Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, born April 3, 1926, in Mitchell, Indiana. As one of NASA’s first seven astronauts, he became America’s second astronaut to fly in space when he launched aboard the Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft on July 21, 1961, just weeks after Alan Shepard’s historic […]
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on April 25, 2022 and has been updated to reflect changes including the completion of Hangar One’s restoration. Restoration has been completed on Hangar One, a historic landmark in the San Francisco Bay Area and a key part of the region’s early aviation history. In December 2025, Planetary Ventures completed restoration of […]
From the voyages of spacecraft to the Moon and beyond, to the launches of satellites that help us navigate, communicate, and understand our planet and the universe, the use of liquid-fueled rockets has been key to humanity’s use and exploration of space. Today marks 100 years since the first successful test of this technology. On […]
Snow covered the ground that Tuesday morning 100 years ago, when a college professor and his wife took a morning drive to the family farm a few miles south in Auburn, Massachusetts. Along for the ride, the couple brought two work colleagues — and “Nell.” They may not have known it at the time, but […]
Nestled in the Mojave Desert, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, pushes the boundaries of flight to advance the agency’s aeronautics mission. This is where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier and engineers are now pioneering the future of high-speed, autonomous, and electrified aircraft. Armstrong contributes to NASA’s broader mission of innovation and […]
NASA is preparing for the demolition of three iconic structures at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Crews began demolition in mid-December at the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, a facility built in the late 1960s that once enabled NASA astronauts and researchers to experience near-weightlessness. The facility was also used to conduct underwater […]