From the Wright Brothers
to
The Right Stuff

A Cooperative Research Project By:
Sepi Khonsari, sepi at khonsari dot net
Ellen King, ellencking at hotmail dot com

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Introduction

Flight has eluded man for most of his existence on the Earth. He has seen birds and insects flying and has wondered what the feeling must be like. Then, when man was able to achieve flight, with the use of some basic fluid physics and plain old ingenuity, he looked to go beyond the barriers of the blue skies above.

The Past & Present: Earth Flight

From the earliest of times, man has jealously studied winged beasts and yearned to share their freedom in the skies. And man, being an intelligent beast, has finally found success. The faltering flight of the Greek youth Icarus, who flew too close to the sun, demonstrated that man does not innately fly. Mankind went back to the drawing board and used his intellect to create a more stable platform on which to roam the skies: the airplane.

The Wright Brothers and Their Flying Machine:

In September of 1904, a farmer's field in Dayton Ohio became the site of a miraculous circling flight. This was the first flight Orville and Wilbur Wright's new contraption, the airplane The flight lasted exactly one minute and thirty-six seconds, thrusting the two bicycle repairmen into the record books for the longest flight of an airplane. Of course, it was the first ever flight of an airplane. The Wright 1903 Flyer is now on display in the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum.
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The Golden Age of Aviation

The Golden Age of Aviation, the time between the great wars of the 20th century, was a time to "flex our wings," as a nation, and as a people who were now able to explore a whole new environment: the skies above.

Barnstorming, a popular fair activity, was fun for "layman", as flying was still a novelty, and it was a lucrative business for the pilot. He could fly a barnstorming carnival one day, and then be flying mail across the country the next.

In 1927, the Spirit of Saint Louis had made a flight, non-stop across the Atlantic to Europe, with Charles Lindbergh at the controls. The world was growing smaller by the year, a foreshadowing of the jet age, ushered in by the military development of aircraft during the next war, World War II.

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The Military

It is unfortunate that war and killing can lead to some of the quickest development in technology. It seems that some of the greatest advances of aviation technology, or all in all technological development for that matter, have taken place to kill people more efficiently.

When airplanes first entered the military arena, they were used only for reconnaissance purposes. This held true until one pilot took a gun into the air, and then a bomb, turning the air arena upside down. There was a new environment where it was kill or be killed, both for the pilots in the air, and for the bombed out troops and civilians.

Based on the lessons of World War I, the bombers of World War II were made to be much more efficient. This led to planes that flew higher and faster, important in the emerging nuclear age. With the advent of nuclear capabilities, it was thought that one either needed faster planes, or planes that could fly higher. Either way, one would have to escape the effects of delivering nuclear ordnance. And even with this, much research was being done in the mixed arena of missile/space research to potentially make aircraft obsolete for these purposes .

The military, in an effort to describe its operations more fully in an environment of downsizing and spending cuts, has found it helpful to describe their operations on a more pronounced scale, especially by putting some of their public information on the World Wide Web. This seems to help build a rapport with the taxpayers

The United States Air Force has an extensive server which gives the description of many of the units under its command and gives as much de-classified information as possible. It is unfortunate that they still do not have more historical information available, but they seem to be forging ahead with new projects and leaving the past to another day.

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Civil Aviation

When it comes to Civil Aviation, one may think of late planes, and honey-roast peanuts and which is sometimes true. But, were it not for the pioneers of the past and the pressures of war development, we would not have quality commercial pilots flying our planes today. Nor would flying be one of the safest and most rapid methods of travel over long distances. We owe some of this to the military training of our pilots, and also to the development of the new technologies pilots test and use.

The yahoo index of airlines provides a link to some of the commercial airlines, but something that we didn't expect to see was advertisements, which still seem to be the scourge of the internet.

Civilian aviators also enjoy use of the Web in that they are able to disseminate the latest information to one one another. There are numerous general aviation servers available for people to browse. This is an excellent way to learn about and perhaps join a new flying club

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The Future: Space Flight

After man was able to fly in the air of the biosphere and stratosphere, and look down at the Earth from what was perceived as great height, he began to dream of going even higher to investigate the heavenly bodies surrounding the small blue sphere that is home. Man had entered the space age.

Governments, hungry for new resources, were eager to establish agencies and administrations to organize efforts to reach into space. The nature of space exploration to find resources has grown and changed along with the world political climate: sometimes competitive, other times, cooperation is the order of the day. Sputnik, the first ever man-made satellite to orbit the earth, was sent up by the Soviet Union, beating the United States' space program, and, beating national morale. According to Hobbe's Internet Timeline**, the launch of Sputnik was enough of a political catalyst to lead to the formation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency within the U.S. Department of Defense, the organization that helped begin the creation of the internet. But cooperation reigns now, with a joint Russian/U.S. mission having gone into space just a few days before writing this essay.
**(Hobbe's Timeline does have the erroneous year 1956 for Sputnik's launch. The actual year is 1957.)

