Welcome to Air-and-Space.com (previously known as the Goleta Air & Space Museum). Its primary themes are aviation, astronomy, and astronautics. Mostly it's an excuse to post my photographs taken at airshows, air museums, and hanging around the approaches to airports and military bases, etc. Its pages also contain links to aviation and space oriented web sites.

Air-and-Space.com is a one man operation. My name is Brian Lockett. I take most of the pictures, write the captions, create the pages, and make all the arbitrary editorial decisions.

Please note: Air-and-Space.com is just my web site. It is strictly virtual. I have no brick and mortar air museum for people to visit. Air-and-Space.com is not affiliated with any other air museum, public or private. It's not nice to use my pictures on your web site without asking.*

Click on the images below to link to pages of photographs of air and space related subject matter:

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I have just published Balls Three: The History of the Boeing NB-52A Stratofortress Mothership, the sister volume to my book Balls Eight, which is about the NB-52B.

The NB-52A 52-0003 and its sister ship, the NB-52B 52-0008 were diverted to the special mission of launching the X-15 hypersonic research airplane in 1958 following their service as early test examples of the B-52 Stratofortress. While the two Stratofortresses were engaged in the task of launching the three X-15 rocket planes, a series of rocket powered lifting bodies were developed that utilized the existing air launch capability.

The NB-52A was a flying launch pad, which is a highly complex task. It had to supply the rocket planes that it carried with the propellants, gases, and power normally associated with a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center, all while flying nine miles above the ground. This ability made the airplane an indispensable asset for aeronautical research. Its right wing was reinforced and equipped with a pylon to carry the heaviest wing-borne payloads ever dropped from an airplane. Some of the payloads that it dropped exceeded 50,000 pounds, nearly 1/5 of its own weight.

The X-15 rocket planes launched by this Stratofortress carried pilots to unprecedented speeds and altitudes. They were the first winged vehicles to reach speeds of Mach-4, Mach-5, and Mach-6. They were also the first winged vehicles to exceed 130,000 feet altitude, eventually reaching over 364,000 feet, high above nearly all the Earth’s atmosphere. Five pilots qualified for astronaut’s wings by exceeding an altitude of fifty miles in the X-15s. Tragically, one of those astronauts was killed on his qualifying flight when the third X-15 broke up as it re-entered the atmosphere.

Later in the career of the NB-52A, the X-15s were joined by a trio of heavyweight lifting bodies. The Northrop M2-F2 and HL-10 and the Martin Marietta X-24A were wingless, rocket-powered research vehicles that evaluated potential configurations of future orbital spacecraft, concentrating on the later stages of re-entry and landing. They established the feasibility of gliding to a landing in a spacecraft with a low glide ratio, the method utilized by the Rockwell Space Shuttle.

It is 117 pages. It has 182 illustrations including 86 color photographs.

Put a copy of Balls Three: History of the Boeing NB-52A Stratofortress Mothership in your Lulu.com shopping cart for $29.95.

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I republished all my books and they are now avilable for significantly less money.

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base hosted an airshow on March 16, 1975.

The great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, 2020. Jupiter's moons are visible. Callisto, Europa, and Io are above Jupiter, Ganymede is below Jupiter. 400mm lens. f5.6, 1/60 second, 1000 ISO. 6:33 PM Mountain Time.

The great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 22, 2020. 400mm lens. f5.6, 1/125 second, 2500 ISO. 6:27 PM Mountain Time.

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I have reprocessed my Space Shuttle photos and prepared a display for each orbiter.

Space Shuttle Enterprise OV-101

Space Shuttle Enterprise OV-101 was used for five test flights of the last phases of the approach to landing at Edwards Air Force Base from August 12, 1977 to October 26, 1977. It was often displayed at the Edwards Air Force Base open house in the early 1980s. It is now on display at the Intrepid Museum, New York City.

Space Shuttle Columbia OV-102

Space Shuttle Columbia OV-102 was the first operational orbiter. It was delivered to NASA from Edwards Air Force Base on March 20, 1979. Its first mision was STS-1 which took off on April 12, 1981 from the Kennedy Space Center and landed on April 14, 1981 at Edwards Air Force Base. It conducted 27 successful mission before it broke up during re-entry at the conclusion of STS-107 on February 1, 2003.

Space Shuttle Challenger OV-099

Space Shuttle Challenger OV-099 was the second operational orbiter. It began as a structural test article before being converted to a fligh vehicle. It was delivered to NASA from Edwards Air Force Base on July 4, 1982. Its first mision was STS-6 which took off on April 4, 1983 from the Kennedy Space Center and landed on April 9, 1983 at Edwards Air Force Base. It conducted nine successful mission before it was destroyed in an explosion during launch of STS-51-L on January 28, 1986.

