Every country has its own heroes who braved new frontiers. A
young country we may be, but the list of our heroes is long and illustrious.
The United States was built by men of dreams and aspirations and that drive
lead them across the country and around the world in so many ways. One way is by air. Who are these brave men
and women who risked their lives to do something extraordinary? The Wright
Brothers, Charles and Anne Lindberg, Robert Goddard, Chuck Yeager, John Glenn,
and Neil Armstrong are just a few of the men and women represented at the
National Air and Space Museum.
If you go to the NASM site - http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions
you can see many of these milestones and learn about the Americans who dared to
explore the air and space. The question
is – did it all begin with the Wright Brothers or were there others?
 |
| picture on the wall of the Air and Space Museum |
The Lunar landing – who landed on the moon? The lunar module
– two astronauts guided the module to the moon’s surface while one remained in
orbit. Who were the lucky moon walkers?
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the
first Americans to land there in 1969. Several landings on the moon
occurred before a man actually landed there.
Russia crash landed the Luna 2 on the moon’s surface, then the US did the same with Ranger 4. The last man to set foot on the moon was Gene
Cernan in 1972.
Neil Armstrong was a Naval officer who had a degree in
aeronautical engineering from Purdue University and a Master of Science degree
in the same from USC. He served in the
military from 1949 to 1960. He was a
test pilot and even flew in a rocket plan several times and traveled 140,000 ft
where he bounced off the atmosphere. He
even flew with Chuck Yeager. In 1958 he
was chosen for the US Air Force’s Man in
Space Soonest program. When he was
chosen by NASA, he was to be one of the first civilian astronauts to go into
space. With Buzz Aldrin and Michael
Collins, they made history by being the first Americans to step on the
moon. Neil stepped out first, then
twenty minutes later Buzz Aldrin stepped on the moon. Buzz Aldrin attended West Point Military
Academy and became a fighter pilot in the Korean War. He was selected as the third man by NASA in
1963. Michael Collins served in the
military for 38 years. He also became a test pilot and was soon asked to join
the group of men to become astronauts.
He stayed on the spacecraft while the Aldrin and Armstrong walked on the
moon. The new mineral found on the moon was called armalcolite after the three
astronauts who arrived there first – Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins.
First skylab crew – Joseph Kerwin, Charles Conrad, and Paul
Weitz in 1973. You can go into the
skylab and see it for yourself. You can
see how the astronauts live while they are flying through space in orbit around
the world. Skylab is a space station
that orbits the Earth and was launched by NASA in 1973. It continued to orbit the Earth until 1979. Many scientific experiments were performed in
Skylab and thousands of pictures of the Earth were taken. Unfortunately the Skylab burned up when it
re-entered the atmosphere.
Willbur and Orville Wright – What possessed
these men to build the first successful airplane? Wilbur became withdrawn after losing his front
teeth in a hockey incident and stayed home to help their ailing mother. Orville started a printing business in
1889. Soon Wilbur joined him in the
printing business. Not long after, they
opened a bicycle repair and sale shop.
Inspired by Otto Lilienthal from Germany and his glides, the brothers
like his plans but knew something was missing – the ability to guide the plane
and glides in the right direction. They worked
on a mechanical device to fix this problem. Next, they took off the tail, but
soon realized their glider needed a tail. They flew their gliders many times
but still could not get the lift they wanted.
They even tried ballast but the gliders did not always work properly and
they did not want to risk putting a person on it if it would crash. They experimented with a fixed rudder, but a
movable rudder worked best. This allowed
them to control the direction of their glider.
The three-axis control evolved from their experiments.
 |
| tools from their workshop |
 |
| the plane they flew |
By curving the top surface the wings were able to achieve
lift.
The Kitty Hawke is larger than
you expect. The brothers used the same principals as many others who attempted the
same thing the previous 100 years. They were successful for
the following reasons – 1. They designed, built and flew a series of successful
aircraft; 2. They pioneered the application of successful aeronautical
engineering; and 3. They developed the tool of flight testing and data
feedback.
 |
| wind tunnel |
In 1923, the first flight across America was done by two
military men – Lt. John Macready and Lt. Oakley Kelly from Long Island, NY to
San Diego, CA. These two men made many trips across the
country. John Macready flew to an
altitude of 40,000 feet which helped others go into space later on. For
traveling across the continental US, he received a Mackay Trophy. He served in the Air Force during WWII.
Amelia Earhart, inspired by what the men before her had
accomplished, long to do the same. In a
Lockhead 5B Vega, she flew across the Atlantic in 1932. She then flew across the United States. She was the first woman to do both. She was only 10 when she saw a plane at a state fair. When she was 20 she knew she wanted to fly. In April 1928, she received a phone call to change her life - "How would you like to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic?" She did! And in 1935, she became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California. In 1937 she wanted to fly around the world, but her plane disappeared somewhere off Howland Island, her destination. No wreckage was ever found.
In 1933, the Lindbergs flew from New York to Newfoundland,
then across the Atlantic Ocean to travel across Europe and then down
Africa. By the time they returned to the
United States, they had been on 4 different continents. Charles Lindberg is known as the first person
to fly across the ocean alone. His wife,
Anne Morrow Lindberg flew as his copilot sometimes and wrote 2 books about
their adventures. Charles Lindberg was studying at the
University of Wisconsin when a barnstormer landed on the campus. He quite college and learned to fly. He started his career as a barnstormer and
air mail pilot. He flew the first
airmail flight from Chicago to St. Louis.
In 1926, Ryan Airlines offered $25,000 to the first person who could fly
from New York to Paris.
His plane was
the Spirit of St. Louis and on May 20th, 1927 he began the long
journey. He circled the Eiffel Tower
before landing. The flight took 33 hours
and he had traveled 3,610 miles. After
returning to the US, he traveled to 48 states to show how transcontinental
flight was safe. #409 They also surveyed an air route to East Asia.
Anne recorded all they experienced in diaries which were published later on.
She became the first female to get a glider license to fly.
Joseph Montgolfier – who was he? Flew the first balloon flight at Versailles
with a rooster, a duck, and a sheep. The balloon flew several miles before
crash landing. The animals survived just
fine, but soon balloons would be flying with people inside. Benjamin Franklin was there for the flight
and the first aerial balloon flight took place across the Delaware River from
Philadelphia to New Jersey. Jean Pierre Blanchard first crossed the
English Channel in 1785. By 1792 he
traveled the United States and met with President Washington. He carried a small black dog and a message
from Washington on the trip across the Delaware River. The trip took almost one
hour and he landed in Deptford County, NJ.
The first flight attendants = once people decided traveling
by airplane was safe enough, females were hired to assist people on their
flights. They were called flight
attendants and needed to fulfill certain requirements – just read the signs and
get a good laugh at how times have changed.
Oh, we still call them flight attendants, but no one asks the male
attendants about their hair and nails, do they?
Even now as we reach towards space, we do so in different ways - through our imaginations. With the space program currently on hold, there will be no more space shuttle missions for quite some time. If we want to dream of traveling through air and space, I guess we will just have to be content with flying in a plane. Thank goodness for the people who paved the way for us.
