Yesterday, I shared photos of Y’s and my trip to the Stephen Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum (NASM). Today, I have some photos of our stop at the NASM on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
I think of museums of technology, like the NASM, as a kind of technical communication medium. Of course, the work of the displays, diagrams, multimedia, and explanatory text are different kinds of technical communication created to facilitate learning, contextualization, and curiosity. But, the museum as a whole–the system of the museum and its totality, its holism–is a giant technical communication medium, too.
Most of the exhibits seemed similar to the last time that I had visited Washington in the late 1980s, but one notable change is the restoration of the shooting model of Star Trek’s USS-1701 Enterprise, which used to hang in the air but it now at eye-level and encased in plastic (last photos below).
After our visit, the NASM did a big renovation of the museum on the National Mall and the Udvar-Hazy Center (i.e., the replacement of Space Shuttle Enterprise with Discovery).
Above and below, you can see Charles Lindbergh’s Atlantic-crossing Spirit of St. Louis. More pictures of the historic air and spacecraft on display follow.
Spirit of St. Louis
Hughes H-1 Racer
Supermarine Spitfire HF. Mk. VIIc
North American P-51D Mustang
Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6/R3
Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a Schwalbe (Swallow)
Mitsubishi A6M5 Reisen (Zero Fighter) Model 52 ZEKE
North American X-15
Douglas D-558-2
Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Grumman X-29 full-scale model
SpaceShipOne and Bell X-1
SpaceShipOne
Bell X-1
John Glenn’s Spacesuit
Space Capsule Interior
Apollo 11 Command Module
Apollo Command Module Console
Lunar Module LM-2
Apollo-Soyuz Rendezvous Recreation
V-2 Rocket, Skylab, and V-1 Rocket
Viking Mars Lander
SAGE Core Memory Unit 11, IBM AN/FSQ-7
Boeing X-45A Unmanned Vehicle
Star Trek Shooting Model of the USS-1701 Enterprise
