Stories of daring, stories of technological feats, stories of prevailing against the odds ... these are the stories we tell at the National Air and Space Museum. Dive in to the stories below to discover, learn, and be inspired. 

Showing 1 - 10 of 156

AirSpace, a podcast, logo

March 27, 2025

Space Race: The Prequel (Part Two)

Story | AirSpace Podcast

We pick up where Part One left off! When you hear 'space race' you probably (correctly) think about the 1960s Soviet Union v. U.S. race to put an astronaut on the Moon. But a few hundred years before, the space race was all about Venus. 

Five Air Force aircraft fly in formation in the cloudless blue sky.

March 20, 2025

A Military Airplane Flies Into the Sunset

Story | Air & Space Quarterly

Aviation and space in the news.

Bennu, a 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid, was the target of OSIRIS-REx, which touched down on the asteroid on October 20, 2020, collecting 4.3 ounces of rock and dust and returning them to Earth three years later.

March 20, 2025

An Innovative Spacecraft Makes Contact with an Asteroid

Story | Air & Space Quarterly

An interview with Dante Lauretta, NASA's principal investigator on the OSIRIS-REx mission. In his new book, The Asteroid Hunter, Lauretta recounts the sample-return mission that brought rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu to back to Earth.

AirSpace, a podcast, logo

March 12, 2025

Space Race: The Prequel (Part One)

Story | AirSpace Podcast

When you hear 'space race' you probably (correctly) think about the 1960s Soviet Union v. U.S. race to put an astronaut on the Moon. But a few hundred years before, the space race was all about Venus.

Three large white spots stand out amid the swirling brown, yellow, and green clouds of Jupiter.

December 18, 2024

Scientists Strive to Explain the Strange Weather on Other Planets

Story | Air & Space Quarterly

Weather phenomena across the solar system are stranger than scientists could have imagined.

The Earth and Moon as viewed from the International Space Station

November 14, 2024

What Makes a Moon a Moon?

Story

A moon is a planetary body that goes around another planetary body. Usually, this is one or more moons going around a planet, but it doesn’t have to be a planet. In Star Wars, the Death Star is not a moon because it isn’t a naturally occurring satellite: the International Space Station, the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter, or any of the telecommunications satellites we rely on in low Earth orbit are satellites, but are not moons.

Planets in the night sky are annotated.

October 08, 2024

The Planets in Our Solar System – A Timeline

Story

Humankind has known about them for thousands of years. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all visible in the night sky with the unaided eye. As such, these planets have been known for thousands of years and there is no one person who can be credited with discovering these planets. These planets appear as bright objects that do not shimmer, like stars do. 

AirSpace, a podcast, logo

September 26, 2024

AirSpace Season 9 Episode 10: Movie Mini: Contact

Story | AirSpace Podcast

What if there are intelligent lifeforms elsewhere in the universe? And what if all we need to do to find them is to listen to the right radio frequency at the right time?

A photo of the desolate lunar surface shows an Apollo astronaut standing beside a moon rover, parked on the edge of a vast deep crater.

September 23, 2024

A Breath of Fresh Air

Story | Air & Space Quarterly

Recent discoveries and news in aviation and space. 

Against the black background of the cosmos is a large cloud containing streams of pink, blue, and white gas moving outward from the center.

September 23, 2024

X-Ray Vision

Story | Air & Space Quarterly

In its operation for over 25 years, NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory has changed our understanding of the universe.