it over to NASA pronto.  Best, P.”

Margaret A. Weitekamp is a curator in the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum

A Crash Made Famous on TV

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on May 11, 2010 in Highlights from the Collection, History, On View at the Museum and space.
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May 10 may ring a bell for fans of the 1970s television show The Six Million Dollar Man.  On that day in 1967, a NASA research aircraft, the wingless M2-F2 lifting body, crashed in the California desert. A film clip of the crash opened the popular weekly show about the gravely injured fictional pilot, Steve Austin, played by Lee Majors.  Thanks to bionic implants, he survived as a cyborg with superhuman strength, speed, and vision, to crusade against injustice.

View TV series intro on YouTube.

The M2-F2 research craft looked more like a boat than an aircraft. NASA was experimenting with wingless flight for a more controlled, more heat-resistant reentry from space. A lifting body derives lift from the shape of the fuselage, rounded on the bottom and flatter on top. Instead of wings, it has vertical stabilizer fins to control its attitude.

The aluminum M2-F2 had an XLR-11 rocket engine. It was carried aloft under the wing of a B-52 bomber to 13,716 m (45,000 ft) altitude. The engine then ignited to carry the craft to 18,288-21,336 m (60,000-70,000 ft) for a gliding descent to a landing. These flights demonstrated that a pilot could fly a wingless vehicle back from space to land like an airplane.

M2-F2

M2-F2 After the Crash in 1967

There was only one serious accident in 12 years of lifting body flights. On its 16th test flight both the M2-F2 and pilot Bruce Peterson were nearly destroyed as the craft flew out of control and then plowed into the ground at 250 miles per hour, tumbling over and over before coming to rest. Peterson had several surgeries but no bionic implants to repair his facial injuries, fractured skull, and loss of one eye. This accident inspired a novel, made-for-television movies, and the weekly prime-time television program.

M2-F3 Lifting Body

M2-F3 Lifting Body, Hanging in Space Hall at the National Air and Space Museum

The M2-F2 was rebuilt as the M2-F3 with a large third vertical stabilizer between the fins. It flew 27 successful test flights in 1970-1972, many of them the same profile as planned for the space shuttle.  This lifting body research helped to demonstrate that landing without power was safe and thus landing engines were not needed on the shuttle.  The M2-F3 (the resurrected M2-F2) hangs in Space Hall in the National Air and Space Museum.

Valerie Neal is in her 20th year as the Shuttle-era human spaceflight curator in the National Air and Space Museum’s Space History Division.

Following the Hindenburg

Published by Allan Janus on May 6, 2010 in History, On View at the Museum and Stories.
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Hindenburg Poster

Hindenburg poster by Jupp Wiertz

The superlatives tend to pile up pretty quickly when it comes to the rigid airship Hindenburg, the pride of the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei line. It was the longest aircraft of any type at 245 meters (803 feet). Its 16 gas cells held up to 200,000 cubic meters (7,062,900 cubic feet) of hydrogen gas. Four 1050 hp Daimler-Benz DB 602 diesel motors sped the mighty airship along at speeds up to 135km/h (85 mph) with a maximum range of 14,000km (8,700 miles). Up to 70 passengers traveled in unrivaled luxury, served by a crew of from 40 to 72; gourmet meals (although the final meal served on board was a bit sketchy); comfortable (though small) cabins with running water; and a smoking lounge, where one could enjoy a Hindenburg Cocktail or two. And, of course, the famous Blüthner aluminum piano, covered in pigskin, for the passengers’ pleasure. Think of that, the next time you’re stuffed into a tiny airline seat and stuck on a runway for a couple of hours.

