Air and Space Museum Sparks Imagination in Kids of Every Age
Written: Aug 21 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Planes, rockets, spaceships, and more...
Cons: Food court, high IMAX prices
The Bottom Line: What kid doesn't dream of space travel? This is the museum that makes such dreams real...
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: National Air & Space Museum |
In a city like Washington, a place just jam packed with things to see, a few sights manage to claw their way to the top of the heap. The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is definitely one of the places on top! It’s an exciting place that sparks imagination and that chronicles one of the most important technologies of the 20th century.
On Exhibit...
The problem with the Air and Space Museum is figuring out where to begin. There is just simply so much to see and touch and do that you really should try to prioritize based on your own interests. If you think that the innovation and guts of early aviation pioneers is the most fantastic thing about aeronautical museums, then head to the right after you enter the museum and check out the galleries on the west end of the building first. That's where you'll find things like the Wright brothers' original kite-like craft that earned them their spot in history books almost exactly a century ago (it was 1903 when Orville and Wilbur took their flimsy looking contraption out onto the dunes of Kitty Hawk).
The west wing is where you also find exhibits about World War I aircraft, about World War II aircraft, about aircraft carriers, about the development of jet engines, and about much, much more. The west wing is home to Lindbergh's original "Spirit of St. Louis" and it's home to what most aviation people consider to be the single most important aircraft to the commercial aviation business -- the Douglas DC-3 -- hanging from the ceiling in its Eastern Airlines regalia, alongside other famous aircraft of the early 20th century, like the Ford Tri-Motor.
The east wing is no slouch for exciting exhibits either. That's the side where you'll find most of the exhibits dealing with rocketry and space exploration. The granddaddy exhibit here is the original Apollo 11 command module.
The incredible thing about this particularly museum -- the factor that really puts it a head and a shoulder above any other aeronautical museum -- is that the vast bulk of its exhibits are the real McCoy. I've seen replicas of some of these aircraft -- like the ersatz Spirit of St. Louis that sits in the aviation museum in San Diego -- but the Smithsonian shows you the real deal. It shows things that you just can't see anywhere else.
I love the depth of information that's shown in exhibits, and the way that some exhibits seem to go off on a tangent to delve into, for example, the workings of a piston. Have you ever wondered why early military aircraft didn't just keep shooting their own propellers off? (Some, in fact, did, leading to the timing mechanism that let non-suicidal pilots fly too -- learn about it in the museum's west wing.)
It's good to have so many exhibits that youngsters can actually climb in and touch, though I still wish there were even more of 'em. My daughter was a little disappointed in the DC-7, which turned out to be all of about 10 feet worth of plane and which currently doesn't even have any seats in place (the sign says they're out for renovation).
I could read the wall plaques for days! Longest this, first that, highest, fastest, shortest, everywhere you turn there's another record breaking aircraft. I wonder about some of the "records" though. What is the significance of the "Ole Miss", which took 27 days to fly around Meridien Mississippi (hmmm....sounds to me like he must have been the first guy to work for United).
Of course there are plenty of aircraft that you can easily identify with -- like the first jet fighter (the Messerchmidt Me 262).
Over in the rockets and aerospace galleries there are plenty of big firsts and fastests too. Like the Apollo-Soyuz linkup. Like the backup SkyLab module -- precursor to today's big Space Station project. Not to mention things like a World War II V2 rocket.
In terms of raw science value, it's hard to beat the bang for the buck that comes from unmanned rockets and remote sensing satellites. That's why I like the galleries on observing earth from space -- not to mention the towering full-size mock-up of the Hubble Space Telescope. We hear so much about this engineering wonder, but I wonder if many people realize that it's no small thing -- it's easily bigger than a tractor trailer and it's been hurled into space. Amazing stuff...just amazing.
What I've described is only the beginning to what you'll see when you visit the National Air and Space Museum. For every exhibit that I mentioned, there are dozens that I overlooked. It's a big museum. Really big...in fact, I think I'll take in a show to give me legs a rest.
Show Time!
Federal law (89 U.S.C. 243.4(c)) stipulates that all new museums in the United States must have at least one IMAX theatre -- preferably several -- and that admission prices should be based on the cost of procuring nail clippers for the Pentagon.
The National Air and Space Museum isn't that new, but it still conforms to the law with its gigantic IMAX theatre, which of course, charges gigantic admission prices ($7.50 for adults, $6 for kids under 12) to see the little short flicks (28 to 40 minutes) that they present.
I have a soft spot in my heart for this particular IMAX theatre, since it's the first one I ever saw. To its credit, the museum is still showing the movie that made this IMAX famous -- To Fly -- which in my (very, very) humble opinion, is the best darn use of IMAX technology ever to grace the silver screen.
