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Domain: centennialofflight.gov
Stories and comments across the archive that link to centennialofflight.gov.
Stories · 3
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Skydiver To Break Sound Barrier During Free-Fall
Hugh Pickens writes "Over fifty years ago, American Joe Kittinger made history by leaping from a balloon at 102,800 ft, and although many have sought to repeat the feat, all have failed. Now, BBC reports that Austrian extreme sportsman Felix Baumgartner will try to break the long-standing record for the highest ever parachute jump, skydiving from a balloon sent to at least 120,000 ft, and it is likely that 35 seconds into in his long free-fall of more than five minutes, he will exceed the speed of sound — the first person to do so without the aid of a machine. 'No-one really knows what that will be like,' says Baumgartner. Although challenges in the endeavor include coping with freezing temperatures and ultra-thin air, a key objective for Baumgartner will be to try to maintain a good attitude during the descent and prevent his body from going into a spin and blacking out. 'The fact is you have a lot of different airflows coming around your body; and some parts of your body are in supersonic flow and some parts are in transonic flow. What kind of reaction that creates, I can't tell you,' adds Baumgartner." -
X-Prize Progress Update
savuporo writes "The X-Prize organization has released a summary document (PDF), detailing the recent progress and immediate plans of 13 different competing teams, of those who have publicised information of significant hardware development (there are a total of 27 officially listed competitors from seven nations by now). Some details: quite a few teams are expecting to do full-scale or subscale powered flight tests soon, some as early as January 2004. Burt Rutan can still be considered as leading the pack, but others are not too far behind, and the winner is far from certain. Armadillo Aerospace states that some US teams are hindered more by regulatory hassles, than technical issues. Speaking of Armadillo, the team has just released a very special video, commemorating tomorrow's 100th anniversary of powered flight." -
30 Years Since Last Man on the Moon
Honeydipper Dan writes "December 14 marks the 30th anniversary of the last man on the Moon . I haven't noticed any hoopla about this. Perhaps this event raises the subtext of why we haven't been back a little more than the first Moon landing's 30th anniversary did over 3 years ago. The Apollo 17 mission was a great success, however, and deserves to be remembered. It marked the first (and last) time a geologist was on the surface of the Moon. Meanwhile, NASA is commemorating the Wright brothers' flight of December 17, 1903, getting ready for next year's Centennial of Flight."