In December, 1903, at Kitty Hawk NC, the Wright brothers won the race to create the world's first powered flying machine capable of controlled human flight. But in the years that followed, Europeans took the lead as airplanes were made practical for commercial and military use. In response, the US Congress created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) a hundred years ago this week (March 3, 1915), to undertake and coordinate aeronautical research.
The agency has been credited for a number of engineering breakthroughs during the 43 years of its existence, particularly in airfoil and wind tunnel designs, and in the development of the Bell X-1 (jointly with the US Air Force) in which 24-year old Chuck Yeagar broke the sound barrier for the first (verified) time.
In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik artificial satellite around earth, a triumph that took America and the rest of the world by surprise. It became clear that outer space was the new frontier, so NACA's mission had come to an end. On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed a bill creating NASA as the successor to NACA.
NASA's tribute to NACA here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday March 05 2015, @02:44AM
New Zealand comes first again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse/ [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by mrcoolbp on Thursday March 05 2015, @04:49AM
Correct link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse [wikipedia.org]
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2015, @03:48PM
The whole second paragraph of that link downplays or discredits statements about him from being the first, including a statement that even Pearse says he wan't first. I don't know how that is supposed to support the argument.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday March 05 2015, @08:19AM
That's why they stuck that word "controlled" in there. I'm sure there was a time when people'd write:
the world's first flying machine capable of human flight
And when that turned out to be debatable, it became:
the world's first powered flying machine capable of human flight
That still left a few competitors though, so then it had to become:
the world's first powered flying machine capable of controlled human flight
Eventually it'll be:
the world's first powered flying machine capable of controlled human flight at a place named after two animals
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2015, @03:45PM
I would argue "controlled" is pretty important. Any idiot jumping off a cliff in some kind of contraption that slow them down from free-fall descent is doing uncontrolled flight. Controlled flight means you at least are going where you intend to go.
(Score: 1) by http on Thursday March 05 2015, @05:13PM
Or even beforehand, Gustave Whitehead [wikipedia.org]. It is important to note that the only way that the Smithsonian gets to keep the Wright Flyer is by continuously asserting that Wrights flew first.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2015, @06:25AM
4 decades ago, I made a service call to the Langley facility's full-scale wind tunnel. [google.com]
That is on the Air Force base portion of the real estate.
That building has NACA markings (being built before the 1957 renaming to NASA).
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday March 05 2015, @12:47PM
Let's increase the pace of space development. We as a planet sure need it.
(but be sure to watch out for dangers of course projection of large objects and biohazards)
After the moon visits it seemed the pace took a serious dip, let's not repeat that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2015, @07:55PM
Starting about 100 years ago, NACA published annual volumes of reports on aeronautical research. These were beautifully printed by the Government Printing Office and used to be a staple on the shelves of aircraft company engineering departments. My father collected a partial set when his former employer closed their internal library -- they are great fun to browse. They do take up a couple of feet of shelf space...
There is still a great deal of useful information on low speed aerodynamics, engines and etc. available from these reports. This link appears to point to an index?
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19940021049&hterms=NACA+Collection&qs=N%3D0%26Ntk%3DAll%26Ntt%3D%2522NACA%2520Collection%2522%26Ntx%3Dmode%2520matchallpartial%26Nm%3D123|Collection|NASA%2520STI||17|Collection|NACA [nasa.gov]
(Score: 3, Informative) by novak on Thursday March 05 2015, @09:22PM
Any good aerospace engineer appreciates NACA, the wealth of NACA reports are often extremely useful, and a lot of airfoils were named by/parametrized by NACA.
novak