Since I first “met” Eve almost a year ago, the team at Scaled Composites have taken her for multiple test flights. Today was her first appearance before the general public when she arrived at the Oshkosh Airshow. She’ll be flying on Tuesday and Thursday and will depart on Saturday. So, if you can get to Oshkosh this week, tell Eve I send my regards! She is one sexy lady!
July 20, 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic moon landing. Wow---40 years----that’s a long time, isn’t it? If you were alive back then (as I and other “older than dirt” folks were), do you remember what you were doing? I remember watching TV, staring at this amazing feat of man walking on the moon! I was certain that many more astronauts would be landing on the moon, maybe even Mars, maybe fly to Saturn to check out its rings…maybe…maybe…maybe not.
In our fury to honor President Kennedy’s prediction, we used all our technical know-how to successfully send a crew to the moon and back and then it all kind of fizzled out. There are tons of articles and books about the “whys” of the fizzle so I won’t recount the reasons/speculations here. Suffice to say, only a few hundred people have had the opportunity to experience Space Travel in over 40 years----yikes!
Now, thanks to a partnership of Sir Richard Branson and the celebrated Burt Rutan, winner of the esteemed Ansari X Prize, people will be space bound aboard Virgin Galactic! This is not a joke or a sci-fi fantasy. Burt Rutan has created a space craft that has successfully “been there” AND back three times in a matter of weeks in 2004. Now, Virgin Galactic has created a more substantial vehicle that will hold 2 pilots and 6 passengers per flight.
A year ago, in 2008, my husband and I flew to Scaled Composites in Mojave, CA, to view the mothership, the VMS Eve, named after Richard Branson’s mom. The Eve has completed several test flights and soon will be visiting the Oshkosh Air Show the end of July. Spaceship 2 will roll out in a few months (I know the unofficial date but have been sworn to secrecy---sorry!) and I look forward to seeing her soon, too. Who knows…maybe my kids will celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Virgin Galactic’s first flights!
So, what will you do to celebrate the 40th anniversary? There are several events to mark the occasion---I recommend the event below (thanks to NASA for this info):
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Newseum, Washington, DC |
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| Time: |
2 p.m. to 3 p.m. (approximate) EDT |
| Description: |
NASA and the Newseum will broadcast a special panel event commemorating the first human landing on our moon. Journalist Nick Clooney will moderate, asking and facilitating questions from the audience. The program also will be streamed into science centers and museums around the country. Six have been selected to participate: |
| - Boston Museum of Science (Boston) | |
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- California Science Center (Los Angeles) |
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| - Denver Museum of Nature and Science (Denver) | |
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- Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) |
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| - St. Louis Science Center (St. Louis) | |
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- American Museum of Natural History (New York) |
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| Panelists include: |
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| - Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11) | |
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- Charles Duke (Apollo 16) |
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| - Alan Bean (Apollo 12) | |
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- A current NASA astronaut |
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| - Laurie Leshin, PhD., deputy director for Science and Technology at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. | |
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Public: |
Program is free with museum admission or membership. |
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