National Air and Space Museum: Spacetastic!
Written: Dec 30 '03 (Updated Mar 12 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: the Spirit of St. Louis is on display here
Cons: dirty carpets, crowded, bad food, bad food service employees, broken elevators
The Bottom Line: If you like planes and space stuff, the National Air and Space Museum should be fun. If you want clean carpets, no crowds and a good restaurant, go someplace else.
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| jdhauer's Full Review: National Air & Space Museum |
The National Air and Space Museum is the most popular of the various museums run by the Smithsonian Institution. It features exhibits that appeal to all ages, ranging from the very young to the most elderly. Here, you can trace the history of manned flight from its humble start in hot air balloons over the rooftops of Paris to the most recent explorations into the deepest and darkest vacuum of outer space.
Exhibits that Cost Money
There are three exhibits at the National Air and Space Museum that charge admission. The remainder of the museum is 100% free to visitors. These exhibits are the Flight Simulator, the Albert Einstein Planetarium and the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater.
My favorite is the IMAX Theater because there is usually a film showing that the entire family can enjoy. I've seen many films here and my favorite ones are not in the current rotation. Currently you can see "Space Station 3D", "Straight Up! Helicopters in Action" and "To Fly!". My all-time favorite film is "The Dream Is Alive" which was filmed aboard the space shuttle specifically for the IMAX Theater at the National Air and Space Museum. I also recall enjoying "Everest" which was filmed on Mount Everest in the Himalayas and "Hail Columbia!" which is about the space shuttle Columbia here. In case you did not know, the space shuttle Columbia was smashed to bits upon re-entry from space to the Earth earlier this year so I do not think that "Hail Columbia!" will be shown in the future at the National Air and Space Museum's Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater.
Free Exhibits
As I previously mentioned, everything else is free and there is a lot of everything else! This is the National Air and Space Museum, so obviously you're going to see exhibits about air flight and international space flight. About half of the exhibits are about airplanes and the other half concern space flight.
There are planes and rockets and space capsules and lunar landers on display. There are hands on exhibits where you can learn all about aerodynamics and what pitch and yar and lift and drag are by using various displays and experimenting for yourself.
The actual Spirit of St. Louis airplane is on display! You can't miss it - just look up! Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly unaccompanied across the Atlantic Ocean from the United States to France which is in Europe. That was a very long way to fly back then. It's still a long way to fly today but jet engines are more efficient and are more powerful and are bigger now than they were back then. So, today it does not take as long to fly from the United States to France as it did back then. For example, when I flew from the United States to France in April, it did not take as long as it took Charles Lindbergh to fly from the United States to France back when he did it. Anyway, Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic Ocean to France in the Spirit of St. Louis which is why it is on display at the National Air and Space Museum. I learned at the National Air and Space Museum that Charles Lindbergh ate at least one sandwich during his flight to France. I also ate a sandwich on my flight to France so I feel like I have a special bond with Charles Lindbergh. He had five sandwiches with him during his flight to France. I only had one sandwich on my flight to France. However, I am not sure what type of sandwich Charles Lindbergh ate. My guess is that he ate a ham sandwich or a roast beef sandwich. I found a website that told me about a man who watched Charles Lindbergh in a restaurant twenty years after the flight and the man was eating a roast beef sandwich. I do not know what Charles Lindbergh ate when he returned from France nor do I know how he returned from France nor do I know what he ate in the restaurant where the man watched him. If you want to visit with Charles Lindbergh today, you must drive past Hana on the island of Maui which is in Hawaii to visit his grave because he is now dead.
About five years ago, there was a really wonderful exhibit with costumes and props from the Star Wars movies. We saw R2D2 and C3PO. There were Stormtrooper costumes and I really liked looking at a light saber. They had costumes for those little short things with red eyes from the first movie. I didn't remember what they were called but my husband says they were Jawas. The costumes were definitely for very short people and they were very dirty looking.
I like the main entrance area where they have huge rockets on display. Don't look for a complete Saturn V rocket which is the biggest rocket ever manufactured according to the tour at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Those rockets are gigantic and don't fit in the building because they are too big. You can see a V2 rocket which is also big but not as big as a Saturn V. The V2 is three stories tall.
I also like the lunar lander that is on display right outside of The Wright Place food court. It's an actual lunar lander! Now, you might be wondering how they got an actual lunar lander from the moon to the National Air and Space Museum since all of the lunar landers that landed on the moon were left behind on the moon. The answer is... they didn't! The manufacturer made multiple lunar landers and this one was an extra.
