All Stories

When the Apollo 17 astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 50 years ago, they were the last humans to visit the Moon. NASA’s Artemis program is set to return humans to the Moon, but not for two to three years from now. Why has it taken more than five decades to send humans back to the Moon?

Eileen M. Collins, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, was the first woman to be the pilot on a NASA space shuttle flight. She recently spoke with Air & Space Quarterly senior editor Diane Tedeschi.

Curator Jennier Levasseur explores how astronauts have looked down at Earth during missions ranging from Apollo to the International Space Station expeditions.

Pamela Melroy, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, is now NASA’s deputy administrator. During her career as an Air Force pilot, Melroy logged more than 6,000 flight hours, serving in both Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. After NASA selected her as an astronaut candidate in 1994, she would be assigned to three space shuttle missions, and she is one of only two women to ever command a space shuttle. Melroy recently spoke about her long career in aerospace with Jennifer Levasseur, a curator in the National Air and Space Museum’s department of space history.

What's it like being the curator for one of the most iconic artifacts in the country? Reflecting on her January 2022 visit inside Space Shuttle Discovery, Jennifer Levasseur writes about her first visit as its curator, and the personal connection she shares with the Shuttle.

NASA astronauts would receive numerous training information about Space Shuttle. Today they're in the Museum's Archives.

The legacy of the Space Shuttle program was to some degree built around the results of its very first mission. The reusable spaceplane, the Space Shuttle, ushered in a new era of human spaceflight 40 years ago this week with the launch of STS-1 on April 12, 1981.

Remembering the life and legacy of NASA flight director Glynn Lunney.

On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after launch. The disaster was felt in the space community.

Seventy-three seconds after launch, Challenger was destroyed on live TV. We did not understand what we saw: Our teachers could not explain it, our parents were unlikely to have better answers, and few of us probably spent time paying attention to what transpired afterwards in terms of the official investigation. The Challenger disaster symbolizes a moment in our personal and shared memories when we felt great sorrow together.