Editors' Picks
What the astronauts really said
Apollo "onboard voice" recordings captured the moon astronauts' conversations -- cussing and all -- when no one else was listening.
Drones for Hire
The newest eyes in the sky are drawing the attention of power companies, conservation groups, and the ACLU.
Five Reasons to Like NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission
So it's not the Moon or Mars. Get over it.
The Invention of Flight
Inventors, dreamers, daredevils, charlatans: Aviation's early years had them all.
Disaster at Xichang
An eyewitness speaks publicly for the first time about history’s worst launch accident.
Page 8 of 30
In 1966, Second Lieutenant Larry Liss was on the Czech-German border during a snowstorm, freezing his varlata off, when he saw something beautiful. It was a Bell UH-1 helicopter, still on the ground. The pilot—who was wearing short sleeves and drinking a cup of coffee—took one look at Liss and shook his head. “He said, [...]
May 31, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
Since 1963, hundreds of artists (and musicians, poets—even one fashion designer) have interpreted NASA’s aeronautic and space projects. The artists were given carte blanche to create what they wanted, in any medium, on any subject. In celebration of NASA’s 50th anniversary in 2008, more than 70 diverse artworks from the program began touring the country [...]
May 27, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
During World War II, the Smithsonian Institution aided the war effort in many different ways. An “Ethnogeographic Board” was established to act as a clearinghouse for government wartime needs, and one of their major undertakings was the “Survival Project,” requested by the U.S. Navy. Smithsonian historian Pamela Henson writes in “The Smithsonian Goes to War: [...]
May 24, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
Before the Japanese air attack on the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, less than one percent of all workers in American aeronautical factories were female. Just two years later, more than 475,000 women would help to manufacture aircraft for the war effort. Another 350,000 would ...
April 08, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
In the history of aviation, there were ideas that didn’t quite work out. Take the Avro VZ-9-AV Avrocar, one of ten odd aircraft profiled in the Smithsonian Channel film “Unbelievable Flying Objects.” (It’s number 5). The U.S. Air Force became interested in the Avrocar as an early “stealth” aircraft that could hover beneath radar, then [...]
May 17, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
She thought she'd like to fly again. And so she flew. Helene Dax, 87, a former pilot, had filled out a survey form at the Brookdale Senior Living center where she lives in Denver. Brookdale, which caters to people challenged with Alzheimer's and dementia, and Jeremy Bloom's Wish of a Lifetime found...
May 16, 2011
| By Mike Klesius
When the Hindenburg flew toward the the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937, it was the airship's eleventh voyage to the United States. The nearly 804-foot-long ship, the pride of Nazi Germany, had been carrying passengers on excursion flights since 1910 without a single injur...
April 15, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
On March 23, 1944, a British Lancaster bomber over Germany's Ruhr River took heavy flak and exploded. As his oxygen mask and goggles began to melt, and his flight suit burned, tail gunner Nick Alkemade heard the pilot ordering the crew to bail out.The aircraft was at 18,000 feet, and while Alkemade...
April 26, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
It was about the hardest landing you can have and survive. Forty-four years ago today, NASA test pilot Bruce Peterson unwittingly created the intro for 1970s television show “The Six Million Dollar Man” when he hit the lakebed in an M2-F2 lifting body aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base doing 250 miles an hour without [...]
May 10, 2011
| By Mike Klesius
When Jules Verne's novel Five Weeks in a Balloon: or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen was translated into English in 1869, it appeared with this publisher's note: "So far as the geography, the inhabitants, the animals, and the features of the countries the travellers pass ove...
May 12, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
With ever-mounting budget cuts, and pressure to reduce the national deficit, NASA and the FAA just don’t crash airplanes intentionally like they used to. Here’s a golden oldie of a test the two agencies jointly conducted on December 1, 1984, when they took a Boeing 720 (a smaller, faster version of...
