Watch Flight 2 of Armadillo Aerospace’s successful attempt to qualify to win Level 2 of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. See Super Mod aka Scorpius return from the lunar surface pad to its original start position. The competition is still open as there are other teams attempting to win the $1M first place prize purse later in October 2009. You can find out more about NGLLC 2009 at: http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge
You can also see photos at: www.lauchpad.xprize.org
Duration : 0:3:38
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Watch Flight 1 of Armadillo Aerospace’s successful attempt to qualify to win Level 2 of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. See Super Mod aka Scorpius return from the lunar surface pad to its original start position. The competition is still open as there are other teams attempting to win the $1M first place prize purse later in October 2009. You can find out more about NGLLC 2009 at: http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge
You can also see photos at: www.lauchpad.xprize.org
Duration : 0:3:28
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The Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC), located inside Edwards Air Force Base, is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. On March 26, 1976 it was named in honor of the late Hugh L. Dryden, a prominent aeronautical engineer who at the time of his death in 1965 was NASA’s deputy administrator. First known as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Muroc Flight Test Unit, the DFRC has also been known as the High-Speed Flight Research Station (1949) and the High-Speed Flight Station (1954). Dryden is NASA’s premier site for aeronautical research and operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world. It is also the home of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified Boeing 747 designed to carry a Space Shuttle orbiter back to Kennedy Space Center if one lands at Edwards. Kevin Petersen is currently the Center’s Director. Until 2004, Dryden operated the oldest B-52 Stratofortress bomber, a B-52B model (tail number 008) which had been converted to drop test aircraft, dubbed ‘Balls 8.’ It dropped a large number of supersonic test vehicles, ranging from the X-15 to its last research program, the hypersonic X-43A, powered by a Pegasus rocket. It was also the last B-52B still flying, but had the fewest flight hours of any existing B-52 bomber. The aircraft was retired and will eventually find a permanent home at the North Gate of Edwards; a fitting location for an aircraft that was arguably the greatest contributor to aerospace and flight test development.
Duration : 0:6:25
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Watch Dr. George Nield, ociate Administrator, Office of Commercial Space Transportation, FAA’s full speech honoring Armadillo Aerospace’s $350,000 Level 1 win of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge 2008 at NASA HQ on Dec 5, 2008. The competition is supervised by the X PRIZE Foundation, with the prize purse coming from NASA’s Centennial Challenges and sponsorship from Northrop Grumman and the State of New Mexico.
Duration : 0:3:21
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NASA, FAA, and others met the public this week at an Aerospace Technology Fair in Atlantic City with an airshow and inside look behind the scenes.
Duration : 0:2:39
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Watch Carl Meade, Director of Space Systems, Northrop Grumman’s full speech honoring Armadillo Aerospace’s $350,000 Level 1 win of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge 2008 at NASA HQ on Dec 5, 2008. The competition is supervised by the X PRIZE Foundation, with the prize purse coming from NASA’s Centennial Challenges and sponsorship from Northrop Grumman and the State of New Mexico.
Duration : 0:1:44
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We follow the exploits of Kara Kranzusch, a student who came to Iowa State University because she wanted to change the world. Thanks to academic opportunities and personal support at Iowa State University, Kara ended up at NASA’s Mission Control.
Duration : 0:0:33
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http://nasascam.bravehost.com
http://moonmovie.com
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2967542171184509301
“MK” [Ultra] stands for the first initials in the German words for Mind Conrtol.
“Let me start with NASA. There are four specific areas
that we are pursuing with NASA, four themes or four areas of
inquiry, and these are presented in no particular order of
importance, just to let you know the kinds of things that staff
is working on in collaboration with NASA.
One area is the extent and nature of research
collaboration between NASA and the School of Aerospace Medicine.
There were clear links between NASA and the School of Aerospace
Medicine, and the issue is to which extent was the collaboration
engaged in research involving human subjects in ionizing
radiation. Is that a thread to pursue?
The second area is an area that we have heard reports
on in the past, and that is NASA’s funding of TBI studies at Oak
Ridge. That’s all part of the continuing work on the TBI story.
Third is discussed in the intentional release memo in
Tab L. We are pursuing NASA’s involvement in the nuclear rocket
program. In the text that’s referred to is the Kiwi Series, and
there will be some discussion of that.
Finally, we continue to work on developing a history of
NASA’s policies governing research involving human subjects. I
should let you know that we are encouraged by NASA’s having let
us know recently that they are going to be adding about — I
think it’s two to three new staff members, 2.5 staff members, to
this effort at Headquarters, as well as some additional staff in
the field. So we are expecting the amount of documents flowing
to us from NASA to increase dramatically in the near term as they
now have an enlarged staff resource directed to this effort.”
