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Air & Space Magazine

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“Do these long wings make me look fat?”

At an “Ask An Expert” lecture by John Anderson, National Air and Space Museum curator of aeronautics, I learned that although Howard Hughes’ H-1 racer is displayed wearing its cross-country “long” wings, the high-speed-dash wings, which are shorter, are in storage at the Museum’s Garber facility in…

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Better Than Hubble—From the Ground

In the age of orbiting telescopes such as the Hubble and the not-yet-launched James Webb Space Telescope, it’s worth giving a nod to the dramatic advances made in building ground-based telescopes.The board of trustees of the Carnegie Institution for Science just authorized the release of $59.2 mill…

Inside the Enola Gay

Close-up photographs of the legendary World War II aircraft

Part of South America and Antarctica are sunlit in a crescent Earth photographed by Rosetta during a November 12, 2009 flyby.

From Beyond

A new exhibition of awe-inspiring photos from the first 50 years of planetary exploration

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Frozen in Time

No early retirement for these Air Force workhorses.

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Last of the Invaders

A reader tips us off to the restoration of a rare bird.

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Space Shuttle: The Time-Lapse Movie

A team of photographers captures Discovery’s long journey to the launch pad

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Book Club July 2010: Fighter Pilot

The memoirs of legendary ace Robin Olds.

Meteor crater, the best preserved meteorite crater on Earth, approximates similar impact craters found on the Moon's surface.

Using Earth to Study the Moon

Visiting “lunar” landscapes—in Arizona

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Atlantis’ Last Launch

And it went right on time.

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Japan Sets Sail for Venus

While the U.S. space program is mired in political arguments over how to reach Earth orbit (something we’ve known how to do for 50 years), Japan’s space agency JAXA, with far less money, is about to take a small but noteworthy step into the future.An HII-A launcher is scheduled to lift off from the…

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A New Arm for the Space Station

As the space station gets its finishing touches (Atlantis carries up a new Russian storage module on tomorrow’s STS-132 mission), we’ll see some new gadgets come into play. One is the European Robotic Arm, due to be installed on the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module in 2012. A spare elbow for …

An aircrew assigned to the 96th Bomb Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., flies a Red Flag-Alaska mission in a B-52H Stratofortress, April 29, 2010, at Eielson AFB, Alaska. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Christopher Boitz)

Alaska-bound

Dad, are we there yet?

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Pad Abort Test: The Videos

NASA has released better video of the recent launch abort system test in New Mexico. Some spectacular views here.

Cessna’s Citation X hasn’t played as many roles as its propeller-driven ancestors, but the business jet is speedier than all the rest.

Then & Now: Business Models

Then & Now: Business Models

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Celestial Heavyweights

Yet they move like welterweights and featherweights.

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Plume Power

The space shuttle’s exhaust trail makes for a lovely sight on an April morning.

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History in Flight

Rare warbirds star in a California airshow

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Voyager 2 Skips a Beat

Flight directors at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California are troubleshooting a glitch with the distant Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is still sending back signals from the outer solar system 33 years after it was launched. According to a JPL release, ground controllers haven’t received inte…

The Wall of Honor at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

In the Museum: Honor Roll

In the Museum: Honor Roll

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