Descriptions & illustrations of the museum’s collection of American jet aircraft is highlighted, specifically the Century Series Fighters: F-100 through F-106 including the design changes to achieve supersonic flight.
Descriptions & illustrations of early US drones, what makes unmanned aerial vehicles different than airplanes, illustrations of how they have been used, some descriptions of their onboard sensors, and associations with the museum’s exhibits.
Presenters: Donn Anderson and John Jennings What to do after Apollo ended? Use and repurpose the hardware planned for the cancelled Apollo 18, 19, and 20 missions into the gigantic for its time Skylab Earth orbiting Solar Observatory and Research Lab that hosted 3 crews for extended stays in space. How did that come about?...
Presenter: Bill Carton Launched in 1958, America's second satellite Vanguard 1 is the oldest known debris still on orbit. Recent estimates are that as many as one hundred million pieces of human-made objects are above the earth now. We are tracking 21,000 items over 10cm in size. Junk includes derelict spacecraft, upper rocket stages, explosion...
Presenter: Bill Carton Current Space Activity: Countries as well as private companies are now heavily involved in space - with crewed spacecraft and private satellites. Including: Robots on other planets and on asteroid missions, suborbital space tourism, International Space Station improvements and expansion plans, and the James Webb Space Telescope. Plus: The US is going...
Presenter: John Bronson Descriptions & illustrations of what led to the Vietnam War, what the US was attempting to accomplish with its aircraft, illustration of the types of missions assigned to tactical aircraft, and which of the Museum aircraft accomplished each mission. Four mission types are described and illustrated in some detail: Forward Air Control (FAC),...
Presenter: John Bronson Descriptions & illustrations of the museum’s sole exhibit on Maritime Air Patrol / Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft is highlighted. Specifically described are the development of the defenses against submarines around North America. The application of anti-submarine warfare aircraft is illustrated and described. Location: Aviation Room 201 Cost: Included with Admission
Presenters: John Jennings and Donn Anderson As a key part of the Artemis program’s focus of putting humans back on the surface of the Moon, for more than a decade NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been producing our first highly accurate 3D Lunar maps identifying safe landing sites and locating potential resources on the...
Presenter: Bill Carton Starting slowly in 2001, orbital space tourism now has 17 flown participants, with dozens on the waiting lists. Suborbital or very high altitude balloon missions have flown another 30+ passengers, but the focus of this discussion is the orbital, extended zero-G experience of living in space, not just short hops. Long predicted...
Presenters: Donn Anderson and John Jennings How do you catch up with a comet? What would it be like to orbit a comet before, during, and after its close encounter with the sun? How big might the comet be? What does a comet smell like? Come find out as we “ride” along with the Rosetta...
Presenters: John Jennings and Donn Anderson Planned for launch in October of 2024 onboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster, the Europa Clipper is an interplanetary spaceflight to the Galilean moon Europa. This spacecraft will perform follow-up studies to those made by the Galileo spacecraft during its 8 years orbiting Jupiter. Of specific interest is the...
Presenter: Gary Sohn Next to the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, this was once the second most important United States defense security program. The U.S. was not allowed to fly over China or Russia with crewed aircraft, but the Lockheed D-21—an uncrewed drone—was able to overfly these countries. Attend and learn about this...
