Air & Space Magazine

Gimme the Good Old Days

March 23, 2011

The Moon’s Role in Climate Science

A recent article about the role of global magnetic fields in the loss of planetary volatiles caught my attention.

March 22, 2011

Bad Day

<p>What's the worst that can happen?</p>

March 21, 2011

Zoom Zoom

When we last left the Garvey Space Craft/Cal State Long Beach rocketeers at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry test site in Mojave, California, they had static-tested their P-18 engine, designed to launch nanosatellites to low Earth orbit, for the 150 seconds required to launch an orbital first stage....

March 21, 2011

Volcanic Shields of the Moon

Come home with your shield, or on it – Spartan women to their husbands, marching off to war.

March 19, 2011

The Human Touch

One thing I've always liked about the Russian space program is that it keeps the "human" in human spaceflight. NASA often seems more interested in technology than people. You can see it in the different feel of the  international space station modules: the American, European and Japanese labs are f...

March 18, 2011

Touchdown

<p>Not in Antarctica, but practically speaking...</p>

March 16, 2011

Taxi or Rental Car?

That's one interesting question that a few former space shuttle astronauts and other experts were grappling with one day in early March at the National Research Council's Keck building in downtown Washington, D.C. Around a large conference table sat NASA veterans Fred Gregory, history's first black...

March 15, 2011

AT-6

<p>Don't mess with Texan.</p>

March 14, 2011

Gusty and Gutsy

<p>The wind sock don't lie.</p>

March 11, 2011

Time for a Check-Up

I'm just back from recurrent training — two days of fun and games in the simulator.

March 11, 2011

One of the "Intrepid Birdwomen"

"Here is a group of feminine flyers who don't just fool around with flying," reported the Los Angeles Times in January 1934. "They hardly ever powder their noses. They don't even carry mirrors. They'd rather poke their not unhandsome little noses into a balky carburetor than riffle up a pack of bri...

March 11, 2011

Formation Flight

A government-industry team is getting closer to demonstrating that unmanned vehicles can be refueled at high altitudes by other UAVs. In a January 21 test, Northrop Grumman's piloted Proteus aircraft  flew as close as 40 feet to an unmanned NASA Global Hawk, also produced by Northrop Grumman, while...

March 9, 2011

Discovery's Last... and First...Flight

March 9, 2011

Of Dogs and Men

<p>And futile wartime slogans.</p>

March 8, 2011

Lunney’s Legacy

These are emotional days for the folks who work on the space shuttle, as they watch vehicles and people retire. Today was the last day on the job for Bryan Lunney, a 22-year veteran NASA flight director who also happens to be the son of legendary flight director Glynn Lunney.Here's how Bryan summed...

March 7, 2011

Spacewalker in a Telescope

Amazing what you can see in a 10-inch telescope if the conditions are right.  Dutch amateur astronomer Ralf Vandebergh got a picture of STS-133 astronaut Steve Bowen spacewalking outside the International Space Station last week.

March 7, 2011

Bad Day at Vandenberg

Ron Grabe, launch system manager for Orbital Sciences, didn't try to sugar-coat the news. "Tonight we're all pretty devastated," he said during a predawn press briefing at Vandenberg AFB today.Orbital's Taurus XL rocket had just dumped NASA's $424 million Glory climate satellite into the Pacific oc...

March 4, 2011

Cloudburst

<p><em>Discovery</em> punches through.</p>

March 3, 2011

Discarding Shuttle: The Hidden Cost

A symposium entitled “U.S. Human Spaceflight: Continuity and Stability” was held at Rice University’s James A. Baker Institute of Public Policy

March 1, 2011