DC -- Natl Air and Space Museum -- Gallery 100: (a) Milestones of Flight:
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Description of Pictures: The Spirit of St. Louis was being checked out so it was on the floor of the museum for the first time in decades.
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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
GAL100_150117_005.JPG: Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall
Opening July 2016
Ryan NYP
Spirit of St. Louis
Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight made him a worldwide celebrity and promoted investment in American aviation.
On May 20-21, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh piloted his Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis on the first solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic. The former barnstormer and air mail pilot flew from New York to Paris in 33-1/2 hours, a distance of about 5,800 kilometers (3,610 miles). A crowd of 150,000 greeted him when he landed at Le Bourget Airport.
This stunning achievement highlighted the potential of long-distance flight and produced the "Lindbergh boom" -- aircraft industry stocks rose in value, and interest in commercial aviation skyrocketed in the United States.
Follow our progress
airandspace.si.edu/milestones
#MilestonesofFlight
GAL100_150117_090.JPG: Bruce Guthrie, Spirit of St. Louis
GAL100_150804_25.JPG: SpaceShip One
This privately built, piloted craft reached space and returned safely, expanding opportunities for commercial spaceflight.
In 2004, SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize as the first privately developed space vehicle capable of carrying three people into suborbital spaceflight (up to 100 kilometers/62 miles) and repeating the feat within two weeks. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen funded SpaceShipOne, and Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites designed and built it. With two successful flights piloted by Mike Melvill on September 29, 2004, and Brian Binnie on October 4, SpaceShipOne claimed the prize.
The success of SpaceShipOne inspired the creation of Virgin Galactic, a company founded to add private suborbital tourist flights to the existing world of commercial spaceflight business. It also helped clear the way for NASA's public-private partnerships to develop new spacecraft to carry crews and cargo.
Follow our progress
airandspace.si.edu/milestones
#MilestonesofFlight
GAL100_150824_23.JPG: Pershing-II and SS-20 Missiles:
The Pershing-II and SS-20 missiles exhibited here are two of more than 2,600 nuclear missiles banned by the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in December 1987. The INF Treaty was the first international agreement to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons -- those having a range of 500-5,500 kilometers (300-3,400 miles). The mobile U.S. Pershing-II and Soviet SS-20 were regarded as the most threatening missiles in this class.
The Pershing-II [the smaller one on the right], deployed at American bases in West Germany since 1983, carried a single thermonuclear warhead. The missile here is a training version.
The SS-20 "Saber", [the big one on the left] deployed at 48 bases in the Soviet Union since 1976, carried three independently targeted thermonuclear warheads. The missile here is a training version.
GAL100_150824_45.JPG: Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall
Opening July 2016
NASA Full Scale Wind Tunnel Fan
Wind tunnels are critical research tools for designing efficient aircraft.
No aircraft flies without wind tunnel testing. This massive wind tunnel fan was one of two fitted to NASA's Full Scale Wind Tunnel at its research center in Hampton, Virginia. Built in 1931 for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the predecessor to NASA), the wind tunnel was used to test most of America's significant military aircraft of that era.
Also known as the 30x60 foot tunnel, it could hold an aircraft with a wingspan of up to 12 meets (40 feet). Aerospace engineers used the wind tunnel's accurate data to verify fundamental designs and make improvements. The Full Scale Wind Tunnel was one of the most significant and versatile research tunnels ever built.
Follow our progress
airandspace.si.edu/milestones
#MilestonesofFlight
GAL100_150824_67.JPG: Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia:
The Apollo 11 command module carried astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins on their historic voyage to the Moon and back on July 16-24, 1969. This mission culminated in the first human steps on another world. The Apollo 11 spacecraft had three parts: the command module Columbia, the service module, and the lunar module Eagle. While Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the Moon in Eagle, Collins remained alone in Columbia, serving as a communications link and photographing the lunar surface. After Armstrong and Aldrin returned in Eagle's ascent stage, Columbia became the only part of the spacecraft to return to Earth.
GAL100_150824_77.JPG: The Viking Lander on Mars:
While Viking 1 and 2 were on Mars, this third vehicle was used on Earth to simulate their behavior and to test their responses to radio commands. Earlier, it had been used to demonstrate that the landers could survive the stresses they would encounter during the mission.
GAL100_151022_004.JPG: Milestones of Flight Hall
Lunar Module LM-2
This lunar module represents one of humanity's greatest achievements: landing people on another heavenly body.
