All Stories

As the weather gets cooler and Thanksgiving approaches, I start thinking about the throngs of holiday tourists that will be lining up to get a chance to view the great stuff we have here at the Smithsonian.  For our holiday visitors, I’d like to suggest the following tips for a more enjoyable visit.

Last Friday, the Museum hosted an online conference devoted to critical thinking in the Internet age. Using four conspiracy theories in aerospace history to demonstrate effective research techniques, staff from our Museum, the US Department of the Navy, and National History Day engaged with students and teachers from across the globe. 

You know when you're packing up for a move to a new house — boxes everywhere — frantic activity to get everything stored away before the movers arrive,  and you still have to clean out the fridge.

Jobs made a donation to the Museum to support the Beyond the Limits Gallery. He also gave us a NeXT workstation, which we promised him we would use to develop a flight simulator for the gallery. But after some efforts, we eventually gave up. I regret we were not able to make his NeXT donation work. The NeXT computer was tricky to work with, but it did have its fans. One researcher at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland got one, and while we were struggling to program ours, he used his to write a program for the Internet that he called the World Wide Web. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

This piece is a follow up to the posts below, in which I describe my experience flying a PT-13 Stearman that was used to train Tuskegee Airmen during WWII, from Moton Field, Alabama to Andrews AFB.

  October is American Archives Month—a time to celebrate the importance of archives across the country. In honor of Archives Month, we’re participating in a pan-Smithsonian blogathon throughout the month. We, and other bloggers from across the Smithsonian, will be blogging about our archival collections, issues, and behind-the-scenes projects. We encourage you to check out the posts on all of the participating blogs, as well as related events and resources. You may have heard that the National Air and Space Museum Archives is moving.  The collections and offices are moving from the current location of Building 12 at the Paul E. Garber Restoration and Storage Facility and from the Museum in Washington, D.C. to their new location at the Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center

This post is a follow up to Preserving and Displaying the "Bat-Wing Ship" published on June 24, 2011.

"'Spirit of Tuskegee' Arrives at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar -- Part II." Curator Dik Daso describes highlights from his flight on the "Spirit of Tuskegee," a PT-13 Stearman recently donated to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and soon to be on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

Learn how Museum educators are using interactive theater presentations to educate visitors about the space shuttle.

This post is a follow up to Tuskegee Bird Flies North. ...So I was on the phone Monday evening and my wife asked me, "Well, what did you do today?" With subtle nonchalance I said, "Well, I strapped into the front seat of Matt's Stearman, ya know, the one that was flown by the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, and flew over Appomattox Court House, ya know, where Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army to Gen.