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Robonaut 2—the humanoid robot soon to be tested as an astronaut’s helper on the International Space Station—is being powered up for the first time this morning (screen shot at left). Since arriving on the space shuttle last February, the robot has been sitting on its pedestal, lifeless. It won’t be commanded to move for a couple of weeks (this is a slow process, partly due to limited crew time for testing). And it will be many months—and several upgrades—before we see a robotic spacewalk like the one below.

Still, it’s a start. Follow the action at Robonaut’s Twitter feed or Facebook page.

National Aviation Day coffee mug, from Cafe Press.

You may have noticed the U.S. flag flying on a federal building today, but chances are it was on the pole yesterday, too. Or perhaps you woke feeling the need for “appropriate exercises to further stimulate interest in aviation,” which many of us consider part of our routine. At least today, though, you’ve got President Franklin Roosevelt and Orville Wright to thank. Orville was born this day in 1871, and in 1939, Roosevelt issued a national proclamation to designate August 19 as National Aviation Day.

The National Park Service kicks off appropriate exercises at 9:00 this morning at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in North Carolina, with a full day of stimulation beginning with a Junior Flight Ranger program and including a noontime chat and book-signing of The Bishop’s Boys by National Air and Space Museum curator Tom Crouch.

Orville, about the time of the national proclamation. Photo: Library of Congress

Candles burn for Orville across the continent. National Aviation Day at the Alaska Aviation Museum brings a 10 percent discount off anything from the gift store; a moonlight helicopter ride and barbecue for charity at the Craig Airport in Jacksonville, FL; a pilot meet-n-greet in Davenport IA; and the chance to earn an Aerospace Merit Badge in Harrisburg, PA. You can fly an egg-carton glider at the National Museum of the USAF in Dayton.

Dusting off Orville Wright for his birthday, and a new exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. Photo: Courtesy of the News-Observer

Orville’s first flight was only 120 feet, but with this much ground to cover, you’ll need a long-range private jet. Find one at JetRequest, which is offering special rates for the day.

If all this exercise is too much stimulation, finish your coffee and get back in bed. Especially if you’re in Canada, where you’ve already missed the day by months.

Three legendary astronauts—Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and Gene Cernan—were in Kabul, Afghanistan, yesterday, meeting with American service men and women as well as young Afghan Air Force trainees.

From the NATO press release:

“This is the best day of my life!” said Lt. Fatama Abteen, one of a small handful of female Afghan Air Force trainees.  “I’m overwhelmed and extremely excited.  It’s hard to communicate how much this means to me.”

Commander Lt. Col. Tim Conklin "throwing snakes." Photograph courtesy Ed Darack (www.darack.com).

Who can forget the immortal question posed by the Mongol General in the 1982 classic Conan the Barbarian?

Wait…don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? When the Mongol General bellows “What is best in life?” some (sissy) barbarian offers the following: “The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.” (“The wind in your hair”?? What is this, a shampoo commercial?) When the question is redirected to Conan, Arnold Schwarzenegger woodenly replies: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.” (See video clip below.)

You may ask how this is relevant to Air & Space magazine.

For our September 2011 issue, frequent contributor Ed Darack profiled the Colorado Air National Guard’s 120th Fighter Squadron. When we saw the above photograph, we assumed the pilot—Lieutenant Colonel Tim Conklin, commander of the 120th—was simply raising his arms in order to indicate that the munitions being loaded onto his aircraft would not be launched by accident. Wrong. When we asked Colonel Conklin to explain what his arms signaled, he replied, “That’s actually the standard sign of the 80th Fighter Squadron (Juvats) from Korea. I was [stationed] there in 1994-1995. It’s from Conan the Barbarian. All current or former Juvats will ‘snake’ passing aircraft (or photojournalists).”

A query sent to the Air Force Historical Society, asking if they could explain how the tradition started, garnered this reply: “Unfortunately, unofficial items such as this are not covered by the official unit histories which concern themselves with actual mission accomplishments, as opposed to individual actions.”

Look for Ed Darack’s profile of the 120th, “The Changing of the Guard,” in our September 2011 issue, and posted on our Web site next week.

Photograph: Charles Chan/Flickr.

The impending retirement of the Lockheed U-2, which began flying for the Central Intelligence Agency in 1956, has been in the news for a while now. Yesterday, AirForceTimes.com reported that the Air Force, which incrementally took over U-2 ops starting in the mid-1960s, will phase out the beloved Dragon Lady by 2015, when the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle will replace it.

AirForceTimes writer Dave Majumdar notes that the Global Hawk “has had some teething problems where it failed its operational test due to poor reliability and mediocre sensor performance….” To which Lieutenant Colonel Rick Thomas, Global Hawk functional manager for the Air Force, responded that the Global Hawk has come a long way. “The [initial operational test and evaluation] was a spot in time.”

[pause to scratch head in bewilderment]

Can anyone translate that for me? Because I have no idea what Lt. Col. Thomas is trying to say.

"With time and money, the aircraft will get better, but it will never live up to what was originally promised," an anonymous source told Air Force Times staff writer Dave Majumdar. U.S. Air Force photograph.