If you’re fascinated by the universe and by space travel there’s no place in the world able to offer the thrills and answer your questions like this museum. The Museum contains the largest collection of aircraft and spaceships on the planet. With its seven and a half million visitors, it’s the most popular museum in the USA, and second only to the Louvre worldwide.
Like many others, this museum is run by the Smithsonian Institution, and entry is free. Founded in 1946, it is housed in this building, designed by the architect Gyo Obata, of Japanese origin, in 1976.
The museum is made up of four large concrete cubes, linked in the center by a massive glass and steel pavilion, where visitors can admire the aircraft, the spaceships or the missiles. The west wall of the pavilion is actually a huge door, which can be removed completely: that’s how the aircraft are brought in. The museum is covered in the same Tennessee marble as the National Gallery. The Smithsonian did not want the museum to eclipse the Capitol Building, which is practically next to it, so a simple project was chosen that would blend smoothly with the architecture of the National Mall.
In the museum, you can see 61 airplanes and 51 space vehicles, as well as 2000 other flight-related exhibits, such as the command module of the Apollo 11, the first spaceship to take Man to the moon; the “Friendship 7”capsule that first took an astronaut - the American John Glenn - into orbit; the “Spirit of St. Louis”, with which Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic for the first time; or the “Bell X-1”, the rocket that broke the sound barrier. Right next to the entrance, you can admire the first airplane in history, the two-wing biplane flown by the Wright brothers.
Oh, and just before I go: here at the museum you can also admire one of the most famous spaceships in the world, although it’s never actually flown - the original model of the Star Trek “Enterprise”, which the Smithsonian experts have recently restored.
