S.I. National Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C.

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If you’ve visited Kennedy Space Center in Florida, than National Air and Space museum is not so impressive for you any more. I expected more, but let’s look this way: it is a museum, not an educational center, plus they have a planetarium, an IMAX Theater and old airplanes you can climb in (imagining you are back in time flying on AA airlines, for example.) When you look on that “Spirit of St. Louis “ plane (First Nonstop Solo Transatlantic Flight),the first thought that comes to mind is if can this thing, actually, fly from my township to the boarder of the next one on the map? Well, imagine 33hours 30 min inside on this machine; even nowadays, when I fly “transatlantic “ I cannot wait till 10 hours of comfortable staying on board come to end. Even 25000 or 2500000$$$$ wouldn’t make me fly that thing overseas. But almost a hundred years ago it inspired people. That makes me think how blessed we are with all this air and space progress. We didn’t have a whole day to explore the museum, but if you have one you’ll need it. My personal favorite is collection of medals and crosses from different countries that military people got rewarded with during the Second World War

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National Space & Air museum is the most popular museum in DC. I cant say that I enjoyed it much, ok I’m not really into planes and spacecrafts but the collection wasn’t so rich as I expected. Of course, there are some old and historical items like the Spirit of St. Louis in which Ch. Lindbergh made the first solo trans-Atlantic flight non stop or the original Wright 1903 flyer! Some people seemed to be impressed by things like Apollo 11 command module, I guess if you like aviation and space exhibits you will like it too but after 90’ inside there we got bored. It seems I use the planes only to travel.

There were many interactive sections that kids will love for sure and they also seemed to get impressed by the life size planes

The entrance is free and the open hours are:10.00-17.30 daily. The second part of the museum is located at Dulles Airport.

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Escaping from the rain, the museum was a good idea, though, as a matter of fact, I expected more from it. Maybe because I'd been in Cape Canaveral, I appreciated the way the interactive displays attracted the children, but the collection didn't seem very rich.

Anyway, we passed an interesting (and dry) couple of hours.

The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) is probably the most popular of the Smithsonian Institution museums on the Mall in Washington. Being a North Carolinian, I was first drawn there by the prospect of seeing the Wright Flyer which began this whole powered flight thing just 107 years ago. My next favorite attraction is the Spirit of St Louis in which Charles Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop Trans-Atlantic flight. There are many other aircraft, however, including spacecraft.

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It's a great place to go with kids, so many things that are interactive for them. The Museum maintains the largest collection of historic air and spacecraft in the world. However it is not only about flights, it is also a vital center for research into the history, science, and technology of aviation and space flight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics. So don't be surprised to see some lively interactive sections even explaining the Newtons & Kepler's laws to the kids!!
Some very interesting displays including the Wright 1903 Flyer; the Spirit of St. Louis; the Apollo 11 command module Columbia; and a Lunar rock sample that visitors can touch. We also liked the 'monkey astronaut' :-) Like kids we got excited seeing the infrared rays that we emit (see pics). Various interesting sections that help you 'Explore the Universe' & 'Explore the Planet'. Lot of trivia to soak in and an easy way to spend 3 hours. What we liked best was getting into the a/c, the heat on that particular day outside was unbearable! The food court offers Mc Cafe & Donato Pizzas, as usual we found surprisingly little for vegetarians here :-(

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The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport is the companion facility to the Museum on the National Mall. This building is amazing, both in size and exhibits.

There are so many aviation and space exhibits that you can easily spend an entire day there and still not see everything. A few of the exhibits that I liked the most were the Space Shuttle Enterprise, the Enola Gay, the Air France Concorde, the Langley Airdrome and the flight simulators.

Just for the record, I'm not talking pictures, these are the real thing. Life size planes stored in a giant, modern, hangar. Don't miss this one.

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This is the best and a can't miss museum in DC. This museum contains the largest collection chroncling the history of Air and space travel. from the first Wright brother's plane to the Hubble telescope, it's chronicled here.

The Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum is a wonderland for young and old. Every type of flying machine is represented with excellent stories and many artifacts from the different eras. You can stand under the aircraft and put yourself in another time and place. As one child said to another,"NEAT ", I must repeat the same thing,"Neat ". If you ever have looked to the sky, wanted to be up there,and sighed, then this is one museum not to miss.