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1994
Duration : 0:5:40
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One of America’s mistakes was not going through with the USAF Space program that as we know now, today with benefit of 20-20 hindsight, was sound using small, reusable aerospace re-entry gliders and a Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL) space station but instead we poured $BILLIONS down the NASA rat hole of the dangerously flawed Space Shuttle. The Shuttle itself as an aerospace plane owes its existence to X-20 research and is sound, its just too big; the problem was and still is THE BOOST PHASE to get it into space from zero-to-hero; from zero speed on the launching pad to 10, 000+ mph using liquid-fueled rockets. The Space Shuttle is so heavy, its main liquid rocket fuel engines cannot even lift it from the pad! NASA then absurdly attached two SOLID rocket boosters to cheat and get it off the pad at extreme danger–since once lit they are uncontrollable which lead to the 1986 Challenger disaster that murdered 7 astronauts. Aerospace engineers knew from the drawing board that solid rocket boosters were unsound and unsafe, but didnt blow-the-whistle and the Space Shuttle racket continued to flow $ into NASA. They also knew that placing the aerospace plane ALONGSIDE the liquid oxygen fuel tank where ice fragments would break off during the boost phase was fundamentally unsound, yet the madness continued leading to the 2003 slaughter of another 7 astronauts when Columbia burned up during re-entry due to heat tile damage from an ice chunk. NASA = Need Another Seven Astronauts.
For more details:
http://www.amazon.com/Dyna-Soar-Hypersonic-Strategic-Weapons-System/dp/1896522955/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233816615&sr=1-1
“Dyna-Soar: Hypersonic Strategic Weapons System” compiled by archives & edited by Robert Godwin; Apogee Books, Ontario, Canada, 2003
Originally proposed in 1934 by an Austrian engineer by the name of Eugen Sänger, it had the potential to be the ultimate super-weapon. Sänger’s design soon found its way into the hands of the Nazi regime in Germany where it was refined at the Goring Institute.
In 1952 Walter Dornberger, a one-time German army general who had run the rocket program at the infamous Peenemünde facility, sent an unsolicited proposal to the Air Force on behalf of the Bell Aircraft Company. Dornberger saw that Sänger’s idea was still valid and that current technology was catching up with the concept.
In 1954 the United States Air Force and the Bell Aircraft Company arranged a contract for the study of an advanced, bomber-reconnaissance weapon system.
By June 1959 the whole idea had been dropped in the lap of the Boeing company who had spent millions on research in their bid to win the coveted contract. The new vehicle was to be called Dyna-Soar, a catchy abbreviation which stood for Dynamic Soarer. This new vehicle would be able to be dispatched to anywhere on Earth in a matter of hours and would provide the long-range radar systems of the time only a three minute warning of its impending arrival.
It was a Space Shuttle with a mission – to drop a weapon payload anywhere on Earth and to do so while approaching its target at hypersonic velocity – 18,000 miles per hour.
Between 1957 and 1963 the Dyna-Soar program consumed $430 million of the US taxpayer’s money. However, it never flew.
Cancelled less than two weeks after President Kennedy’s assination, the Dyna-Soar (or X-20) was consigned to oblivion by the stroke of a pen.
Today, much of the research and technology acquired during the Dyna-Soar program is still valid. Some of it went into the Space Shuttle and some is still being used as background for the USAF Falcon program and NASAs Orbital Space Plane (OSP).
The story of Dyna-Soar is one of the great “what-ifs” of American aerospace history. If it had been seen to completion it might have seen service as a weapon, a shuttle, a life-boat for the space station, a tourist vehicle, or in its proposed advanced versions even a conveyance for regular trips to a moon base.
For the first time this book compiles many of the critical government documents that tell the story of America’s extraordinary lost spacecraft.
Over 100 B&W pictures, 16 pages of color pictures and over 200 drawings and charts.
Want to build a 1:144 scale model of the amazing X-20 DynaSoar on top of its Titan III booster? ANIGRAND Models offers one in resin (cut parts carefully and superglue together)
http://www.anigrand.com/AA5009_Titan-IIIC.htm
Or 1:72 scale versions:
X-20 DynaSoar
http://www.anigrand.com/AA2077_X-20.htm
Titan II booster
http://www.anigrand.com/AA2078_Titan_II.htm
Duration : 0:6:37
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This 3-minute video provides an example of the 30 minute lecture demonstration program performed by Aerospace Education Specialists at NASA.
Duration : 0:3:16
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