100 Years of Flight

Palomar · 2003-12-17 08:16:44

*Good celebratory article. I happened to catch a portion of a documentary on the Discovery Channel months ago, pertaining to same. Some men out east were reconstructing Wilbur and Orville's plane. They were trying to take off with it, etc.

Includes comments by John Glenn.

--Cindy

jadeheart · 2003-12-17 15:44:06

Did you see how they tried to re-enact the first flight and failed? Maybe a parable/allegory foreshadowing the fate of a return to the moon? I can't help but chuckle a little.

kippy · 2003-12-17 16:08:30

From http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3737728/

===
There had been speculation that Bush would use the centennial of flight to announce a new mission to the moon, but the White House made clear the president had no such intentions. That didn't stop actor/pilot John Travolta from putting in a pitch as he introduced the president.

?Not only do I vote for that option,? Travolta told Bush, ?but I volunteer to go on the first mission.?

Bush made no commitments on a new space mission, but said of Travolta: ?We shall call him moon man from now on.?
===

Man, I don't even know where to start making jokes about this.

Mad Grad Student · 2003-12-17 16:35:16

I've been watching CNN for the last 30 minutes and haven't heard the Wright's name once! In fact, the special tonight is about inside Iraq. Big deal, they say something about Iraq every day, is the public really so apathetic that they can't muster up a little interest about the centennial of flight?

I'm glad Bush didn't say anything about going to the Moon. Even if he said something it's not like we'd have gone, better to not even get our hopes up. I'm just waiting until Scaled Composites or one of the other X-Prize contenders gets us there.

Palomar · 2003-12-17 16:44:35

Did you see how they tried to re-enact the first flight and failed? Maybe a parable/allegory foreshadowing the fate of a return to the moon? I can't help but chuckle a little.

*Yep, saw that in Yahoo! news. In the documentary I mentioned in my first post (which I watched earlier this year), the guys who were reconstructing the plane Orville and Wilbur had (I guess from original schematics...or blueprints...what's the right word??) said they weren't sure they could manage it. They were already testing a mock-up version or something along that line -- and having a real a heck of a time with that. So they doubted they could make the actual model to be used today fly (they were still working on it), and marveled that the Wright Brothers ever got the thing off the ground at all.

Returning to the moon...I don't want to think about it. Mars or Bust!

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2003-12-17 19:07:02

I was reading somewhere that the Wright brothers were actually beaten to the punch by some other guy in America who flew 800 metres (I think they said) in 1901.
His feat was written up in the local paper and I understand they've recovered a grainy photograph of the historic event.
I'm sorry I can't remember his name but I believe they've since made a replica of his plane and it did fly! Apparently his craft had two acetylene powered engines; one to push the plane along the ground and the other to propel it through the air.

I have to admit I'm a bit vague on some of this, and I'm ready and willing to be corrected on the details, but I think the main parts of the story are accurate.

At one stage I would have been doubtful about all this, on the grounds that such an important breakthrough would have been trumpeted from the rooftops. But, since then, I've found that the Wright brothers' similarly heroic success in 1903 was effectively ignored by the world at large for some years.
So it seems perfectly possible to me that a manned flight in 1901 could have been easily 'overlooked' by history and subsequently overshadowed by the events of 1903.

And now for something completely frivolous:-

I remember that old movie about an inventor in Victorian England who came up with a gravity-shielding substance and used it to fly to the Moon.
I found the idea fascinating, that someone could have planted the Union Jack on old Luna some 70 years before Neil and Buzz!
And now, given the evidence for how slow the press and the people were to catch on to things back then, it makes it just that tiny little bit more feasible that there might just be artifacts on the Moon from Victorian times!
What if some eccentric scientist actually had found a way to get to the Moon in 1899 and we never heard about it?

I know, I know ... I really should watch how much Christmas spirit I'm getting into (the liquid variety, I mean! )

I'm just in love with the idea of it all, I suppose.

dicktice · 2003-12-29 13:09:04

Really, Shaun: The brothers were experimentors who kept from killing themselves by proceeding step-by-tedious-step, emphasizing control aspects, the same as your unsung experimentor responsible for the "A-bar-controlled" hang glider. Talents for fame and fortune, they weren't. That same design later flew as the Wright Flyer, as they gradually taught themselve to handle it (it was an ergonomic nightmare to control). The design, I have submitted before, was optimum for the purpose they set out to accomplish: to demonstrate powered human flight was rutinely possible. Then they and their aircraft faded from the scene. Just like Appolo, see? To attempt to reproduce either, would be just as difficult as when they were done in the first place. I now believe, the "Mars First" hardware can and should be proven to the greatest extent possible, on the Moon (to paraphrase Himself), using the very latest of everything! Wonderful to be back, and able to trade thoughts with you. Brings a tear to me eye, wherever I listen to the Aussie International satellite re-broadcasts over CBC Radio One FM, between 2 an 5 a.m. Atlantic Standard Time--especially the outback inventors on the "Inovations" program. Cheers, (if you'll alow me the liberty) Mate.

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#1 2003-12-17 08:16:44

Re: 100 Years of Flight

#2 2003-12-17 15:44:06

Re: 100 Years of Flight

#3 2003-12-17 16:08:30

Re: 100 Years of Flight

#4 2003-12-17 16:35:16

Re: 100 Years of Flight

#5 2003-12-17 16:44:35

Re: 100 Years of Flight

#6 2003-12-17 19:07:02

Re: 100 Years of Flight

#7 2003-12-29 13:09:04

Re: 100 Years of Flight

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