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NASA helps celebrate Centennial of Flight in North
Carolina
NASA will unveil a comprehensive new Centennial of Flight
exhibit next week at the Festival of Flight 2003, May 19-25, in
Fayetteville, N.C.
Visitors to Centennial of Flight venues will learn how the results
of NASA research travel from the lab to the runway and launch
pad.
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The Festival of Flight is the first official event to use NASA's
new exhibit, during the national countdown to the100th
anniversary of the Wright brothers' historic powered flight this
December. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has
played a role in advancing the science of flight since 1915 with
the establishment of its founding organization, the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
During the weeklong Aviation Exposition at the Festival of
Flight, NASA will showcase many of its innovative aerospace
achievements in three locations. The main NASA exhibition space is
twenty thousand square feet of the Crown Center Coliseum renamed
NASA Center for this event. There visitors will get a feel for how
NASA has helped change our daily lives and how NASA researchers and
astronauts are working to improve our future, by better
understanding the Earth, exploring the universe and searching for
life.
The new NASA Centennial of Flight exhibit called "Powering
Flight, Powering Dreams" will feature interactive displays, a
micro-gravity demonstrator, airplane and spacecraft models and a
number of real-life NASA scientists and engineers … all
intended to inspire the next generation of explorers. With the help
of NASA educators, school groups will have the chance to build
their own flying machines, including helicopters, kites, rockets
and airplanes. Adults and kids will be able to check out a moon
rock, operate a wind tunnel and take home a NASA souvenir.
In the parking lot of the NASA Center, visitors will also be
able to enjoy three outdoor NASA exhibits. They'll have the chance
to experience what space travel might be like four decades from
now, take a walk through the "solar system" to appreciate its
enormous size and learn more about aeronautics with the help of 10
unique work stations.
In addition, on NASA Day, May 20, the agency's new Associate
Administrator for Education, Dr. Adena Williams Loston, and
Astronaut Jeff Ashby will make special appearances at the Festival.
Ashby is a veteran of three Space Shuttle flights who last year
commanded STS-112, the 9th assembly flight of the
International Space Station.
NASA will also have a presence in two other exhibit areas. A
"Women in NASA" display will grace Heritage Hall. Plus in the
Aviation Hall visitors will be able to see and operate a NASA
flight technology demonstrator, a computer simulator similar to a
future plane they may some day fly.
The Festival of Flight is the first of six major Centennial of
Flight celebrations in which NASA will play a major role. NASA will
also participate in observances in Dayton, Ohio; New York, N.Y.;
Oshkosh, Wis.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Long Beach, Calif.; and Kitty
Hawk, N.C.
For more information please check the Internet at:
http://www.festivalofflight.org
and
http://www.centennialofflight.gov
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