Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

Kirby Ewald

A Century of Ella Jenkins: Tributes to the First Lady of Children’s Music

To celebrate Ella Jenkins on her hundredth birthday in August, we asked a group of musicians how Ella has inspired them.

A young girl pulls strands on an oversized, multicolor basket.

The 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival Guide for Kids and Families

Two children and an adult sit on three swings in a dry landscape with trees in the background.

Filmmaker Billy Luther Explains How Frybread Face and Me Was a Labor of Love

Eating canned food in space. (NASA)

I’ll have the Veal! Preservation with a Can-Do Attitude

Artist’s conception of the Perseverance rover sampling rocks on the floor of Jezero crater. The rover also carries the Ingenuity helicopter (not shown) that can fly in advance of the rover and scout out high priority rocks and outcrops for the rover to visit. (NASA)

Is There Life on Mars?

Alan Shepard on the lunar surface of the Moon during Apollo 14 mission. Photographed by Edgar D. Mitchell still inside Antares. (NASA)

Lessons from Apollo 14

Two prominent lobate thrust fault scarps on Mercury, Discovery Rupes and Beagles Rupes, imaged by Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) on the MESSENGER spacecraft. Discovery Rupes (left), named for the ship HMS Discovery, shown here in a MDIS high-incidence angle image mosaic, was first imaged by Mariner 10 in the mid-1970’s. Beagle Rupes (right), a bow-shaped fault scarp, was initial imaged during MESSENGER’s first flyby.

Mercury, The Not So Shrunken Planet

The Doomsday Machine, a cone-shaped planet destroyer, from Star Trek: The Original Series (1966). (Image courtesy of CBS Television Studios)

My Favorite Classic Star Trek Episode

Three-quarter left front view of Cessna BW-5 (r/n C6623, National Air Races race no. 98) on the ground, possibly at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York, circa September 1928. Posed standing beside nose of aircraft are pilot Francis D.

Francis D. Bowhan: Osage Pilot

Informal classroom portrait of teacher Herbert Stephen Desind (1945-1992), wearing a reproduction Apollo-era spacesuit, holding an American flag; circa 1980s.  Desind was a space flight aficionado, and his collection of photographs of aircraft and spacecraft was donated to the National Air and Space Museum in 1997. This image is part of the Herbert Stephen Desind Collection.

Herbert Desind: A Passion for Spaceflight

Arthur C. Clarke poses for a photo while he sits at his desk, circa 1969.

Famous Correspondents of Arthur C. Clarke

A low-lying topographic depression known as Margaritifer basin. (Sharon A. Wilson, John A. Grant, and Kevin K. Williams (2020), Geologic Map of Morava Valles and Margaritifer basin, Mars, MTM Quadrangles -10022 and -15022, 1:500,000 scale, USGS Scientific Investigations Map, in press.)

Geologic Maps: Where Science Meets Art

The waxing gibbous Moon as we viewed it on December 3, 2011.

The Moon: Before We Knew

The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Surface System Test-Bed (SSTB) is nearly identical to the MER twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity that landed on Mars in 2004. Photo by Mark Avino, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM2020-00501).

A Mars Rover Lands in Virginia

Ruth Law stands in front of her Wright Model B biplane at the New York State Fair, Yonkers, 1913.

Women's Suffrage Stories in the Archives

The Hope spacecraft of the United Arab Emirates' Emirates Mars Mission during testing.

Launching Hope to Mars