Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum
We had a wonderful visit to the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum at Washington D.C. It is free for view. It is dedicated to the human flight and space exploration. It represents the historical development of science of spaceflight and Aviation as well as planetary science. This museum came into being in 1946 by the act passed and signed by the President Harry S Truman.
The flagship building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C, exhibits aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, rockets, and other flight-related artifacts.Approximately half of the Museum is currently open, featuring eight all-new galleries, a renovated planetarium, new store, and cafe.
It displays so many models of air crafts right from the time man entered into the air and also various air crafts used for civil use as well as for war purposes. Even a standard visit of the museum requires minimum 2- 4 hours. It is so big and so many variety of items are on display that you feel a need to spare more time to see everything in details. We can see the birth of military aviation during the World War One.The main museum on the mall includes 61 aircraft, 51 large space artifacts, over 2,000 smaller items as of June 1, 2007.
Wilbur and Orville Wright invented a successful airplane quickly and with little help that might suggest sheer genius were at work. Certainly the brothers were very talented and bright. They were just a bicycle mechanics, working nearly alone and with little formal scientific training , solve a problem as different as heavier than air flight. The brothers spent four years of research and development to create the first successful powered aeroplane. . The Wright Brothers built bicycles before inventing the aeroplane. They borrowed some ideas from bicycles, like the chain and sprocket concept to link the engine and the propellers.
There we also saw the stone on display , which was brought by the crew members of Apollo 17, the last Apollo Lunar Mission as a sample brought to earth in December 1972. It is well preserved. You can have glimpses of it and also touch it from outside. You can see a sign board – Touch a piece of the Moon in the exhibition hall.
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