got geoint?

Welcome to the Friday’s Food for Thought post from got geoint? The east coast has experienced a pretty strange week when it comes to mother nature – first an earth quake and now a category 2 hurricane. One would assume that today’s post would have an “it’s the end of the world as we know it” theme. Nope. That is just too easy and well, everyone is writing about these things. We have decided to take a different path: highlighting human’s desire for flight. Little did the Wright brothers know that they laid the foundation for NASA, unmanned flight and the world of satellites that inhabit near earth. Also, have you started a CrowdVine account yet? Be sure to log in and check out on all the latest news, discussions and ample networking opportunities with regards to GEOINT 2011.

Early Efforts of Flight
Around 400 BC in China, some enterprising folks launched the discovery of the kite that could fly in the air, which started humans thinking about flying. Kites were used by the Chinese in religious ceremonies. They built many colorful kites for fun, also. More sophisticated kites were used to test weather conditions. Kites have been important to the invention of flight as they were the forerunner to balloons and gliders. Learn more here.

Did Leonard Da Vinci Actually Fly
Most people with any knowledge or interest in early attempts at human-powered flight are familiar with the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and his “Flying Machines.” The question arises though, did the Da Vinci machines actually work, that is, fly successfully approximately four-hundred years before anybody else was able to accomplish the task? That is a question that has been debated for decades. There is no clear hard-core evidence that specifically states yes, however, if one goes over the material by Leonardo and his contemporaries one can cull out some rather interesting facts that attest to the fact that Leonardo did fly.

All About the Wright Brothers
On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. On that day, the Wright brothers made two flights each from level ground into a freezing headwind gusting to 27 miles per hour. The first flight, by Orville, of 120 feet in 12 seconds, at a speed of only 6.8 miles per hour over the ground, was recorded in a famous photograph. The next two flights covered approximately 175 feet and 200 feet, by Wilbur and Orville respectively. So, that’s how it all began…

NOVA’s Timeline of UAVs
Did you know that years before the Wright brothers’ first manned airplane flight on December 17, 1903, primitive UAV technology was used for combat and surveillance in at least two wars? During World War I, the first UAVs took flight in the U.S. Though the success of UAVs in test flights was erratic, the military recognized their potential in combat. Armistice arrived before the prototype UAVs could be deployed in earnest. For more than a decade after the end of World War I, development of pilotless aircraft in the U.S. and abroad declined sharply. By the mid-to-late 1930s, new UAVs emerged as an important combat training tool. Cool stuff, huh? Check out more here.

The First Satellite: Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to bring the Space Age to life. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1. Its official Russian name was Iskustvennyi Sputnik Zemli, or “Fellow Traveler of the Earth.” Sputnik 1 was launched by Russia’s Old Number Seven rocket at Baikonur Cosmodrome. The once secret cosmodrome is what makes Russia lead the rest of the world in launching men and machines into space month after month. Sputnik 1 was described as “a silver-zinc battery and a radio transmitter in a 23 inch polished aluminum ball.” The satellite was also pressurized with nitrogen circulated by a cooling fan. Lean more about Sputnik 1 here.

Foo Fighters — Learn to Fly
There are many songs about flight, but one stood out in our minds: Foo Fighter’s Learn to Fly. Complete with cameos by Tenacious D, this song is always a winner. We hope you enjoy and happy Friday!

Tags: CrowdVine, Da Vinci and Flight, Flight and Man, Foo Fighters, Friday's Food for Thought, GEOINT, GEOINT 2011, got geoint?, Learning to Fly, Wright Brothers