The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of
historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world in 161,145 square feet of exhibition floor
space.
It was established in 1946, as the National Air Museum and opened its main building in
1976.
Located in Washington, D.C., United States, it is a center for research into the history
and science of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial
geology and geophysics.
Almost all space and aircraft on display are originals or backups to the originals.
It operates an annex, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, at Dulles International Airport, which
opened in 2003 and itself encompasses 760,000 square feet.
The museum currently conducts restoration of its collection at the Paul E. Garber Preservation,
Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland while steadily moving such restoration
and archival activities into its Udvar-Hazy annex facilities as of 2014.
Architecture
Because of the museum's close proximity to the United States Capitol, the Smithsonian
wanted a building that would be architecturally impressive but would not stand out too boldly
against the Capitol building.
St. Louis-based architect Gyo Obata of HOK designed the museum as four simple marble-encased
cubes containing the smaller and more theatrical exhibits, connected by three spacious steel-and-glass
atria which house the larger exhibits such as missiles, airplanes and spacecraft.
The mass of the museum is similar to the National Gallery of Art across the National Mall, and
uses the same pink Tennessee marble as the National Gallery.
Built by Gilbane Building Company, the museum was completed in 1976.
The west glass wall of the building is used for the installation of airplanes, functioning
as a giant door.
Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum also designed the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.
History The museum was originally called the National
Air Museum when formed on August 12, 1946 by an act of Congress and signed into law
by President Harry S. Truman.
Some pieces in the National Air and Space Museum collection date back to the 1876 Centennial
Exposition in Philadelphia after which the Chinese Imperial Commission donated a group
of kites to the Smithsonian after Smithsonian Secretary Spencer Fullerton Baird convinced
exhibiters that shipping them home would be too costly.
The Stringfellow steam engine intended for aircraft was added to the collection in 1889,
the first piece actively acquired by the Smithsonian now in the current NASM collection.
After the establishment of the museum, there was no one building that could hold all the
items to be displayed, many obtained from the United States Army and United States Navy
collections of domestic and captured aircraft from World War I. Some pieces were on display
in the Arts and Industries Building, some were stored in the Aircraft Building, a large
temporary metal shed in the Smithsonian Castle's south yard.
Larger missiles and rockets were displayed outdoors in what was known as Rocket Row.
The shed housed a large Martin bomber, a LePere fighter-bomber, and an Aeromarine 39B floatplane.
Still, much of the collection remained in storage due to a lack of display space.
The combination of the large numbers of aircraft donated to the Smithsonian after World War
II and the need for hangar and factory space for the Korean War drove the Smithsonian to
look for its own facility to store and restore aircraft.
The current Garber Facility was ceded to the Smithsonian by the Maryland-National Capital
Park and Planning Commission in 1952 after the curator Paul E. Garber spotted the wooded
area from the air.
Bulldozers from Fort Belvoir and prefabricated buildings from the United States Navy kept
the initial costs low.
The space race in the 1950s and 1960s led to the renaming of the museum to the National
Air and Space Museum, and finally congressional passage of appropriations for the construction
of the new exhibition hall, which opened July 1, 1976 at the height of the United States
Bicentennial festivities under the leadership of Director Michael Collins, who had flown
to the Moon on Apollo 11.
The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center opened in 2003, funded by a private donation.
The museum received COSTAR, the corrective optics instrument installed in the Hubble
Space Telescope during its first servicing mission, when it was removed and returned
to Earth after Space Shuttle mission STS-125.
The museum also holds the backup mirror for the Hubble which, unlike the one that was
launched, was ground to the correct shape.
There were once plans for it to be installed to the Hubble itself, but plans to return
the satellite to Earth were scrapped after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003;
the mission was re-considered as too risky.
The Smithsonian has also been promised the International Cometary Explorer, which is
currently in a solar orbit that occasionally brings it back to Earth, should NASA attempt
to recover it.
The Air & Space Museum announced a two-year renovation of its main entrance hall, "Milestones
of Flight" in April 2014.
The renovation to the main hall was funded by a $30 million donation from Boeing.
The gift, which will be paid over seven years, is the largest corporate donation ever received
by the Air & Space Museum.
Boeing had previously given donations totaling $58 million.
The hall will be renamed the "Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall".
