Stories of daring, stories of technological feats, stories of prevailing against the odds ... these are the stories we tell at the National Air and Space Museum. Dive in to the stories below to discover, learn, and be inspired. 

Showing 11 - 20 of 86

June 16, 2022 RTX Living in the Space Age Story | Air & Space Quarterly

A new gallery shows how spaceflight transformed our relationship with technology.

Read more
December 29, 2021 Happy New Year 2022: Celebrating Friendship Story

As we ring in 2022, we celebrate the friends that make the National Air and Space Museum so special.

Read more
November 29, 2021 Enos: The Forgotten Chimp Story

In October 1961, three chimpanzees were brought to Cape Canaveral to join two already there. One of the new arrivals was Enos, a native of Cameroon in west central Africa. Discover the story of the often forgotten chimp and his contribution to human space travel.

Read more
November 09, 2021 Why Did We Stop Going to the Moon? Story

The Apollo program, which landed the first human on the Moon, ended in December 1972 with Apollo 17. Why did we stop? 

Read more
July 21, 2021 The Sinking of Liberty Bell 7: Gus Grissom’s Near-Fatal Mission Story

Space history curator Michael Neufeld tells the story of Gus Grissom's suborbital flight in July 1961 and the blown hatch that resulted in the sinking of his Mercury capsule.

Read more
June 04, 2021 Almost Blind and Completely Exhausted: Gene Cernan’s Disastrous Gemini Spacewalk Story

Space history curator Michael Neufeld recounts the harrowing spacewalk of astronaut Gene Cernan on the Gemini IX-A mission.

Read more
March 16, 2021 Spinning Out of Control: Gemini VIII’s Near-Disaster Story

On March 16, 1966, the Gemini VIII astronauts made the world’s first space docking, quickly followed by the first life-threatening, in-flight emergency in the short history of the U.S. human spaceflight program.

Read more
December 16, 2020 Revisiting the Soviet Lunar Sample Return Missions Story

China’s Chang’e 5 lunar sample return mission successfully brought back pristine Moon samples to Earth. The last time such a feat was accomplished was during the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1976. A total of three robotic sample return missions, as part of the Cold War Moon Race with the United States, were successfully executed.

Read more
December 15, 2020 AirSpace Presents
Voyages to Mars: Dreaming
Story | Voyages to Mars

Interplanetary road trips take a WHILE. So for this episode of Voyages to Mars, while we cruise onward towards the Red Planet, we’re listening to some poetry that pays tribute to long duration space travel.

Read more
September 15, 2020 AirSpace Presents
Voyages to Mars: Crossing Lunar Orbit
Story | Voyages to Mars

Leaving Earth on your way to Mars, the first pit stop you might make is the Moon’s orbit. In this episode, we follow three Mars-bound space travelers from Mark Wicks’ novel, To Mars via the Moon.

Read more