All Stories

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, museum Explainer Karina demonstrates the effects of gravity on our bodies in space.

First Man is almost certainly is the most accurate fictional depiction of human spaceflight in the 1960s ever made. A curator weighs in on what the film got right and wrong.

On October 1, 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was officially created, beginning a 60-year journey of American innovation and space exploration. While there are many (many, many!) unique NASA objects in the Air and Space collection, these six highlight milestones that shaped our nation’s quest to better understand our universe.

We all have ideas that defy in our back pocket. My personal idea that defies, the thing I dream of humans achieving, is sailing on an alien sea. 

Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe’s lesson plans fly in space 32 years later. 

The National Air and Space Museum is full of ideas that defy. Ideas that defy any obstacle, ideas that defy our expectations, ideas that literally defy gravity. Follow us as we discover the remarkable, the audacious, the outrageous, the #IdeasThatDefy.

Scientists have been looking for creative solutions to clean up space junk. One proposal from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory looks to nature for inspiration: the gecko. 

During a major storm, we take satellite tracking for granted. Before 1960 this type of weather observation was not possible.

Want to know what it’s like in outer space? Your best bet is under the sea. 

Space Shuttle Enterprise, the first space shuttle orbiter ever built, was once displayed where Discovery is today. Despite both being part of the Space Shuttle program, the two served very different purposes and tell very different stories.