Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Air & Space Magazine

A gigantic financial gamble at the start, the 747 paid off big for Boeing. Eighty-nine countries have used it to move people and freight (here leaving Anchorage, Alaska) around the globe.

747: The World’s Airliner

The first jumbo jet has transported the equivalent of 80 percent of the human race.

Technicians check out the first of two X-4s. It proved so unstable on its maiden flight, pilot Charles Tucker recalls he “got pretty drunk that night!”

The 98-Pound Weakling of Research Airplanes

Maligned and abandoned, the prototype Northrop X-4 Bantam gets a restoration after 65 years.

The strategies of Eddie Rickenbacker’s era live on today with pilots flying F-22 Raptors in the 94th Fighter Squadron.

The Fighter Pilot’s Survival Guide

Today’s manual of fighter tactics was written 100 years ago, in World War I.

A thin layer of gold on each of the James Webb Space Telescope’s 18 mirror segments reflects mostly infrared light.

Infrared Dawn: The Next Space Telescope Will Be Hubble x 100

The James Webb Space Telescope will see out to the universe’s edge.

Sixty-five years to the day after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in an airplane, Felix Baumgartner exceeded Mach 1 in free fall. Now Baumgartner’s gondola and pressure suit join Yeager’s Bell X-1 in the National Air and Space Museum.

Felix Baumgartner’s “Edge of Space” Capsule Goes on Display

Items from the Austrian daredevil’s record-setting jump enter the Museum’s collections.

Because Baldwin was too heavy to pilot his airship, he hired L. Guy Mecklem to row it aloft. After six months, Mecklem felt he was just a “flunky,” and the two parted ways.

Thomas Baldwin’s “Aerial Rowboat” Could Do About 4 MPH on a Calm Day

However impractical, the hydrogen airship was a big hit with crowds in 1905.

An F-104D from the 479th Wing, and the author in Vietnam, with a backdrop of Southern Spain.

“Free Beer for the Americanos”

Digging out a crashed F-104 in a Spanish village in 1964, I made some unexpected friends.

Searching for Secrets at Area 51

A guide to snark hunting at Nevada’s secure test-flight base.

None

Waiting for Progress

An Expedition 38 crew member took in the view of Earth below and part of one of the Russian modules while waiting for the arrival of a Progress cargo ship, carrying 2.8 tons of supplies for the space station.

NASA's Steve Swanson works on the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly on the International Space Station in April 2014.

Why Living in Space Can be a Pain in the Head

A new study says carbon dioxide levels on board the station should be lowered.

Ronstadt in concert, 1977.

Linda Ronstadt Tried to Capture the Sound of a B-29 in Her Songs

Raised near an Air Force base, she thought it sounded somewhere between a cello and a double bass.

None

Best View of Alien World

The Gemini Planet Imager took this best view yet of an alien world. Beta Pictorus b, several times the size of Jupiter, is more than 63 light-years from Earth and was captured in this 60-second exposure — a degree in magnitude faster than previous instrument capability. The Planet Imager, which began construction a decade ago, is the next generation adaptive optics instrument at the Gemini South Telescope in Chile, and had its first light in January 2014.

Timothy Reuter with his personal flying robot.

The Drones Are Here to Help

UAVs will make the world a better place, says Pocket Drone inventor Timothy Reuter.

Newly obtained image of Earthrise over the north pole of the Moon, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

Earth Rising

Earth as seen from the Moon is always in the same place – true or false? It depends.

Gordon Cooper prepares for his Mercury 9 launch on May 15, 1963.

If a Mercury Astronaut Came Down in a Communist Country, the U.S. Had a Plan

In 1963, the State Department was understandably nervous about the longest American spaceflight to date.

Artist's conception of the Exolance deployment.

Exploring Mars—With Arrows

Penetrator probes may be the perfect way to prospect for life on other planets.

None

Space Sale

On May 7, 2014, the auction house Lempertz offered up this Russian VA re-entry capsule, developed as part of the TKS spacecraft, along with two Sokol spacesuits at its Brussels location. (Here it is for a viewing in Berlin first.) The capsule flew, unmanned, twice in the late 1970s and went to an anonymous buyer for $1.72 million. The two spacesuits went for $96,000 and $83,000.

Qantas' campaign is inspired by artist Gemma O'Brien.

Turning Airsick Bags into Art

Qantas is looking for submissions to its “Spew Bag Challenge.”

None

Station Nightlights

When the astronauts sleep aboard the International Space Station, only minimal lightning stays on, including emergency lights that point the way to the Soyuz spacecraft in case they need to evacuate.

Screenshot of the live feed from new high-definition cameras on the exterior of the International Space Station.

Watch Live HD Video of Earth From Space

New cameras on the space station give the rest of us an astronaut’s-eye view.

Page 122 of 320