Excursion to the National Air and Space Museum
National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC, February 23, 2025
On February 23rd, 2025, I visited the National Air and Space museum in Washington DC. This report will summarize the observations I made and information I learned during my visit. I will discuss the three exhibits I visited, beginning with the One World Connected exhibit, then moving on to the Destination Moon Gallery, and then will discuss the Exploring the Planets exhibit before closing by discussing some broader points about the National Air and Space Museum.
The first exhibit I visited was the One World Connected Exhibit. This exhibit focused on how humanity has become more connected through aeronautical and space technology. Some examples of technologies the exhibit discussed are jet engines, low earth orbit satellites, and radios. The gallery made room to bring in real life examples whenever possible, even dedicating a very significant amount of space to have a real jet engine. This is a common method the exhibit used to convey information about the object: to simply put it there. The exhibit also often had blocks of text to convey information about an object and its significance to a reader as well. I would argue that the hall was aimed towards a slightly older audience, perhaps high school level and above. This is primarily because there were more longer blocks of text in this exhibit, and it generally conveyed more complex ideas. However, the exhibit was not entirely void of interesting things for a younger crowd. In particular, the large globe at the center of the exhibit showing things like natural disasters, human migration and satellites seems attractive to a younger audience. In terms of interactivity, I would say that there were a significant number of interactive components to the museum, such as a large screen with touchpads which allows the user to say what they think humanities major problems are, and then allows you to see what other users say that the biggest threats to humanity are. I think that these interactive components were effective, as they generally summarized the information in an engaging and visually appealing way. An example of this is how the previously mentioned screen on humanity's major problems showed what people from different continents thought, and put this information on a world map. I would say the most prevalent areas of science shown in this exhibit were satellite engineering, aircraft engineering, and global communications sciences.
The second exhibit I visited was Destination Moon. This exhibit was dedicated to discussing the Apollo missions, the moon landing, and what it took to get people to the moon. Thus somewhat unsurprisingly, the main fields of aerospace science presented in this gallery were rocket science and rocket engineering, spacesuit design, and astrogeology. Some different inventions and discoveries shown in the exhibit were the development of rockets, progressing from early redstone rockets to the mercury Atlas rocket to the Gemini Titan 2 to the Apollo Saturn 1b and finally to the Apollo Saturn 5 rocket.The exhibit also showed the Gemini missions and learning how to spacewalk, as well as the creation of spacesuits. The gallery conveys information about these by showing items, or scaled down versions when bringing in a life-sized model would be impossible, such as for a rocket, and have text which describes the items. Also there were often pictures of things which weren’t material things, such as of JFK speaking, or of spacewalking. I think this hall was intended for groups of all ages, as there were many things which looked interesting at a glance and appealed to a younger audience, however there was also some longer, more complex text blocks which I think were made for an older audience. I think this was more balanced in terms of this compared to the One World Connected exhibit, which is why I think that one was slightly more directed towards an older audience. In terms of interactivity, I think this exhibit has less of that, though it was not absent. Some examples of interactive components were a “what does it take to build your own rocket” screen, as well as a flip-book about different types of moon rocks. I think that these elements were effective at conveying their message, as I found that they made sense. In particular, the rocket assembly simulator walked you through the different parts of the rocket as you put it together, and I think this was pretty informative.
The third gallery I visited was Exploring the Planets. This gallery mainly focused on planetary astronomy within our solar system, as well dynamics within planets, such as plate tectonics. The specific concepts and ideas discussed in this exhibit were primarily about how our solar system functions, what each planet is like, and how the sun behaves. The gallery discussed this information through a few ways. One more unique way was by having a couple giant screens situated where you could go under/between them. The screens would discuss information about planets, cycling between different planets and some moons, and I think the idea was to immerse the watcher more into what the planet is like. As for the audience, I think this hall was meant more for a younger audience, like lower school and possibly younger. This is because a lot of the information was pretty basic, and there were a lot of big, eye catching things which I think would appeal more to a younger crowd than an older one. In terms of interactive elements, the exhibit had lots. Some examples were screens where you could pick an individual planet to learn more details about, a screen where you could pick different jobs in astronomy to learn about, and one where you could ‘simulate’ the orbits of planets in the solar system. I think these elements were quite effective, as there were lots of kids who were very interested in these elements, and I think they conveyed the information well In particular, the planetary orbit simulator showed just how relatively delicate the orbits of our planets are, in that small changes have the potential to shift the outcomes wildly.
Overall, in the exhibits I visited, I think that the exhibit designers did a good job portraying astronomical concepts. In particular, I think they did a good job at making them feel more real by bringing in and showing off different technologies, such as the previously mentioned jet engine, space suits, as well as the aircraft hanging in the main hall, just to name a few. I think this helps make the fields of aeronautical and astronautical science and engineering feel more real, which is a definite positive. Additionally, they tried when possible to immerse you into the subject when they couldn’t literally bring it there, such as with the screens surrounding you in the Exploring the Planets gallery. As for keeping information up-to-date, from what I could tell, the information they shared was current. I think a strategy they used to do this were to firstly try and have some information displayed on screens, where it could be change much easier than information shown in physical writing. Additionally, in some sections, I think the information they shared was basic enough that it’s pretty well established as fact, and won’t be changing in a significant way in the future. I think this was the case in particular in Exploring the Planets.