Stories of daring, stories of technological feats, stories of prevailing against the odds ... these are the stories we tell at the National Air and Space Museum. Dive in to the stories below to discover, learn, and be inspired. 

Showing 1671 - 1680 of 1718

October 31, 2009 Tricking and Treating in the Collection Story | From the Archives

Cecil “Teddy” Kenyon (1905-1985), on the left, and her husband Theodore "Ted" Whitman Kenyon (1899-1978) were a flying family – when they weren’t trick-or-treating, as this 1940s photograph from their collection in the Museum’s Archives Division shows.

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October 28, 2009 Hiding in Plane Sight Story

At this time of year when apparitions and fanciful creatures stroll sidewalks in search of treats, it’s a good time to remember that not all aircraft are what they seem.

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October 21, 2009 Runaway Balloons Story

The afternoon of October 15, 2009 was one of those rare moments when Americans from coast-to-coast were riveted to their television sets by a news story unfolding in real time.  Six year old Falcon Heene was reported to be trapped aboard a helium balloon floating across the Colorado landscape at 7000 feet. The image on the screen was surreal, a strange craft looking like a cross between a Mylar grocery store balloon and a flying saucer, with a small circular structure on the bottom that appeared to be just large enough to house a small child. When the balloon came naturally to earth after a fifty mile flight, however, the boy was not aboard.

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October 17, 2009 Fly Now! Making the National Air and Space Museum's Poster Collection Accessible, Online Story

As mentioned in Dom Pisano’s recent post “From Collecting to Curating,” six interns, including myself, and two volunteers (with our supervisor, enough for a baseball team!) photographed, scanned and catalogued much of the museum’s collection of over 1,300 posters at the Paul E. Garber Facility's collections processing unit this summer. It sounds like a lot of posters, but you may not have seen any of them, unless you have a great memory of advertisements you glimpsed in airports over the years while running to catch your plane.

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October 05, 2009 A Beautiful Bird Grounded Story

Concorde service came to an end in 2003 when British Airways made the last commercial Concorde flight from New York to London. 

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September 25, 2009 Fourteen Days on “The Moon” in Arizona Story

It’s a quarter of a million miles to the Moon, we’ve got fully charged batteries, half a pack of space food, it’s daytime, and we’re wearing spacesuits. Hit it.

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September 14, 2009 From Collecting to Curating Story

The Museum-going public doesn’t often get the opportunity to observe the work that goes on behind the scenes in a museum. The National Air and Space Museum’s poster collection is a case in point. The items in this collection, which range from notices for early aviation exhibitions to commercial airline advertising, were collected over many years. It is only recently, however, that the posters have been curated; i.e., cared for as a collection. 

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September 08, 2009 This Android is no Dummy Story | Highlights from the Collection

First of all there is a question of just what to call this device. Is it a “dummy”? That’s what its creators called it sometimes, but that sounds too pejorative and does not give credit to its complexity. Is it a “robot”? That’s what it looks like. Or is it an “android,” defined by the dictionary as “an automaton made to resemble a human being”?

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September 01, 2009 Contest Winners, and I, Enjoy a Real Night at the Museum Story

Recently I was involved in a “first” in my career here at the National Air and Space Museum – a sleepover! About six winners (and their families) in the Post Cereal Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian contest spent the night in the National Mall building on Friday, August 7. The lucky slumber-partygoers had competed in an online sweepstakes that was promoted on Post cereal boxes.

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August 24, 2009 Personal Connections Make the Museum Meaningful Story

Confession: I used to think airplanes were boring.

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