National Air and Space Museum, in Washington, D.C., features exhibits on aviation and space flight. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution. The museum has more than 20 galleries, a theater, and a planetarium. The displays include the Wright brothers’ 1903 Flyer; Charles A. Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis; X-1 and X-15 aircraft; and Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft. Museum visitors may touch a rock from the moon and walk through a Skylab space station.
Congress created the National Air Museum in 1946 and gave it its present name in 1966. The museum’s main building, on the National Mall, opened in 1976. In 2003, the museum opened the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia. Exhibits at the center include several craft too large to fit in the museum’s main building.
