Tim Grove - Milestones of Flight: From Hot-Air Balloons to SpaceShipOne

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Grove, Timauthor. | National Air and Space Museum.

Title: Milestones of flight : from hot-air balloons to SpaceShipOne / by Tim Grove.

Description: New York : Abrams Books for Young Readers, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Audience: 1014.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015033040 | ISBN 9781419720031| eISBN 9781613129241

Subjects: LCSH: AeronauticsHistoryChronologyJuvenile literature. | AstronauticsHistoryChronologyJuvenile literature.
Classification: LCC TL515 .G76 2016 | DDC 629.109dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015033040

Text copyright 2016 The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

For illustration credits, see .

Book design by Sara Corbett

Published in 2016 by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMS.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book May be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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CONTENTS

FIRST HOT AIR BALLOON
(FRANCE)

WRIGHT FLYER
(KITTYHAWK, NC)

CURTISS JN-4, THE JENNY

DOUGLAS WORLD CRUISER

GODDARD ROCKET INVENTED
(MASSACHUSETTS)

FLIGHT OF THE SPIRIT
OF ST. LOUIS

FULL SCALE WIND TUNNEL
BUILT IN VIRGINIA

DOUGLAS DC-3

UAVS

BELL XP-59A AIRACOMET
WHITTLE AND JUMO 004B
ENGINES

BELL X-1, GLAMOROUS GLENNIS

BOEING 367-80, DASH 80

SPUTNIK 1 AND EXPLORER 1
ENTER OUTER SPACE FROM
RUSSIA AND AMERICA

NORTH AMERICAN X-15

DISCOVERER/CORONA

TELSTAR

MERCURY FRIENDSHIP 7

MARINER 2

LOCKHEED SR-71 BLACKBIRD

GEMINI IV

IMAGINATION AND THE
STAR TREK STARSHIP
ENTERPRISE

FIRST FLIGHT TO THE MOON

PIONEER 10/11 TRANSMITS
PHOTOS OF JUPITER

VIKING LANDER EXPLORES
MARS

SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE
TAKES PHOTOS BEYOND OUR
SOLAR SYSTEM

SPACESHIPONE

INTRODUCTION

WHAT WOULD

IT BE LIKE TO FLY? HUMANS HAVE LONG
LOOKED AT BIRDS AND WONDERED. BUT THE
PULL OF GRAVITY MAKES IT HARD TO LEAVE EARTH.

The first human-made object to defy Earths gravity and fly was a kite. Kites were invented in China more than a thousand years ago. Today kite flying is still popular around the world. Its fun to take a brightly colored kite outside on a windy day, give it some air, and watch it climb into the sky. A skillful kite flier can make a kite soar and dive and weave.

Not until 1783 did humans figure out how they could take flight. Two brothers in France sent the first humans skyward. Their experiments with hot-air balloons changed the way people viewed the world. More than a hundred years later, two brothers in the United States solved the puzzle of controlled flight and invented the airplane.

FLYING A KITE

The story of humanitys quest to fly is told in the many objects, drawings, documents, photos, and other evidence that have been preserved and collected in museums. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., holds the largest collection of air- and space-related objects in the world. Therefore, its a good starting place to learn about how we got to where we are today. The first flight objects that the Smithsonian collected were kites. The Chinese delegation at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 presented the Smithsonian with an almost fifty-foot-long dragon kite and several other kites, and they became the basis for the museums unparalleled flight collection.