All Stories

On August 19, 1942, Fairchild Aircraft Division of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation opened Plant 7, the first unit in the company to employ Black workers, both men and women, as part of their WWII aircraft manufacturing efforts. In late 1944, Plant 5 at Wilson Boulevard and Kuhn Avenue, manufacturing corrugated parts for the Martin PBM Mariner, replaced Plant 7 as the designated plant for Black employees. A rich, yet incomplete, record of their wartime service can be found in the Fairchild Industries, Inc. Collection at the National Air and Space Museum Archives.

For Latino Futurist artists, drawing on the past is key to creating futures that connect heritage, experience, and indigeneity to the present and future in constantly circling time.

Para los artistas futuristas latinos, recurrir al pasado es clave para crear futuros que conecten el legado, la experiencia y la indigenidad con el presente y el futuro en un constante círculo temporal.

Rockets launched the Space Age. They provided the power needed to take spacecraft and people on flights beyond the Earth.

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 carried out by curious stargazers before us.  

The science done at Arecibo Observatory was and continues to be incredibly important, and having the observatory in Puerto Rico is a point of pride for locals.

a ciencia hecha en el Observatorio de Arecibo fue y continúa siendo increíblemente importante, y tener el Observatorio en Puerto Rico es un motivo de orgullo para los locales.

Before Patrick Leonini was a museum specialist for the National Air and Space Museum in the Photography department, he spent 24 years in the United States Air Force. He reflects on his career experiences in the military as an airfield manager, working in and around aircraft, crews, and ground support personnel.

In modern society, we often take the daily weather report for granted. We turn on the news, open the weather app on our smart phone, or look up our region’s weather on the internet. Have you ever thought about how meteorologists predict the forecast? For a big part of the answer, we need to look to the sky. 

There is perhaps no résumé in existence quite as long as Barbie’s. One of her oldest and arguably most iconic careers is as an astronaut. Let's take a look through some of her most iconic space looks, spanning 1965 to today.

In the early 1960s, thousands of unaccompanied children fled Cuba by plane, moving to the United States on  visa waivers from the U.S. government.

Son los principios de la década de 1960 en Cuba, miles de niños sin acompañante huyeron de Cuba en avión, mudándose a los Estados Unidos con exenciones de visa del Gobierno de los Estados Unidos. 

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) launched the first GAMBIT-1 high-resolution photoreconnaissance satellite on July 12, 1963. It enabled the United States intelligence community photo analysts to see more detailed images.