All Stories

Travel across the globe and discover four women pilots that were taking to the skies and setting records.

Flying under all four bridges in New York by age 17.  Simultaneously holding the women’s world speed, altitude, and distance records.  Breaking their own world record with 930 barrel loops. The women in this article set and broke records with feats of flying. Discover their stories.  

Breaking records or excelling in physical competition are feats of endurance, training, and skill. Jeana Yeager and Patty Wagstaff’s stories exemplify this, as they soared above the competition.  

Women made history not only as pilots of aircraft, but also by being willing passengers. Read about three women that were brave enough to fly in aircraft when they were relatively new inventions.

In addition to the feats accomplished while in a plane, Earhart made an impact in areas from ranging from fashion to flying an autogiro. 

When World War II broke out, hundreds of women took to the skies in support of the war effort. 

On May 18, 1953, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound and, at the time of her death in 1980, she held more speed, altitude, and distance records than any other male or female pilot in aviation history. 

Ever wonder what would happen to your body in space without a spacesuit? Given it’s spooky szn, we figured we’d do something a little different for this Halloween episode of AirSpace and dissect one the scariest situations an astronaut could be in. For a crash course in the intersection between astronaut life and rapid decompression we talk to the Mary Roach.  And having authored the nonfiction books Packing for Mars, Stiff, and Grunt she’s kind of perfectly qualified to talk about this bizarre venn diagram.

The Sun has been an inspiration in our creation of paintings, poems, music, stories, and sculptures, to name a few. Explore how artists express and depict the Sun in works throughout the Smithsonian’s collections.

Although space itself remained inaccessible to private citizens until the 21st century, other places where Earth and space meet—such as NASA centers—have long been popular destinations for a different kind of space tourist. Read about how people have been incorporating space activities as part of their leisure time since the dawn of the Space Age.