NASA's exhibitions will close for renovation

WASHINGTON – On December 3, the National Air and Space Museum will close two galleries – "Apollo to the Moon" and "Looking to Earth" – as it embarks on a seven-year renovation project. Seven other galleries close at the beginning of January.

Most of the museum's main attractions, such as the St. Louis Spirit and the Moon Rock, will still be on display, but hundreds of other artifacts will disappear. These five are worth taking a trip in the coming weeks.

• Eyes on the ground

This interactive 3D globe, designed by the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is one of the funniest "toys" in the Air and Space Museum. Visitors can use a trackball to navigate a map of the world, using data from NASA's gravity recovery satellites and climate experiments to examine the level of water, temperature, and storms. In a gallery that feels a little dusty, it's one of the few exhibitions where kids and grandparents line up to take a closer look.

• Lockheed U-2

Beyond the satellites, this gallery focuses on what it calls "sky spies" and how information obtained from aviation was used from civil war to the Cold War. The plane is above a Lockheed U-2, one of the spy planes that have carried out high-altitude missions over Russia, Cuba and others. hot spots. (This was the first to fly over Russia in 1956.) The gallery also includes items owned by pilot Francis Gary Powers, whose plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 , including his prison diary and a rug that he sewn crosswise. imprisoned – and later used to smuggle his newspaper.

• F-1 engine of a Saturn V rocket

To power the Apollo program to the moon, NASA used the largest and most powerful rocket ever built: the Saturn V. There were five F-1 engines 12 feet in diameter each. , generating 1.5 million pounds of thrust. One of these huge engines is on display at the Museum of Air and Space. A mirror system is used to show what a complete table of five would look like.

• Images of the Apollo 17 Landing

Do you like to look out the window while your plane lands? This remarkably sober installation is similar and a million times colder. A reproduction of the lunar module of Apollo 17 gives visitors a glimpse of the final descent of the descent of the first moon through "windows", and the actual radio recordings of Commander Eugene Cernan and pilot Harrison Schmitt describe the movie in pictures. real time.

• Moon traveling vehicle

The lunar mobile vehicle or "lunar buggy" displayed has never been on the moon: the VTRs used in the last three Apollo missions are still sitting on its surface. This is the last test unit and, says the museum, "a very close replica of the units that flew". It is amazing to think of this fragile-looking machine, powered by battery, driven by an astronaut using a joystick, forming and leaving traces in the lunar dust.

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Sixth Street and Independence Avenue SW, Washington, D.C. Opening Hours: Open daily from 10:00 am to 5:30 pm. until December 3rd. Free admission. (202) 633-2214 or airandspace.si.edu.

Travel on 18/11/2018