All Stories

Spacesuit curator Cathleen Lewis explains Neil Armstrong's quote appears the way it does in the case of Neil Armstrong's spacesuit.

We take a look at the famous speeches that led to the first Moon landing, and one that thankfully never had to be delivered.

Before returning Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 spacesuit to display in time for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, it underwent extensive conservation and a state-of-the-art display case and mannequin was designed to protect it while on display.

In this guest blog, Dr. Thomas A. Kennedy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Raytheon Company, reflects on what comes next.

From an outsider’s perspective, Lamar Dodd must have seemed like an unlikely choice for a commission to create paintings on the subject of space. Dodd was in the first group recruited for the NASA Art Program, which tasked artists with translating the cultural and scientific monumentality of the space missions to a national audience.

In part two of Walking on the Moon, we’re talking about the important science still happening with Apollo Moon rocks here on Earth a half-century later. 

When early astronauts traveled into space, and in this case, the Moon, lives depended on communications equipment that kept them in contact at all times with those stationed on Earth, like this "Snoopy Cap" communications carrier.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of humankind’s first steps on the Moon, our ability to reflect on those events is thanks in part to how the moment was shared with people around the world. The Apollo 11 mission was not the first time television signals returned from the orbit of the Moon, but the landing in July 1969 was by far the most important to get just right.

"When I was a kid – maybe 5 or 6 – I remember my dad calling me into the living room and sitting me down in front of our almost comically tiny black-and-white TV screen."

In honor of Fourth of July, we explore artifacts in our collection with American flags.