Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC.

Art of the Airport Tower takes you on a photographic journey to airports in the United States and around the globe. Smithsonian photographer Carolyn Russo explores the varied forms and functions of ...

How skill and rigorous training helped pilots endure when ditching was the only option. Only two of the four large propellers were still turning as the Boeing B-17D slowly descended in the ...

Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC.

How Lockheed's P-3 kept the Cold War from turning hot. Submarines are hard to kill. For military strategists, no warship generates as much uncertainty and trepidation as an adversary that can prowl ...

Pilotless aircraft have been around longer than you might think. In 1898, newspapers heralded the dawn of a new age with the invention of a device that would “render fleets and guns useless.” Physical ...

There’s a reason you don’t know the names of the first American women to fly combat missions. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower tore through the waters of the Persian Gulf on November 15, 1994. On the ...

How a cartoon beagle helped popularize NASA’s Apollo program. A Snoopy doll sold in 1969 wears a spacesuit and carries a flight safety pack, reflecting his role as a mascot for NASA’s Space Flight ...

Leonardo da Vinci created masterpieces of art and sculpture. Equally remarkable, his aggregate achievements in engineering, mathematics, anatomy, geology, physics, music, military technology, ...

Rockets launched the Space Age. They provided the power needed to take spacecraft and people on flights beyond the Earth. Starting with the launch of the first satellite Sputnik in 1957 and continuing ...

Our night sky is full of wonders. When you look up you can see the stars, the Moon, and sometimes even other planets! We know what these otherworldly objects are because of centuries of research ...

Joseph Kittinger traveled to the edge of space—and jumped. On August 16, 1960, Joe Kittinger went for a balloon ride. Sitting inside an open gondola suspended from an enormous helium-filled envelope, ...