After Tuesday's spectacular Space Shuttle Discovery flight over the region, thousands traveled to the Udvar-Hazy Center yesterday to welcome the shuttle and say goodbye to the Enterprise. more ›

One of the most coveted tickets of the year for space fans to get their hands on is to the annual John H. Glenn Lecture at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. This year, the series took a step back to the very beginning with the lecture's namesake, Senator John Glenn and his fellow Mercury astronaut Commander Scott Carpenter, who spoke to the packed IMAX theater about the nascent steps of the American space program. more ›

In 1962, then NASA Administrator James E. Webb began to invite artists to have special access to the astronauts, engineers and spacecraft during the tail-end of the Mercury program, just as Gemini was getting off the ground. NASA | ART includes over 70 artworks from the nearly 50 year span that has so far gathered 3000 pieces in both NASA and the Air and Space Museum's collections. As co-curator Burt Ulrich notes, the exhibit is meant to "see how far we've come as a nation, and as human beings." more ›

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of American human spaceflight with stargazing events, rocket challenges, planet "dances," and space shuttle launches. more ›

Cheers erupted from the staff at the National Air & Space Museum this afternoon as NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, over a live feed from Kennedy Space Center, officially announced that space shuttle Discovery will find a new home at the Udvar-Hazy Center. more ›

A clear sky is welcome news, as the best meteor shower of the year, the Geminids, peaks tonight. You won't even have to stay up extraordinarily late for these beauties: the 'shooting stars' will be visible from around 11 p.m., with as many as 120 streaking through the sky per hour. If you can't weather the cold, watch NASA's radar capturing the fireballs all night. more ›

Fans of space and aviation have a new place to nerd out starting today, as the National Air & Space Museum officially opens the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery on the second floor of its space on the National Mall. An updated version of the old Pioneers gallery, it now holds major artifacts from aviation's "adolescence" in the 1920s and 30s, when, as the Smithsonian's Dr. Peter Jakab said during the press opening, we became "a species with wings, which changed how we saw our place in the world." The gallery displays American innovation at its best, where the artifacts are second to the human stories and struggles from designing never-before-imagined technologies to paving the roads to social equality. more ›

Hello again, space readers. Look Up is back from a short hiatus while your DCist Space Editor was out in the field. Let's start with some events in D.C. before we get to the main course. more ›

Big space news this week -- so big you could actually hear about it in mainstream media, a rare-ish thing indeed. President Obama delivered a (sort of) game-changing speech at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday. After the budget release a few months ago and the announcement that the Constellation program would be canceled, the space industry was left asking, "well, what now?" Obama's speech was meant to answer that question. The new plan is to vaguely resurrect Constellation, with the Orion spacecraft -- originally designed to launch atop the Ares 1 rocket and carry 4-6 astronauts into deep space -- now redesigned to be docked with the International Space Station and act as a rescue vehicle. Additionally, the plan includes design of a new heavy-launch vehicle, replacing Ares V, by 2015, sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, and to Mars by 2030. Lastly, the President committed to increase NASA's budget by $6 billion over the next five years, with $40 million to help the tens of thousands of workers who will be laid off as the shuttle program ends. more ›

Living so close to major airports, military bases, and, of course, the White House, watching aircraft fly over D.C. is not exactly an unusual phenomenon. Have you ever looked up and seen something moving far too fast for a 757, but far too bright for an F-15? Well, you weren't having an X-Files moment, so much as catching a glimpse of the International Space Station. Its orbit occasionally brings it right overhead; in fact, it's been passing over the mid-Atlantic all week in the 6 p.m. hour. The ISS, on which the United States started construction in low-Earth orbit in 1998, gets bigger and bigger (and thus, brighter and brighter) every year. With construction nearly finished, it's become so bright in the sky that some people are claiming they can even see it during the day. more ›

The biggest celestial show always waits 'til last, so be sure to look up this week for the Geminids. Unlike last month's Leonids, which were primarily seen over Asia (though folks around here who braved very late into the night may have seen a few), December's meteor shower will be visible all over the Northern Hemisphere. You may be able to see a few starting tonight, increasing in frequency all week until they hit their peak next Sunday night/Monday morning. Not only will they be appearing in our part of the sky -- originating from sky near the constellation Gemini, which rises in the East around 8 p.m. -- but we'll be helped by a nearly New Moon (no, not the one with the hair). The most visible 'shooting stars' should appear almost all night, from 10 p.m. to dawn, with the peak around 2 a.m. The Geminids are the most reliable meteor shower and should produce up to 100/hour at its max. more ›

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has had quite the year so far. Last month they were visited by astronaut heroes from the beginning of the space race all the way through the latest space shuttle missions; they've continued to build out Phase Two at the Udvar-Hazy location, on track to finish in 2011; and will soon announce the opening, expected later this month, of their new Public Observatory on the Mall. more ›

Forty years ago next month, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to step foot on the Moon. The National Air and Space Museum is celebrating Apollo 11's historic journey throughout July, with book signings, presentations by experts on the Saturn V rocket, the Lunar Module, and even one on the "so-called Moon-landing hoax." The capstone lecture featuring the entire Apollo 11 crew and Mission Control creator Chris Kraft sold-out instantly through a free lottery last month, unfortunately. more ›

D.C. may be known as Hollywood for ugly people, but for a little while last night, it was almost like we were just plain Hollywood. Granted, there was no actual red carpet at last night's "red carpet" U.S. premiere — which was billed as a World Premiere despite Tuesday night's London screening — of Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian at the National Air & Space Museum. But there was a crowd of excited fans lining the steps up to the museum's doors, a red velvet rope line populated with microphone-wielding entertainment journalists inside, stressed-out personal assistants and handlers in headsets, heavily-made-up television correspondents, and discreet but tough-looking bodyguards. Substitute middle-aged male studio execs for the slightly paler middle-aged male government types who got invites to the event, and you could almost imagine you were at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. more ›

Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough announced Monday that the three most popular museums on the National Mall will stay open longer through the summer in an effort to boost revenue for their gift shops and restaurants, the AP reports. The National Museum of Natural History and National Air and Space Museum will stay open two hours later, until 7:30 p.m., and the National Museum of American History will stay open at least one hour later, every day this summer. The museums open at 10 a.m. and typically closed at the end of the work day. A spokesperson for the Smithsonian confirmed that the extended hours actually started on Mar. 28, and will last until at least Sept. 7, with a few exceptions. Consult the web sites of each museum for the most up to date operating hours. more ›