AirSpaceMag.com

No Kum-Sok’s MiG-15 about five minutes after he landed at Kimpo. The photo was taken without permission from the rear of a passing truck. (USAF)

On this day in 1953, 21-year-old North Korean pilot No Kum-Sok astonished the American flyers at Kimpo Air Base in South Korea by landing in the middle of their runway and surrendering—thus becoming the first MiG pilot to defect to the West.

In his fascinating 1996 book, A MiG-15 to Freedom, No (who changed his name to Kenneth Rowe and ended up working in the U.S. aerospace industry), recalls his first meeting with Chuck Yeager, who had been whisked from Wright Field to Okinawa to see the famed Russian fighter firsthand.

Yeager motioned to me and said to [Wright pilot Tom] Collins, “Ask him if he knows who I am.” Collins responded, “You ask him.” Then Yeager told Andy, my interpreter, to tell me that he was Major Chuck Yeager, the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound. Andy was confused, his mind preoccupied with control switches, gauges, and emergency maneuvers, and he was unable to convey the message to me. Andy had no idea who these pilots were anyway, and he probably thought Chuck Yeager was telling an unimportant joke.

Yeager noticed from my facial expression that his question had not been conveyed. So he tried again, saying to Andy, “Tell him that I was the first man to fly faster than Mach 1.” Andy garbled the translation again, so I thought he was trying to say that Yeager was the famous scientist. I immediately  said, “Ah, Dr. Mach!” Yeager gave an embarrassed grin and made a motion as if stroking a beard from his chin, saying that he was not Dr. Mach, who was very old and had a beard. Actually Ernst Mach had been dead for 37 years. Captain Collins witnessed the amusing confusion and said that was one of the few times he had ever seen Chuck Yeager at a loss for words.

This looks like fun work.

And the people on the SMAVNET Project think they set a record for the largest number of flying robots (10) deployed at a single time outdoors.

When I saw this new image of the six guys locked inside the Mars 500 mission simulation chamber in Moscow, I feared for their mental health.

Photo: IBMP

But they seem to be doing fine. In fact, they just broke the previous Mars chamber endurance record:

His other ride: Brown after his STS-77 shuttle landing in 1996.

Where do old astronauts go? Some of them simply can’t shake that need for speed, so they strap on exotic aircraft and sign up for the Reno National Championship Air Races. Of the three astronauts who have taken up air racing — Hoot Gibson, Bill Anders, and Curt Brown — Brown, a two-time Reno champion, is the most recent headliner, having flown the fastest speed ever recorded in the 47-year history of the race: 543 mph, during qualifying laps on Tuesday, Sept. 14, in his modified Aero Vodochody L-29 Delfin.

When, in 2009,  Guy Clifton of the Reno Gazette-Journal asked Brown which was more fun, racing at Reno or flying the shuttle, Brown replied:

“Well, I have more fun here because it’s me. I don’t mean that in an egotistical way. I give NASA and all the folks credit – we’re just the tip of the spear. A lot of engineers and really smart, dedicated folks that make all that happen. We just get the privilege of being on the vehicle. But out here, it’s just me and the plane out on the course. I have a great ground crew getting me ready to go. But once I take off, I don’t have mission control trying to help me, I have me trying to help me. To me it’s more rewarding. And here in Reno it’s kind of like an inside joke with pilots: We get to do things that are totally way illegal anywhere else in the world at any other time. Out here we can really go fast, close to the ground, have fun with other airplanes. Even if we blow a motor up, the FAA doesn’t care, we just pop up, we land. You can’t do that anywhere else.”

Former space shuttle commander Frank Culbertson stepped up to the podium inside a hearing room in the Rayburn House office building yesterday morning, and talked about inspiration. He turned to his left and thanked moon walker Buzz Aldrin for a kind gesture last year during a visit to the Johnson Space Center. “Buzz, my daughters were so grateful to get your autograph when we were down at the Cape. They said, ‘Hey dad, there’s the guy from Dancing With the Stars!’ ”

Former space shuttle commander Frank Culbertson (left) talks about human spaceflight past, present, and future, as Buzz Aldrin listens. Photo: AIA

Now responsible for human spaceflight at Orbital Sciences Corporation, Culbertson repeated a familiar refrain from the nation’s aerospace sector: “We need to make sure as a country to inspire people in this field.”

He regarded the room full of congressional staffers, aerospace executives, and journalists invited by the Aerospace Industries Association, and lamented how today politics gets in the way of pursuing a vigorous human spaceflight program. He recalled coming to Capitol Hill in 1997 to defend NASA’s decision to send astronaut David Wolf up to the Russian Mir space station in the wake of a fire onboard. “As I went through that process, I saw some sausage-making that I had not seen in the past. I wondered, do we as a country have the political will to go beyond Earth orbit? The political will needs to be developed along with the technical and safety procedures. Sometimes those fly in the face of politics.”

To Culbertson’s left, at the table with Aldrin, sat Brewster Shaw, a three-time shuttle pilot-astronaut (twice commander), and Tom Jones, a four-time shuttle mission specialist and Air Force B-52 commander. Each had a different take on the current state of U.S. space policy.

From left: Aldrin, Brewster Shaw, Culbertson, and Tom Jones. Photo: AIA

Shaw, who works in space exploration systems for Boeing, lamented the retirement of the space shuttle, calling it an overreaction of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. “We relegated the program to premature termination,” he said. Spaceflight is a risky endeavor, he said, noting that, whereas about one in every 25 people who’ve gone to space has died as a result, about one in 10 has died trying to climb the world’s tallest mountain. “We humans choose to do things that are significantly more dangerous than flying to space.”

Jones recalled preparing for his final mission, STS-98, which flew in February 2001. He asked a seasoned NASA manager when he thought astronauts would once again leave low Earth orbit. The manager thought, perhaps in 2012. “I was appalled. 2012?” said Jones, letting the irony sink in that we won’t make that date either, by a long shot. “So what is all this for?” he asked. “I think that’s a perspective I’ve carried the last 10 years. What’s all this for? What’s the payoff?”

Jones holds a special interest in asteroids, which he sees as a source of minerals and scientific study, and a way to open up a commercial frontier. “In our long-term strategy, we need to think about expanding our business resources. We need to bootstrap our way into space by tapping those resources. I think government’s job is to prove this. The tax base you create is led by the government, and then let the commercial sector take over.”

Aldrin articulated his support for keeping a deep space taxi in orbit around Earth, a reusable vehicle for extended-duration trips to near-Earth asteroids and Mars. But his larger point was shared by the other three: That the United States must have a long-term human spaceflight plan that lasts decades and continues pushing outward, no matter what.

After recounting the various inspirations he had along the way toward becoming an astronaut, Jones also pointed to the more urgent kind of inspiration offered by Earthbound asteroids, noting the two last week that passed by, inside the orbit of the moon. “What was the Dirty Harry line? Do you feel lucky today? It’s just a matter of luck that we haven’t been hit. The dinosaurs played by the rules 65 million years ago, and see where that got them? We need to change the rules.”