Thanks to NASA, the thousands of people who visit Kill
Devil Hills, N.C., to celebrate a century of flight, will also
have a chance to learn more about what may happen in aerospace
exploration in the next hundred years.
NASA will offer visitors a variety of experiences at the First
Flight Centennial Celebration Dec. 12-17 on the grounds of the
Wright Brothers’ National Memorial. The site is near where the
Wrights made the first successful powered flight on December
17, 1903. NASA and its founding organization, the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, played a significant role
in advancing the science of flight since 1915.
The main NASA exhibit fills a 10,000-square-foot tent.
“Powering Flight, Powering Dreams” will feature interactive
displays, a Wright Flyer simulator, airplane and spacecraft
models, and a number of real-life NASA scientists and
engineers, all intended to inspire the next generation of
explorers. Visitors will be able to view a moon rock, operate
a wind tunnel and take home a NASA souvenir. Visitors can see
a Space Shuttle main engine up close and pretend they’re at a
real launch in the Space Shuttle Launch Experience Theater.
Visitors can also catch a glimpse of what it’s like to live
and work on the International Space Station, as they board
“Space Station Imagination.” Space Station Imagination is two
linked 48-foot trailers forming two modules of the Space
Station. The display portrays the Station’s Habitation Module
where the astronauts sleep, eat and tend to personal hygiene;
and the Laboratory Module where microgravity experiments are
performed.
A few lucky youngsters will be able to talk with the crew of
the International Space Station. At 10:10 a.m. EST Friday,
Dec. 12, by satellite link-up, Dare County, N.C., students
will talk with Expedition 8 astronauts Alexander Kaleri and
Michael Foale for about 20 minutes. In addition, NASA
astronaut Daniel Barry, a three-mission Space Shuttle veteran,
will make a number of personal appearances during the First
Centennial of Flight Celebration.
For children who want to learn how to build their own flying
machines, NASA educators will be on hand in the education tent
to help them create helicopters, kites, rockets and airplanes.
Educators will also show visitors how to plan a cross-country
flight in NASA’s Mobile Aeronautics Education Laboratory.
NASA will also have a presence in the First Flight Centennial
Pavilion Exhibit Hall. Visitors will be able to see a model of
an airplane that may some day fly on Mars, watch a hot air
balloon demonstration and take a personal picture looking like
a pilot.
Even the reproduction of the Wright Flyer, that will attempt
to lift off on the same day, same time as the Wrights did 100
years ago, has a NASA tie. The Flyer reproduction, two Wright
gliders and a number of Wright propellers were tested in NASA
wind tunnels.
For more information about NASA on the Internet, visit:
For information about the First Flight Centennial Celebration
on the Internet, visit:
