All Stories

Space historian Paul Ceruzzi looks at a less well-known detail of the Apollo 13 mission: the Inertial Measurement Unit, which was essential to ensuring the safe return of the astronauts after an explosion damaged the service module on the way to the Moon.　

Deputy director Chris Browne reflects on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission.

Conservator Lauren Gottschlich explores the conservation work recently done on a replica of the altered lithium hydroxide filter used during the Apollo 13 mission.

Space history curator Jennifer Levasseur examines photographs taken during the Apollo 13 mission and how they helped NASA understand what went wrong with the service module.

Curator Margaret Weitekamp looks at the history and significance of one of our most iconic artifacts from the mission: Gene Kranz's white vest.

On Monday, April 13, the 50th anniversary of "Houston, we've had a problem," the Museum's Apollo curator Teasel Muir-Harmony participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) on r/space with NASA Chief Historian Bill Barry, and Apollo in Real Time creator and data visualization engineer Ben Feist.

Aeronautics curator Michael Neufeld examines the myth of the Nazi wonder weapons and the oft-repeated statement that if Germany had had the V-2 and other "wonder weapons" sooner, they may have won the war.

Beneath the colorful exterior of our Goodyear C-49 control car, which provided coverage at sporting events in the 1980s, lies a World War II veteran. Museum historian Tom Paone explores its service. 

The Smithsonian's Digitization Program Office takes you behind the scenes of how they captured a comprehensive 3D dataset of the largest museum artifact ever to be digitized: Space Shuttle Discovery

Curator Bob van der Linden looks at the history of the flying boat, and how infrastructure investments during World War II changed commercial aviation.