NASA knows that the way
to space and back includes sprints through the atmosphere. This year’s
NASA exhibit at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh features a real space shuttle
rocket engine and, for the first time, a full-size, mock-up silhouette
of what the next generation astronauts may take to the moon, Mars, and
beyond. Check out these and other features at NASA’s exhibit building
north of the control tower, just east of the Honda Forums Plaza.
NASA envisions returning
to the moon with a command module that looks a lot like the famously
simple shape of the Apollo capsules that did the job for Neil Armstrong
and his colleagues on the first lunar excursions. Only this time it’s
with the benefit of 21st century computer technology and a vehicle big
enough for six astronaut explorers.
As you view the classic
gumdrop shape of this proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), just
imagine the alternate feelings of heavy g-loading during launch,
followed by weightlessness on the speedy transit to the moon or Mars. It’s
a thrill some Americans will know in the coming decades. And the return
flight to Earth will be a scorching, yet safe, descent ultimately slowed
and suspended beneath a clutch of huge parachutes. The CEV will aim for
a predetermined spot in the wide-open western U.S., or maybe in the
ocean—whether to land wet or dry is still being studied.
Maybe you or a family
member visiting AirVenture Oshkosh this year will one day accelerate
into deep space in a Crew Exploration Vehicle like this. The design is
still speculative—perhaps your engineering talents will help give it
final form.
NASA’s education staff
and displays join the rest of the agency’s team at the exhibit
building this year. True to NASA’s charter to share the fruits of its
research with the American public, the education folks have materials
and ideas of use to teachers, home-schoolers, and all parents and
students.
And don’t miss the
"gee-whiz" cryogenics show with NASA specialists freezing,
popping, and banging a variety of household objects including some
hapless bananas that serve as hammers.
In front of the NASA
building, see the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) from NASA’s Stennis
Space Center, a 14-foot-long reminder of what it takes to break the
bonds of gravity. Weighing about 7,000 pounds, the SSME voraciously
consumes liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to create a relentless plume
of thrust as powerful as 12 million horses! Three of these massive
burners are mounted in each space shuttle, assisted on launch by two
strapped-on solid rocket motors, and generate energy the equivalent of
13 Hoover Dams.
The always-popular
craftsman area of the NASA building features men and women showing how
aerospace hardware is made, and how wind can be mapped in a working
model wind tunnel. Various videos throughout the exhibit highlight the
work of award-winning videographers who chase the world’s fastest,
most far-out vehicles for a living.
Along with the hardware, NASA brings its
people—engineers and educators, pilots and photographers, designers
and daydreamers—to share the excitement of exploring the Earth, moon,
Mars, and beyond.
