All Stories

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.

On July 11, 1969 – only 5 days before Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin set out on their journey to the Moon – a relatively unknown British musician named David Bowie released a single titled Space Oddity.

The NASA Art Program played an important role in representing the excitement and public interest in early spaceflight missions like Apollo 11. As we look back at key moments from the historic missions, we do so not only through photographs and oral histories, but through the eyes of artists as well.　

In this guest blog post, Chesley Bonestell expert Melvin Schuetz reflects on the Bonestell artwork "A Fog-Filled Canal on Mars."

This guest blog post by space artist Ron Miller explores the impact illustrator Chesley Bonestell had on his life, and recounts 50 years of telling Bonestell's story.

Conservationist and decorate art historians help solve a mystery behind two balloon-themed chairs in our Museum's collection. 

We remember Alan L.  Bean, the fourth man to walk on the Moon and the only artist to have visited the Moon.

As the Museum prepares for its upcoming transformation, the Smithsonian is eyeing a remake of its iconic film Scott Hamilton Skates the Universe.

Airports are transitional spaces, serving the Earth and the sky, a zone where both humans and technology are intertwined. Since 2007, Athenian-born photographer Alexandros Lambrovassilis has been photographing the transition occurring at Ellinikon International Airport, the international airport in Athens, Greece that closed in 2001.

Today would have been visionary science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s 100^th birthday (1917-2008). In the many decades since his first writings, his renown and influence still reverberate, motivating a range of contemporary thinkers.