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NASA TAKES FLIGHT WITH CENTENNIAL PARTNERS IN NORTH
CAROLINA
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 of a variety of experiences at the
First Flight Centennial Celebration to be held Dec. 12-17 on the
grounds of the Wright Brothers National Memorial, just yards from
where Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful powered
flight in 1903. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
and its founding organization, the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics, have 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.
They will also have a chance to 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 Habitation Module, or living quarters, 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 to the crew of the
International Space Station. In the education tent at 10:10 a.m.
EST Friday, Dec. 12, NASA has scheduled a satellite link-up to
space so Dare County, N.C., students can talk to Expedition 8
astronauts Alexander Kaleri and Michael Foale for about 20 minutes.
Plus Daniel Barry, an astronaut who has flown on board the Space
Shuttle three times, will make a number of personal appearances
during the First Flight Centennial 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 a NASA wind
tunnel.
For more information about NASA on the Internet, please
visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
For information about the First Flight Centennial Celebration on
the Internet, please visit:
http://www.firstflightcentennial.org
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