All Stories

Pioneering aviator Bessie Coleman's life and legacy aren’t just limited to aviation. In the air and on the ground, she made history, changed history, and witnessed history.

In the early days of aviation flying was dangerous and expensive. Even if you could afford it, societal barriers in the United States kept many would-be pilots grounded. But in Chicago, the Challenger Air Pilots Association cultivated a community that has since helped thousands of Black pilots learn how to fly. And it all started with a broken down car.

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

In the late fall of 1940, a troopship loaded with new pilots fresh out of primary flight school arrived in Vancouver, Canada. Porokoru Patapu “John” Pohe, first Māori trained as a pilot to serve in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, was amongst them. Captured as a prisoner of war, Pohe became involved with the plot for a mass escape from prison camp Stalag Luft III in Żagań, Poland. The 1963 epic film, “The Great Escape,” immortalized the event.

Astronomers at Harvard’s central observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its new observatory in Arequipa, Peru, ultimately produced over 500,000 glass plate images of the night sky. Directors of the Harvard College Observatory hired women to study, organize, and care for its immense glass plate collection in Cambridge.

On May 5, 1961, a Redstone rocket hurled Alan Shepard’s Mercury capsule, Freedom 7, 116 miles high and 302 miles downrange from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Freedom 7 parachuted into the Atlantic just 15 minutes and 22 seconds later, after attaining a maximum velocity of 5,180 mph. Shepard, a Navy test pilot and NASA astronaut, became the first American to fly in space.

On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to travel to space.

We look back at the extraordinary life of pilot, astronaut, and statesman Michael Collins, who has died at the age of 90.

National Air and Space Museum acting director Christopher U. Browne reflects on the life and legacy of one of his predecessors, Apollo 11 astronaut and former Museum director Michael Collins.

Every year in Russia during the week of April 12, the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight in space, also known as Cosmonautics Day, one hears Gagarin’s March replayed on radio and websites. The musical piece paints a picture of a bright and enthusiastic trek into the Soviet future with Gagarin at the lead.