NASA's Gulfstream-III research aircraft

A forest of tufts are mounted on the underbelly and pylon of NASA's Gulfstream-III research aircraft to help engineers determine airflow around the UAVSAR pod.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen Volcanic National Park, California. South side of Lassen Peak. Little Hot Springs Valley in the foreground. 1981.

Phalanx Close-In Weapon System

PACIFIC OCEAN (May 21, 2007) – Austin-class amphibious transport dock USS Juneau (LPD 10) test fires one of her Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) mounts. The CIWS is a radar-guided 20mm gatling gun used to defend Juneau against anti-ship missiles. Juneau serves under Task Force 76, the Navy's permanently forward-deployed amphibious force operating from Sasebo, Japan.

Pryor's Band concert

Pryor's Band concert, Royal Palm Park, Miami, Fla.

War is hell

Scene of Ewell's attack, May 19, 1864, near Spottsylvania [i.e. Spotsylvania] Court House. Dead Confederate soldier.

Launch of Friendship 7

Launch of Friendship 7, the first American manned orbital space flight. Astronaut John Glenn aboard, the Mercury-Atlas rocket is launched from Pad 14.

Space shuttle Atlantis

(05/15/2007) --- KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Reflected in the water of the Banana River is Space Shuttle Atlantis, sitting on Launch Pad 39A. Atlantis rolled out to the pad for the second time before dawn. First motion out of the Vehicle Assembly Building was at 5:02 a.m. EDT. In late February, while Atlantis was on the launch pad, Atlantis' external tank received hail damage during a severe thunderstorm that passed through the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 area.

U.S. Air Force Thunderbird F-16 jets

(05/07/2007) --- KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- U.S. Air Force Thunderbird F-16 jets fly in formation past the Vehicle Assembly Building in the Industrial Area of Kennedy Space Center. The purpose of the flyover was to photograph the planes at KSC for promotional purposes. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex will host the inaugural World Space Expo from Nov. 3 to 11, featuring an aerial salute by the Thunderbirds on its opening weekend. The Expo will create one of the largest displays of space artifacts, hardware and personalities ever assembled in one location with the objective to inspire, educate and engage the public by highlighting the achievements and benefits of space exploration.

Saturn

The Cassini spacecraft surveys Saturn's outstretched ring system in the infrared from a vantage point high above the planet's northern latitudes. Nearly the full expanse of the main rings is visible here -- from the C ring to the outer edge of the A ring (in the upper left corner).

Ring shadows are visible on the planet at lower left, and two large storms swirl near center.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 52 degrees above the ringplane.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 (red channel), 890 (blue channel) and 728 (green channel) nanometers. The view was acquired on April 5, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.4 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 81 kilometers (51 miles) per pixel.

AV-8B Harrier aircraft

A streak of lightning strikes behind an an AV-8B Harrier aircraft on the flight deck of USS Boxer (LHD 4) April 12, 2007. Boxer is the flagship for Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group which is operating in the Persian Gulf conducting maritime security operations in support of U.S. 5th Fleet.

Ocotillo

British frigate HMS Cornwall

PERSIAN GULF (March 19, 2007) - British frigate HMS Cornwall (F 99) takes up station to defend Iraq's oil industry in the Persian Gulf, forming part of the Royal Navy's ongoing commitment to the area. HMS Cornwall will take her place among a multinational naval force, including ships from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, Royal Australian Navy and the Iraqi navy.

Deadwood Central R.R. Engineer Corps

Outdoor group portrait of ten railroad engineers, wearing suits and hats, and a dog, posing in a row with surveyors' transits on tripods and measuring rods.

MV-22 Osprey

GULF OF MEXICO (March 30, 2007) - An MV-22 Osprey from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Training Squadron (VMMT) 204, Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., flies over the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding areas in Florida. The Marines are on a two-week training exercise at Hurlburt Field, Fla., to allow pilots and other aircrew members to train and navigate in an unfamiliar environment.

Women at work during World War 2

Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger

Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger was designed for flight in the vacuum of space.

This picture, taken from the command module America, shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit. Small reaction control thrusters are at the sides of the moonship with the bell of the ascent rocket engine itself underneath. The hatch allowing access to the lunar surface is visible in the front and a round radar antenna appears at the top.

This spaceship performed gracefully, landing on the moon and returning the Apollo astronauts to the orbiting command module in December 1972 -- but where is Challenger now? Its descent stage remains at the Apollo 17 landing site, Taurus-Littrow. The ascent stage crashed nearby after being jettisoned from the command module prior to the astronauts' return to planet Earth.

NASCAR salutes Air Force

The U.S. Air Force 60th anniversary logo is unveiled on the hood of NASCAR driver Ward Burton's State Water Heaters car during an unveiling ceremony May 8 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C. The unveiling was in recognition of "American Heroes Memorial Day Salute to the Armed Forces".

Confederate fortifications, Yorktown, Va.

F/A-18A/B Hornet

PACIFIC OCEAN (May 9, 2007) - An F/A-18A/B Hornet, assigned to the "Red Devils" of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 232, lands on the flight deck of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68). Nimitz Carrier Strike Group is deployed in support of Maritime Security Operations.

Atlantis

Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend the event. The launch of a rocket bound for space inspires awe and challenges description. Pictured above, the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off to visit the International Space Station during the early morning hours of July 12, 2001, one of six missions during the first year of the new millenium. From a standing start, the 2 million kilogram (4.4 million pound) rocket ship lifted off on a journey to circle the Earth that lasted 12 days.

Snowflake Cluster

Strange shapes and textures can be found in the neighborhood of the Cone Nebula. These patterns result from the tumultuous unrest that accompanies the formation of the open cluster of stars known as NGC 2264, the Snowflake Cluster. To better understand this process, a detailed image of this region was taken in two colors of infrared light by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope.

Bright stars from the Snowflake Cluster dot the field. These stars soon heat up and destroy the gas and dust mountains in which they formed. One such dust mountain is the famous Cone Nebula, visible in the above image on the left, pointing toward a bright star near the center of the field. The entire NGC 2264 region is located about 2,500 light years away toward the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros).

Kansas City, Mo

Armour Blvd. and Holmes St., Kansas City, Mo.

The Altair

A high-tech infrared imaging sensor in its underbelly pod, the Altair UAS aided firefighting efforts over central and southern California wildfires in late 2006.

Joan of Arc

The portrait depicts Joan of Arc's awe upon receiving a vision from the archangel Michael.

Guided missile destroyer USS Milius

PACIFIC OCEAN (May 1, 2007) - Guided missile destroyer USS Milius (DDG 69) steams in formation during a photo exercise near Guam. Bonhomme Richard Expeditionary Strike Group consists of Amphibious Squadron 7, amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), amphibious transport dock USS Denver (LPD 9), dock landing ship USS Rushmore (LSD 47), USS Milius, guided missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93), guided missile cruiser USS Chosin (CG 65), and 2,200 combat ready Marines of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

USS Lassen

PACIFIC OCEAN (April 30, 2007) - Sailors aboard the Arleigh burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen (DDG 82) connect a pallet to an SH-60B helicopter belonging to Helicopter Squadron Light (HSL) 51, Detachment 6 during vertical replenishment (VERTREP) drills while underway in the Western Pacific. HSL-51, Detachment 6 is currently embarked aboard Lassen.

Walter M. Schirra

Pictured is astronaut Walter M. Schirra, one of the original seven astronauts for Mercury Project selected by NASA on April 27, 1959. Schirra's Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, during which he piloted his Sigma 7 spacecraft, was the third marned orbital flight by the United States.

Isaac Newton

"Ownership" of ideas

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - Thomas Jefferson