Air & Space Magazine

700 million years ago, "Snowball Earth" was in a deep freeze. Thanks a lot, asteroids.

Asteroids May Have Pummeled Earth 800 Million Years Ago—And That Was Not All Bad

Impact craters on the Moon suggest our planet was hit by 40 to 50 trillion tons of material.

The Museum’s M-1 was a two-seat Sperry Sport Plane when donated, but the Smithsonian converted it to the M-1 configuration that was used to dock with an airship, installing a skyhook and painting it in the livery of Sperry Aircraft No. 22.

The Tiny M-1 Messenger Was Designed to Replace Motorbikes on the Battlefront

Say hello to my little friend.

A missile defense interceptor at Fort Greely, Alaska.

A New Book Profiles the Watchmen Who Guard America Against Nuclear Attack

Twenty-four hours a day—every day—U.S. Army soldiers are ready to defend the United States against incoming missiles.

On March 28, in the year of the pandemic, three lone travelers roll their luggage across the cavernous intercity train platform at Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris, the second stop on the author’s Milan-Paris-Atlanta-Cincinnati odyssey.

Transatlantic Flight During a Pandemic Makes for a Long, Strange Trip

Caught by COVID away from home, the author finds his way through three airports and across an ocean.

Moving the Rocketdyne F-1 engine into the new Destination Moon gallery took an entire day. Suspending it from the ceiling took another 10 hours. The hardest part? A sharp left-hand turn out of the old gallery, and another into the new exhibit space.

The Power Beneath the Saturn V

As the Saturn V F-1 engine moves into a new gallery, visitors gain a whole new perspective.

In April 1965, engineers install five 1.5-million-pound-thrust F-1 rocket engines on a Saturn V stage for a static test.

The Transforming National Air and Space Museum Hits a Big Milestone, With the First Artifact Installed

The Saturn F-1 rocket engine assumes pride of place.

Locusts waged a smear campaign against this Ethiopian airliner, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Addis Ababa in January.

At Some Airports, a Plague of Locusts is a Real Thing

Bug, meet windshield.

Artist’s conception of the X-59 QueSST, featuring an elongated fuselage that is designed to reduce sonic booms.

A Kinder, Gentler Sonic Boom

NASA’s X-59 supersonic research aircraft is coming together for its maiden flight next year.

“Hooray for airplanes!” the fireworks finale at each evening of the AirVenture airshow seems to say. “All are welcome,” from the biggest Air Force transport to the humblest Piper Cub.

Voices of Oshkosh

Missing the annual aviation Fly-In? Here are a few memories to fill this summer’s void.

Some 6,000 curiosity-seekers greeted Masaaki Iinuma (left) and Kenji Tsukagoshi at London’s Croydon Airport. Despite a grueling flight, the airmen spent the next month on a goodwill tour of Europe.

These Japanese Lindberghs Made a 10,000 Mile-Flight in 1937

On the eve of World War II, a series of headline-grabbing flights proved the genius of Japan’s airplane designers.

Technicians at Northrop Grumman in Dulles, Virginia rehearse the delicate procedure by which MEV-1, their satellite tug, will dock with IS-901, a 19-year-old satellite in need of renewal.

This Satellite Tow Truck Could Be the Start of a Multibillion-Dollar Business

New spacecraft will refuel, refurbish, and relocate satellites in orbit—maybe even wash the windshields.

On August 29, 1945, photographer John Swope, aboard a U.S. Navy landing craft, snapped a photo of men in a Japanese prison camp the Navy had come to liberate. The POWs told him that the constant humiliation and fear of physical abuse was more oppressive than the punishment itself. After describing the brutality of some guards, prisoners made a point of introducing Swope to the guards who were kind to them.

POWs on The Day They Learned the War Was Won

Who were the airmen in John Swope’s famous photograph of the Omori prison camp?

By 2016, Jeannie Leavitt, then a brigadier general, commanded the U.S. Air Force 57th Wing at Nellis Air Force Base. At a base airshow that year, she enjoyed one of the job’s perks: a flight with the Air Force Thunderbirds.

A Woman’s Right to Fly and Fight

In 1993, before the Air Force permitted women to fly in combat, new pilot Jeannie Flynn requested the F-15.

There’s ice in them thar craters. The south pole of the moon is home to permanently shadowed regions where ice has been accumulating for billions of years. This illumination map is based on data returned from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at different times.

Miners on the Moon

Robotic prospectors excavating for lunar ice may change the economy of space travel.

Deke Slayton (left) and Alexei Leonov made their first and second spaceflights, respectively, on Apollo-Soyuz. Slayton was one of NASA's original Mercury astronauts, but had been grounded for years due to a medical condition. Ten years earlier, Leonov had been the first human to walk in space.

With the Apollo-Soyuz Handshake in Space, the Cold War Thawed a Little

Russia’s Ambassador to the United States recalls an iconic example of space détente, 45 years ago this week.

Planets close to small red dwarf stars are frequently tidally locked, so that their day (the time it takes to rotate once on their axis) is as long as their year (the time it takes to orbit the star).

Planets Close to Their Host Stars May Be Habitable, but There’s a Catch

A dusty atmosphere will increase the chances of life existing, but also make it harder to find.

Lloyd Bridges and Robert Stack as an air-traffic controller and an airline captain who must talk a jittery pilot through a risky landing. With faces like these, no one is kidding around.

Forty Years Ago, <em>Airplane!</em> Created a New Species of Comedy

Frequently imitated but never surpassed, this seriously funny disaster flick made a mockery of itself.

Catalog item P023: The asteroid 433 Eros, as seen by NASA's NEAR spacecraft in 2000.

This New Catalog of the Universe Contains, to the Best of Our Knowledge, One of Everything

If you want to find technologically advanced life, investigate the anomalies.

The Pyrenean violet is one of Nature's strange “resurrection plants.”

Meet the Real Resurrection Plant, <i>Ramonda myconi</i>

This extreme survivor lives for 250 years and can withstand dehydration and freezing.

Chris Gunn of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland took this shot of the center’s Space Systems Development and Integration Facility. The entire wall is made up of HEPA filters that remove particles smaller than a red blood cell. A thousand times cleaner than a hospital operating room, the facility is used to test high-value instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope’s Optical Assembly. Winner, "Places" Category

NASA Photographer of the Year

The best shots from the agency’s own photographers in 2019.

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