Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Air & Space Magazine

None

Perspective

Down on the crawlerway.

Alvin Drew with his container for holding "space."

A Bottle of Nothing

A Japanese installation artist asks astronauts to bring back a little bit of space.

Just months after Lieutenant Paul Beck made an early airborne radio transmission, aviators test a receiving set - with the airplane's engine running - on North Island, Washington.

Moments and Milestones: Can You Hear Me Now?

When radio communication took to the air.

Launch of STS-132, May 14, 2010.

The Space Shuttle Era

Thirty years of adventure and exploration.

Atlantis as seen from the International Space Station in February 2001.

Meet the Orbiters

A fleet of winged spacecraft, the likes of which we’ll never see again.

A ride costs $200 to $1,000, depending on duration.

Z2

The latest in sightseeing tours, brought to you by Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin.

During the war, Wendover Army Air Base was one of the country's most secretive locations.

How B-29 Crews Trained to Drop the Bomb

Wendover’s atomic secret

The Soyuz docking assembly's mating adapter is shown in space just feet away from the International Space Station.

How Things Work: Soyuz-Station Docking

In orbit, it’s all about connections.

No soft underbelly here: The EA-18G Growler hauls missiles, fuel tanks, and electronic warfare pods.

When Hornets Growl

The new, supersonic face of e-warfare

None

100 Years of Naval Aviation

The Navy’s first pilot and 10 more milestones.

Nesher's descendant, Arieh, wasn't built but morphed into what became a prototype, Lavi.

The Lion That Never Roared

CANCELLED: Israel’s Arieh Fighter

Yuri Gagarin's image can be found all over Star City, even in the foyer of the town's planetarium, and he remains the iconic cosmonaut.

Star City at 50

Change comes to the place where spaceflight was born.

Left to right: Bill Malloska, the airplane’s owner; Augie Pedlar, pilot; Manley Lawling, navigator, later replaced by Vilas Knope; and Mildred Doran, in classic uniform.

Above & Beyond: Aunt Mildred

A race across the Pacific

Emory's 1912 student photo.

The Unrecognized First

Emory Malick, an early American pilot, wasn’t known to historians until recently.

A less-than-dignified descent and landing.

Oldies and Oddities: Buying the Farmhouse

Adventures in Navy ballooning.

Astronaut Stories: The World’s First Spaceplane

Shuttle crews from the 1980s recall how their new vehicle took some getting used to.

Dom Gorie looks out Discovery's window in 1998.

Shuttle Home Movies

Highlights from 30 years of astronaut videos, filmed on location in Earth orbit.

None

The First Countdown?

Most histories of space travel credit the first use of the rocket countdown to a work of fiction: Fritz Lang’s 1929 science fiction film, “Frau im Mond” (Woman in the Moon).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaVLaD4vfBcMaybe not, though. British science fiction writer George Griffith used the same dram…

None

Tankers Away

None

Discovery’s Swan Song

History in the making, seen from inside the museum.

Page 199 of 320