AirSpaceMag.com

Remote-controlled drones are commonplace over today’s battlefields, playing an important role in U.S. air superiority. But one of the first military uses of a robot is almost completely forgotten—the story of “Boilerplate,” part of the U.S. Army’s 1^st Aero Squadron.

Photo courtesy Paul Guinan, Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel, Abrams Image, 2009.

Wait—you’ve never heard of Boilerplate, the Victorian-era mechanical man who fought alongside Teddy Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia, and who (controversially, considering his orders) actually saved Pancho Villa’s life?

That’s because Boilerplate is the invention of husband-and-wife graphic novel team Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett, who this month published the complete adventures of Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel in a lavishly illustrated book that retells American history through the eyes of the imaginary robot.

Ordinary history books show that when Francisco “Pancho” Villa led a surprise attack on Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9, 1916, he was hoping to provoke a U.S. military response that would help rally peasant support against the U.S.-backed Mexican president Venstiano Carranza. His tactic worked. The 93 U.S. soldiers deployed in the “Punitive Expedition” had at their disposal various motorcycles, trucks and cars—and eight Curtiss JN-3 biplanes, the U.S. Army’s entire air force.

But in Guinan and Bennett’s revised history, the Aero Squadron’s reconnaissance mission—the airplanes were used strictly for observation and communication—was aided by the world’s first robot, shown here helping a “Jenny” ready for takeoff. (Boilerplate’s previous flying experience consisted of fleeing the 1900 Boxer uprising in Peking via an airship.)

The fictional robot even duped comedian and author Chris Elliott, who used Boilerplate—which he considered historical, public domain material—in his 2005 novel The Shroud of the Thwacker. An abashed Elliot told Publishers Weekly in 2005, “People think because of my comedy career I must be smart, but the truth is I am a total moron.”

Frederick Humphreys (NY State Military Museum)

A hundred years ago today, the U.S. military got its first pilot. On October 26, 1909, Frederick E. Humphreys, a 26-year-old Lieutenant with the Army Signal Corps, soloed for the first time in a Wright Flyer at College Park, Maryland, under the watchful eye of no less an instructor than Wilbur Wright. That same day Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm also soloed, winning Pilot Certificate No. 2 from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

Both had been in training since October 8, only weeks after the Army purchased its flying machine from the Wrights. By November 5, the airplane was out of commission, its wing damaged during a low-altitude turn, which left the country’s fledgling air force temporarily without a vehicle.

The Near-Earth Object office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reports on an October 8 fireball over Indonesia, with a link (below) to a local TV news story.

Fireballs are dramatic, but not as rare as you’d think. An object this size (about 10 meters in diameter) comes along every few years, on average.

What was thought to be a lock of Amelia Earhart’s hair, on display at a Cleveland museum, is merely thread. In mid-September, the International Women’s Air and Space Museum included in its e-newsletter to IWASM members an explanation of the misunderstanding:

Last week we reported that a sample of hair from Amelia Earhart had been provided by IWASM to The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery for DNA testing. We got an update on the process last night and we wanted to share it with everyone. The hair, quite simply, is not hair. The lock of hair was taken out of a wastepaper basket by Mrs. Lillian Rogers Parks, who served as a maid at the White House for many years, during one of Amelia’s stays with the Roosevelts. Mrs. Parks references the hair in her book, My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House. Mrs. Parks eventually forwarded the lock of hair to the Smithsonian, who sent it to IWASM. And until this year’s Amelia Earhart exhibit opened here in March, it stayed tucked in a drawer.

Last month, Ric Gillespie, Executive Director of TIGHAR, came to the museum to give a lecture. We showed him the hair and he asked for a small sample of it to first, verify that it was indeed Earhart’s, and second, to possibly use it to confirm the DNA of artifacts he hopes to recover on TIGHAR’s next expedition to [the Pacific island] Nikumororo, [where Gillespie thinks Earhart was stranded], scheduled for June 2010. We extracted a portion of the hair to send it to TIGHAR. As we were working with it, we became concerned that it was not hair. It did not seem like a number of small strands but rather a couple of longer strands that were difficult to work with. We sent it off to TIGHAR with our suspicion. TIGHAR proceeded cautiously but, based upon an initial look, thought that it likely was hair. The sample made its way to the DNA laboratory, who also initially believed it to be hair. But, after the appropriate testing, they concluded it was thread and there was no DNA on it. While this is indeed disappointing news for us we felt it was important to tell the rest of the story.

Surayev (top) and Romanenko. (Roskosmos/Maksim Surayev)

When did cosmonauts get so hip?

The current Russian residents of the International Space Station, Maksim Surayev and Roman Romanenko, are two of the loosest, laughing-est spacemen we’ve seen in a long time. Maybe it’s because they just spent ten days in orbit with a clown.

Whatever the reason, Surayev, 37, and Romanenko, 38 (who’s a second-generation cosmonaut—his father Yuri flew on Soyuz 26 in 1977) seem to be having a great time on their rookie spaceflight.

Surayev started with the schtick even before he got to orbit, periodically breaking into song on launch day (the 70s pop song “Mammy Blue,” for some reason). Taking a cue from the NASA astronauts who now Twitter and blog on every shuttle flight, Surayev is writing a blog on the Russia Today site, a first for a cosmonaut (although his boss Sergei Krikalev has a Facebook page).

Romanenko, who’s been playing bass guitar since he was young, spent half of his recent phone chat with two members of u2, Bono and The Edge (plus Bono’s sons Eli and John), lobbying to appear with the band when they play Moscow. Judge for yourself (below) whether he talked his way onstage. I think yes.

How do you say “Rock On!” in Russian?

(Video: NASA)