Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Field Trip
February 23, 2025 - National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC
Figure 1: An interactive globe, allowing for migration and communication paths to be displayed
Figure 2: A cool picture displaying a bunch of model planets
Figure 3: I'm enjoying my time exploring all of the museum exhibits!
The first exhibit that I visited was “One World Connected.” This exhibit was displaying several technologies and aspects of aerospace science. The exhibit displayed various ways that the world has become connected since the inventions like the airplane and satellites, as well as other ways in which the world is connected, such as through animal migrations and weather phenomenon. In addition to airplanes and satellites, inventions such as jet engines and the creation of the International Space Station were discussed. Scale models of a jet engine and several satellites were on display, with a model of a part of the ISS where you can look out of a window and see the Earth.
Based upon the technical language used and the simplicity of the interactive tools, it appears as though this exhibit was designed such that people with the most simplistic knowledge of the general subject could understand it. In other words, an elementary school student would be able to visit and enjoy their time there. Speaking of the interactive components, there was a phone with six buttons, one for London, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Cape Town, and the Amazon. By pressing one, you could see the path that the communication would take to travel the world. There was also a giant globe in the middle of the room with several interactive panels around it. Using the panel, you could make your section of the globe display various kinds of paths showing the connections of the globe, whether that be airplane navigation, communication via the internet, or animal migrations. Overall, these interactive features appear to be effective at conveying the information, since the information is displayed in a way that is simple to use and understand, and the interactive nature of it allows for the user to think about the concepts and be mentally involved while using it.
The second exhibit that I visited was “Destination Moon.” This exhibit had a heavy focus on technology and equipment related to the Apollo moon missions, such as the first space crafts that had humans, as well as the protections humans would have while in space. These inventions, the rocket ships and astronaut suits, were shown off within the exhibit. In regards to rocket ships, they had both scale models of parts of rockets, as well as destroyed pieces that were part of ships used in past missions. In addition, the concept of the lunar landscape was also discussed. On two opposite ends of the exhibit, they had two paintings. One was an artist’s best guess at what the lunar landscape would look like, originally painted before the first photographs were taken of the lunar surface, while the other was an actual photograph of the moon from the Apollo missions.
Similarly to the previous exhibit, “Destination Moon” appears to be aimed at elementary-school level children and above. The technical language was not too advanced, and the abundance of interesting visuals allowed for something that any audience would be able to relate to. This section also had several interactive components. They had 5 TV screens set up in a line which displayed a visual history of the Space Race and the Apollo missions. This also allowed for actual footage from the time to be shown. Many people had been gathered around this area, suggesting the high effectiveness of this at conveying information in an interesting way. This area also had other interactive components that didn’t seem as effective. One was a book-like item attached to a table which you could flip through that had information on its pages. The other was another panel that was located seemingly randomly off to the side. In both of these cases, I nearly missed seeing them since they were placed in areas that didn’t seem to see much attention. Having only one of each in the given location also likely didn’t help, since if you found it from seeing others using it, that meant that it was in use and you would have to wait to use it.
The final exhibit of the trip was “Exploring the Planets.” Asteroids, moons, and planets, including various aspects about them, such as erosion, plate tectonics, volcanism, and temperature, were the main focus of this exhibit. Some of the specific discoveries and inventions portrayed in this exhibit include the Kepler space telescope, which they had a model of on display, exoplanets and dwarf planets, which each have their own mini section with textual explanations describing them and their history as concepts, and rovers, which they have scale models of on display.
Like both exhibits previously discussed, this exhibit appears to have been designed with the intention for elementary-aged kids to be able to enjoy the experience. The terminology used was not super complex, and they even had a cartoon in the style of those for young toddlers that described the search for extraterrestrial life. The intended audience being young kids is also supported by the fact that almost everyone visiting the museum had little children exploring around with them. In terms of the interactive components, this exhibit is the most interesting in my opinion. In addition to the kids cartoon and the standard video panels that the other exhibits also had, this exhibit had a near 360-degree movie screen room you could walk in and watch a looping video on. The video was comparing several planets, moons, and asteroids by displaying what it would most likely look like from the surface of such bodies, as well as providing interesting data about each location, such as the area’s temperature. Most people were hanging out watching the whole video as they were being amazed by it. It is for this reason that the interactive components of this exhibit seemed to be very effective at conveying the information to their audiences.
Astronomy is a difficult subject to portray in a museum. Therefore, in order to portray these concepts, the designers decided to use many models and graphs, using scale models where they could, and when applicable, they showed real-world video and photographs. Since new astronomical discoveries are being made all the time, the exhibit designers needed to allow for updated information to be able to be displayed to the visitors of the museum. Through their use of TV and video screens, and through their remodeling efforts of the exhibits, they achieve this goal. For example, they had a screen at the end of one of their exhibits that described the planned upcoming moon missions of the 2020s. In addition, they also had staff stationed around helping to explain some of the concepts, such as how black holes bend space, which is another way the museum is able to provide up-to-date information to its guests. Overall, this experience was very interesting and it was a fun time to spend touring the museum.