Unfortunately, To Fly only shows once a day, so you might want to check the schedule ahead of time if you plan to see this classic. The theatre is currently sporting two much newer features -- Straight Up and Space Station 3D. My daughter wanted to see Straight Up, so we did the virtual helicopter ride thing. It was a pretty cool experience, though it was getting a bit tired by the end of the 40 minute running time. It was okay, but I probably won't want to see it again...
Even better than the IMAX theatre is the museum's Albert Einstein Planetarium. Sit back and check out the view of the cosmos, which is based on actual images from real NASA spacecraft, including the Hubble Space Telescope. The only thing I can think of that's as astronomical as these images is the admission prices that the museum charges you to see it -- also $7.50 for adults.
All that movie watching and star gazing gives me the munchies. Think I'll head to the cafeteria...
Eats...
Food used to be a big problem for Smithsonian visitors, but no more.
When I used to visit the Smithsonian as a kid, they had an institutional style cafeteria upstairs in the American History museum (which was then called History and Technology), so we always hoofed it several blocks to the nearest Scholls.
In the 1970s, they had a nice restaurant in the Associates Court, and my family would go there sometimes for the Sunday brunch. My, oh my, how times change!
Now there are food courts and cafes in just about eery Smithsonian building, and the Air and Space Museum sports this huge glassed in pavilion annex that's basically a gigantic McDonalds. Service here is even more surly than you've ever experienced at your worst McDonalds nightmare. It's mostly due to the assembly-line "team service approach" where one person keys in your order, then you pay another person, then you walk to a counter and pick up your "food". I suppose it's all very efficient for a facility designed to churn out precisely 5,780,394 burgers per minute, but the facility (I refuse to call it a "restaurant") is impersonal as all get out and it goes without saying that the food is just as bad -- after all, it is still a McDonalds.
The only thing I can say in the Air and Space Museum food court's favor is that there do exist alternatives. You can order a Boston Chicken, or you can by-pass the McDonalds and stroll upstairs where the folks at the Smithsonian have hidden the almost palatable sandwiches, soup, salads and pizza.
The good thing about this overgrown grease warehouse is that you don't have to think and you don't have to figure out where to find something to eat -- which has historically been a very real problem when visiting the Smithsonian. Seriously though, the food is better in almost every other Smithsonian museum on the mall, but for kids without taste buds, and for big tour groups (up to about the size of the population of China), well, the industrial McDonalds in the Air and Space Museum is probably your safe bet. As we say in the land of fries and toast, "Bon apetit".
Need More Airplanes???
Until recently, visitors who just can't get enough of air and space could schedule tours of the Paul Garber restoration facility, located about 10 miles east in nearby Suitland. The tour was a fabulous, real-life look at aircraft restoration. But in a monument to pork, mindless bickering, and modern suburban sensibilities, the Smithsonian built a huge hangar far out in the wilds of Virginia exurbia at Dulles Inconvenient Airport (IAD). All I can say is what a shame that the museum bigwigs couldn't have put this exhibit where people could actually get to it -- like at close-in and Metro accessible National Airport (DCA) -- the attendance would easily have been double what it will be by being out in the sticks.
The new hangar (dubbed the Steven Udvar-Hazy Center) will open at the end of this year. Until that happens, there are no tours available of the Smithsonian's vast array of aircraft in storage.
Logistics
The National Air and Space Museum is located on the Mall towards the Capitol end at Sixth Street and Independence Avenue. Regular hours are 10am to 5:30pm, with expanded summer hours until 7:30pm. There is no convenient parking nearby, unless you luck into finding a street spot. The best way to get here is by Metro (L'Enfant is the closest station, but I prefer using Smithsonian so I can walk along the Mall for a couple blocks and maybe do a carrousel ride). Like all Smithsonian Museums, admission is free (the most poetic word in the English language), but you'll still need that gold card if you want to see the IMAX or planetarium shows, or if you want to eat, or if you want to prowl around the large, 2-level gift shop).
Official info about the museum is online at: www.nasm.si.edu
Bottom Line
The National Air and Space Museum is, quite simply, the best aeronautical museum in the United States. It is a wonderful place that captures the spirit of aviation and of technological innovation. While I find lots of things about the museum that I don't really care for, and I honestly feel that it was an even better museum 20 years ago, it doesn't change the fact that this is an amazing place -- simply amazing. It's intelligent, it's insightful, and it's a bit magical. It's also a huge place, and it fully deserves a full day to explore if you really want to get the most out of the experience.
In a city filled with museums and monuments, this is definitely one of the five best things to see in Washington, D.C. Don't miss it!
Until next time, see you on the road. As always, I'll be the tightwad looking for great deals that I can rave about, all the while making snide comments about anything designed to suck the dollars out of my wallet.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Students
Best Time to Travel Here: Mar - May
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