Photos

The main lobby of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

The Viking Lander on Mars.

While Viking 1 and 2 were on Mars, this third vehicle was used on Earth to simulate their behavior and to test their responses to radio commands. Earlier, it had been used to demonstrate that the landers could survive the stresses they would encounter during the mission.

The Skylab space station.

The Hubble Space Telescope.

The Apollo-Soyuz test project.

An Apollo lunar suit.

Rockets ready to be launched.

The moon lander.

The Cray 1 supercomputer.

A Memory Unit from the SAGE computer.

It was in operation from 1959-1983. Memory capacity: 4096 words, Word length: 32 bits, Cycle time: 6 microseconds.

An early flight simulator.

A space capsule.

An aviation enthusiast's room circa 1935.

World War I avation was a common theme in popular culture during the 1920's and 1930's. Pulp magazines, comic books, and newspapers all glorified aerial combat.

The Red Baron's supposed plane.

A Bently BR-2 Rotary Engine.

The plane it was installed in is behind it. The innovative use of aluminum cylinders in the British Bentley BR-2 resulted in an engine more powerful yet lighter than other existing rotary engines.