The largest rocket built at the time of the historic first missions to the moon, the Saturn V carried aloft the 45-ton Apollo spacecraft on earth orbital and lunar missions from 1967 to 1972. It also launched the 120-ton Skylab into earth orbit on May 14, 1973.
USA
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Public Domain (NASA)
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The largest rocket engines built at the time of the first US missions to the moon.
Era_date_from:
1967
1980
The RL-10, which served as the power plant for NASA's upper-stage Centaur space launch vehicle, was the first rocket engine to use high-energy liquid hydrogen as a fuel. It has provided precisely controlled, reliable power for lunar and planetary explorations. The RL-10 embodied numerous advanced design features, including multiple use of its fuel with the "bootstrap cycle." The RL-10 is also capable of multiple restarts in space, which enables positioning of satellites or further escape of Earth's gravity.
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Image Credit:
Public Domain (NASA)
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The first rocket engine to use high-energy liquid hydrogen as fuel.
Era_date_from:
1958
1979
This propulsion wind tunnel (PWT) at Arnold AFB was the first large-scale facility for testing jet and rocket engines in simulated high-speed flight conditions. It has a unique combination of transonic (1955) and supersonic (1960) wind tunnels using a common 236,000 horsepower drive, the world's largest when built. It can achieve air speeds up to Mach 4.75 at altitudes up to 150,000 feet in its 16-foot square, removable test sections. Design engineers were Lief J. Sverdrup, John R. Parcel, Brice Smith, and Walter Cook, of Sverdrup and Parcel, St.
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Image Credit:
Public Domain (US Air Force)
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The world's first large-scale testing facility for jet and rocket engines in simulated high-speed flight conditions
Era_date_from:
1955
1989
The 367-80 is the prototype for most jet transports. Its success was due largely to its mechanical systems, including turbine engines with thrust reversers and noise suppressors, redundant hydraulic control systems, and an improved cabin-pressurization system. Honeycomb flap panels were introduced, along with a strong, lightweight structural design that controlled fatigue cracking. These led to several innovations in aircraft tooling and manufacturing techniques.
The Dash-80 was the first commercial airliner economical enough to take the US airline industry off subsidy.
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Image Credit:
Courtesy Wikipedia/Boeing Dreamscape (CC BY 2.0)
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Prototype of the Boeing 707 and most jet transport systems, the Boeing 367-80 established economic feasibility of commercial air travel.
Era_date_from:
1954
1994
Bradley Intl. Airport Windsor Locks State: CT Zip: 06096 Country: USA Website: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/history/landmarks/topics-a-l/air-and-space-transportation/-149-hydromatic-propeller-%28ca--1938%29, http://files.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/5572.pdf Creator: Hamilton Standard
Rapid development of aircraft design in the 1930s required many related innovations, including propeller design. The hydromatic propeller by Hamilton Standard marked a significant advance over the counterweight-type, controllable pitch propeller. The first test flight of the prototype took place in 1938: the public demonstration was made by a United Air Lines DC-3 over New York City on April 6, 1938. It played a distinguished role in allied combat aircraft in World War II.
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Image Credit:
Courtesy ASME
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An early example of propeller innovations, including variable-pitch control and feathering capability.
Era_date_from:
1938
1990
Binghamton State: NY Zip: 13905 Country: USA Website: https://www.asme.org/about-asme/who-we-are/engineering-history/landmarks/210-link-c-3-flight-trainer Creator: Link, Edwin
During the 1920s, Edwin A. Link was employed in his father's organ building and repair business. He obtained his pilot's license in 1927 and became convinced that a mechanical device could be built as an inexpensive method to teach basic piloting. Link received three patents on his flight trainer (No. 1,825,462, March 12, 1930; No. 2,244,464, June 3, 1941; and No. 2,358,016, Sept. 12, 1944).
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Image Credit:
Courtesy Wikipedia/Tony Speer
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An early flight simulator representative of the first truly effective mechanical device used to simulate actual flight processes.
Era_date_from:
1935
2000
Wind tunnel testing of aircraft models is essential to determine aerodynamic parameters such as lift and drag. The 5-foot Wright Field wind tunnel is an early example of the modern wind tunnel, well known from the early 1920s to the late 1950s for its contributions to research and the development of nearly every major aircraft and associated hardware used by the US Air Force and its predecessor, the Army Air Service.
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Image Credit:
Courtesy ASME
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This is an early example of the "modern" wind tunnel for aircraft-model testing.
Era_date_from:
1921
1995
Smaller and cheaper than a triple-expansion vertical engine, the horizontal cross-compound pumping engine, Pump No. 2, ran at relatively slow revolutions and was considered the height of engineering from the 1890s to World War I. This pumping engine at the York Water Company was built by the Worthington Pump & Machinery Corporation, Snow-Holly Works, Buffalo, New York.
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Era_date_from:
1890s
1982
The convenient dry-copying process for printed pages is among the truly revolutionary inventions of the century. In 1937 Chester Carlson, a New York patent attorney, developed the concept of applying an electrostatic charge on a plate coated with a photoconductive material. On November 22, 1938, Carlson dusted powder dyed with evergreen spores across an exposed plate and transferred the imprint to the surface of a paper.
