Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall

Note: Artifacts in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall will be removed and relocated to prepare for construction work to begin in the space next year. There will be noticeable changes to the hall starting October 2021 and continuing through February 2022.

This exhibition celebrates some of the most significant airplanes, rockets, and spacecraft in history. They tell tales of ingenuity and courage, war and peace, politics and power, as well as society and culture. These milestones have made our planet smaller and the universe larger.

Among the achievements celebrated here: Charles Lindbergh's solo trip across the Atlantic in his Spirit of St. Louis; the first American jet aircraft, the Bell XP-59A Airacomet; the Bell X-1 in which "Chuck" Yeager first broke the mythical "sound barrier;" the Mercury capsule Friendship 7 flown by John Glenn; Mariner, Pioneer, and Viking planetary explorers; and the first privately-developed, piloted vehicle to reach space, SpaceShipOne.

This exhibition opened to mark the 100th anniversary of Boeing and the 40th anniversary of the opening of the NASM Mall building in July 1976.