During World War II, pilots evaluated a wide range of aircraft types for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Test pilot Stefan Cavallo’s flight trials were critical to successful operations during the war.

How do you cast your ballot when you are floating over 200 miles above your polling place? Thanks to a special electronic absentee ballot, astronauts are able to vote from space.

Part of the fun of research is getting elbow deep into the original documents that make up the collections of the National Air and Space Museum Archives. But we also understand that it is difficult for many researchers to make in-person visits to the Archives at the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. As an alternative, you can experience the NASM Archives (and other Smithsonian collections) anywhere through the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives (SOVA)!

Geologic maps are used to locate natural resources, such as water or oil, or the best place to hunt for fossils, but they can also be eye catching works of art.

Reading Mark Wick’s novel To Mars Via the Moon words motivated reflection on how our thinking of the Moon changed as real-life science and technology has evolved, in contrast to science ficton.

The world of sport ballooning lost one of its pioneers with the death of Don Piccard on September 14, 2020. He was involved in the renaissance of hot air ballooning and a true pioneer of the sport. All of us who wonder at the sight of a hot air balloon in the sky, are in his debt.

A. Roy Knabenshue became interested in lighter-than-air flight after seeing a balloon ascension when he was 5 years old and would become the first person to successfully pilot a dirigible in the United States, flying Thomas S. Baldwin’s California Arrow at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.