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Flight

The story of Laika (above, in a postage stamp from the Emirate of Ajman, now part of the UAE) lives on today in websites, YouTube videos, poems, and children’s books, at least one of which provides a happy ending for the doomed dog.

The Sad, Sad Story of Laika, the Space Dog, and Her One-Way Trip Into Orbit

A stray Moscow pup traveled into orbit in 1957 with one meal and only a seven-day oxygen supply

An artist’s concept of the low-boom flight demonstrator outside the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company’s Skunk Works hangar in Palmdale, California.

Five Things to Know About NASA’s Supersonic X-Plane

The $247.5 million aircraft could revive supersonic flight for civilians

This digitally-colorized negative-stained transmission electron microscopic (TEM) image shows recreated 1918 influenza virions that were collected from supernatants of 1918-infected Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells cultures 18 hours after infection.

New Research

Flu Skies: How Influenza Might Spread On a Plane

A new study suggests the chances of contracting a sick passenger’s flu virus is surprisingly low

Get a Front Row Seat to Rocket Launches at Kennedy Space Center

On July 24, 1950, NASA launched its first rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, ushering in the space era.

Tuskegee Airmen and P-47

Why African-American Soldiers Saw World War II as a Two-Front Battle

Drawing the connection between fascism abroad and hate at home, pre-Civil Rights activists declared the necessity of “double victory”

None

Time to Renew my CFI

Why go to the trouble to renew a certificate I don’t use? The bottom line is that I just worked too hard to get it

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