May 14, 2003

The Festival of Flight is the first official event to use NASA's new exhibit during the national countdown to the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' historic powered flight. NASA has played a role in advancing the science of flight since 1915, with the establishment of its founding organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

During the weeklong Aviation Exposition at the Festival of Flight, NASA will showcase many of its innovative aerospace achievements in three locations. The main NASA exhibition space is 20,000 square feet of the Crown Center Coliseum, renamed NASA Center, for this event. Visitors will get a feel for how NASA has helped change our daily lives and how NASA researchers and astronauts are working to improve our future, by better understanding the Earth, exploring the universe and searching for life.

The new NASA Centennial of Flight exhibit, "Powering Flight, Powering Dreams," features interactive displays, a micro-gravity demonstrator, airplane and spacecraft models, and several NASA scientists and engineers, all intended to inspire the next generation of explorers. With the help of NASA educators, school groups will have the chance to build their own flying machines, including helicopters, kites, rockets and airplanes. Visitors will be able to check out a moon rock, operate a wind tunnel and take home a NASA souvenir.

Outside the Center, visitors will also be able to enjoy three NASA exhibits. They'll have the chance to experience what space travel might be like four decades from now, take a walk through the "solar system" to appreciate its enormous size, and learn more about aeronautics with the help of 10 unique work stations.

On NASA Day, May 20, astronaut Jeff Ashby will make a special appearance at the Festival. Ashby is a veteran of three Space Shuttle flights. He commanded the Space Shuttle Atlantis during the ninth assembly flight of the International Space Station.

NASA will also have exhibits in two other areas. A "Women in NASA" display will grace Heritage Hall. In the Aviation Hall, visitors may operate a NASA flight-technology demonstrator, a computer simulator similar to a future plane they may fly someday.

NASA is also participating in six other major Centennial of Flight observances in Dayton, Ohio; New York; Oshkosh, Wis.; Los Angeles; Long Beach, Calif.; and Kitty Hawk, N.C.

For information about NASA programs, aeronautics, and space flight on the Internet, visit: http://www.nasa.gov

For information about The Festival of Flight on the Internet, visit: http://www.festivalofflight.org

For information about the national Centennial of Flight commemoration on the Internet, visit: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/

Contact:

Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1979)


Kathy Barnstorff
Langley Research Center
Hampton, Va.
(Phone: 757/864-9886)