All Stories

How the National Air and Space Museum acquired the Boeing 747 for America by Air exhibition. 

Recent discoveries and news in aviation and space. 

A short history of early 20th-century drones.

Remembering astronaut Bill Anders.

A 2013 expedition funded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recovered dozens of parts from the Saturn V rocket that launched Apollo 11 into space in 1969. 

The story of NASM's three-foot-tall doll wearing a scaled-down copy of the real Mercury spacesuit. 

In its operation for over 25 years, NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory has changed our understanding of the universe. 

Michael López-Alegría, also known as “L-A,” is one of America’s most experienced astronauts. He has completed six space missions so far and commanded three of them, spending 296 days (about 9 and a half months) in space. He shares the current United States record for spacewalks with 10 total. And he isn’t finished yet.

It's a bird? It's a plane? Its a guy pretending to be a bird?? We have a very odd aircraft in the collection. 

In total, six of unique Space Shuttle orbiters were built but Discovery stands out with the greatest flight history record: 39 missions and 365 total days spent in space. That’s quite a feat for the journeys the orbiter took, but it’s also a testament to the team that made each of those flights possible. On its 40th anniversary, Discovery’s curator Jennifer Levasseur takes a look at features that distinguish the vehicle from the other orbiters and looks back on its first flight and crew.