Wing sweep (angle from root to tip of the wing compared to the longitudinal axis) is typically 35 deg. Von Karman' visited Germany after WWII discovering flight results. Sweep back, added to the B-47 design, delayed onset of drag, enabling faster speeds and is on most jets today.

Congrats to the entire New Shepard Team for NS-15. Their grit of sustained passion and perseverance showed in the picture perfect launch achieving an altitude well above the Karman' Line. After 15 launches the team is building the self confidence to safely launch astronauts.

America lost a great American hero today with the passing of Michael Collins of Gemini 10 and Apollo 11. Met him at Society Experimental Test Pilots in 1984 and he was the speaker at our USAF TPS Class 84A graduation. His book, Carrying The Fire is a must read for space buffs

In "At The Edge of Space: Milt Thompson" one X-15 pilot reached Karman' Line, FAI recognized edge (328K Ft) - Joe Walker (354K). Armstrong/Engle reached it Gemini & Shuttle. 8 of 12 X-15 pilots reached USAF arbitrary alt 264K (50 miles). X-15 could go 400K but not survive reentry

Happy 2nd day in orbit for STS-125 crew launching in 2009. On this day robotic survey was conducted of heat shield. Hubble captures new portrait of Jupiters storms in 2020. More massive than all the other planets combined, it is king of our solar system. Europa is the small dot

12 space vehicles have carried humans above the Karman Line (100KM). Vostok 1, Mercury, Gemni, Voskhod 2, X-15, Apollo, Soyuz, Space Shuttle, Shenzhou, SpaceShipOne, Spx Crew Dragon, and now New Shepard. Congrats to Blue Origin, #NSFirstHumanFlight

There are some people in life who you just connect with, and you become lifelong friends, and if you are lucky - you get to work with them. A.J. (Drew) Feustel is one of those people in my life, and today is his birthday, #HappyBirthday buddy, miss you.

Congrats to SpaceX and @Inspiration4x crew. They are orbiting at 363 miles up and the view has to be awesome with their incredable cupola. This is 100 miles higher than the ISS and about 10 miles higher than the Hubble Space Telescope when we released it on STS-125 in 2009.

Forbes, NASA, open, trusted leadership Is as important as technical prowess. "NASA's experiences with nurturing its people, and potential leaders, is a great lesson for all those who want to rise to lead emerging digital enterprises". High morale/retention are the results.

Leadership in a tech startup is difficult. Goals are often difficult to achieve and take years to see results. It is easy to treat employees as "workbots" but it is a poor long term strategy leading to Hi attrition. Ursa Major is trying to get it right. medium.com/@ursamajortech…

Great quote that I saw today: "Starting to think about the lunar environment before there is an environmental problem would be a first for humans—but maybe would not be such a bad idea." — Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,

Chuck Yeager broke Mach 1 in 1947. But when did a woman break the sound barrier? Jackie Cochran broke Mach 1 in 1953 in a Canadair (borrowed) F-86. She held more speed/alt/distance records than any other male or female pilot and was Director, WASP Corps. #WomensHistoryMonth

Who was the first women pilot in the US? Harriet Quimby received her pilots license in 1911 and was the first woman to fly across the English Channel in 1912. Sadly, she perished that year at an event celebrating her as "The Queen of the Channel Crossing" #WomensHistoryMonth

An interstellar object over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was measured at a speed of 210,000 km/hr (36 m/sec) buff.ly/37aFclV] But the fastest known human made object is currently the Parker Solar Probe traveling at a blistering 690,000 km/hr (119 m/sec)

As a Board Member of the Limitless Space Institute we made an amazing short film on the difficulty and reward of interstellar travel. Once you reach a certain age the only meaningful pursuits are ones which are really hard but hugely impactful. "Ray J" youtube.com/watch?v=RiJFo-…

Excited to join Worldview.space today as their Chief Test Pilot

Gene Kranz after Apollo 1 fire, "Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule. Good words.

We flew right underneath a World View #Stratollite balloon #N137WV over western Nevada on our way to San Jose, CA this afternoon. The balloon was at 51,700 feet while we were at 47,000 feet in our Citation X. StratoCat #CE750 #CitationX

FAA certification dictates an aircraft must demonstrate that it is free of flutter below speeds of 1.2VD of the design dive speed. But that speed is a calculation. This is a photograph of the design dive speed test of the original Super Guppy. The SGT still flies today at NASA.

With SLS's first launch with Orion now headed to cis lunar space it is worth reviewing just where is cis lunar space and how many Lagrangian points are there with the earth and the moon