When World War II broke out, hundreds of women took to the skies in support of the war effort. Many contributed as Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). However, women like Willa Brown who were barred from becoming a military pilot by both her race and gender, found other ways to contribute. These are the stories of five women who contributed to the war effort by flying. 

On May 18, 1953, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound and, at the time of her death in 1980, she held more speed, altitude, and distance records than any other male or female pilot in aviation history. 

Ever wonder what would happen to your body in space without a spacesuit? Given it’s spooky szn, we figured we’d do something a little different for this Halloween episode of AirSpace and dissect one the scariest situations an astronaut could be in. For a crash course in the intersection between astronaut life and rapid decompression we talk to the Mary Roach.  And having authored the nonfiction books Packing for Mars, Stiff, and Grunt she’s kind of perfectly qualified to talk about this bizarre venn diagram.

The Sun has been an inspiration in our creation of paintings, poems, music, stories, and sculptures, to name a few. Explore how artists express and depict the Sun in works throughout the Smithsonian’s collections.

Although space itself remained inaccessible to private citizens until the 21st century, other places where Earth and space meet—such as NASA centers—have long been popular destinations for a different kind of space tourist. Read about how people have been incorporating space activities as part of their leisure time since the dawn of the Space Age.

The first six months of testing the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has surpassed expectations to say the least. Ginny has shown us that flight on the Red Planet is not only possible, but it may even be considered in future planetary endeavors. Explore six things we learned from the tiny Mars flyer in the first six months.

On September 25, 1912, Alberto Salinas Carranza and Gustavo Salinas Camiña received their pilot licenses from the Aero Club of America. The Salinas cousins were the first of a group of five Mexican pilots sent by their government to the United States to study at the Moisant Aviation School at Hempstead, Long Island. The photographs and correspondence found in the collection of Shakir S. Jerwan, their “profesor,” provide a unique glimpse into the early history of Mexican aviation.

Mirror, mirror under the football field, what secrets of the universe will you yield?  Okay, so we’re terrible poets (except maybe Matt). But we are feeling a bit reflective these days, so we’re taking this opportunity to ponder reflecting telescopes of all sizes, shapes, and types. Reflectors use mirrors to gather light and produce an image. Some are meant for space (we’re looking at you Hubble and JWST), and others are used here on Earth. In this episode, we’re taking you into two labs – one under the football stadium at the University of Arizona that makes some of the biggest telescope mirrors in the world, and another under the house (okay, it’s a basement) of someone who makes their own telescope mirrors at home. Same deal, way different scale. We promise this one isn’t a grind!

Artist Raquel Forner became one of the earliest artists to depict outer space in paintings and continued to create images of space almost exclusively throughout her life. Forner’s humanistic vision in expressed her work which was a crucial note of optimism during the uncertain period of Cold War politics. Explore Forner's vision of space through her unique paintings.

The first high-altitude piloted balloon observation missions were launched in the late-1950s as part of the U.S. Navy’s Strato-Lab program. Between 1958 and 1959, the U.S. Navy launched four separate missions for numerous celestial observations high up in the atmosphere. Before projects like the Hubble Space Telescope was even a concept, images which were once thought to be impossible to capture were taken via telescopes carried by balloons, such as those of Operation Stargazer.