Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Air & Space Magazine

Cecilia Skroder (on the left, pictured with a classmate, lower step) used her 2016 ISTAT Foundation scholarship toward an MBA from the Toulouse Business School, France. One grant supported the no-fee school program in aviation and science at New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

Aviation’s Social Network

The foundation that helps young people become players in ‘the sporty game.’

Rare souvenir: Sold in 1936, this ping-pong ball flew across the Atlantic—twice—with Dick Merrill.

The Ping-Pong Flight

Only two of the 41,000 balls dropped in 1936 have—so far—shown up.

Four different versions of the Apollo coins are offered; sales will raise money for the National Air and Space Museum's "Destination Moon" exhibit and for the Astronauts Memorial Foundation and the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

Commemorative Coin Throws a Curve at Apollo History

The U.S. Mint marks the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.

During survival training in Reno, Nevada, astronauts (from left) Frank Borman, Neil Armstrong, John Young, and Deke Slayton fashioned protective clothing out of material—such as parachute fabric—that would be available in a crash landing.

Pieces of Apollo

A new book uses 50 objects to tell the story of America’s greatest adventure.

Two of the best-performing World War II fighters, a Supermarine Spitfire (left) and a North American P-51 (flying together on July 17, 2011) had wings and horizontal stabilizers of vastly different shape.

The Perfect Airplane Wing

Is it thick or thin, elliptical or squared, straight or cranked? Yes.

‘Oumuamua, shown here in an artist’s concept, was the first object seen to enter our solar system from interstellar space. Could it be an artifact sent by some distant civilization?

Signs

We’ve been listening for extraterrestrials. Now we’re starting to look.

After its June 2003 transatlantic trip, Concorde F-BVFA taxis to its final home, the National Air and Space Museum.

Au Revoir, Concorde

The supersonic jet’s last trip across the Atlantic.

When Connor Duchen graduated from Purdue, he wanted a memento of a favorite college moment: flying the university’s Embraer Phenom 100 jet. Today he helps airlines choose jets for their fleets.

The Business of Aviation

Connor Duchen, Analyst, SkyWorks Capital, talks about data and deals.

An Army band on the tarmac at New York’s Idlewild Airport serenaded passengers as they boarded the Pan Am Clipper America for its maiden transatlantic flight on October 26, 1958—only 10 days after Boeing delivered the airplane.

The Flight That Changed Everything

When the 707 gave us the world.

Mohamed Noor teaches evolutionary biology and genetics at Duke University.

If Only Vulcans Were Real

What can humans learn from fictional extraterrestrials?

None

An Airplane With No Moving Parts

MIT’s Version 2 was inspired by science fiction.

“Most wings have ribs and spars. This has no ribs,” says Karl Heinzel, above. The center wing portion has controllable camber for takeoff, climbing, and landing.

Restoration: The 1912 Olmstead Pusher

A Smithsonian retiree brings a Wright-era airplane back to life.

Hot jets, cool reception: In Lithuania, NATO fighters like Poland’s MiG-29s (here during a 2015 rotation) spring into action if intruders fly near.

Scramble!

NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission calls on an age-old combination of quick reaction and hot jets.

After a decade of fighting racism, Perry Young landed a job with New York Airways. Flying a Sikorsky S-58 (pictured), he was the first black pilot employed by a U.S. airline.

How Perry Young Broke Aviation’s Color Barrier

A black pilot and a small helicopter airline moved faster than the speed of law.

On November 26, 2018, MarCO-B returned this color image of Mars (and its own high-gain antenna) as it flew past the planet at a distance of about 4,700 miles.

A CubeSat at Mars

For space exploration, small is powerful.

Above Oshkosh in 2015, Tucker shows off a hallmark of his performances: exuberance.

The Inimitable Sean D. Tucker

In 1,300 performances over 42 years, one airshow star flew above the rest.

The SB-1 Defiant compound helicopter is due to make its first flight in 2019.

2019: What’s Ahead in Aviation

First flights and a milestone for the F-35 Lightning II

Artist's visualization of the exoplanet LHS 3884b, a likely "lava world" newly discovered by TESS.

TESS Starts to Deliver

Early results from the world’s leading exoplanet survey.

Mars (pictured by the Curiosity rover), still a mystery when it comes to life. But we may be getting closer to finding answers.

The Year of Astrobiology?

From Ultima Thule to life detection on Mars, biology moves to the forefront of space exploration.

This image taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is the most detailed of Ultima Thule returned so far by the New Horizons spacecraft. It was taken at 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019, just 30 minutes before closest approach from a range of 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers), with an original scale of 730 feet (140 meters) per pixel.

Behold the Most Distant Object Ever Visited by Spacecraft

The New Horizons spacecraft has transmitted images from its New Year’s Day approach back to Earth

Page 27 of 320