Hindenburg Baggage Label

American Airlines-Hindenburg baggage label

It’s a shame, though, that the Hindenburg is remembered today primarily for its tragic final flight.  On May 6, 1937, it arrived at its American terminus, the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, at the end of the first flight of the 1937 season. Vented hydrogen ignited (although there are many other theories), and the mighty airship crashed and burned. There were 36 passengers and 61 crew on board; 13 passengers and 22 crew died, as did one member of the ground crew. But it wasn’t history’s worst airship disaster; the US Navy’s USS Akron lost 73 of its crew of 76 when it crashed off the New Jersey coast on April 4, 1933. What we remember, though, are the horrifying photographs of the Hindenburg engulfed in flames, and the breathless narration of the disaster by Herb Morrison, a reporter for the Chicago radio station WLS. But there are happier stories concerning the Hindenburg.

Hindenburg Ticket

Garland Fulton’s ticket for the October 9, 1936 “Millionaires’ Flight”

On October 9, 1936, the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei and the Standard Oil Company invited a party of influential businessmen, politicians, and military men aboard the Hindenburg for a ten-hour flight over the fall foliage of New England. Dubbed “The Millionaires’ Flight,” its passengers included heavy hitters like Juan Trippe of Pan American and the ace Eddie Rickenbacker, who headed Eastern Airlines at the time. Also among the passengers was Commander Garland Fulton, U.S. Navy, chief of the Lighter than Air Section of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics. That’s his ticket for the flight, shown above, preserved among his papers, which are held by the Museum’s Archives Division. As the VIPs enjoyed a superb luncheon, far below on the ground in the wilds of Connecticut, a little girl was about to have the experience of a lifetime. The little girl, who grew up to become an author and opera translator and a dear friend, was Anne “Cookie” Chotzinoff Grossman. Here’s her account, as published in Robert Hedin’s The Zeppelin Reader:

In September or October of 1936, I was six years old, at school in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in those days a small, exceedingly rural town. I was a shy little girl, always trailing behind my 10-year-old brother Blair. One day we were outside during the lunch recess, when a shadow crossed the schoolyard. We all looked up; something huge was floating by. Blair said excitedly, “Hey, that’s the Hindenburg! Let’s follow it!” I hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about or what a Hindenburg was, but whenever Blair said “follow”, I followed; so I ran behind him and his friends, trying hard to keep up. We ran across fields and brooks and over stone walls, trying to keep the airship in sight. Blair finally admitted defeat – the Hindenburg was faster than we were – and we made our way back to the school, very late and very dirty, to face angry teachers. I don’t remember what Blair’s punishment was, but I was made to stand at the blackboard and write “I will not follow the Hindenburg” 100 times.

That’s the way I prefer to remember the airship Hindenburg: sailing through a crisp autumn day over New England, with a gang of school kids in hot pursuit…

Hindenburg Model

Model of the Hindenburg on display in the National Mall Building.

There are Hindenburg artifacts to see at the Museum. For instance, the  stupendous model of the airship (shown above), used in the 1975 Universal film The Hindenburg starring George C. Scott and Anne Bancroft, which hovers over the entrance to the store in the National Mall Building.

The Bucker Bu-133C Jungmeister

The Bucker Bu-133C Jungmeister at the Udvar-Hazy Center

We even have an actual Hindenburg passenger on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center – the Museum’s Bücker Bü-133C Jungmeister was shipped to the United States in August 1936 on the Hindenburg by its owner, the Romanian aerobatic pilot Alexandru Papană for the Cleveland Air Races.

Hindenburg cup and saucer

Photograph by Dane Penland

Also at the Udvar-Hazy Center, in the Lighter than Air exhibit case, is a fragment of one of Hindenburg’s aluminum girders, a ladder, a fragment of the airship’s doped fabric, and, shown above, a cup and a saucer, possibly used on the Millionaires’ Flight, survivors of the Hindenburg’s final flight, but smudged by the smoke and flames that signaled the end of passenger airship travel.

Film of the Hindenburg in flight, and the destruction of the airship at Lakehurst, May 6, 1937. National Air and Space Museum Archives Division film VB 01246.

Allan Janus is a museum specialist in the Museum’s Archives Division.