The renovation began in April 2014, and will involve the temporary removal of some exhibits
before the hall is refurbished.
Because some exhibits represent century-old achievements which no longer resonate with
the public, some items will be moved to other locations in the museum while new exhibits
are installed.
The first new exhibit, a 1930s wind tunnel, will be installed in November 2014.
When finished, the hall will present a "more orderly" appearance, and allow room for the
placement of future new exhibits.
The renovation will also include the installation of a "media wall" and touch-screen information
kiosks to allow visitors to learn about items on display.
An additional gift from Boeing is funding the renovation of the "How Things Fly" children's
exhibit, new museum educational programming, and the creation of an accredited course on
flight and space technology for elementary and secondary school teachers.
Controversies Controversy erupted in March 1994 over a proposed
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Japan.
The centerpiece of the exhibit was the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the A-bomb
on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Veterans' groups, led by the Air Force Association and The Retired Officers Association, argued
strongly that the exhibit's inclusion of Japanese accounts and photographs of victims politicized
the exhibit and insulted U.S. airmen.
Also disputed was the predicted number of U.S. casualties that would have resulted from
an invasion of Japan, had that been necessary, after the museum director, Martin O. Harwit,
unilaterally reduced the figure by 75% on January 9, 1995, at the height of the dispute.
On January 18 the American Legion called for a congressional investigation of the matter,
and on January 24, 1995, 81 members of Congress called for Harwit's resignation.
Harwit was forced to resign on May 2.
Although the exhibit was "radically reduced" and criticized by the New York Times as "the
most diminished display in Smithsonian history," the Air and Space Museum placed the forward
fuselage of the Enola Gay and other items on display as part of a non-political historical
exhibition.
Within a year, it had drawn more than a million visitors, making it the most popular special
exhibition in the history of the NASM, and when the exhibition closed in May 1998, it
had drawn nearly four million visitors.
On October 8, 2011, the museum was temporarily closed after demonstrators associated with
the Occupy D.C. demonstration attempted to enter the museum.
Some protesters were pepper sprayed by museum security after a guard was pinned against
a wall.
One woman was arrested.
On December 5, 2013, Smithsonian food workers protested about a living wage.
A journalist was detained for illicit filming.
Directors Carl W. Mitman was the first head of the museum,
under the title of Assistant to the Secretary for the National Air Museum, heading the museum
from 1946 until his retirement from the Smithsonian in 1952.
Directors have included Philip S. Hopkins, 1958-1964, S. Paul Johnston, 1964-1969, Frank
A. Taylor, 1969-1971, Michael Collins, 1971–1978, Melvin B. Zisfein, 1978-1979, Noel W. Hinners,
1979-1982, Walter J. Boyne, James C. Tyler, 1986-1987, Martin O. Harwit, 1987-1995, Donald
D. Engen, 1996-1999, and John R. Dailey, 2000–present Gallery of exhibits
The main museum on the mall includes 61 aircraft, 51 large space artifacts, over 2,000 smaller
items as of June 1, 2007.
Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory
Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory open doors to public in 2009 as part of the celebration
of the International Year of Astronomy.
It has a 16-inch Boller & Chivens telescope, a Sun Gun Telescope and hydrogen-alpha and
calcium-K telescopes.
The observatory opens to public from Wednesdays through Sundays from noon to 3 P.M. and is
open once a month at night time.
Fellowships
The museum has four research fellowships: Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History
the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Fellowship, the Verville Fellowship, and the Postdoctoral
Earth and Planetary Sciences Fellowship.
The Lindbergh Chair is a one-year senior fellowship to assist a scholar in the research and composition
of a book about aerospace history.
Announced in 1977 at the 50th anniversary of Lindbergh's famous solo flight, 1978 was
the first year that the Lindbergh Chair was occupied—British aviation historian Charles
Harvard Gibbs-Smith was selected as the first recipient.
See also Continuum a sculpture that sits on the south
side of the building entrance.
Delta Solar a sculpture that sits on the west side of the building.
List of aerospace museums Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
National Air and Space Museum Film Archive References
External links Official website
American Institute of Architects on the building rocket displays outside Arts and Industries
building prior to construction of Air and Space Museum
'Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, virtual walk through of the past NASM exhibit