On July 20, 1969, humans walked on the Moon for the first time.We look back at the legacy of our first small steps on the Moon and look forward to the next giant leap.

The Space Race grew out of a conflict known as the Cold War. While not a war in the traditional sense, the two countries were in a state of military and political tension that lasted nearly 50 years ...

General aviation encompasses all civil aviation operations other than scheduled air services and non-scheduled air transport operations for remuneration or hire.

Learn more about the evolution of the commercial flying experience in the United States using objects from the Museum's collection.

The NASM B-26B-25-MA named "Flak-Bait" (AAF serial number 41-31773) survived 202 combat missions over Europe, more than any other American aircraft during World War II. Workers at the Baltimore ...

Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle ...

Learn how the Wright brothers conducted aeronautical research in pursuit of making the first powered airplane.

Step outside of the Air and Space Museum and into the Lyle Tuttle Tattoo Art Collection in San Francisco, California to explore the symbolism of tattoo body art during World War II.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The MiG-21 was the Soviet Union's first truly modern, second-generation jet fighter. Testing began in 1956, and the first version entered service in 1960 as the MiG-21F-13. Soviet designers developed ...

Traveling to the Moon and returning required three unique and technologically advanced pieces of spacecraft, from the Saturn V rocket, to the Command Module, Columbia, and the Lunar Module, Eagle.

The North American X-15 rocket-powered research aircraft bridged the gap between manned flight within the atmosphere and manned flight beyond the atmosphere into space. After completing its initial ...