Space Shuttle Discovery OV-103

Space Shuttle Discovery OV-103 was the third operational orbiter. It flew 39 missions. It was delivered to NASA from Edwards Air Force Base on Noember 9, 1984. Its first mision was STS-41-D which took off on August 30, 1984 from the Kennedy Space Center and landed on September 5, 1984 at Edwards Air Force Base. Its final mission was STS-133 which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on February 24, 2011 and landed at the Kennedy Space Center on March 9, 2011. It is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

Space Shuttle Atlantis OV-104

Space Shuttle Atlantis OV-104 was the fourth operational orbiter. It flew 33 missions. It was delivered to NASA from Edwards Air Force Base on Noember 9, 1984. Its first flight was STS-51-J which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on October 3, 1985 and landed at Edwards Air Force Base on October 7, 1985. Its final mission was STS-135 which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on July 8, 2011 and landed at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011. It was the final Space Shuttle mission. It is now on display at the Kennedy Space Center.

Space Shuttle Endeavour OV-105

Space Shuttle Endeavour OV-105 was the fifth operational orbiter, built to replace Challenger OV-099. It flew 25 missions. It was delivered to NASA from Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale on May 2, 1991. Its first flight was STS-49 which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on October 3, 1985 and landed at Edwards Air Force Base on May 13, 1992. Its final mission was STS-134 which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on May 16, 2011 and landed at the Kennedy Space Center on June 1, 2011. It is now on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

Space Shuttle Buran

Space Shuttle Buran was the Soviet conmpetitor to the North American Rockwell Space Shuttles. It made one unmanned orbital flight on November 15, 1988. It was displayed at the Paris Airshow in June 1989 mounted on the back of the Antonov An-225 Mriya. It was destroyed when the building it was stored in collapsed.

I have reprocessed all of the image files on the Lockheed Blackbirds A-12, YF-12, SR-71, D-21 display to provide improved color balance and higher resoliion.

Boeing B-52H Stratofortress 60-0050 has existed for more than half of the history of airplanes. It has been assigned to the 412th Test Wing based a Edwards Air Force Base for decades. It has performed at the Edwards Air Force Base Open House on many occasions. A couple of decades ago it was named Dragons Inferno.

President Trump arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbor aboard Boeing VC-25A 82-8000 on May 5, 2020. He visited the Honeywell plant on the north side of the airport to inspect the production of personal protection equipment.

The Pre-production McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagles page has been updated with picture of the first two-seat Eagle 71-0290. It was originally designated TF-15A, then F-15B. It was modified with canards and rectangular two-dimensional vectored thrust nozzles to pariticpate in Activbe Eagle as the Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) Maneuvering Technology Demonstrator (MTD) and redesignated NF-15B. It was assigned to NASA and equipped with axisymmetric vectored thrust nozzles for the Advanced Control Technology for Integrated VEhicles (ACTIVE) program and then Intelligent Flight Control System (IFCS).

Space Shuttle Atlantis OV-104 was the fourth operational orbiter. Its first flight was STS-51-J which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on October 3, 1985 and landed at Edwards Air Force Base on October 7, 1985. It flew 33 missions. Its final mission was STS-135 which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on July 8, 2011 and landed at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011. It was the final Space Shuttle mission. It is now on display at the Kennedy Space Center.

Space Shuttle Challenger OV-099 was the second operational orbiter. It began as a structural test article before being converted to a fligh vehicle. It was delivered to NASA from Edwards Air Force Base on July 4, 1982. Its first mision was STS-6 which took off on April 4, 1983 from the Kennedy Space Center and landed on April 9, 1983 at Edwards Air Force Base. It conducted nine successful mission before it was destroyed in an explosion during launch of STS-51-L on January 28, 1986.

I visited Sky Harbor on Sunday, March 15, 2020 to photograph Alaska's Boeing 737-990 N318AS Duisneyand and United's Boeing 737-824 N36272 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Antonov Design Bureau An-124-100M UR82009 visited Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Arizona on March 9, 2020.

I visited Sky Harbor on Thursday, January 30, 2020 to photograph the arrival of United's Boeing 737-824 N36272 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker arriving from San Francisco. I also caught a couple of Southwest Boeing 737s, Frontier's A320 Poppy the Prairie Dog, a Fedex Express A300, and a JSX Emberaer EMB-135LR.

The most recent additions to displays of the museum are listed on the New Displays Page.

Older displays grouped by the year of creation.

Displays of various types of aircraft, ordered roughly by the dates of their first flights.

Events in chronological order.

Displays of aircraft arranged by location.

I am now a beta tester for the Gigapan robotic camera mount. It automates the process of capturing multiple images to assemble into a panorama. My earlier panoaramas were typically composed of 24 pictures and contained about 70 megapixels. Now I am producing panoramas assembled from over 500 images and containing over two billion pixels. My Gigapan ID is GoletaBrian.

The Natural History Museum is home to displays of photographs of landscapes of the Southwestern U. S., springtime wildflowers in the Antelope Valley, and wildlife in Antarctica.

Displays about particular topics that don't fit the above categories.

My photographs can also be seen in other internet galleries.

Links to other web sites with aviation and space themes.

You can see all of my calendars and books at my Lulu.com Lockett Books storefront.

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Follow @BrianLockett on Twitter for updates on the releases of my new calendars, books, and prints. Watch for coupon codes for special savings on my books and calendars at Lulu.com.

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*All content included on Air-and-Space.com, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips and software, is the property of Air-and-Space.com and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. The compilation (meaning the collection, arrangement and assembly) of all content on this site is the exclusive property of Air-and-Space.com and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws.