A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
Captain Mitchell passed away at a hospice in West Palm Beach, Florida, one day before the 45th anniversary of his Moon landing, his family said. As part of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, he spent more than nine hours on the Moon conducting experiments. He said he had undergone an epiphany in space and in later life revealed a belief that aliens had visited Earth. Mr Mitchell's mission to the Moon was the fourth in the US Apollo series, and the first to follow the ill-fated Apollo 13 which aborted its attempt to land after an oxygen tank explosion. Mr Mitchell and his crewmate, another Navy officer, Captain Alan Shepard, made it safely to the lunar surface. Their landing site was the Fra Mauro Highlands, a hilly area that was the target of the failed Apollo 13 mission. During their 33 hours at the site, the two astronauts collected 45kg (94lb) of Moonrock for examination back on earth and completed the longest moonwalk in history. Capt Shepard als...