space shuttle

Cleared Direct Oct 18, 2026

The M Two F Two Lifting Body, Bruce Peterson's Near-Fatal Crash at Edwards, and the Wingless Flight Program That Taught the Space Shuttle How to Land

How NASA's wingless lifting body program - from a Pontiac-towed prototype to Bruce Peterson's 1967 crash - defined the aerodynamics behind all 133 Space Shuttle landings.

Vector

Cleared Direct Oct 6, 2026

The North American X Fifteen, Joe Walker's Two Flights Above the Kármán Line, and the Hypersonic Research Program That Shaped Every Spacecraft That Lands on a Runway

The X-15 flew 199 hypersonic research missions, sent two pilots above the Kármán line, and shaped every spacecraft that lands on a runway.

Vector

Cleared Direct Sep 3, 2026

The Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, the Lifting Body Lineage, and the Spaceplane Designed to Land on a Conventional Runway

The Dream Chaser is the first spacecraft since the 2011 Space Shuttle retirement designed to land on a conventional airport runway using a 60-year lifting body lineage.

Vector

Cleared Direct Aug 26, 2026

The Shuttle Training Aircraft, the Modified Gulfstream Two That Taught Shuttle Commanders to Fly a Twenty-Two-Degree Glide Slope Before Anyone Let Them Near the Orbiter

NASA's Shuttle Training Aircraft - a modified Gulfstream II - prepared shuttle commanders for the orbiter's 22-degree, no-go-around final approach using real aerodynamics in real airspace.

Vector

The Hangar Aug 13, 2026

Enterprise's First Free Flight, August Twelfth, Nineteen Seventy-Seven, the Day a Wingless-Looking Brick Fell Off the Back of a Boeing Seven Forty-Seven and Glided Home to a Dry Lakebed

On August 12, 1977, Space Shuttle Enterprise made its first free flight, proving a pilot could glide an orbiter to a landing.

Taildragger

Cleared Direct Aug 5, 2026

The Shuttle Training Aircraft, the Gulfstream That NASA Turned Into a Flying Glider Simulator to Teach Astronauts How to Dead-Stick a Hundred-Ton Spaceship Onto a Runway

How NASA turned a Gulfstream II business jet into the Shuttle Training Aircraft to teach astronauts the impossible one-shot landing.

Vector