Up to Speed
Dec 21, 2022
Special Delivery
The AH-1Z Viper
A ceremony held at Bell Textron’s Amarillo Assembly Center this November commemorated the delivery of the 189th AH-1Z Viper to the U.S. Marine Corps, completing the program of record for the latest version of the storied H-1 platform.
“The first production lot of U.S. Marine Corps H-1s was ordered in 1962, and they changed the way Marines fight today,” Mike Deslatte, the Bell H-1 vice president and program director, told the press.
Bell has been producing H-1s for the U.S. military since 1959, beginning with the iconic “Huey.”
In 1966, Bell created the AH-1 Cobra as the first dedicated gunship. Thirty years later, the Marine Corps launched the H-1 upgrade program, replacing the two-blade AH-1W Super Cobra with the four-blade AH-1Z. The Viper also introduced a four-blade tail rotor, performance-matched transmission, upgraded landing gear, and a fully integrated glass cockpit. With a range of 125 nautical miles, the Viper has a cruising speed of 142 knots and a maximum speed of 200 knots.
Following the ceremony, the AH-1Z was sent to Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton in California. Bell will continue to manufacture Vipers for sale to approved U.S. foreign allies, such as the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Czech Republic.
This image was captured by NASA’s Spirit rover in 2005. Because Mars is farther from the sun than Earth, the sun appears only about two-thirds the size of what we see on Earth.
Living on Other Worlds
Science fiction gives us a vision of human life expanding throughout the solar system and the galaxy—but, in reality, space is a dangerous environment and, from what we’ve discovered so far, truly habitable worlds are few and far between.
The National Air and Space Museum’s upcoming Exploring Space Lecture Series will examine the prospects for living on other worlds and assess the challenges for human beings who live and work in space for extended periods of time.
Future settlers on Mars—as depicted in this artist’s concept—would see stunning views of a Martian sunset.
The discussions begin with a look at remote Arctic bases on Earth and then expand outward to the International Space Station, habitats on the moon and Mars, and—further into the future—the possibility of settlements on more distant planets in our solar system.
The monthly lecture series will run from March to June 2023.
Learn more and register for lecture.
A portion of the far side of the moon looms large just beyond the Orion spacecraft. This image was taken on the sixth day of the Artemis I mission by a camera on one of Orion’s solar arrays.
Precious Cargo
Return to the Moon
When Artemis I took off from the Kennedy Space Center this November, it carried with it some pieces of the nation’s space history. The National Air and Space Museum provided artifacts for the mission’s official flight kit, a package of commemorative items. By necessity, the objects flown in the kit had to be small and lightweight, which led to the selection of three artifacts: a bolt from one of the Apollo 11 F-1 rocket engines, recovered from the ocean floor a decade ago by a Jeff Bezos-funded expedition; an Apollo 8 commemorative coin, made in part with metal from the Apollo 8 mission; and a commercial mission patch from Apollo 17, purchased at the Kennedy Space Center in the 1970s.
The next Artemis mission, scheduled for 2024, will have astronauts on board—followed a year later by Artemis III, which will land humans on the moon for the first time since Apollo 17, 50 years ago.
Editors' note: Artemis I splashed down in the Pacific on December 11.
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