AirSpace
Science & Ideas
About
We see the connections to aviation and space in literally everything. From our favorite movies and the songs in our playlists to the latest news of space exploration and your commercial flight home for the holidays – aerospace is literally everywhere you look. Twice a month, our hosts riff on some of the coolest stories of aviation and space history, news, and culture. We promise, whether you’re an AVGeek, wannabe Space Camper, or none of the above, you’ll find a connection to your life and learn something interesting in the process.
Episodes
- Whirly-Girl #13
This episode of AirSpace delves into the history of helicopters in the late 1940s and 1950s, a period of increased production and civilian interest in vertical flight. It highlights Jean Ross Howard, the 13th woman to earn a helicopter rat…
- Snoopy in the Sky
This episode of AirSpace explores Snoopy's history as an aviation and space icon, from his imaginative adventures in the Peanuts comics to his role as a NASA flight safety symbol and his participation in the Artemis I mission. Guests Benja…
- GO, SPEED RACERS! The 1929 Women's Air Derby
Hosts Matt and Emily join aeronautics curator Caroline Tapp to discuss the 1929 Women's Air Derby. The episode explores the history of this all-female cross-country race, the pilot lineup, and the rumors of sabotage that persist from the e…
- A Tale of Two Satellites
This episode of AirSpace details the GRAB and CORONA U.S. spy satellite programs from the Cold War, explaining their motivations, their significance for future satellite technology, and the unique method of recovering film capsules via air…
- Scandalous
AirSpace discusses the Air Mail Crisis of 1934, a political and aviation drama stemming from disputes over who should fly mail. The controversy led to cancelled contracts and the Army Air Corps' involvement, ultimately shaping future regul…
- Kings of the Capsule
July 24th, 1969. After their historic mission to the Moon’s surface and back, there was one final step in the Apollo 11 mission: splashdown. As the command module floated (gracefully, we are sure) in the Pacific Ocean, a team of elite Navy…
- Gone to the Dogs
Unfortunately, there are still more humans than dogs in the average airport terminal. Still, it’s not uncommon to see dogs as you run to catch your flight. Some dogs, like humans, are just travelers passing through. But others, increasingl…
- AirSpace Live! Cooking in Space
Space travel is hungry work. Humans have spent nearly six decades experimenting with different ways to feed astronauts (with mixed reviews). As astronauts live and work in space on longer missions further from home, a new generation of che…
- Movie Mini: Arrival
Science fiction heroes aren't usually humanities professors, but Arrival (2016) is the exception to that rule. Amy Adams stars as Dr. Louise Banks, who may be the only person on Earth who can figure out what a pair of mysterious aliens are…
- Miasma of Incandescent Plasma
Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how we wonder . . . well, where to even begin? How do stars form from gas and dust? Why do some stars go supernova? And what the heck is the "main sequence?" We brought in one of the Museum's astronomy educat…
- The Journey of a Suitcase
Have you ever wondered what happens to your checked bag once you've handed it over to the airline? Us too! We took a field trip to Dulles Airport to visit our friends at United Airlines and find out. Today on AirSpace , follow a suitcase o…
- Eye of the Hurricane
SEEKING: full time aviators slash weather enthusiasts for unique opportunity. SCHEDULE: hurricane season. WORK SITE: Lakeland, FL; Biloxi, MS; and the eye of a hurricane. Members of the Air Force and NOAA Corps spend months each year flyin…
- AirSpace Bonus! There's More to That: Auroras
AirSpace will be back with Season 11 very soon. In the meantime we thought y'all would enjoy this episode from the Smithsonian Magazine's podcast, There's More to That: Why Auroras Are Suddenly Everywhere All at Once. For millennia, aurora…
- Home Front: Anything-to-Anywhere
The Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) are relatively well-known in the U.S. today (to hear more about their story, see our previous episode), but they weren't the only women who flew planes in World War II. A small group of Americans…
- Home Front: Eyes on the Coast
Just off the coast of the United States, a menace lurked in the water. German U-boats were a very real problem for merchant vessels and war ships during World War II. With all available military airplanes and pilots needed on the front lin…
- Home Front: 50,000 Planes
