Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Hillary Brady

Hillary Brady writes and edits stories for the Museum’s website and other digital platforms and projects. She has experience working in the outreach and digital spaces for museums, archives, and non-profit organizations. Hillary holds a BA in journalism and English from the University of Rhode Island and a MA in public humanities from Brown University.

Stories from this author

Backup spacecraft for Telstar, the world's first active communications satellite.  Telstar 1 began an era of live international television. After its launch on July 10, 1962, it relayed television images between the United States and France and England.

That’s no moon. (It's also not the Death Star.)

That’s no Moon, it’s a space station—or, rather, a satellite. With its spherical shape and piecemeal construction, it’s easy to see similarities between the Telstar satellite on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and the infamous Death Star of the Star Wars films. Aside from a passing resemblance in design, both pieces of technology also address a larger question that has been a focal point for humankind in reality and fantasy: what does space mean for humanity?

T’Challa’s Royal Talon Fighter flying above Wakanda in the film Black Panther. Credit: Marvel Studios.

How Wakanda’s Talon Fighter Compares to Real World Aviation

While the real world might be behind the curve on Wakanda’s technology, some of the planes featured in the <em>Black Panther</em> universe share similarities to emerging autonomous aircraft.