Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

Lt. Ward Hitt, Jr., sitting in the cockpit of his North American F-86A Sabre fighter, gives his crew chief the OK hand sign, South Korea.

70 Years Ago: F-86s and MiGs over Korea

On December 17, 1950, the first known aerial combat between swept-wing jet fighters took place in the skies over Korea. The Russian-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 had been recently introduced and its speed and maneuverability caused trouble for the United States and in response, the North American F-86 Sabre was rushed to Korea. Ward Hitt, Jr., a member of the 4th Fighter Interceptor Group, chronicled the early days of the F-86 in combat in a detailed scrapbook.

Carruthers holding one of the film cassettes that the astronauts brought back from the moon from his lunar camera/sectrograph. (NASA)

George Robert Carruthers: Astronautical Engineer and Astronomer

Two prominent lobate thrust fault scarps on Mercury, Discovery Rupes and Beagles Rupes, imaged by Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) on the MESSENGER spacecraft. Discovery Rupes (left), named for the ship HMS Discovery, shown here in a MDIS high-incidence angle image mosaic, was first imaged by Mariner 10 in the mid-1970’s. Beagle Rupes (right), a bow-shaped fault scarp, was initial imaged during MESSENGER’s first flyby.

Mercury, The Not So Shrunken Planet

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