March 23, 2011
| By Mike Klesius
"Here is a group of feminine flyers who don't just fool around with flying," reported the Los Angeles Times in January 1934. "They hardly ever powder their noses. They don't even carry mirrors. They'd rather poke their not unhandsome little noses into a balky carburetor than riffle up a pack of bri...
March 11, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
You're the first man to set foot on the Moon. You're also a Korean War veteran, and a former test pilot who has flown more than 200 types of aircraft. What do you do for fun?Well, we don't know what he does for fun nowadays, but for two days in February 1979, Neil Armstrong set five world records f...
February 22, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
India is an air-minded nation. Philatelist Pradip Jain notes in his 2002 book Indian Airmails that the Ramayama, the ancient Sanskrit epic, includes references to King Nala and Princess Damayanti sending "amorous messages to each other through the medium of a flying, talking swan." During the Maury...
February 18, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
The things he carried: A sack of coffee. Fifty copies of the local newspaper, the Press Democrat. Three letters.Those letters are what put Fred Wiseman into the history books. On February 17, 1911, Wiseman—authorized by the Santa Rosa, California, postmaster—carried the first mail by airplane.To ce...
February 17, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
They work in all weather loading and unloading your suitcases, the mail, freight, even dead bodies and wild and domestic animals. They deice the airplane in winter, and clean it between each flight. So spare a thought for the airline industry's baggage handlers.Liesl Miller Orenic, an associate pro...
February 03, 2011
| By Rebecca Maksel
As in any year, there are winners and losers in the 2012 Pentagon budget announced yesterday. The Defense Department plans to buy more Reaper unmanned drones, but the Marine Corps' short takeoff and landing version of the F-35 was put on two-year "probation," and may not happen at all. Pretty stand...
January 07, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
For 27 years, the Concorde carried passengers across the Atlantic Ocean at twice the speed of sound, on the very edge of space. A flight from New York to London took a mere 3 ½ hours; the supersonic aircraft flew so high and so fast that American spyplanes were ordered to stay out of the Concorde’s...
December 27, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
Every December 17, National Air and Space Museum senior curator Tom Crouch attends the annual wreath-laying ceremony in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, to mark the anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight. This year I tagged along. Our first stop was the Outer Banks History Center in near...
December 23, 2010
| By Caroline Sheen
Walter Soplata, a carpenter who saved numerous World War II aircraft and engines from the cutting torch and amassed a legendary collection on his Ohio property, died on Friday, November 5, at age 87. His son, Wally, wrote about his father in the November 2007 issue of Air & Space. Today, he wri...
November 15, 2010
| By Pat Trenner
Advertisement
Follow Us
 | ||||||
|
|
 |
 |
| ||
Air & Space Videos
|
X-47B Carrier LaunchAn unpiloted combat aircraft takes off from an aircraft carrier for the first time. |
|
SpaceShipTwo Fires UpVirgin Galactic sends its edge-of-space ship past Mach 1. |
|
How to Bag an AsteroidNASA's plan to retrieve an asteroid and bring it (close to) home. |
|
The Mach-2 Bomber That Never WasBritain's TSR-2 bomber makes its first test flight in 1964. |
|
“Earth is Certain to Be Struck”A space station astronaut addresses a U.N. meeting on protecting the planet from rogue rocks. |
View All Videos » |
|
Air & Space Interview
|
Bobby BraunNASA's outgoing Chief Technologist talks about what's in the R&D pipeline |
Need to Know
|
Why do NASA launch times depend on lighting conditions?It's all about the solar beta angle. |
In the Magazine
May 2013
Marketplace
|
In the Cockpit and In the Cockpit IICurrent and retired curators from our National Air and Space Museum contribute the insightful text and striking images... $48.99 |
|
Window ShoppingGifts, Gadgets and Great Finds! |
Travel & Adventure
|
Smithsonian at Chautauqua: The Elegant UniverseJoin us in western New York and explore the mysteries of the cosmos with experts (Jun 22 - 29, 2013) |
|
Travel WireWe know travel is one of your passions, and we're here to help you pursue it. We've collected some of the best offerings from our most valued travel partners. |