Agencies, in some cases asked to justify their existence, have found it necessary to take their "reason for being" to the people of the nation, and the world. This means an agency has to advertise and publicize, but advertising is expensive, and needs to be big enough to attract the attention and support of the citizens of a nation, or, of the world.

One answer has been to link an agency with other agencies through joint, cooperative missions and by sharing research experiences with scientists and general citizens on the Internet, especially via the World Wide Web. This allows the agency to make the case that they are keeping the nation competitive with other world powers, that they are spending well the vast moneys allocated them, and that they are spending in a way which is efficient, relevant, and holds the agency accountable to the citizens, or to those funding the agency's programs.

One can find links to other space agencies at almost every space agency's Web site. Also, joint research projects or missions are given a prominent place on Web site. One example of this is the NASA Public Affairs Page where one finds information on NASA's mission, and its beginnings. Another example is found in Italy at the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, where you will find information about the goals of the space agency, and their current missions, as well as information about their cooperation with the European Space Agency.

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Space Cooperation: Get There and Back with Maximal Efficiency

We have come a long way from the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project which was the first international manned spaceflight (in this case, between the Soviet space agency and NASA). The project was more of a test to look into the similarities and differences between the spacecraft and space programs, and less of a cooperation between the political entities of the the Soviet Union and the United States. The two space agencies were looking into the possibilities of using each other's spacecraft for rescue missions, and also for potential future space missons. The 25 year anniversary of this historic mission will be July 15-20, 1995. The astronauts may have only shared a few moments, some food, and the fitting of two halves of a medallion together, but these gestures led the U.S. and the then Soviet Union that much closer to cooperation in space flight. (ASTP goals)

While the two superpowers of the time, the Soviet Union and the US, were busy trying to feel out each other's capabilities, and still remain competitive, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs realized that the launch of Sputnik by the by the Soviet Union in 1957, and the subsequent "space race" it had started, would lead nations to possible conflicts in space. An ad hoc committee was created in 1958, and became an official committee at the United Nations in 1959. This committee has set out to establish rules and regulations that will help keep space a peaceful place, as well as recognize that astronauts are impartial human explorers. They are not involved in conflict, and if they should land in another country, they should be returned to their nation of origin. Cooperation was, and has become something important, something to preserve our world and also keep space free for all to study and explore.

One of the latest examples of cooperation was "launched" on March 14, 1995, just a few days before starting on this paper, and is one of the most exciting joint missions between the US and Russia: the launch of a Russian Soyuz TM-21 Rocket to their Mir Space Station. This is the first Russian (or Soviet, if the Soviet Union were still intact) mission ever to carry an American Astronaut into space. Two Cosmonauts, and Dr. Norman E. Thagard, an American astronaut, will conduct experiments aboard Mir, and will return to Earth aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-71, when the Space Shuttle will dock with Mir for the first time ever. (Photo of Russian Docking Mechanism on Mir Space Station.)

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The Ultimate Flight: A Journey to New Colonies

This will be the ultimate form of cooperation possible between the nations of the Earth and their space programs. The mission to dock with Mir is the first step in creating Space Station Alpha, a joint, multinational space station. Part of the reason for this cooperative effort is that Mir is already in space and it is an ideal "stepping stone" for building another space station. It can support life for extended periods of time, and can be resupplied with relative ease by the American Space Shuttle. The Americans need something pre-established, while the Russians need cash (as "rent?") and other countries are willing to pay to have a lab for potentially ground-breaking research.

When the space station is completed, the next step will be to create a colony on some other planet, or at least on another space station. Thoughts about this are already in the works. A space settlement will probably be a joint effort to keep costs down in these harder economic times. It will also be a new experience for cultural exchange and interaction in a smaller community. Civilians will eventually colonize, and a community with fewer personal barriers will hopefully form.

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Conclusion

Man may not have wings, but the birds still wonder what the heck jet planes are, and we still gawk in awe when the Space Shuttle is launched on another misson. Man has taken to the skies, and there is little chance we will ever be grounded again. We can fly in the worst weather with sophisticated computers, and we have been able to put men on the moon. Where we will go next, and what planet we will colonize, or orbit with a space station, no one yet knows. But we are no longer an earth-bound species and the future lies in the sky.

Favorite Myths About Being Lightheaded While...

At a Computer Terminal: Cars are not the only things that crash.
In The Air: Fish will swim in air at high altitudes.
In Space: You can't get there from here.
On The moon: It is made of brie cheese.

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