All Stories

Could humans one day live on other planets? Many efforts are underway to answer that question.

Some Smithsonian artifacts that memorialize these achievements might be closer to you than you realize. Through collaborations with affiliate organizations, the Smithsonian sponsors traveling exhibitions and loans artifacts to museums throughout the United States and abroad. 

This first-generation Robonaut, housed at the National Air and Space Museum,  was designed by the Robot Systems Technology Branch at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in a collaborative effort with DARPA.

What's new in aviation and space.

Have you ever wondered how astronauts on the ISS or elsewhere in space vote? We'll tell you exactly how to cast a ballot from 250 miles up in orbit on AirSpace.

MTV used that iconic neon scribbled astronaut as its channel ID for years. And even today the award you get when you win a VMA is a statuette of an Apollo era astronaut, but why is MTV obsessed with the Moonman?

After the competitive short-term goals of human spaceflight had been met in the 1960s, many advocates of space exploration envisioned a permanent human presence in space.

There is perhaps no résumé in existence quite as long as Barbie’s. One of her oldest and arguably most iconic careers is as an astronaut. Let's take a look through some of her most iconic space looks, spanning 1965 to today.

During launch, the micrometeoroid shield surrounding the Skylab Workshop ripped loose. Designed to protect the workshop from tiny space particles and the sun's scorching heat, its loss caused sunlight to raise internal temperatures to over 130° F, making the station uninhabitable and threatening foods, medicines, films, and experiments that were onboard. Astronaut Rusty Schweickart was responsible for testing a parasol on Earth and developing procedures for deploying it in space in an effort to save America’s first space station.

The recent announcement of the crew for NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission in Houston, Texas, featured a major role for Canada. Introduced with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch was Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The four astronauts are scheduled to test the Orion spacecraft in high Earth orbit, then make a loop around the Moon—becoming the first human beings to venture into deep space since the Apollo 17 astronauts in December 1972. It is an honor to be selected for this crew, so why would a United States agency give up one of the seats to a Canadian?