The Bookwright: Day 7 -- Air and Space, National Gallery, and The Hirshhorn

Yes! I was here.

Day 7 of our History Vacation we started at the National Museum of Air and Space. It's my favorite of the Smithsonian Institute museums.

Maybe it's because of when I grew up, but All Things Space just rock my world. In the Fourth Grade I drew space stations. Some wheel shaped so they could spin and produce an artificial gravity. On some, the inhabitants wore magnetized shoes. Also for a sense of gravity. They were all complete with living quarters, labs, observation windows, a cafeteria, a PX, a movie theater. All the things a fourth-grader thinks are necessary for life.

So, okay, none of my space stations were shaped like the Mir or the International Space Station. I still wasn't totally off point with my space stations, the ISS has living quarters, labs, and observation windows. But it doesn't have artificial gravity. Or a movie theater.

They have all manner of manned flight and unmanned flight. Human powered to nuclear powered to solar powered. Land based, sea based, and space based.

(Smithsonian photo of
11-foot model of the
USS Enterprise)

We spent a lot of time in the aircraft carrier exhibit. Son John was especially interested because his uncle served on the USS Enterprise during the Vietnam conflict. The Big E was the eighth naval vessel named Enterprise and the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier. She was commissioned in 1961 and served 50 years. She was home to as many as 3,200 crew and an Air Wing of 2,480.

The USS Enterprise had all the amenities I thought a space station should have, plus natural gravity!

John Glenn's Freedom 7 Mercury Capsule is there. John Glenn was one of the Mercury Seven, America's first group of astronauts. He was the second American astronaut in space and the first to orbit the Earth, circling it three times.

Thirty-six years after that flight, while serving as a United States Senator from the State of Ohio, Glenn became the oldest person to fly in space as a crew member of the Discovery space shuttle and the only person to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs.

John Glenn truly had the Right Stuff. (Which, by-the-bye, is the title of a very good book by Thomas Wolfe.)

And a Lunar Module is there. This is LM-2. It is not one of the six that landed on the moon. Parts of those are still parked up there.

Although this particular lunar module never flew in space, NASA used it to ground test the stability of the Saturn V rocket and spacecraft. (The Saturn V had previously developed severe pogo oscillations -- up and down.)

The Smithsonian's LM-2 was also used in a drop-testing program to ensure that the electronic and mechanical systems could withstand a lunar touchdown.

That's son John in the yellow t-shirt.

The Wright Flyer is in this museum and the Spirit of Saint Louis. And so many other significant aircraft -- the actual aircraft. It is definitely a Wow-fest and more than you can see in one day.

We were on the last full day of our History Vacation so we cut our visit to the Air and Space Museum short and went to lunch in the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden Cafe where the food is good and you can eat outside in the beautiful garden.

Then it was on to the National Gallery which I loved.

There are two buildings divided by a terrace with fountains and glass pyramids through which you can see into the connecting underground of the gallery.

Three of my favorite paintings