With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

raise your glasses...to civilization

2005 December 13 19:51

Unlike Ohare or Washington Reagan, the Cinncinnati/Northern Kentucky airport has wireless internet. It's provided by cincinnatibell.com, is $5 for one hour or $10 for 24, and it's pretty snappy.

I'm flying back from a meeting in Washington, DC. It's a city I really like to visit (particularly on someone else's dime). The Air and Space Museum is like Mecca for aerophiles/astrophiles like me (are those even words?!?).

It's really a thrill be in the presence of either actual spacecraft that have returned to earth, or flight-rated hardware that never flew. In the east gallery of the museum is a fully flight-rated Lunar Module that would have been the second test mission for that craft. The first LM mission (Apollo 9) was so successful that a second test mission in earth orbit was not necessary. So it was built to be fully functional; real engines and everything.

I saw the Voyager, and once again marveled at how small the thing is. Along with its many records, I wonder how it would stack up for cubic feet per occupant for aircraft designed to fly more than 4 hours (or whatever "official" amount of time the average person can go without using the restroom).

A couple of things I saw this time that I hadn't realized were there before. There's an actual Vanguard satellite that was ready to launch but then the launch vehicle blew up. There's the battery key for Sputnik I. This was the thing that kept the battery from activating before the launch; it was pulled out to engage the battery and the transmitter just before the rocket was launched. The closest you can get to the very first artificial object to go into orbit.

We're going to board soon, so I need to go. Fly safe!