Family Life

09.10.12 |

Both Vice President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will be making stops in western Pennsylvania this week. It's to visit the Flight 93 memorial, the plane that was hijacked by 4 terrorists, and crashed after passengers tried to overthrow them on 9-11, eleven years ago tomorrow. 40 people were killed. Today, Panetta will take a private tour of the site. Then at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Vice President will deliver keynote remarks at the National Memorial in Shanksville. More and more people are visiting the memorial. At the current pace, more then 1-thousand bus groups will visit this year, double the number in 2011. A new round of construction starts on the park next year. More then 200-thousand people will visit the Flight 93 grounds this year.
   
The Vice President will be in Pennsylvania, and a former NASA astronaut will speak at the Glen Curtis museum next weekend in Hammondsport, New York. Former astronaut and International Space Shuttle Commander Michael Lopez Alegria will speak Saturday, September 15th, to commemmorate the 100th anniversary of Curtis introducing his model E flying boat, the world's first successful flying boat. There will be seaplanes on display in Depot park, and a "seaplane parade" over Keuka Lake at 1 p.m. Then an hour later, a pilot will attempt to fly a model e replica over the lake. At 6 p.m., astronaut Lopez-Alegria will speak on the evolution of flight. Tickets are 25-dollars. He flew on 3 space shuttle missions, commanded the International Space Station, and has done 67 hours worth of spacewalks. He also holds the nasa record for longest spaceflight: 215 days.