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Image Credit:
Courtesy Xerox Corporation
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Xerography
Era_date_from:
1948
1983
Tracing its history to the earliest days of powered flight – to the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss – the site began as the research laboratory of the Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Company. After World War II, it was donated to Cornell University, and in January 1946 opened its doors as the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory. Nearly every military aircraft and space vehicle developed in the United States from the end of World War II until the present day has been tested at the facility, now known as Calspan.
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Ronald Patterson, a Cornell Aeronautical Labs technician, poses with a prototype of the lab's famous "man-amplifier" concept in 1961.
Era_date_from:
1946
2010
Sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi is credited with bringing the concept of the Statue of Liberty to fruition, deriving inspiration from the 19th-century penchance for grandiose monuments. He originally designed the statue for placement at the Suez Canal, but the project was never commissioned…
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The Tehachapi Pass Railroad Line was cut through solid and decomposed granite by about 3,000 Chinese laborers using nothing more than picks, shovels, horse drawn carts, and blasting powder. This line, which rises from the San Joaquin Valley and through the Tehachapi Mountains, originally…
Read Morehe Automatic Temperature Control System was named as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 2008. Warren S. Johnson came up with the idea for automatic temperature control while teaching at Normal School in Whitewater, Wisconsin in the 1880's. Originally, janitors would have to enter each…
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The Tennessee State Capitol, the first and only home of the Tennessee General Assembly, was designed by engineer and architect William Strickland. Since its construction, it has ably served, with little modification, as the seat of Tennessee's government.
For a relatively poor…
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The first electric power generated by the Theodore Roosevelt Dam for commercial use was transmitted over a high-voltage line to Phoenix, where it was employed to operate the city's new streetcar system.
The Salt River Project, including the Theodore Roosevelt Dam, was the first major…
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Opened in 1835, the Thomas Viaduct was the first multiple-arch, stone railroad viaduct in the United States. The viaduct is composed of eight arches each with a clear span of about 58 feet. The viaduct has an overall length of 614 feet and a height of about 60 feet above the Patapsco River.…
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Central Pacific Railroad served as the Western terminus of America's first transcontinental railroad, passing through the formidable Sierra Nevada Mountains. In all, 15 tunnels were blasted through solid granite.
Thousands of Chinese from Kwantung Province were recruited by Central…
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The Travel Air Airplane Manufacturing Company served as the incubator in which Wichita Kansas’ present-day status as the world’s “Air Capital” first developed. The firm was among the first viable airplane manufacturers to be established in Wichita (1925). It also was responsible for four…
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The Triborough Bridge Project is a three-branched waterway crossing that connects Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens at a junction of the East River and the Harlem River in New York City. The complex structure includes a suspension bridge from Wards Island to Queens, a vertical lift span from…
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The Borden Base Line is a 39,009.73 feet (7.42 miles ) survey line through the State of Massachusetts. The line was the first project of its kind undertaken in America and its establishment was the key element for Massachusetts pioneering mandate to survey the entire state.
The…
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The design of the Bollman Truss Bridge-patented in 1852 and one of the first to use iron exclusively in all essential structural elements-was critical in the rapid expansion of American railroads in the 19th century. Replacing wooden bridges, which were cumbersome to build and vulnerable to…
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This majestic viaduct was built during the golden age of railroading. It was at the western end of a major readjustment in grade and alignment of the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, and had double tracks to carry the trains across the valley of Tunkhannock Creek. The Hallstead cutoff (between Scranton…
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According to oral history, George Washington visited the canal diggings in 1792, and then again in 1794, while he was accompanying troops to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania.
The Union Canal Tunnel was a crucial structure allowing the connection of the eastern and…
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In the early 1900s, Union Station was the hub of passenger railroad traffic in the central United States. It was one of the first stations to serve as a centralized terminal for multiple railroad lines. It originally served 22 rail lines; 13 from the east and nine from the west.
The…
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The United States Capitol is among the most symbolically important and architecturally impressive buildings in the nation. Construction of the original Capitol began in 1793, but it has been through several additions and alterations. Over its lifetime, the Capitol building has been built, burnt…
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This research and development complex was established by the founders of Universal Oil Products (later named UOP) to develop key products for the oil-refining industry. The processes created here profoundly affected the refining, treatment and conversion of crude oil and the development of the…
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In 1930, the U.S. Corps of Engineers was directed to complete an engineering survey of the Tennessee River to determine the feasibility of establishing complete river navigability. The resulting report recommended a series of nine main river dams and several tributary dams to allow for a minimum…
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The USS Albacore (AGSS-569) represented a radical change in submarine design. The hull was designed with underwater speed as the prime requirement, and it was built with newly developed high-strength steel (HY-80). In addition to these two major innovations, the Albacore served as a…
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The Cairo is the sole survivor of the fleet of river gunboats built by the Union during the Civil War with the object of controlling the lower Mississippi River. Designed by Samuel Pook and built by James B. Eads, it saw limited battle and was sunk on the Yazoo River in 1862 by newly developed…
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Vandenberg Air Force Base was the nation’s first space and ballistic missile operational and training base. Beginning with its first launch, a Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) on December 16, 1958, it has been the launch site of many of America’s military satellites and polar-…
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