All NASA astronaut groups were given a series of survival courses to prepare them for expected landings in remote, inhospitable areas. The objective of preparing the crews this way was to give them confidence and the ability to deal with an emergency or…
The 21st century has arrived, and yet so many of the technologies people take for granted today look remarkably similar to visions that were sketched out on paper decades ago. That is not a coincidence. The years between 1958 and 1963 represent what man…
The early days of space exploration were marked by groundbreaking achievements, from historic Moon landings to awe-inspiring spacewalks. These iconic NASA images capture the spirit of an era when humanity took its first steps beyond Earth. NASA’s origins…
All NASA craft must undergo complete testing through one of the administration’s 42 major wind tunnels and it’s cleared for liftoff once all the parameters are reached. These wind tunnels range from just a few inches wide to cavernous enough to test ful…
Before the they walked on the moon on July 20, 1969, the Apollo program astronauts trained in Flagstaff, a small city nestled in a forest of ponderosa pines at the base of the San Francisco Peaks, Arizona’s tallest mountains. In fact, all 24 astronauts …
The future once looked like a promise of endless possibilities, with flying cars humming above neon-lit cities and meals arriving in pill form at the push of a button. This vision, known as retrofuturism, captures how people of the past imagined the world w…
For centuries, the term “computer” meant a person, often a woman, performing complex calculations by hand. By the late 19th century, these human computers became the unsung heroes of numerous scientific advancements. Alan Turing described the "human comp…
As the 20th century unfolded, photographers were on a mission to capture the world's evolution. They snapped away at everything from the chaos of war to the birth of new inventions, as well as the everyday weird and wonderful sights. Think about Boston's…
On Christmas Day in 1968, the Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were delighted to find a surprise in their food locker: a specially packed Christmas dinner, complete with red and green ribbons. This "home-cooked" meal, as close to a…
The 20th century marked a significant period of evolution in the field of robotics, ushering in a transformative era of technological advancement. Starting with the term itself, coined by Czech playwright Karel Čapek in his play "R.U.R." (Rossum's Unive…
The office has transformed dramatically through the last decades: in layout, style, colors, work culture, and in technology. These decades saw the worker become more individualistic, with office design becoming more ergonomic and more high tech. It wasn’…
Humanity has always tried to predict what the future would look like and this vintage photo collection shows predictions that were either a hit or a miss. While some people actually managed to predict it rather accurately, many of them look pretty hilarious…
For thousands of years, humans could only speculate what the Earth looked like. This changed on August 23, 1966, when the world received its first view of Earth taken by a spacecraft from the vicinity of the Moon. The photo was shot from a distance of a…
TIME magazine decided to create a list of the 100 most influential pictures ever taken. They teamed up with curators, historians, photo editors, and famous photographers around the world for this task. "No formula makes for iconic photos," the editors said. …
Apollo 11 was the climax of the Apollo program, which pushed human spaceflight forward faster than ever before. In October 1968, the first crewed flight of the Apollo program lifted off; less than a year later, Apollo 11 launched. Within just a few s…