The National Air and Space Museum has the largest historic collection of aircraft and spacecraft and in addition to that it is the second-most popular of the Smithsonian museums! It is easy to believe that the space reaches an area of 161,145 square feet when it is taken into account that full size aircraft are suspended from the ceiling and displayed on the floor level. This museum is a great place to brush up on aircraft history.
Wikepedia was helpful in supplying facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Air_and_Space_Museum
Also visit the official website: http://www.nasm.si.edu/
The interactive exhibits make a visit to the Air and Space museum more exciting. This exhibit allows visitors a glimpse of the inside of an aircraft.
The Spirit of St Louis hangs suspended from the ceiling of the National Air and Space Museum. The aerial view provides a different perspective. It can be viewed from both the first and second floors. Before our tour continues, I would like to uncover some history. The foremost fact that’s in most school textbooks is that The Spirit of St Louis was flown by Charles A. Lindbergh on May 20-21, 1927. He completed the first solo transatlantic flight in history! Even more impressive back in that day, is that it was accomplished in 33 hours and 30 minutes.
This beauty, known as the Boeing X-45A, is specifically designed for combat operations. My interest is not particularly in aircraft, but this swift-wing Boeing spiked aroused my curiosity. Its use is for combat so it carries two internal weapon bays in the fuselage. With the availability of more modern technology, new Boeings have been created such as the C version which has a greater fuel capacity to allow longer flight.
To end this section, I wanted to include this propelled vehicle that reminds me of the movie “Fly Away Home.” The movie is about a young girl who raises a flock of geese and leads them in a vehicle much like this through the migration route.
Exploring the Planets
Our solar system is what keeps our planets in motion. The sun is what keeps a gravitational hold on the planets to keep them in orbit. I do not believe this was an accident, but the result of a all powerful God who spoke and it was so.
This full-scale replica should help give you an idea of what Voyager 2 really looked like. It visited the realms of the outer planets including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. According to Wikipedia on December 15, 2011 of this year, it has been operating 34 years, 3 months, and 25 days!
The Viking program was the most expensive mission ever sent to Mars with a price tag of about 1 billion US dollars! “Its main purpose was to obtain high-resolution images of the Martian surface, characterize the the structure and composition of both the surface and atmosphere, and search for evidence that life on Mars exists” (Wikipedia Viking Program).
For the billions who will never set foot on the moon, the National Air and Space Museum gives the opportunity to feel part of space travel. Space travel has come a long way and the few that have lost their lives in those efforts, deserve to have their name down in the history books. Though they have not literally fought in battle for our country, they have fought the battle in discovering the secrets of what lies beyond our home planet, Earth. I hope you have enjoyed this tour and I look forward to sharing more entries with you in the future!