Exhibitions

The new World War I: The Birth of Military Aviation exhibition will use fascinating artifacts and the distinctive sights and sounds of early combat aircraft to tell the story of how remarkable people adapted the new technology of the airplane to warfare and changed how the world fights and flies.

An immersive, highly interactive exhibition, At Home in Space takes visitors along a 40+ year journey of learning how humans can live and work in space continuously and venture beyond Earth orbit.

In the 1920s and 30s, aviation pioneers pushed boundaries and blazed new trails in the air. The Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight exhibition will celebrate this pivotal era of aviation with a vibrant new space.

See the Bell X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier, in the same Hall as Friendship 7, NASA astronaut John Glenn’s spacecraft in which he became the first American to orbit the Earth. The Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall will showcase some of the museum’s most iconic objects. 

The Flight and the Arts Center will explore the relationships between art and the transformative power of the experience of flight through both the display of our permanent collection and new and engaging temporary exhibitions.

Who decides who goes to space? Why do we go? And what will we do when we get there? The Futures in Space exhibition will explore the potential near- and long-term futures that may emerge with advances in space exploration technology and enterprise.

The new Aerospace and Our Changing Environment exhibition will focus on how aerospace innovations help us understand climate change while providing opportunities to mitigate and adapt to the problem through new technologies.

From the outset of the Cold War to the present, aviation has redefined military power, geopolitics, and technological development. These monumental developments in aerospace technologies will be on display in the new Modern Military Aviation gallery.

The RTX Living in the Space Age Hall will provide insight into space technologies and infrastructure that are largely invisible to the public but have a profound impact on our daily lives. The exhibition will cover topics from the beginning of the Space Age in the mid-20th century to the present and beyond.

In the Textron How Things Fly exhibition, nearly 50 interactives work together with featured artifacts to communicate the idea that the forces of lift, weight, drag, and thrust guide the design and function of everything that flies.