All Stories

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

Skywriting is something you might witness at the beach, or a sporting event, or an outdoor concert. A popular form of aerial advertising and even the occasional marriage proposal, skywritten messages can have a BIG impact (and with letters approximately 1500 feet tall… we mean that quite literally).  But maybe you didn’t know that it originated with the military and dates wayyy back to the early days of aviation in 1910. This episode will be your exhaustive look into everything you’d want to know about skywriting – how it works, who does it, the most popular examples, and even its code of conduct. And to learn all about it, we speak to a skywriting pilot whose family has been in the business since nearly the beginning.

Learn about three ways that satellites have led to a better understanding of how we affect our environment.

Over time, Earth was became one connected planet—one global neighborhood.

What connects you to the rest of the world? Photography exhibition Faces of Our Planet explores the human experience of living on Earth and how globalization impacts the cultural, community, and individual perspectives throughout different regions of the world.

Getting all the components of a complex aircraft to fit and function satisfactorily required more than a year of careful design work, however on January 30, 1942, the Army Air Corps awarded Northrop a contract to build two XP-61 prototypes. Rediscover the Black Widow on the 80th anniversary year of its first flight.

Museum curator Margaret Weitekamp reflects on the life of Nichelle Nichols, the multi-talented Black actress who so memorably originated Lt. Uhura on Star Trek.

When you hear the term “space archaeology” you might envision a khaki-clad astronaut excavating the Moon. But actually, space archaeologists are actually Earth-bound researchers who use satellite and other aerial imagery to assist in archaeological applications right here on our home planet. This imagery is used to find new archaeological sites, track changes on already discovered ones, and even helps fight looting.

For many people across the country, if you asked “what’s in your garage?” they might just say an airplane!

Canadians Bill Lishman and Joe Duff founded Operation Migration in 1994 to teach captive-reared birds to migrate by following the Cosmos Phase II ultralight aircraft.