Tony Reichhardt

Tony Reichhardt is a senior editor at Air & Space.

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Back to Surveyor Crater

Over the next year or so, NASA's  LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) will be systematically photographing  the Apollo landing sites from orbit.

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Accidental first

It's not absolutely certain when Blanche Stuart Scott became the first American woman to pilot an airplane (it may have been September 2, 1910, or September 4—Scott herself gave different dates). But either way, it was an accident.The 25-year-old Scott, who also went by the name of Betty, had won f...

Today’s state-of-the-art in imaging planets around other stars: combined Hubble telescope pictures (taken years apart) show a world three times as massive as Jupiter circling the star Fomalhaut.

Block That Star!

How can we find other Earths if their suns keep blinding us?

Dyson during wilderness training in Russia, January 2009.

Handicapping the Space Tourism Market

Esther Dyson on touring space now and in the future.

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Back across the water

Weather permitting, a World War II-era B25D Mitchell bomber nicknamed "Grumpy" will take off tomorrow from Duxford, England and retrace (in reverse) the historic lend-lease route by which U.S. airplanes were delivered to Europe in the 1940s. The airplane, which saw its first duty with the Royal ...

Who's depressed? Not military pilots

Because they can't be

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Replicating Reims

A virtual race to mark the 100th anniversary of the world’s first air meet

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New York to Nome in 1920

In the early days of aviation, any wilderness was a challenge for propeller-driven airplanes made of wood and fabric. And in 1920, there was hardly a territory more rugged and fraught with danger than Alaska.So it was that Billy Mitchell of the Army Air Service, who was always anxious to show off t...

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Wild New Yonder

The avatar who's giving me a guided tour of MyBase—the first virtual Air Force base—is wearing wings. And I don't mean the kind you pin on your shirt. Real ones, protruding from her back. Because she can fly. Of course, so can I. Or rather, my avatar can. Which makes me wonder why I should bother t...

Futuristic look, vintage airplanes

Wild New Yonder

The Air Force opens a virtual air base in Second Life.

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NASA's Office of the Future

NASA used to have a research institute—a tiny one—that funded scientists and engineers to develop far-out ideas, stuff that was still 40 years in the future, or well beyond the horizon of the current space station or even the proposed moonbase. The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts was among the...

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Costly photos of Air Force One

Back in April, the White House thought it would be a good idea to take new photos of the President's airplane, Air Force One (actually a backup), flying over New York city. The photo-op backfired, though, when some New Yorkers were spooked by the sight of what looked like a passenger jet being e...

For the next two years, Apollo 11’s Command Module Columbia and 14 one-of-a-kind artifacts from the historic mission will travel the United States.

For All Mankind, or just for scientists?

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The Apollo Disappointment Industry

Space historian Matthew Hersch writes:This year marks the 40th anniversary not only of Apollo 11’s historic moon landing, but of the vigorous public debate that accompanied it—debate that, decades later, shows no signs of weakening. Human spaceflight has always been controversial, and condemnation ...

Bill Carpentier (orange suit) trails the Apollo 11 astronauts as they walk from their rescue helicopter to the quarantine facility.

The Moonwalkers’ Doctor, and Sometime Bartender

Bill Carpentier recalls the day the Apollo 11 astronauts returned from the moon.

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Andrew Dawson's Handmade Space Program

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Space Camp, Russian-style

Since the first Space Camp opened in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1982, the idea has spawned many imitators. Today there are space camps in Turkey, Norway, Canada, and Japan, not to mention a host of smaller-scale space "experiences" at science museums around the world.Now there's a space camp at the co...

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The war to end all wars

Each year the ranks of surviving veterans of World War I—which began on this day 95 years ago—get thinner. Now just a handful are left. Henry Allingham, who joined the Royal Naval Air Service as a teenager in 1915, died on July 18 at the age of 113. He was the last British veteran of the war, and, ...

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Recreating Blériot's Channel crossing

A hundred years ago, Louis Blériot made the first aerial crossing of the English channel. On Saturday, French Pilot Edmond Salis recreated the flight (see video here), followed a day later by Mikael Carlson of Sweden, who had tried to take off on the day of the centennial, but was grounded by Frenc...

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To shave or not to shave

The astronauts of the 1960s were mostly a crewcut bunch, but by 1969 fashions were changing, and Apollo crews returning to Earth had to make a decision: Should I shave off my moon beard? Most did, but a few experimented with new looks when they got back. Mike Collins of Apollo 11 (right), kept hi...

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