Americans love aircraft. They captivate us, from the crowds that throng to airshows to the children in the airport lounge to the toddler whose finely-cut dinner is “flown” noisily into her mouth on Air Fork One. The Union Army saw its first aviation advantage with the balloon corps in 1861, and the Wright Brothers built and flew the first controllable, powered heavier-than-air airplane some forty years later. Since that fateful day in 1903, aircraft and later spacecraft firmly embedded themselves in our national character, as American aviators accomplished a long string of first-ever accomplishments with ever-improving machines, pushing to the absolute limits of aerodynamic flight and beyond.