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"Trip to the Moon" map, depicting a collage of the Moon, spacecraft, astronauts, and other space-related imagery.

During the Space Race, Gas Stations Gave Away Free Maps to the Moon

Standard Oil was not about to be left earthbound.
by Kyle Carsten Wyatt via Atlas Obscura on May 1, 2019
Margaret Hamilton stands next to a stack of paper as tall as she is - the software she and her team produced for the Apollo project.

Margaret Hamilton Led the NASA Software Team That Landed Astronauts on the Moon

Apollo’s successful computing software was optimized to deal with unknown problems.
by Alice George via Smithsonian on March 14, 2019
Valentina Tereshkova in space, painted
partner

Valentina Tereshkova and the American Imagination

Remembering the Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, and how she challenged American stereotypes.
by Robert L. Griswold, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on November 13, 2018

A First Glimpse of Our Magnificent Earth, Seen From the Moon

The first people to view our planet from the moon were transformed by the experience. In this film, they tell their story.
by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee via New York Times Op-Docs on October 2, 2018

Whitey on the Moon

Gil Scott-Heron's searing 1970 commentary on the nation's economic priorities.
by Joseph M. Thompson via Enviro-History on March 16, 2018
Neil Armstrong and the American flag on the moon.

Twilight of Empire

Why the 1969 moon landing signaled the end of the massive American empire of the 20th century.
by Daniel Immerwahr via Modern American History on January 22, 2018

The Triumph and Near-Tragedy of the First Moon Landing

Across the cislunar blackness, we set sail for a landing that almost didn't happen.
by Eric Berger via Ars Technica on December 19, 2017

Sputnik Launch 60 Years Ago Was Slow to Resonate With Americans

The 1957 launch of Sputnik wasn’t necessarily the start of the US-Soviet space race that Americans think of today.
by Elizabeth Howell via Seeker on October 2, 2017

Trying to Remember J.F.K.

On the centenary of his birth, seeking the man behind the myth.
by Thomas Mallon via The New Yorker on May 22, 2017

The History Behind the Long-Dead Space Council Trump Wants to Revive

The new administration plans to bring back a committee that has tried over the years to guide policy—with mixed results.
by Marina Koren via The Atlantic on March 24, 2017
Rocket launch

Is a Mission to Mars Morally Defensible Given Today’s Real Needs?

Elon Musk and the rise of Silicon Valley’s strange trickle-down science.
by Andrew Russell, Lee Vinsel via Aeon on December 1, 2016
Art work of a hand holding Mars by string in the midst of the universe.

The Long History of Life on Mars

A new book explores how Americans came to believe in an advanced Martian civilization at the turn of the twentieth century.
by Jon Allsop via The New Yorker on August 29, 2025
Hazel Fellows sewing an Apollo A7L spacesuit at International Latex Corporation

Common Threads: From Playtex to Prada — NASA’s Surprising Spacesuit Collaborations

NASA recently announced a partnership with a couture designer, but in the 1960s, the first spacesuits were made by a company known for bras and girdles.
by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox via The Saturday Evening Post on November 19, 2024
Postal stamp featuring Benjamin Franklin.

Why We Still Use Postage Stamps

The enduring necessity (and importance) of a nearly 200-year-old technology.
by Andrea Valdez via The Atlantic on April 28, 2024
Alexis de Tocqueville.

American Nightmares

Wang Huning and Alexis de Tocqueville’s dark vision of the future.
by Tanner Greer via Scholar's Stage on March 28, 2024
‘Fifty Shades of White’ by Jaune Quick-To-See Smith.

Remembering the Future

Climate change, colonization, and the Navajo Nation.
by Hazel V. Carby via London Review of Books on March 27, 2024
An all-women team of aquanauts: Ann Hartline, Sylvia Earle, Renate True, Alina Szmant, and Peggy Lucas Bond.

The Forgotten Women Aquanauts of the 1970s

These scientists spent weeks underwater doing research—and convincing NASA women could also go into space.
by Amy Crawford via Atlas Obscura on March 24, 2023
A man scuba diving.

Filming the Deep: Underwater Film Technologies

The author of a new book, The Underwater Eye, discusses how film enables audiences "to connect to the most remote environment on the planet: the ocean."
by John Plotz, Margaret Cohen via Public Books on March 23, 2023
"Washington Crossing The Delaware" superimposed on NASA image of the Pillars of Creation in space

The Age of Planetary Revolution: Remembering the Future in Science Fiction

Nothing dates our vision of the future like how we remember the past.
by Carl Abbott via Perspectives on History on November 14, 2022
Cartoon of Buckminster Fuller with spirals in his glasses and hands out as if hypnotizing the reader.

Space-Age Magus

From beginning to end, experts saw through Buckminster Fuller’s ideas and theories. Why did so many people come under his spell?
by James Gleick via New York Review of Books on November 3, 2022
Photo: "Mother Bird Protecting Her Young"

Motherhood at the End of the World

"My job as your mother is to tell you these stories differently, and to tell you other stories that don’t get told at school.”
by Julietta Singh via The Paris Review on September 1, 2021
Space Shuttle Challenger explosion

How Legendary Physicist Richard Feynman Helped Crack the Case on the Challenger Disaster

Kevin Cook on the warnings NASA ignored, with tragic results.
by Kevin Cook via Literary Hub on June 9, 2021
Illustration from Percival Lowell's Mars as the Abode of Life, 1908.

Alien Aqueducts: The Maps of Martian Canals

Observing the visible features of Martian landscapes, Giovanni Schiaparelli began seeing things almost immediately.
by Hunter Dukes via The Public Domain Review on June 8, 2021
Roger Payne and Scott McVay's aural spectrograph rendering the whale sequences

Minor Listening, Major Influence: Revisiting Songs of the Humpback

Recorded accidentally by the Navy during the Cold War, "Songs of the Humpback Whale" became a hit album that changed perceptions about the natural world.
by Alaina Claire Feldman via E-Flux on May 1, 2021
An astronaut on the Moon standing next to the American flag
partner

How the Cold War Arms Race Fueled a Sprint to the Moon

After the Soviet Union sent the first human safely into orbit, the U.S. government doubled down on its effort to win the race to the moon.
via Retro Report on April 11, 2021
Subject in sensory deprivation in 1957 isolation study

American Solitude

Notes toward a history of isolation.
by Jeffrey Mathias via Perspectives on History on February 17, 2021

The Empire of All Maladies

Indigenous scholars have long contested the “virgin-soil epidemics” thesis. Today, it is clear that the disease thesis simply doesn’t hold up.
by Nick Estes via The Baffler on July 6, 2020
Superman comic illustration

Why Superheroes Are the Shape of Tech Things to Come

Superman et al were invented amid feverish eugenic speculation: what does the superhero craze say about our own times?
by Iwan Rhys Morus via Aeon on March 5, 2020
Ed Dwight Jr. with model rocket.

I Was Poised to be the First Black Astronaut. I Never Made it to Space.

Ed Dwight Jr. trained to go to the moon, but racism in the selection process kept him out of space.
by Ben Proudfoot via New York Times Op-Docs on December 19, 2019
Picture of the Challenger Tragedy.
partner

Lessons From the Challenger Tragedy

Normalization of deviance is a useful concept that was developed to explain how the Challenger disaster happened.
via Retro Report on October 29, 2019
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