Exhibitions

Nation of Speed recounts our desire to become the fastest on land, sea, air, and space in the pursuit of commerce, power, and prestige.

In the 1920s and 30s, aviation pioneers pushed boundaries and blazed new trails in the air. The Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight exhibition celebrates this pivotal era of aviation with a vibrant new space.

See the Bell X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier, in the same Hall as Friendship 7, NASA astronaut John Glenn’s spacecraft in which he became the first American to orbit the Earth. The Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall showcases some of the museum’s most iconic objects. 

Destination Moon shows how an extraordinary combination of motivations, resources, and technologies made it at long last possible for humans to walk on the Moon.

Between the first flights of the Wright brothers in 1903 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the airplane grew from an ancient dream into a reality that would shape the future.

The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age explores who Wilbur and Orville Wright were, what they achieved and how they did it, and how the world first reacted to their revolutionary invention.

This temporary exhibition featured the pressurized balloon gondola in which Felix Baumgartner ascended to the edge of space on October 14, 2012 and a pressure suit he wore on a flight on July 25.