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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.

Trending Topics

  1. Experimental Aircraft
  2. Vietnam War
  3. Fighters
  4. Bombers
  5. Aviators

How Things Work: Laser Guide Stars

Adaptive optics and lasers are giving ground-based telescopes better-than-Hubble views.
February 2013 | By Heather Goss

Page 1 of 2

How Things Work: Space Station Steering

How do you maneuver a million-pound spacecraft?
August 2012 | By Roger Mola and Tony Reichhardt

How Things Work: Dropping in on Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover will try a new way of landing on another planet.
January 2012 | By Tony Reichhardt

How Things Work: Flying Upside Down

The tricks that keep the engine from knowing it’s not right side up.
May 2002 | By Patricia Trenner

The SBX, shown here on a cargo vessel in Texas, practiced two days of "weather avoidance" when Hurricane Emily arrived in the Gulf of Mexico during 2005 testing. The range of the array inside the dome is limited only by Earth

How Things Work: Phased-Array Radar

It takes a big eye to see a missile coming.
July 2006 | By Sam Goldberg

An XC-35 in flight.

How Things Work: Cabin Pressure

Why you remain conscious at 30,000 feet.
January 2002 | By George C. Larson

X-rays enter Chandra’s pairs of nested mirrors.

How Things Work: Chandra X-Ray

The Chandra X-Ray Telescope, explained.
January 2008 | By Damond Benningfield

All the shuttle

Shuttle Tiles

Why the space shuttle can withstand reentry temperatures up to 2,300 degrees.
May 2006 | By Damond Benningfield

The IFLOLS aboard the USS George Washington.

The Meatball

Pilots who make it safely to the deck of an aircraft carrier have seen the light.
May 2005 | By Sam Goldberg

In the Icing Research Tunnel of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio, granular “rime ice” chunks obliterate an airfoil’s smooth surface.

Electro- mechanical Deicing

Ice kills. That's why engineers continue to invent new ways to keep it off airplane wings.
March 2004 | By Tim Wright

Installed in the cargo hold, the FAA’s onboard inert-gas generation system prototype made nine test flights in an Airbus A320 last year.

Safer Fuel Tanks

Once airliners implement this pending FAA rule, a spark will no longer become a flame.
July 2004 | By Damond Benningfield

The truth is that portable electronic devices can emit powerful electromagnetic radiation that can muck up an aircraft’s navigation and communication systems and actually endanger a flight.

Turn Off That Phone!

For those who've use portable electronic devices aboard airliners: Here's why they're dangerous.
September 2004 | By John Croft

Pointers and illuminators that project infrared light, invisible to the human eye, enable ground commanders and combat controllers in Iraq and Afghanistan to identify targets and designate them for pilots with NVGs.

Dancing in the Dark

Night vision goggles can save a pilot's life or, if he hasn't had adequate training, take it.
November 2004 | By John Croft

A 1942 Fairchild PT-19 Army Air Forces trainer, now owned by Wayne Boggs in Plant City, Florida, wears a Sensenich wood prop, model W86RA-61, for authenticity, and the prop even has original Sensenich decals.

Good Wood

Wooden propellers are like Louisville Sluggers: The distance.
July 2003 | By Tom Harpole

Prop, swept wings, a huge T-tail—the XF-84H was one of a kind.

ZWRRWWWBRZR

That's the sound of the prop-driven XF-84H, and it brought grown men to their knees. It didn't fly all that great either.
July 2003 | By Stephan Wilkinson

Jackson and his technicians recently refurbished a civilian transport that had been converted from a Douglas A-26 Invader.

Sticks for Hire

"Uh oh. Why is this piston rod left over?" Meet the pilots who are gutsy enough to fly freshly restored airplanes.
July 2003 | By Mark Huber

How the 747 Got Its Hump

In the evolution of the airplane, Darwinian principles have applied unevenly.
May 2003 | By Bill Sweetman

Ground Proximity Warnings

Better technology is helping airline pilots keep a safe distance from terrain.
September 2003 | By Damond Benningfield

Jimmy Doolittle had a doctorate in aeronautical engineering.

10 Great Pilots

Machines alone could not have pushed the airplane forward.
March 2003 | By Patricia Trenner

In a flash, military aircraft adopted the turbojet, and propellers were out. Favorites like the North American T-6 trainer were retired.

Defining Moments

The inventions, institutions, gadgets, and lucky breaks that have shaped the story of the airplane.
March 2003 | By Roger Bilstein

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Air & Space Videos

X-47B Carrier Launch

An unpiloted combat aircraft takes off from an aircraft carrier for the first time.

SpaceShipTwo Fires Up

Virgin Galactic sends its edge-of-space ship past Mach 1.

How to Bag an Asteroid

NASA's plan to retrieve an asteroid and bring it (close to) home.

The Mach-2 Bomber That Never Was

Britain'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.

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Need to Know

Why do NASA launch times depend on lighting conditions?

It's all about the solar beta angle.

Air & Space Interview

NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun talks about technology and innovation to attendees at the AARP "Orlando @50+" Conference in Orlando, Fl., Oct. 1, 2010.  Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Bobby Braun

NASA's outgoing Chief Technologist talks about what's in the R&D pipeline

In the Magazine

May 2013

  • Beyond the Moon
  • The Man Who Invented the Predator
  • Cancelled: Britain’s High-Mach Heartbreak
  • Earth’s Mirror
  • The Galileo Project

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Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine has been delighting aerospace enthusiasts with the best writing about their favorite subject since April 1986. As an adjunct of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Air & Space matches the grand scope of the Museum, encompassing every era of aviation and space exploration. With stories that range from the Wright Brothers to the design of NASA's next lunar lander, Air & Space emphasizes the human stories as well as the technology of aviation and spaceflight.

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