Smithsonian Institution is one of the world’s greatest museum complex. The museum boasts of nineteen museums and galleries in the National Zoological Park. The date of attendance was scheduled on June 19th with the classmates being one of the most available attendees. The first glimpse on the Wright flyer, running your hands over the moon rock and experiencing the larger than the world kind of aviation and space museum. The first sight experience was epic, and the National Air and Space museum brought about the aerospace technology at first sight.
The first sight of the entire museum brought back the real life histories of aerospace technologies from when they began to date. The museum hosts the hub of aerospace creations since time memorial through generation-to-generation of pilots from around the world. The entire museum contains the world’s largest collection of aviation artifacts. Most if not all of the artifacts and components of human flight were put on display and this also included the art that is related to the flights and the archival materials.
Getting inside the museum often takes its visitors to the sky, the reaction on seeing the world’s renowned flight histories. The inside of the museums filled with the amazing technologies that have been invented in the world. They had been put in a chronological manner such that there were archives that run up to the invention of the first flights of time. In addition, the aerospace museum also hosts the achievements that have been made concerning space exploration ranging from astronauts that ever lived since the invention of space navigation. Research has it that the museum is one of the most visited in the world proving that our obsessions with flights are still valid and alive.
The main show on display showcased the Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. This was one aircraft that was the first to make a complete flight to Paris from New York without making any stopovers. As a result, the historical objects that are put on display are very crucial for the history of the flights history. Besides, you could see the 1903 Wright Flyer machine, which owns a distinction of being the world’s first successful flight (Garber, pp 254). The machine is right there in the museum, and anyone can see it in person. However, another prominent showcase was about Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, which was registered as the only portion of Apollo 11 spacecraft to return to Earth. The spacecraft made a return journey carrying a lunar rock with it from the Apollo 17 mission in the year 1972.the visitors can, therefore, feel the pledge of touching the lunar rock in the space race exhibition.
The next event that followed was flight simulators. This is a ride simulator that runs approximately at most five minutes. This event involved taking a ride on a virtual trip. The event is mainly scheduled to be on one of the two simulators so that the visitors get to choose their adventures. They can either be lucky to ride aboard the space shuttle to take them through to the International Space Station as a single option, or get an experience through having a taste of the thrill that comes with flying in both vintage aircraft and the jet-age aircraft (Smithsonian Institution, pp143). After that, there was a session where every interested person was given the opportunity to play an interactive flight simulators. The experience was all about trying to become a jet combatant. As the flight pilot, the person is expected to pilot the flight through into the 360-degree barrel rolls and the flight operator can either choose plot or gunner responsibilities during this event. The events, however, have strict regulations and restrictions especially to children given that the events are controversial and need extreme caution.
The European history of aviation and even the general history of aviation has its origins from as early as 2000 years ago. They all begin from the earliest forms of aviation that originated from the simpler forms such as kites and tower jumping attempts. The evolution grew bigger to supersonic and hypersonic flights and the heavier than air jets as well (Pastan, pp132). For instance, kite flying in China dates back to hundreds of years BC and with time it was slowly adopted and spread all over the world. The kites are as a matter of fact considered the earliest forms of flights with some of the earlier made kites being able to carry a man through in the thin air. In China, the ancient Chinese were also able to make and fly the hot-air lanterns, and they also made bamboo-copter toys which were coupled with spinning rotors. The discovery continued with time until that moment when the discovery of hydrogen gas was made. Then they started making the hydrogen balloons that were able to fly and carry people through to the air spaces.
With this kind of early inventions, the history of flight making advances from simple block flights to inter-country flights to intercontinental flights and space navigations. The history of space navigation encouraged space exploration in search of solid facts. Therefore many scientists ventured into research on building rockets and space ships that could be used to navigate through space to other heavenly bodies and fulfill their search. With this amount of motivation, spacecraft such as the Apollo 11 aircraft was built. This spacecraft which is now a respected artifact in the Smithsonian museum reached space and on the way back brought evidence of its existence in space.
