1981 NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM Fifth Anniversary PIN Button BADGE Washington

Description

AIR AND SPACE ANNIVERSARY BUTTON
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2-1/4" litho, "1976-1981, National Air and Space Museum Fifth Anniversary"
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The
National Air and Space Museum
(
NASM
) of the
Smithsonian Institution
holds the largest collection of historic
aircraft
and
spacecraft
in the world in 161,145 square feet (14,970.9 m
2
) of exhibition floor space.
[2]
It was established in 1946, as the National Air Museum and opened its main building near
L'Enfant Plaza
in 1976. In 2014, the museum saw approximately 6.7 million visitors, making it the 5th most visited museum in the world.
[1]
Located in
Washington, D.C.
, United States, it is a center for research into the history and science of
aviation
and
spaceflight
, as well as
planetary
science and terrestrial
geology
and
geophysics
.
[2]
Almost all space and aircraft on display are originals or backups to the originals. It operates an annex, the
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
, at
Dulles International Airport
, which opened in 2003 and itself encompasses 760,000 square feet (71,000 m
2
). The museum currently conducts restoration of its collection at the
Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility
in
Suitland, Maryland
while steadily moving such restoration and archival activities into its Udvar-Hazy annex facilities as of 2014.
Architecture
[
edit
]
The
Milestones of Flight
entrance hall of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Among the visible aircraft are
Spirit of St. Louis
, the
Apollo 11
command module,
Space Ship One
, and
Bell X-1
.
Macchi C.202
&
Mustang P-51D
Because of the museum's close proximity to the
United States Capitol
, the Smithsonian wanted a building that would be architecturally impressive but would not stand out too boldly against the Capitol building.
St. Louis
-based architect
Gyo Obata
of
HOK
designed the museum as four simple
marble
-encased cubes containing the smaller and more theatrical exhibits, connected by three spacious steel-and-glass atria which house the larger exhibits such as missiles, airplanes and spacecraft. The mass of the museum is similar to the
National Gallery of Art
across the
National Mall
, and uses the same pink
Tennessee marble
as the National Gallery.
[3]
Built by Gilbane Building Company, the museum was completed in 1976. The west glass wall of the building is used for the installation of airplanes, functioning as a giant door.
[4]
Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum also designed the
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
in Virginia. Built by Gilbane Building Company, the museum was completed in 1976.
History
[
edit
]
The museum was originally called the
National Air Museum
when formed on August 12, 1946 by an act of
Congress
and signed into law by President
Harry S. Truman
.
[5]
[6]
Some pieces in the National Air and Space Museum collection date back to the 1876
Centennial Exposition
in
Philadelphia
after which the Chinese Imperial Commission donated a group of kites to the Smithsonian after Smithsonian Secretary Spencer Fullerton Baird convinced exhibiters that shipping them home would be too costly. The
Stringfellow
steam engine intended for aircraft was added to the collection in 1889, the first piece actively acquired by the Smithsonian now in the current NASM collection.
[7]
After the establishment of the museum, there was no one building that could hold all the items to be displayed, many obtained from the
United States Army
and
United States Navy
collections of domestic and captured aircraft from
World War I
. Some pieces were on display in the
Arts and Industries Building
, some were stored in the Aircraft Building (also known as the "Tin Shed"), a large temporary metal shed in the Smithsonian Castle's south yard. Larger missiles and rockets were displayed outdoors in what was known as Rocket Row. The shed housed a large Martin bomber, a
LePere fighter-bomber
, and an
Aeromarine 39B
floatplane
. Still, much of the collection remained in storage due to a lack of display space.
[7]
The combination of the large numbers of aircraft donated to the Smithsonian after
World War II
and the need for hangar and factory space for the
Korean War
drove the Smithsonian to look for its own facility to store and restore aircraft. The current Garber Facility was ceded to the Smithsonian by the
Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission
in 1952 after the curator
Paul E. Garber
spotted the wooded area from the air. Bulldozers from
Fort Belvoir
and prefabricated buildings from the
United States Navy
kept the initial costs low.
The
space race
in the 1950s and 1960s led to the renaming of the museum to the National Air and Space Museum, and finally congressional passage of appropriations for the construction of the new exhibition hall,
[8]
which opened July 1, 1976 at the height of the
United States Bicentennial
festivities under the leadership of Director
Michael Collins
, who had flown to the Moon on
Apollo 11
. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center opened in 2003, funded by a private donation.
The museum received
COSTAR
, the corrective optics instrument installed in the
Hubble Space Telescope
during its first servicing mission (
STS-61
), when it was removed and returned to Earth after
Space Shuttle
mission
STS-125
. The museum also holds the backup mirror for the Hubble which, unlike the one that was launched, was ground to the correct shape. There were once plans for it to be installed to the Hubble itself, but plans to return the satellite to Earth were scrapped after the
Space Shuttle
Columbia
disaster
in 2003; the mission was re-considered as too risky.
The Smithsonian has also been promised the
International Cometary Explorer
, which is currently in a solar orbit that occasionally brings it back to Earth, should NASA attempt to recover it.
The Air & Space Museum announced a two-year renovation of its main entrance hall, "Milestones of Flight" in April 2014. The renovation to the main hall (which had not received a major update since the museum opened in 1976) was funded by a million donation from
Boeing
. The gift, which will be paid over seven years, is the largest corporate donation ever received by the Air & Space Museum. Boeing had previously given donations totaling million. The hall will be renamed the "Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall". The renovation (whose total cost was not revealed) began in April 2014, and will involve the temporary removal of some exhibits before the hall is refurbished. Because some exhibits represent century-old achievements which no longer resonate with the public, some items will be moved to other locations in the museum while new exhibits are installed. The first new exhibit, a 1930s wind tunnel, will be installed in November 2014. When finished, the hall will present a "more orderly" appearance, and allow room for the placement of future new exhibits (which will include moving the filming model of the
USS Enterprise
from the original 1960s
Star Trek
television series into the hall). The renovation will also include the installation of a "media wall" and touch-screen information kiosks to allow visitors to learn about items on display. An additional gift from Boeing is funding the renovation of the "How Things Fly" children's exhibit, new museum educational programming, and the creation of an
accredited
course on flight and space technology for elementary and secondary school teachers.
[9]
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