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A conversation with aerospace engineer Dennis Jenkins who works with the space shuttles, relying on his expertise in orbiter construction to ensure their maintenance as museum artifacts. 

Throughout his career, Museum curator Ron Davies collected everything--tickets, timetables, brochures, photographs, public relations releases, and baggage labels—from airlines around the world from his travels. He encouraged his friends and colleagues to save their materials for him. He wrote to airlines and aircraft manufacturers soliciting information. This material, totaling over 62 cubic feet, became the basis for the R. E. G. (Ron) Davies Air Transport Collection at the National Air and Space Museum Archives.

Discover the process behind the conservation treatment of a set of batteries that Samuel Langley used in laboratory experiments, providing power to Langley’s later aviation and scientific experiments.

As a cub in the 1930s, Gilmore made aviation history when he traveled around the United States with the flamboyant and colorful aviator Roscoe Turner as a mascot for the Gilmore Oil Company. This is the second in a three-part blog series about the conservation treatment of Gilmore the Flying Lion. Explore how the Museum balanced caring for the original taxidermy with the goal to present Gilmore as lifelike as possible.

Sitting atop a pedestal in front of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is the abstract sculpture Continuum, 1976, by Charles O. Perry, known for his public art installations located at buildings, universities, and parks. Continuum is typically described as a Möbius strip, a star shooting through a black hole, a design inspired by geometry, or the continuous flow of the universe.

A small group of enthusiasts keeps World War I airplanes aloft.

A preview of the upcoming Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall.

As a cub in the 1930s, Gilmore made aviation history when he traveled around the United States with the flamboyant and colorful aviator Roscoe Turner as a mascot for the Gilmore Oil Company. Read and see images of the detailed discoveries made during the initial examination of the conservation treatment of Gilmore.

When the Wrights built and flew their 1903 Flyer, it was not a national treasure. To them it was a research tool in their path toward a practical airplane. Its transformation into a priceless piece of American heritage, displayed in the nation’s capital, took some interesting twists and turns.  

The Rocketdyne F-1 engines powered the first stage of the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo lunar missions. The Air and Space Museum’s redesigned F-1 installation offers a new perspective on the most powerful liquid-fuel rocket engine in U.S. history.