All Stories

2019 marks the 70th anniversary of two long-distance light plane records by William P. Odom. Those records were set in the Museum’s Beechcraft 35 Bonanza, which is displayed at our Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. In addition, it is also the 100th anniversary of William Paul Odom’s birth, on October 21, 1919, in Porum, Oklahoma.

May 2, 2019, marks the United States’ Days of Remembrance, the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust.  Today the National Air and Space Museum remembers Dezsö Becker, a Hungarian aviator who served in World War I and died in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in January 1945.

Geraldyn “Jerrie” Cobb, who died in March 2019, will likely be remembered for her role campaigning for women to be considered as possible space travelers in the beginning of the space age, but the Museum’s upcoming exhibits will also showcase how important she was as an award-winning pilot who flew for years as a missionary in the Amazon.

On this episode of AirSpace we’re talking about the most exclusive form of public transportation – presidential flight. 

The world of sport aviation suffered a tragic loss on March 25, 2019, with the death of Julian R.P. Nott after an accident on the ground following a successful landing of an experimental balloon. Nott was one of the founders of the modern sport ballooning movement and an innovator in the field.

As you may have heard, astronauts Christina Koch and Anne McClain were scheduled to perform a spacewalk today. AirSpace hosts Emily, Matt, and Nick break down why this changed. 

AirSpace listeners know that no space mission is complete without a cool name, and there’s no “higher” recognition than having a space probe named in your honor (see what we did there?). 

In the wake of the Black Sox Scandal, Baseball was looking to restore its integrity with a leader with his feet firmly on the ground. They elected Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first Commissioner (or “Czar”) of Baseball.  A long-serving jurist from Chicago, Landis was known for his decisions against big businesses, such as Standard Oil, and for slipping out to Cubs and White Sox games.  But Landis also had his head in the clouds, a true aviation enthusiast!

Pioneering female pilot Jackie Cochran set eight world speed, altitude, and distance records in our Northrop T-38 Talon. In this blog, we talk to a member of our collections team about the process of moving the aircraft's fuselage from Maryland to Virginia in December 2018.

National Air and Space Museum director reflects on the trailblazing women in aviation and space that inspire her.