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National Air and Space Museum Expands Its Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC.
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Da Nang Air Base Photography [Dumas]

Da Nang Air Base was a French Air Force and later Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) facility, located in the city of Da Nang in southern Vietnam. During the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the United ...
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The Secret History of Drones

Pilotless aircraft have been around longer than you might think. In 1898, newspapers heralded the dawn of a new age with the invention of a device that would “render fleets and guns useless.” Physical ...
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The Birth of Military Aviation

To end the brutality of World War I combat, military strategists looked to the skies for victory. World War I airplanes that can still fly are a rarity. In the United States, in fact, only a handful ...
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Forty Years of Discovery

Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC. For ...
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Just Doing Their Jobs

There’s a reason you don’t know the names of the first American women to fly combat missions. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower tore through the waters of the Persian Gulf on November 15, 1994. On the ...
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Snoopy In Space

How a cartoon beagle helped popularize NASA’s Apollo program. A Snoopy doll sold in 1969 wears a spacesuit and carries a flight safety pack, reflecting his role as a mascot for NASA’s Space Flight ...
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The Cuban Missile Crisis

Maj. Richard Heyser had been sitting 14 miles above the Earth for 5 hours. Soaring at the edge of space, he flew from northern California, around the Gulf of Mexico, and approached the small island of ...
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What Was the Space Race?

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project...will be ...
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The First Space Stations

Browse our collections, stories, research, and on demand content. Before the race to the Moon ended in 1969, both the Americans and Soviets were planning their separate futures in space. After the ...
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The Military Rockets that Launched the Space Age

Rockets launched the Space Age. They provided the power needed to take spacecraft and people on flights beyond the Earth. Starting with the launch of the first satellite Sputnik in 1957 and continuing ...