If you spend an entire day touring here and you still feel like you haven't seen enough, I'd say you are a raving lunatic. You'd probably agree and then go off to visit the new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center which recently opened just a couple of weeks ago. It's a brand new branch of the National Air and Space Museum which is not on the Mall like the main museum but out by Dulles International Airport. You'll need to rent a car or take a very expensive cab ride to get there or you can take a shuttle bus for $7 a person. Parking at the new museum is $12 but admission is free. It is a big and happening place. They are displaying an entire Concorde airplane, the entire Enola Gay bomber airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and it's where the Enterprise space shuttle prototype is stored.
Dining
You have multiple dining options at the National Air and Space Museum. I recommend none of them. Your best bet is to leave the museum and eat elsewhere. If you decide to be obstinate and not heed my very good advice, your choices include The Wright Place food court which features a non-full service McDonald's, a Donatos Pizzeria and a non-full service Boston Market. This means that if you'd like a Boston Market vegetable plate of three side items like corn, green beans and creamed spinach with a piece of cornbread, you're out of luck because they don't serve sides. The Smithsonian Institution issues an informative informational booklet which is distributed free of charge and it brags about the "friendly" and "quick" service. The service from personal experience is decidedly sluggish and indifferent, bordering on rude.
During my last visit, one of my companions needed to use a Rascal type of motorized convenience cart. He cannot walk and he cannot climb up and down stairs. It's not that he's fat or lazy. He was born that way so he can't walk. Most of the seating downstairs was not handicapped accessible and what little that was accessible was occupied. We attempted to obtain seating upstairs. However, the one and only elevator was out of service. There was no sign stating that the elevator was broken. We waited about 10 minutes for an elevator and asked a passing employee "Is the elevator broken?" This question should usually result in a "Yes" or a "No" answer. The employee answered the question about a dozen times but never actually told us whether or not the elevator worked. We learned that yesterday the elevator did not work part of the day but it worked the other part of the day and that engineering had been called but no one knew if they came or not and someone had been stuck in the elevator. For all I know, that person is still there even though there was no widespread power outage in Washington, DC like in New York and other places in the northeast of the United States and Canada.
Upstairs, you'll find the Mezza Cafe. You can order on either of two sides and then you need to pick up your order at another counter. You're rudely directed "over there" and it's not clear exactly where "there" is. A simple order of a chicken panini required 20 minutes to deliver despite no line. The panini was dry, flavorless and overpriced.
The only positive thing I can say about the food services at the National Air and Space Museum is that if you order a kid's Happy Meal, the toy is super cool. It's a limited edition light up zoomy car in the shape of a rocket ship that has a flint wheel in the back to give off contained sparks. It comes with special Smithsonian stickers that can be affixed by hand.
Actually, I was wrong. There is one more positive thing that I can say about The Wright Place food court. You can get unlimited free soda refills.
If you're still hungry after eating at the National Air and Space Museum, there is usually a cart out in front of the building on the Mall side which sells Dippin' Dots. These are billed as a "space-age" type of ice cream delicacy. I have never purchased Dippin' Dots so I can't say what they taste like. What they really are is something that little kids find quite easy to spill on the pavement. I saw many crying children standing amidst spilled Dippin' Dots so I will assume that they are quite slippery.
Shopping
The Museum Store has plenty of space related merchandise you can buy. You can choose from t-shirts, posters, magnets, postcards, key chains and all kinds of super neat-o pricey scientific toys. You can even buy dehydrated astronaut ice cream. I don't think it tastes very good but I'm not a kid. Kids simply love the stuff. I saw many children eating astronaut ice cream which is probably a better buy than Dippin' Dots since the astronaut ice cream will go into your kid instead of onto the pavement.
Other Stuff
The National Air & Space Museum is very popular. This means that it is very crowded. It doesn't matter what time of the year you visit. I'm suggesting that the best time is December to Feburary simply because the weather isn't the greatest so you don't have to deal with high school trips, Cherry Blossom Festival visitors and summer tourists.
Because of the sheer number of visitors combined with budgetary constraints, the museum isn't the best maintained out there. The carpets are in desperate need of cleaning and replacement. Many of the hands on exhibits are worn and placards need to be touched up.
I don't like crowds. I don't like them one bit. Based on that alone, I prefer other Smithsonian museums. I don't like feeling smushed and rushed!
Recommended:
No
Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Dec - Feb
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jdhauer
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