Between 1969 and 1972, six lunar modules essentially identical to this one landed a total of 12 American astronauts on the Moon. This lunar module, LM-2, never flew in space. It was built for testing in low Earth to measure the LM's ability to withstand the forces of landing on the Moon. It is configured as LM-5, Apollo 11's lunar module Eagle.
The lunar module also symbolizes the United States' greatest triumph in the space race with the Soviet Union, part of the competition for technological supremacy and international prestige during the Cold War of 1945-91.
GAL100_151022_084.JPG: Thanks Lope!
Chuck Yeager
Oct 2, 97
[He wrote this roughly on the 50th anniversary of the flight using a crane to reach the craft.]
GAL100_151022_108.JPG: Bell X-1
Glamorous Glennis
In this airplane on October 14, 1947, Air Force Capt. "Chuck" Yeager disproved the hangar-talk notion that aircraft would never exceed the speed of sound (Mach 1). He pushed the rocket-powered X-1 to Mach 1.06 over California's Mojave Desert, shattering the mythical "sound barrier" and streaking into history.
A Pilot-Controlled Bullet:
The smooth contours of the X-1, its shape patterned after a 50-caliber bullet, enclosed an extremely crowded fuselage. The cramped, pressurized cockpit -- which lacks an ejection seat -- remains much the same as when Yeager undertook his historic flight. The X-1 was normally launched from a B-29 or B-50 bomber, but Yeager did make one ground take-off during his 33 flights in the airplane.
The unique H-shaped yoke controlled both roll and pitch. An altimeter, airspeed indicator, and Mach indicator (although not the one used on the first supersonic flight) are clearly visible at the top of the instrument panel.
GAL100_151104_26.JPG: The crew guy was photographing the inside of the jet for a tourist
GAL100_151118_119.JPG: This building is dedicated to all those who have devoted their lives to the exploration of air and space.
July 1, 1976
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Description of Subject Matter: Milestones of Flight
July 1, 1976 – 2021
This gallery features famous airplanes and spacecraft that exemplify the major achievements in the history of flight.
Highlights include:
* Mercury Friendship 7: the first manned orbiting flight, carrying John Glenn, Feb. 20, 1962
* Gemini IV: the first U.S. space walk by Edward H. White II, June 3-7, 1965
* Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia: 1st manned lunar landing, 1969, carrying Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins
* Goddard Rockets: a full-scale model of the world's 1st liquid propellant rocket, flown on March 16, 1926, and a large rocket constructed in 1941 by Robert Goddard, father of American rocketry
* Bell XS-1 (X-1) Glamorous Glennis: 1st manned flight faster than the speed of sound, flown by Chuck Yeager, Oct. 14, 1947
* Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis: Lindbergh's plane for 1st solo trans-atlantic non-stop flight 1927
* Explorer I: back-up model of 1st U.S. satellite to orbit the earth, 1958
* Sputnik I: Russian replica of 1st artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, 1957
* North American X-15: 1st winged, manned aircraft to exceed 6 times the speed of sound and the 1st airplane to explore the fringes of space, 1967
* Mariner 2: model of 1st spacecraft to study another planet when it flew by Venus, launched Dec. 14, 1962
* Pioneer 10 (prototype): 1st spacecraft to fly by Jupiter and 1st aircraft to venture beyond the planets, launched March 3, 1972
* Viking Lander: an unmanned proof test capsule used in ground tests before and during the Viking flights to Mars in 1976
* Bell XP-59A Airacomet (#1 of 3): 1st American turbojet aircraft, direct ancestor to all American jet aircraft, flown by Robert M. Stanley, Oct. 1, 1942
* Breitling Orbiter 3 Balloon Gondola: 1st balloon to fly around the world nonstop in 1999
* SpaceShipOne: 1st privately built and operated vehicle to reach space
A major renovation is now underway. The new Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall, to be ...More...
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2015 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
I retired from the US Census Bureau in god-forsaken Suitland, Maryland on my 58th birthday in May. Yee ha!
Trips this year:
a quick trip to Florida.
two Civil War Trust conferences (Raleigh, NC and Richmond, VA), and
my 10th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Los Angeles).
Ego Strokes: Carolyn Cerbin used a Kevin Costner photo in her USA Today article. Miss DC pictures were used a few times in the Washington Post.
Number of photos taken this year: just over 550,000.
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