In 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt broadcast a new goal in one of his famous Fireside Chats: he wanted to see 50,000 planes a year built in the United States. Up until that point, the U.S. had built just over 30,000 military plan…
- Home Front: Students of the Air
In 1937, there were fewer than 20,000 licensed pilots in the United States. The Civilian Pilot Training Program increased that number to more than 400,000 in less than five years. With national "airmindedness" as their goal in the run-up t…
- AirSpace Revisited: Fly Girl
The Women's Airforce Service Pilots were a huge part of civilian aviation during WWII. Ahead of our new limited series, Home Front, we've brought back our season four episode. Episodes of Home Front start August 14th. On this episode of Ai…
- AirSpace Revisited: Dancing on the Ceiling
In just a few weeks, five brand new galleries are opening in the museum down on the mall, including galleries where we are once again hanging some (really big) things from the ceiling. We're revisiting this season eight behind-the-scenes e…
- AirSpace Book Club: Milky Way
AirSpacers are watchers of movies, but we are also readers of books. In our inaugural Book Club we're reading The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy by Dr. Moiya McTier. This book is a non-fiction romp through the Milky Way's life (…
- The Future is Here
If you've been to visit us on the National Mall in the last several years you may have noticed that we've been under construction. Which is very exciting! But even more exciting is some of that construction is done! On July 28, we're welco…
- The Irrepressible Pancho Barnes
Pancho Barnes was larger than life. Born at the turn of the century, she spent the next 75 years defying every societal norm she found stuffy, boring or just plain stupid. She rode horses and then flew planes in the movies. She raced airpl…
- AirSpace x Sidedoor: Space Jamz
If you were curating a mixtape that might be heard by aliens billions of years from now, but definitely would be seen by your fellow Earthlings, what would you put on it? In 1977, two Voyager spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral on a jo…
- Bats!
Bats are the only mammals that truly fly. And the way they do it is very different from other flying things. The way they fly has only recently been understood and there are still questions. Scientist and engineers are trying to use what t…
- Scoop There It Is
There are a lot of different aircraft that fight wildfires, from Host Matt's favorite Sky Crane helicopter to giant cargo jets that dump tons of fire retardant. But today we're taking about a truly unique, purpose-built firefighting airpla…
- Space Race: The Prequel (Part Two)
If you haven't listened already, go back and check out Part One. When you hear 'space race' you probably (correctly) think about the 1960s Soviet Union v. U.S. race to put an astronaut on the Moon. But a few hundred years before, the space…
- Space Race: The Prequel (Part One)
When you hear 'space race' you probably (correctly) think about the 1960s Soviet Union v. U.S. race to put an astronaut on the Moon. But a few hundred years before, the space race was all about Venus. Twice every century or so we here on E…
- Crater Dating
The oldest Earth rocks we have are 4.3 billion years old, and samples we've brought back from the Moon are even older. But what does that have to do with craters on Mars? When the Apollo missions brought back samples, those rocks let us co…
- Hypatia Mars
Right now there are seven women on Mars... kind of. The women of Hypatia Mars started out as a small group of friends from Catalonia who wanted to work together tp advance space science and women in STEM. Today they're on their second anal…
- From Flight to Floor
We want to hear from you! Fill out our listener survey at s.si.edu/airspace2025 All the military aircraft and some of the civilian ones in our collections have to be demilitarized before they go on display or into storage. This process, us…
- The Science Never Stops
We want to hear from you! Fill out our listener survey at s.si.edu/airspace2025 Our museum collection, like a lot of other museums' collections, can be a working collection. That means that scientist come to do air or space research using…
- AirSpace Revisited: The Ninety-Nines
In the lead up to Season 10 we're reviving some of our favorite episodes. Today we bring you Emily's favorite, The Ninety-Nines. It took a certain amount of pure grit to be a pilot in the early days of aviation – and even more for the wome…
- AirSpace Revisited: Smoke from a Distant Fire
In the lead up to Season 10 we're reviving some of our favorite episodes. Today we bring you Matt's favorite, Smoke from a Distant Fire. Wildfire season is getting longer, according to the US Forest Service, making firefighting a bigger, m…
