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National Air and Space Museum

The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the United States' Smithsonian Institution maintains the largest collection of aircraft and spacecraft in the world. Its notable exhibits include:

The original Wright Flyer that made the first controlled, powered flight in 1903

The Spirit of St. Louis, in which Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean

The Bell X-1, in which Chuck Yeager made the first supersonic flight

A reconstructed V-2 rocket, the first type of man-made object to reach space

The command module of Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the moon

One of the very few lunar rock samples accessible to the public (visitors can even touch it)

The lunar rock sample displayed at the National Air and Space Museum

The main exhibit hall of the museum is on the National Mall in Washington, DC, and is one of the most popular tourist destinations of the city. In addition to the rooms crowded with historic aircraft and other artifacts, there is an IMAX theater and the Albert Einstein Planetarium.

The museum's total collection numbers over 30,000 aviation-related and 9,000 space-related artifacts, and is thus larger than will fit in the main Swarovski hall. Many of the aircraft are at the Garber Restoration Facility in Suitland, Maryland.

A collectors case, curio cabinet, collectors cabinet or a display cabinet can represent the rounding off gift. It seizes the collection developed in the course of the years, protects and decorates it.

In addition, the museum has an annex, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, located near Dulles Airport, opened on December 15, 2003. It will eventually have 200 aircraft (Small, 2003) and 135 spacecraft on display, and its notable exhibits already include:

The B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay, the first plane from which a nuclear weapon was dropped

The prototype for the Boeing 707 airliner, known as the Boeing 367-80 or "Dash 80"

An SR-71 Blackbird high-altitude, high-speed stealth reconaissance aircraft

A Concorde, the famous model of supersonic airliner

The prototype space shuttle Enterprise

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

Some of these aircraft were too large for NASM's main hall. The Center was made possible by a 65 million USD gift in October 1999 to the Smithsonian Institution by Steven F. Udvar-Hazy, an immigrant from Hungary and co-founder of the International Lease Finance Corporation (Small, 2003). Construction of the Center required fifteen years of preparation (Triplett, 2003).

The NASM was designed by noted architect I. M. Pei. The Museum has a research department, archives, and library.

External link

NASM website (http://www.nasm.si.edu)

References

Small, L. M. (2003, December). A century's roar and buzz: Thanks to an immigrant's generosity, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center opens to the public. In From the Secretary. Smithsonian, 34, 20.

Triplett, W. (2003, December). Hold everything! Smithsonian, 34, 59.

Swarovski