goSmithsonian - February 2008 - (Page 26) THE NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM’S STEVEN F UDVAR-HAZY CENTER, . continued from page 23 A recent addition to the aviation hangar is the POW exhibit case, containing items from prisoners of war held captive during the Vietnam War. THE JAMES S. MCDONNELL SPACE HANGAR The space hangar is organized around four main themes: rocketry and missiles, human spaceflight, application satellites and space science. Highlights The massive space shuttle Enterprise is the centerpiece of the hangar. Floating silently above is a space-walking astronaut wearing a manned maneuvering unit. A popular item from Hollywood science fiction is the model of an alien spacecraft used in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind. See if you can spot the hidden items added by the model” makers as inside jokes—a Volkswagen bus, a submarine and the R2-D2 android from “Star Wars. ” From One Extreme to the Other Looking for really big stuff? Check out the 69-foot, floor-to-ceiling Redstone missile; the instrument ring segment—22-feet in diameter—of a Saturn V rocket that was never built; and the massive space shuttle main engine. But don’t miss the small stuff: aerial cameras, aircraft artillery, pilot uniforms, and aviation and space memorabilia. Among the tiniest and most unusual is “ Anita, a spider used for web formation experiments ” aboard Skylab. The Space Shuttle Enterprise looms over this group of visitors in the cavernous James S. McDonnell Space Hanger, which is 262 feet long and 180 feet wide. Here, you’ll find hundreds of space artifacts. www.goSmithsonian.com DANE PENLAND; ERIC LONG http://www.airspacemag.com http://www.goSmithsonian.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.