- QueerSpace In Memoriam: Saxophones on the Moon
We were devastated when we heard of Nikki Giovanni's passing earlier this week. Her poetry evokes life on Earth and in the universe in such a beautiful, thoughtful and inclusive way. We are in the process of sharing our favorite episodes f…
- Meet Your AirSpacers
Hey Y'all! Since we've made it to season 10 (!!!) we thought we'd take the opportunity to re-introduce ourselves. In this episode you can hear a little more about Hosts Matt and Emily as well as a little bit about the rest of the team behi…
- AirSpace Bonus! The Air Up There: Airplane Facts with Max
While we get Season 10 ready we're bringing you this episode from our friends at the Federal Aviation Administration's Podcast, The Air Up There . Find our transcript here . Did you know that airplanes have two black boxes and they are act…
- AirSpace Revisited: Journey to the Past
As we wait for season TEN (!!!) we're looking back on this season six favorite. Every day, satellites orbit Earth taking pictures. These images are used for everything from intelligence to weather prediction and even today’s topic – archae…
- AirSpace Bonus! Voting From a Station Far Far Away
Have you ever wondered how astronauts on the ISS or elsewhere in space vote? It turns out there's a whole Texas law about it. We'll tell you exactly how to cast a ballot from 250 miles up in orbit on AirSpace. Thanks to our guest in this e…
- Defying Gravity
I don't think we're in Kansas anymore! There are so many things that fly in Oz, from broomsticks to monkeys to bubbles. With the Wicked movie coming out this November, we thought we'd look back on all things flight in the land of Oz and te…
- Flak-Bait, Ooh Ha Ha!
During WWII one plane survived more missions than any other in Europe. Named ' Flak-Bait, ' this medium bomber was saved from the scrap heap after the war and immediately donated to the Smithsonian. However, public display and outdated res…
- Movie Mini: Contact
What if there are intelligent lifeforms elsewhere in the universe? And what if all we need to do to find them is to listen to the right radio frequency at the right time? That's what the scientists of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Inte…
- Birds of a Feather
It's a bird? It's a plane? Its a guy pretending to be a bird?? We have a very odd aircraft in the collection. It's an ultralight. Small, highly maneuverable and based off the wings hang gliders use to jump off mountains, this particular ul…
- Limited Edition
Back in the 'Golden Age' of air travel in the 50s, 60s and 70s going on a trip in an airplane was an event. On those flights you would often get a little souvenir of your air travel; a deck of cards, a little toy, a trading card, captain's…
- Lasso the Moon
Over six missions, the Apollo astronauts collected and brought back 842 pounds of Lunar samples. Most of those Moon rocks were put aside for science, but some were earmarked for things like touch rocks (like we have at NASM) or educational…
- AirSpace Bonus! My Mom the Rocket Scientist
Our conversation with Jack Black and his brother Neil Siegal about their Mother, Judith Love Cohen was too good just to give you just the taste from the end of our Star Search episode. Here's the extended producers cut with everything from…
- Star Search
There are a lot of air and space celebrities; pilots, astronauts, engineers, etc etc. But there's another category of celebrities that are famous for other things but also have surprising ties to air or space. Today we're talking about thr…
- X-Ray Vision
When the Chandra X-Ray Observatory launched 25 years ago, it showed us our universe in a whole new light (literally). From the remnants of exploded stars to Jupiter's auroras, Chandra has shown us so many beautiful and scientifically impor…
- Welcome to Roswell
The city of Roswell, New Mexico is kind of in the middle of nowhere. Out in the dessert west of Texas, this small oasis in the dessert was first home to indigenous peoples, then cowboys, ranching and farming and then the military before be…
- Let's Talk About Sex
Sci-fi is full of giant ships full of humanity living and dying and reaching out to new places far far away. Usually, these are called generations ships. And they rely on well, generations. But today in science-fact there's so much more ab…
- Tiny Jumper
Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick was 15 years old when she first jumped out of a hot air balloon with a parachute in 1908. Over the next 14 years she would make over 1,000 jumps, first out of balloons and then as the first woman to jump from an ai…