Forty years ago today -- March 19, 1970 -- USAF test pilot Major Jerauld R. Gentry made the first powered flight in the X-24A lifting body. (X-24A with rocket engine ignited after being dropped from the B-52 carrier aircraft. NASA image.) The same B-52 used in the X-15 program (and later in the Pegasus program*) carried the X-24A to about 40,000 ft (13,860 m) altitude, where ...
I've been to a Congressional hearing, watched a few more on TV, and prepared testimony for several. Hearings, in general, are effective for Congress to gather information so it can evaluate alternatives and exercise its oversight. But some of the hearings seem trivial, either in their subject matter or their treatment, and become little more than media events for grandstanding by elected officials and witnesses. If I Were My Own Representative, I could go to hearings on trivial subjects ...
Twenty-five years ago today -- January 24, 1985, the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-51C. (Launch of mission STS-51C. NASA image.) The crew -- Thomas K. Mattingly, Loren J. Shriver, Ellison S. Onizuka, James F. Buchli and Gary E. Payton -- used an Air Force Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster to place a classified Department of Defense ...
No, it's not testing twins or the veracity of astrological predictions: 45 years ago today -- January 19, 1965 -- a Titan-II rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in the second suborbital, unmanned test of the Titan launch vehicle and the Gemini spacecraft. (Gemini-2 capsule, displayed at the Air Force Space & Missile Museum. Public domain image from Wikipedia. Click to enlarge.) The Wikipedia entry on the Gemini-2 test flight includes ...
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